TROUBLES AND WORRIES
Instantly the scene just outside the hangar where the plane and the car
were kept was in confusion. So quickly had Schlump given his captor the
slip that, for a moment, every one was stunned. Even Tom Swift,
accustomed as he was to emergencies, did not know what to do. But this
hesitation was only momentary.
“Get him!” shouted the young inventor. “We’ve got to get him! Scatter
and round him up!”
“Turn on the searchlight!” yelled Ned.
“By golly!” chuckled Eradicate, who had seen the man get away from the
giant, “dat big man ain’t so smart whut he t’ink he am.”
“Never mind that now, Rad!” ordered Tom, a bit sternly. “Forget your
fights with Koku and see if you can find this fellow! We want to
question him and see if we can’t get on the trail of the masked men and
others who are trying to queer my plans!”
“Yes, sah,” humbly answered the colored man. “I’ll cotch him!”
But this was more easily said than done. Though the big searchlight was
flashed on, its beams crossing and recrossing the field about the hangar
like a giant’s finger, the plotter was not picked up. The chances were
greatly in his favor, running off in the darkness as he had, and after
an hour’s search it became evident that he was not to be caught.
“Come back,” Tom advised his friends and the workmen. “We’ll have to let
him go,” he added, as they made their way back to their temporary
headquarters. “We got the bomb away from him, and we’ll take care that
he doesn’t approach near enough the remainder of the night to plant
another. We’ll have to organize a patrol, Ned.”
“I guess that’s right,” assented the financial manager. “We can’t take
any chances.”
Reluctantly Koku gave up the search, for he felt it was his fault that
Schlump had escaped.
“Nex’ time I sot on him!” declared the giant.
“He’ll be like a pancake when you get up,” chuckled Ned.
The rest of the night every precaution was taken to prevent any damage
being done to the plane or the car. Men walked about the hangar in
relays, and the slightest suspicious object or movement was at once
investigated. Nothing happened, and when the first glimmer of dawn
appeared, Tom made ready to hop off on what he hoped would be the last
trip before he would fulfil the conditions of Jason Jacks.
“Those fellows must know that everything depends on my completion of the
six round trips, Ned,” said the young inventor as he took his place in
the car, while Meldrum and Dodge went to the cockpit of the aeroplane.
“They think if they can put me out of business I won’t get the money to
complete the patent work and establish the line as a practical concern.”
“I suppose so,” agreed Ned. “But how do you think they know that?”
“Oh, there has been a lot of talk over the financing of this thing. You
know that,” remarked Tom. “It isn’t extraordinary that some of these
plotters would get to hear about it. I wish we could have held on to
Schlump, though.”
“So do I! He might have given information that would help us catch those
other two—the ones you say wore masks. I wonder who they could be?”
“I have an idea,” said Tom. “I’ll tell you later if my suspicions are
correct. But now we’ve got to get busy. I’m going to try to break the
time record this trip. If I do it will please the old millionaire. Then,
when we come back from San Francisco—if we do—and make it somewhere
near the sixteen hours, he’ll put in the rest of the cash.”
“And believe me, we’ll need it!” exclaimed Ned, in such fervent tones
that Tom asked:
“Why, is our bank balance low?”
“Well, it isn’t anything to boast of,” Ned answered. “You know we had to
dip into it pretty heavily to finance this thing—not only in building
the planes but in securing the landing fields and paying the men who
look after them.”
“Yes, it has taken a bit of money,” admitted Tom. “But then, after we
are successful, and I’m sure we shall be, we’ll get it all back, and
more, too.”
“Yes,” agreed Ned. “Well, let’s go!”
He followed Ned and the others into the main compartment of the car
which had been clamped to the aeroplane in readiness for the start.
Though Ned did not tell Tom, the finances of the Swifts were in a very
precarious state just then. Of course the firm owned much property and
many valuable patents, but the Swift Construction Company had drawn
largely on its credit, borrowing from the banks, and to raise more cash
meant the stretching of the credit to a danger point. By selling some of
their holdings, cash could have been raised, certainly; but no business
man likes to sacrifice any of his principle, and Ned was a good business
man.
In order to keep the airline going, Ned had been forced to use some of
his own money which he had saved, though he did not tell Tom this for
fear it would worry him. And then, when it was found that more cash was
needed, Ned had spoken of the matter to Mary Nestor, having already
gotten all Mr. Damon could spare.
“Take all I have!” exclaimed the girl. “I’m glad to invest it in
anything Tom has to do with.”
“No, we won’t take it all,” Ned had replied. He knew she had quite a
large sum that she had inherited from her grandmother, and it was in her
own name. “But if you could lend a few thousands and not worry if it was
lost for a time, we could use it nicely.”
“Take it!” generously offered Mary. “But what do you mean about being
lost for a time?”
“I mean that even if this airline express project fails in the present
instance,” replied Ned, “that Tom will eventually succeed with it and
pay off his debts.”
“Of course he will!” said Mary proudly.
“And even if this is a complete failure,” went on Ned, “and we must, as
a business proposition, take that into consideration, Tom will start
something else that will pay big and he’ll get back all he loses on
this. So it isn’t as if I were asking you to throw your money away.”
“Take all I have!” exclaimed Mary impulsively.
But Ned was content with a comparatively small sum. And it was on this
money and some of his own, together with what remained from the original
sale of stock, that the last two trips were financed. If they
failed—well, Ned did not like to think of that.
So in blissful ignorance of the sword of failure that was hanging over
his head, suspended, as it were, on a thin thread of dollar bills, Tom
prepared to make this last trip.
It was hardly daylight when they hopped off, careful watch being kept by
the men at the hangar lest, in the last moment, Schlump might slip up
and toss a bomb that would kill, injure, and destroy. But nothing
untoward happened, and soon the plane and its accompanying car was
speeding away over the New Jersey meadows while behind the travelers the
east grew lighter and lighter as the sun slowly mounted in the heavens.
Aside from the anxiety of all on board to make the best time possible on
this trip, nothing unusual occurred during the first lap. Tom had to
stop a quarrel between Eradicate and Koku, for the colored man could not
refrain from taunting the giant over letting Schlump get away. So
infuriated did the big man become under the taunts of Eradicate that he
might have done the latter an injury had not Tom sternly forbidden all
further mention of the incident.
Chicago was reached safely, almost half an hour ahead of the schedule,
which fact, when Tom ascertained it, made him exclaim:
“Fine! If we can keep that up we’ll do better than sixteen hours to the
coast. We’re going to push the motors for all they’re capable of from
now on.”
“Better not strain ’em too much, sir,” suggested Sam Stone, who was to
pilot the _Eagle_ part of the way on the second lap. “We don’t want to
break anything.”
“No,” said Tom, “we don’t want to break anything but records. How has
everything been here? Any signs of those rascals?”
“Well, there have been one or two suspicious fellows loitering around
the hangar,” reported the mechanician. “But we warned them away. They
didn’t blow us up, at any rate.”
“I’m glad of that,” said Tom. “They tried it on Long Island,” and he
related the Schlump incident. “He’ll probably wire his confederates out
here or in Denver or San Francisco to muss us up if they can—anything
to prevent this last trip from succeeding. So we must redouble our
precautions.”
“We’ll do that,” agreed Stone.
The _Eagle_ at first did even better than the _Falcon_, and it seemed as
if the hop between Chicago and Denver would be a record-breaker. But
slight trouble developed about halfway across the plains, and though it
was remedied, still they were forty minutes late, which not only ate up
the half hour they had gained on the first lap, but cut ten minutes from
the remaining time.
“But we’ll make it up on the last lap!” declared Tom, with confidence.
“Push her for all she’s got in her, boys!” he said to Dolan and Wright,
who climbed into the cockpit at Denver.
They got off to a roaring start, rose high in the air, and then headed
straight for the Golden Gate.
“I sure will be glad when the last trip is over,” remarked Mr. Damon,
who sat in the car near Tom and Ned.
“Why, are you getting tired of it?” asked the young inventor.
“No. But my wife doesn’t speak to me, and she says she won’t as long as
I take these crazy air trips. But I said I’d come on the last trip with
you, Tom, and I’m going to stick!”
“Well, I hope you don’t drop out now,” grimly joked Ned, as he looked
from an observation window to the earth, several thousand feet below.
“Bless my feather bed, I should hope not!” cried the odd man.
Tom kept note of the distance traveled and the time used, and as several
hours passed and the figures grew a pleased smile came over his face.
“It begins to look as if we’d make up all we lost and more too, Ned!” he
cried to his chum.
The whistle of the tube communicating from the car to the cockpit sent
out a shrill summons.
“Hello! What is it?” called Tom.
“You’d better come up here, Mr. Swift,” answered the voice of Art
Wright. “Dolan seems to be knocked out and the motor is behaving very
queerly. I’m afraid it’s going to die on us!”