A DOUBLE PERIL
WITH a roar the motor accepted the additional gas Tom turned into the
cylinders, and a moment later the little plane began to move over the
smooth surface of the field. Gathering speed, the _Hummer_ slowly rose
as the young inventor depressed the horizontal rudder, and a moment
later up rose the machine like some creature of life—up and up toward
the clouds.
“This is glorious!” cried Mary, thrilled by the sensation. Riding in a
plane was not new to her, but she never failed to get a sense of
exhilaration out of even a short spin in the air.
“Not so bad,” answered Tom.
By raising their voices slightly they could make themselves audible to
one another, for, as the young man had said, there was a silencer, or
muffler, on his engine.
“It makes one forget all their trouble,” called out Mary, as she looked
over the side of the rear cockpit where she sat strapped in and glanced
down at the earth rapidly dropping away below them.
“Yes, it does,” assented Tom. “That’s one reason I wanted to come out
to-day—to get rid of some of the cobwebs.”
“And are they being brushed away?” asked Mary.
“Almost all gone!” he laughed, as he sent the _Hummer_ up at a little
steeper angle to gain a higher altitude more quickly.
The two young people gave themselves up to the thrill and revivifying
influence of clear, pure, sunlit air. Deeply they breathed in of the
life-giving particles, and the cheeks of Tom and Mary were ruddy with
renewed health.
With no special object in view, they spun on through the air, now going
up until they were above some low-lying clouds and again dipping down to
view with pleasure the contour of some wonderful, green valley.
“Getting tired, Mary?” called Tom, after a while.
“No!” she called back to him. “I could go on like this forever.”
“Guess I’ll have to invent some new kind of machine if you want to do
anything like that,” the youth countered.
“What do you mean?” challenged Mary.
“I mean perpetual motion hasn’t yet been solved, and I don’t believe it
ever will be. As long as we have gasoline engines they will have to be
given a drink now and then. Which reminds me that I haven’t enough in
the tanks of the _Hummer_ to go on for more than a few hours more.”
“I don’t want to ride quite that long, of course! Don’t take any
chances. Go back now if you think anything is going to happen.”
“Nothing is likely to happen!” chuckled the young inventor. “But I
didn’t want you to go on dreaming that dream of yours about keeping on
forever.”
“As if I meant that!” laughed the girl. “Better turn back now.”
“In a little while,” promised Tom, whose eyes were just then fixed on
some object or some view just ahead. Mary was quick to notice his
preoccupation as he spoke to her and at once asked:
“Is anything the matter, Tom?”
“Matter? No! Why do you ask?”
“Because you weren’t thinking of what you were saying, that’s all. I can
always tell. Do you see anything?”
“To be perfectly frank, Mary, I do. I see a cloud of smoke over there in
the direction of Shopton, and when I see smoke I think of fire. As we
recently had a little blaze at one of the shops, I am a bit anxious to
see if this is another. Of course it will be as well fought with me away
as with me there. But still——”
“Oh, Tom, I see it, too!” cried the girl, as a little puff of smoke made
itself visible near a wooded part of the country. “Perhaps you’d better
head back that way.”
“I think I will,” decided the pilot.
He moved the steering wheel slightly, banked the plane a bit, and was
off in another direction, heading directly for the haze of smoke which
by this time had considerably increased in volume.
At the time when Tom first saw the smoke menace he was several miles
from it, though the clear air made the fire seem nearer than it was. But
the _Hummer_ was a speedy craft, and she quickly covered the distance.
As Tom Swift and Mary Nestor approached the blaze—for blaze it was,
since they could now notice a redness that betokened flames—they could
see it more plainly, and a sense of relief came to the young man when he
noted that it was in a spot remote from his shops.
“Guess it’s a forest fire, Mary,” Tom observed. “I thought one would
break out soon, it’s been so dry.”
“I’ve never seen a forest fire,” she responded. “It must be very
thrilling.”
“It is—and dangerous,” replied Tom. “Well, you’re going to see one now,
for we’re going right over it.”
“Do you think it will be safe, Tom?”
“Why not? We’re so high you won’t even smell the smoke. And as for the
heat—well, they do get pretty warm, but you won’t feel that.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean that so much,” Mary hastened to say. “But if anything
should happen to the plane——”
“Nothing is going to happen!” laughed Tom. “I’m going to give you a real
view of a forest fire.”
The smoke was rolling up in great clouds now. But of course the _Hummer_
was far above the conflagration. Nor could they hear the crackling of
flames, though this sound was audible to those fighting the fire.
Men and boys were at work combating the forest fire. Tom and Mary, from
their vantage point high in the air, could note figures, like ants or
flies, hastening from the surrounding country toward the scene of the
blaze. Some were hastening up in autos, and others in horse-drawn
vehicles.
“What do they do when they fight forest fires?” asked Mary. “I don’t see
any engines.”
“Engines aren’t of much use—the fire is very seldom near a water
supply,” answered Tom. “The only thing to do is to take away the stuff a
fire feeds on—dry leaves, sticks, wood or anything else. Sometimes they
do this by digging up the ground or plowing it in broad, bare strips.
“Another way is to make a back fire. That is, they start some distance
off from the blaze and set fire to a limited area. When this burns off,
and of course it has to be kept under control, it leaves a black space
with no fuel for the fire to feed upon, and when the original fire gets
to the place it just naturally quits. They use wet bags, pieces of
carpet, anything to beat out the line of flames when they actually fight
the fire.”
“It must be hard work,” decided Mary.
“It is—hot, hard, dirty work. Well, we’ve got a pretty good view of
this fire now, and I must say I don’t like the looks of it,” remarked
Tom.
They were fairly over the burning area now. Below them were the
snapping, leaping flames and the billowing clouds of smoke. More men and
boys were hastening up to do what they could to combat the
conflagration.
“If there should only come a rain now it would settle the fate of this
fire,” remarked the young inventor.
Tom looked up and across the sky. It was blue in nearly every
quarter—too blue and beautiful to suit those who wanted water to pour
down from the heavens.
“There’s a little haze in the west,” remarked the lad, at length. “It
might indicate the coming of a thunderstorm. That’s what is needed—a
sudden, drenching thunderstorm. A gentle shower would help, but a
regular cloudburst is needed. Of course, a sizzling rain would put the
fire out in time, but it would take too long.”
“Oh, I do hope it rains!” exclaimed Mary.
Tom guided the _Hummer_ over the very center of the fire, which seemed
to be burning in an area of forest and brush country several miles
square in extent. Of course in the very center of the blaze no attempt
was being made to fight it; that would have been too dangerous. It was
on the edges of the ever-increasing circle that the men and boys were
making the attack.
Dropping down a bit, so Mary could see better, Tom pointed out where
scores of the fire-fighters were trying to beat the flames to earth with
long-handled wet bundles of rags, which from time to time they dipped in
brooks and ponds.
“It looks like a losing fight,” sighed the girl. “Oh, Tom, suppose the
fire reaches Shopton!”
“It won’t with the wind the way it holds now,” was the reply. “But of
course we’d all feel better with the fire out.”
He swung the machine around to take in another angle of the fire.
“Isn’t there anything you can do, Tom?” asked Mary. “This is terrible!”
Tom was himself wondering if he could not be of service instead of
merely looking on from his vantage point of safety in the air. He had
invented an aerial fire-fighting machine, but this, with its chemical
bombs, had been disposed of, and there was none on hand at Shopton.
“I might drop some army bombs down and try to blow up a big, bare area
which would bring the fire to a stop,” said Tom. “But it would take some
time to get ready for that, and they may have it out in a few hours. No,
I’m afraid I can’t do anything just now. But we had better——”
Tom was about to say he had better start back with Mary when, with a
suddenness that was startling, the motor of his plane went dead and the
machine began to drop toward the heart of the forest fire.
“Oh, Tom!” cried Mary. “Don’t go down so close! It’s dangerous!”