TOM SWIFT AND HIS BIG DIRIGIBLE
OR
Adventures Over the Forest of Fire
BY
VICTOR APPLETON
AUTHOR OF
“TOM SWIFT AND HIS MOTORCYCLE,”
“TOM SWIFT AMONG THE DIAMOND MAKERS,”
“TOM SWIFT AND HIS TALKING PICTURES,”
“THE DON STURDY SERIES,”
ETC.
_ILLUSTRATED_
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
Made in the United States of America
COPYRIGHT, 1930, BY
GROSSET & DUNLAP, INC.
_Tom Swift and His Big Dirigible_
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I SPOUTING FIRE 1
II A TREMENDOUS UNDERTAKING 12
III THE “SILVER CLOUD” 21
IV OFF TO MT. CAMON 31
V THE STRANGE DWARF 40
VI A MERRY PARTY 51
VII THE LANDSLIDE 59
VIII MR. DAMON ARRIVES 69
IX A FLASHING KNIFE 79
X UGLY THREATS 87
XI SHADOWS OF THE NIGHT 93
XII BAD NEWS 102
XIII A CHANGE OF PLANS 111
XIV BUCKING A HURRICANE 120
XV CAUGHT IN THE FOG 130
XVI A GIANT’S STRENGTH 137
XVII MIDNIGHT VISITORS 147
XVIII THE ESCAPE 152
XIX THE FOREST OF FIRE 157
XX SPEEDING THROUGH THE AIR 165
XXI IN DIRE PERIL 171
XXII A MESSAGE OF HOPE 181
XXIII THE METAL CAGE 189
XXIV OUT OF THE FLAMES 196
XXV A JOY RIDE 204
[Illustration: THE BIG DIRIGIBLE HAD RAMMED HER NOSE INTO THE TREE.]
TOM SWIFT
AND HIS BIG DIRIGIBLE
CHAPTER I
SPOUTING FIRE
“SUCH a big dirigible would cost a barrel of money, Mr. Jardine.”
“I know it, Mr. Swift. But my company is prepared to go the limit. We
want the finest and fastest dirigible ever built, capable of carrying at
least fifty passengers and enough supplies to travel ten thousand
miles.”
A short, stout, fussy man, attired in a natty gray business suit, arose
and nervously paced the office of the Swift Construction Company as he
uttered these specifications. Tom Swift and his aged father looked at
their visitor, but neither spoke. Tom’s face had just the suggestion of
puzzled doubt. Mr. Swift was interested, but not unusually so. He was
approaching the twilight of life and even great projects did not
interest him as they once had done. He left them to Tom.
“Yes, it must be the biggest dirigible ever built!” exclaimed Martin
Jardine. “And you must build it, Tom Swift!”
“That’s easier said than done,” returned Tom, with a smile.
“Oh, you can do it if anybody can,” snapped Mr. Jardine. That was his
way of talking—snappily. He seemed to be all business from his brightly
polished tan shoes to the top of his crisp, brown hair. As he continued
to pace up and down, now and then shooting a glance at the Swifts,
father and son, who were seated, he pulled out a cigar, snapped off the
end, flicked out a pocket lighter, set it aglow with an impatient
movement of his thumb and, a moment later, was puffing a cloud of smoke
about the office.
“Oh, excuse me!” he exclaimed a moment later, his right hand slipping to
the left upper pocket of his vest. “Have a cigar.”
He held out two, twins to the one he was smoking, and offered one to Mr.
Swift.
“No, thank you,” said the aged inventor. “I don’t smoke.”
“Then you, Mr. Tom?” The cigars went in that direction.
“Thanks, but I don’t indulge,” Tom answered, with a smile. “And if I did
I’d be afraid to tackle one of yours. They look particularly deadly, if
you’ll excuse my saying so.”
“Well, they are a bit strong,” said the fussy little business man, who
appeared to have called on a very important errand. “But I like to taste
something when I smoke. It quiets my nerves.”
However, his nerves did not appear to be under very good control just
then, for, in spite of his notion of a quieting smoke, this devotee of
my Lady Nicotine was having all he could do to repress himself.
“Well, what about this proposition?” he asked, coming back to his seat
and brushing aside a cloud of his own smoke.
“Do you really want us to undertake a big, expensive dirigible like
this?” asked Tom, tapping some papers on his desk, papers of which the
top one bore a rough sketch of a great airship, in shape like the _Graf
Zeppelin_, but larger and differing radically in some of its parts.
“Of course! Why not?” demanded Mr. Jardine. He was out of his chair
again, and had taken a fresh cigar from his pocket, though the one he
had lighted only a few minutes before still contained much smokable
material. “You haven’t any doubt of the ability of my company to foot
the bills, have you, Mr. Swift?”
“Oh, no,” Tom answered. He had taken the precaution of having a
commercial agency look up the rating of the Jardine company before one
of its heads called on him, and the report was satisfactory. “But you
don’t seem to realize, Mr. Jardine, that an airship of this size would
take a long time to construct and you are evidently in a hurry.”
“I’m always in a hurry!” snapped the fussy little man. “But this is to
be an all metal plane, and, as I told you, we can supply the metal. Have
a cigar!” he shot at Mr. Swift who was examining some sketches and blue
prints the visitor had brought with him.
“No, thank you. I don’t smoke.”
“Oh, so you don’t! I forgot! Excuse me! Then you, Mr. Tom.”
He held another out to the young inventor.
“I am still not smoking,” chuckled Tom.
“Oh, yes! Well, now let’s get down to business. When can you finish this
dirigible for me?”
He sat down in the chair again and leaned back as if for a protracted
visit, but as Tom paused before answering Mr. Jardine was up again and
pacing the floor, while smoke came from his mouth like a small furnace
under forced draft.
“Ten thousand miles,” murmured Tom, his gaze concentrated on nothing in
particular, a trick he had when intently thinking.
“At least that,” stipulated Mr. Jardine.
“And fifty passengers,” went on Tom.
“More, if possible,” snapped the caller.
“Well——” began Tom Swift, but he was interrupted by the ringing of a
telephone bell. His father picked up the receiver, he being nearest the
instrument, and spoke into the transmitter while Tom reached out to take
up one of the blue prints.
“It’s your wife, Tom,” said old Mr. Swift, handing the instrument to his
son.
“Oh, hello, Mary!” Tom called into the mouthpiece. “Yes! No, I’m not too
busy to talk. Oh, yes, about our Mt. Camon trip. It’s all arranged. I
just got word about the hotel reservations. Yes, I’ll have the House on
Wheels thoroughly gone over. Of course! Yes, my dear. All right! I’ll be
over in a little while and show you the choice of rooms we can have.
Good-bye.”
During this interruption Mr. Jardine had tried not to show his
impatience, but it was difficult. He paced the floor more nervously and
faster than before, while lighting another cigar, the third in less than
fifteen minutes, and not one of them smoked more than half way.
“Excuse me,” said the young inventor to his caller. Tom put the phone
back on the desk and added: “That was my wife, and we have just
completed our plans for a summer vacation. We are going to Mt. Camon.
Hope to get off next week.”
“Mt. Camon. I know it! Beautiful spot. Wonderful hotel there, but in the
middle of a great wilderness. Wonderful food, though! Best meals I ever
ate! How they manage it I don’t know. But you can’t be going there!”
“Why not?” asked Tom Swift with a half smile.
“Because you are going to undertake the construction of this big
dirigible for us and that will take all your time and attention.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” replied Tom easily. “I haven’t fully decided to
undertake the work.”
“Oh, but you must!” insisted Mr. Jardine. “Excuse me for being so
emphatic,” he went on, tossing the almost fresh cigar aside, “but you
are the only one who can do it. You must do it!”
“Well, I’ll think about it,” said Tom, once more reaching for some blue
prints. “But I must also take my wife on a vacation.”
“Tom hasn’t been married long,” observed old Mr. Swift, smiling.
“Congratulations,” murmured Mr. Jardine. “It’s a big contract, I know.”
“Do you mean marriage?” asked Tom, with a smile.
“No, I’m speaking of this big dirigible. When can you let me know?”
Tom was doing some mental calculations, having as much to do with the
individual who had called on him as on the actual construction of the
giant of the air. There had been some correspondence prior to the visit.
Martin Jardine had first written guardedly of what he wanted the Swift
Construction Company to undertake. Tom had had Ned Newton, his financial
manager, look up the concern’s rating and, finding they were big
producers of metals and machinery, at last consented to an interview
which was now taking place.
At this talk Mr. Jardine had gone more into details than in his letters,
and for the first time had given some definite idea of what he desired
as to the size of the dirigible, the number of passengers and crew she
could carry, and her cruising range. These figures rather surprised Tom
Swift, accustomed as he was to gigantic undertakings.
“Now let’s go over it all again,” proposed Mr. Jardine, as Tom finished
some hasty calculations in pencil. “There are one or two points I must
insist on.”
Tom raised his eyebrows slightly at the word “insist,” but politely
inquired:
“What are they?”
“This must be an all metal ship,” said Mr. Jardine.
“That is not impossible,” replied Tom. “We have made some ourselves for
experimental work, and the United States Government has proved that a
metal dirigible is feasible.”
“Another point,” went on Mr. Jardine, in his rather snappy manner.
“What is it?” Tom asked.
“The metal used for the gas bag—envelope I should say, as it will not
be a fabric bag—this metal must be oralum.”
“Oralum?” questioned Tom.
“Yes,” went on Mr. Jardine. “That is a new, secret-process metal we have
developed in our works. One of my objects in having you build this big
dirigible for us is to advertise our oralum. It is much lighter and
stronger than duralumin which, up to the present, was the only metal
sheets that could be used in constructing dirigible envelopes. Aside
from these points, you can use your own ideas on the craft, Mr. Swift.”
“Thank you,” said Tom, and if his caller had not been busy lighting
another cigar he might have noticed a tinge of sarcasm in the words.
“When can you start?” snapped Mr. Jardine, puffing out more smoke.
“Well,” said Tom slowly, “I haven’t exactly made up my mind to start at
all. Oh, I’m not turning down your order,” he was quick to add to
forestall a vehement objection. “It’s just that my father and I must
talk this over further before reaching a decision.”
“Then you can’t let me know now?”
“No, we must have a further conference. I will let you know when. And
now, if you will excuse me, I must run over to the house to see my wife.
She is anxious about our vacation plans.”
“Tom is just married,” said Mr. Swift, again, as if to excuse to the
caller the young man’s rather precipitate closing of the interview.
“Oh, that’s all right. I understand,” and Mr. Jardine smiled. “The
ladies first, always. I’m quite fond of ’em myself. Well, be sure to let
me know when I can see you again, Mr. Swift.”
“I will. Good day!”
Mr. Jardine had not long left the office, hurrying away with his nervous
air, his cigars and his smoke, when Ned Newton came in as Tom was about
to depart for the Swift mansion where his wife, who had been Mary
Nestor, was waiting for him.
“Hello, Ned!” Tom greeted his financial manager.
“Hello, Tom. Wasn’t that Martin Jardine I passed in the hall?”
“I suppose so. He just left here. Came in to have me sign that contract
for building him a big dirigible.” Tom tossed a sheaf of typewritten
sheets to Ned.
“Oh, yes, from the Jardine company. Um!” Ned picked up the documents.
“You’ve seen them before,” Tom reminded him. “You said the contract was
well drawn, legal in every way, and properly safeguarded us.”
“Yes, I did,” Ned admitted. “It’s a perfectly legal contract as far as
it goes.”
“Doesn’t it go far enough?” asked Tom.
“Well, yes,” Ned had to admit. “Oh, the contract is all right. It’s this
Martin Jardine I was thinking about.”
“What’s the matter with him?” asked Tom.
“He smokes too much,” broke in Mr. Swift, with a chuckle. “Not that I
object to smoking, though.”
“That isn’t it,” Ned stated slowly. “It’s just that to me Jardine seems
to strike a false note. He’s snappy, businesslike, and up to snuff. For
all that, I think there is something not quite true about him.”
“He’s eccentric, I’ll admit,” said Tom musingly. “But so is Mr. Damon.”
“Mr. Damon doesn’t want you to sink hundreds of thousands of dollars in
building a freak dirigible,” remarked Ned.
“No, that’s true. But the Jardine company assumes half the risk and
expense—even more,” Tom added, “for they will supply the oralum metal
plates, and that’s a big item.”
“All the same, Tom,” went on Ned, “I’d go a bit slow about this, if I
were you.”
“I intend to,” Tom said, looking out of the window of his office into
the April sunshine. It was this warm, early spring sunshine that had set
his blood and that of his wife tingling, so they had made plans for an
early vacation. “Yes,” went on the young inventor, “nothing is settled
yet. We are to have another conference and then——”
There came a sudden interruption in the shape and form of a veritable
giant of a man who burst into the private office without any warning.
“What’s the matter, Koku?” asked Tom, for, obviously, something was
wrong.
“O, Master!” cried the giant in a booming voice. “Him House on Wheels
all bust up! Him spout fire! All blaze! Look!”
Tom, Mr. Swift, and Ned Newton peered from a back window. They saw a
cloud of smoke and spurting streaks of fire near the garage where the
wonderful traveling auto, a small house in itself, was kept. As they
looked, they heard a sharp explosion.