OFF TO MT. CAMON
SEVERAL thoughts were in the mind of Tom Swift as he hastened to see
what had happened to his father, following the alarm of Eradicate. The
colored man, kind and faithful as he was, did not seem to know anything
more than that Mr. Swift was “tuck mighty bad.”
“Poor dad is getting old,” was one of Tom’s thoughts. “I can see him
failing. But maybe when I get him to Mt. Camon it will build him up. I’m
glad I’ve got Mary, she’ll look after him.”
Then an ugly suspicion came into the mind of the young inventor. Like a
flash which might have come from one of the skyrockets, Tom remembered
the night he had brought home the fireworks and had felt a suspicion
that he was being followed.
“Maybe,” mused Tom, as he hurried on to his father’s quarters, “some of
the gangs that we put out of business in the past have come back to try
their dirty work!”
The feeling that any one would dare attack his aged father sent a hot
wave of resentment through Tom Swift and he clenched his hands as if
eager to wreak vengeance on the scoundrels.
“But it couldn’t have been that,” Tom reasoned. “Eradicate wouldn’t
stand for anything of the sort. He’d even call in Koku, jealous as he is
of the giant, before he’d let dad be hurt.”
When Tom and Ned, with Eradicate shuffling in the rear, reached Mr.
Swift’s private workshop and laboratory, they found the aged inventor
lying on a couch, pale and evidently weak, but showing no sign of
injury.
“What’s the matter, Dad?” asked Tom, hurrying over to kneel at his side.
“Oh, it isn’t anything, really, Tom,” was the answer in a low voice. “I
just sort of keeled over.”
“Dat’s whut he done!” said Eradicate. “He were lookin’ at some papers
an’ I were dustin’ de bookcases an’, all of a suddint like, I heahs him
moan an’ he were on de flo’. I picked him up an’ ran to git yo’ all,
Massa Tom.”
“That was the right thing to do. But what happened, Dad?”
“I guess I overdid myself a bit, and the weather is rather warm. I felt
a bit faint and dizzy and then everything got black. The next I knew I
was on the couch and Rad was giving me some water.”
“Dat’s how it were,” said the old colored man.
“But what made you keel over?” Tom wanted to know. “You didn’t see
anybody, did you?”
“What do you mean—‘see anybody,’ Tom?”
“I mean no one came in to attack you.”
“Of course not,” and Mr. Swift smiled a little. “Who would attack me?”
“Oh, maybe some of our old enemies.”
“No, Tom, no one came in except Mr. Jardine. By the way, he seemed in a
hurry for some calculations that must be made before we can finish the
big dirigible, so I offered to make them for him, as he said you were
too busy.”
“That’s nervy on his part!” exclaimed Tom. “He should let you alone,
Dad. I can manage this end of the business.”
“Oh, he meant no harm, Tom. And you know the calculations used to be my
greatest strength. But I guess I’m getting old,” and Mr. Swift spoke
sadly.
“You’re a lot younger than most men of your age,” said Ned.
“Of course,” Tom agreed, looking about the room. In spite of what his
father had said, Tom had not given over his suspicions. But there were
no signs of any intruder and Mr. Swift bore no marks of any wound. It
must have been too much concentration over intricate mathematical
formulae that had caused the aged inventor to faint—that and the hot
weather.
He was soon himself again, and wanted to go on with his work, but Tom
insisted that he at once go home and took him up to the house, in
company with Ned, in the electric runabout.
“Is anything the matter?” cried Tom’s wife, when she saw him come home
from the shop at this unusual hour.
“Nothing serious, Mary,” he replied. “Dad is a little under the weather.
He needs looking after, I guess. I’ll leave him with you and Mrs.
Baggert.”
“I couldn’t be in better hands,” said the old gentleman, with a kind
smile and glance at his son’s pretty young wife.
In spite of Mr. Swift’s assertions that he felt “fine,” Tom insisted on
sending for the nearest doctor, who, after looking his patient over,
announced:
“He needs rest, quiet, and freedom from work, worry, and excitement for
a while.”
“I thought of taking him to Mt. Camon,” announced Tom.
“When?” the doctor wanted to know.
“In a few days I had hoped, but my plans are rather upset because a
certain car I wanted to use will have to be repaired.”
“I wouldn’t move Mr. Swift for a while yet,” the physician went on. And
when he said that Tom felt the case to be rather serious. “Just let him
rest here. Later, perhaps in the fall, you can go to Mt. Camon.”
“That will be all right,” Mary said. “It’s lovely up there in the fall,
Tom. Anyhow, if we can’t use the House on Wheels for a while it’s just
as well to wait.”
“I guess we’ll have to wait for the House to be repaired,” Tom said.
“But that’s no reason for not going to Mt. Camon. I can use any other
machine, or even a plane.”
“I wouldn’t take your father in an airplane if I were you,” said the
medical man, and his voice was rather serious. “Wait until fall and then
go in that House you speak of. It will be cooler then. I’m sure that by
September or October he will be all right.”
It seemed the only thing to do, and so it was decided, though Tom Swift
hated to disappoint his wife and her parents. But the Nestors, when
telephoned to about the change of plans, said it suited them, as Mr. and
Mrs. Nestor wanted to go to the seashore for a time.
“Then you go with them, Mary,” Tom urged. “When you come back dad will
be all right and we can go to Mt. Camon together.”
“No,” said Mary in a low voice.
“Why not?” asked Tom.
“Because,” was all she said aloud, but as he leaned over to kiss her she
whispered: “I don’t want to leave you, my dear.”
“Ahem!” exclaimed Ned Newton loudly, as he unexpectedly started to enter
the room as Tom was kissing his wife. “I beg your pardon!”
“Oh, come on in!” chuckled Tom. “Well, I guess I’ll have more time to
rush work on the big dirigible,” he added, for Ned had been out of the
room during the talk by which the decision was reached.
“Maybe it’s all for the best,” Ned went on after he had been told the
situation. “I know, Mary, if Tom went to Mt. Camon with you, leaving a
half-finished dirigible in the shop, you wouldn’t have a good time. He’d
be thinking of nothing but motors, oralum plates, and so on.”
“I know it,” said the girl, with a laugh. “It will be a lot nicer in the
fall. The forest is lovely then and the woods about the Mt. Camon hotel
extend for miles and miles without a break.”
So the mountain trip was postponed until autumn and, meanwhile, Tom
Swift worked busily on the _Silver Cloud_. Mr. Swift was under strict
orders to remain at home and not go near the shop, and Martin Jardine
was as strictly forbidden to see the aged inventor.
“But I don’t want this to be delayed!” he said to Tom, nervously pacing
up and down the office, alternately puffing at and relighting one of his
strong cigars.
“There will be no delay,” Tom promised. “I expect to work the men in a
double shift beginning next week, and if you keep rushing the oralum
plates to me I’ll guarantee to deliver the ship on time.”
“Good!” exclaimed Mr. Jardine. “Have a cigar! Oh, I forgot, you don’t
use tobacco. Well, give it to your father,” and, thrusting it into Tom’s
hand, the nervous man hurried away.
“I wonder if it’s real or if he’s putting on,” thought Tom, as he put
the cigar on his desk. “Maybe Ned was right about him. But, anyhow,
we’re getting the cash so far. He’s keeping up his payments.”
The weeks passed and the _Silver Cloud_ was fast approaching completion.
Even Mr. Jardine was satisfied. Then came a spell of hot weather and Tom
saw that his father was suffering from it. Mary, too, though saying
nothing, missed her usual summer vacation at some mountain or shore
resort.
Then Tom Swift came to a sudden decision. The work on the big dirigible
was well under way and the House on Wheels had been repaired and
renovated.
“We’ll go to Mt. Camon at once if you say so,” Tom told his wife one
evening.
“Oh, Tom, can we?”
“Of course. Dr. Potter said dad could stand the trip now, and your
mother and father are back from the shore. We’ll start to-morrow if you
want and can get ready.”
“Of course I can. But what about your work—I mean on the big, new
airship?”
“That will go along all right. Garret Jackson and Ned will be on the job
until I get back. I can start for Mt. Camon to-morrow if you and your
father and mother can.”
They did this, making an early start before the usual morning visit of
Mr. Jardine to the plant. This would forestall any nervous objection on
his part to Tom’s going away for a few days. The young inventor intended
to leave his father, his wife, and her parents at the mountain hotel and
return to the works to finish the _Silver Cloud_. As a matter of fact,
the labor was so far along that Mr. Jardine really had no occasion to
find fault. But he was so fussy he might do so.
The House on Wheels was a delightful vehicle in which to travel, and
made its owner independent of hotels along the way.
Mt. Camon was the summit of a series of big hills, about two days’
journey by automobile from Shopton. It was in a wild region of forests
and there was no other resort near the one Tom’s wife and her parents
had picked out for their fall sojourn.
“I wish you could stay with us and didn’t have to go back, Tom,” said
Mary, as she sat beside him on the front seat of the House on Wheels,
Tom doing the driving. His father and Mr. and Mrs. Nestor were within.
“I wish I didn’t, myself,” Tom answered. “But I have to. I have signed a
contract to finish the _Silver Cloud_ for the Jardine company and I must
keep my word.”
“Of course. But you’ll come back as soon as you can, won’t you?”
Tom Swift did not answer, and Mary looked at him for a reason. They were
proceeding along a road that bordered part of the big Swift plant and
Tom’s eyes were fixed on a man he saw digging a hole, apparently in
order to crawl under the fence.
“What’s he up to, I wonder?” muttered the young inventor, as he guided
the big car toward the intruder who was evidently seeking a
surreptitious entrance. “Hey, you!” Tom Swift called. “Snap out of
that!”