Transcriber’s Note
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[Illustration: THE GIANT FLYING BOAT HEADED IN BETWEEN THE TALL
PINNACLES OF ICE.
_Tom Swift and His Flying Boat._ _Page 162_
]
TOM SWIFT AND HIS
FLYING BOAT
OR
The Castaways of the Giant Iceberg
BY
VICTOR APPLETON
AUTHOR OF “TOM SWIFT AND HIS MOTOR CYCLE,”
“TOM SWIFT IN CAPTIVITY,” “TOM SWIFT AND
HIS ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVE,” “THE MOVING
PICTURE BOYS SERIES,” ETC.
_ILLUSTRATED_
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
Made in the United States of America
BOOKS FOR BOYS
By VICTOR APPLETON
_12mo._ _Cloth._ _Illustrated._
THE TOM SWIFT SERIES
TOM SWIFT AND HIS MOTOR CYCLE
TOM SWIFT AND HIS MOTOR BOAT
TOM SWIFT AND HIS AIRSHIP
TOM SWIFT AND HIS SUBMARINE BOAT
TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC RUNABOUT
TOM SWIFT AND HIS WIRELESS MESSAGE
TOM SWIFT AMONG THE DIAMOND MAKERS
TOM SWIFT IN THE CAVES OF ICE
TOM SWIFT AND HIS SKY RACER
TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC RIFLE
TOM SWIFT IN THE CITY OF GOLD
TOM SWIFT AND HIS AIR GLIDER
TOM SWIFT IN CAPTIVITY
TOM SWIFT AND HIS WIZARD CAMERA
TOM SWIFT AND HIS GREAT SEARCHLIGHT
TOM SWIFT AND HIS GIANT CANNON
TOM SWIFT AND HIS PHOTO TELEPHONE
TOM SWIFT AND HIS AERIAL WARSHIP
TOM SWIFT AND HIS BIG TUNNEL
TOM SWIFT IN THE LAND OF WONDERS
TOM SWIFT AND HIS WAR TANK
TOM SWIFT AND HIS AIR SCOUT
TOM SWIFT AND HIS UNDERSEA SEARCH
TOM SWIFT AMONG THE FIRE FIGHTERS
TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVE
TOM SWIFT AND HIS FLYING BOAT
THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS SERIES
THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS
THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS IN THE WEST
THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS ON THE COAST
THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS IN THE JUNGLE
THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS IN EARTHQUAKE LAND
THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS AND THE FLOOD
THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS AT PANAMA
THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS UNDER THE SEA
THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS ON THE WAR FRONT
THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS ON FRENCH BATTLEFIELDS
THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS’ FIRST SHOW HOUSE
THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS AT SEASIDE PARK
THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS ON BROADWAY
GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, New York
COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY
GROSSET & DUNLAP
_Tom Swift and His Flying Boat_
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I AN IDEA AND A FORTUNE 1
II THE TREASURE CHEST 10
III AMAN DELE 19
IV A HELPING HAND 27
V WHAT CAME OF IT 34
VI THE PRONOUNCEMENT 41
VII A GOOD DEAL ON HIS MIND 48
VIII THE EXPEDITION SETS OFF 57
IX THE KEEL IS LAID 65
X BAD LUCK 73
XI THE TRIAL 82
XII IN PERIL 92
XIII A SECOND TEST 100
XIV AMAZING NEWS 109
XV ON THE WINGS OF THE WIND 118
XVI THE TRANSATLANTIC VOYAGE 125
XVII “SOMETHING ROTTEN IN DENMARK” 140
XVIII THE GIANT BERG 148
XIX THE DESERT OF ICE 160
XX IMPRISONED IN THE ICE 165
XXI A SILVER LINING 173
XXII BACK TO THE FLYING BOAT 181
XXIII STILL CRIPPLED 188
XXIV UNEXPECTED GOOD FORTUNE 195
XXV BACK FROM THE ARCTIC 203
TOM SWIFT AND HIS FLYING BOAT
CHAPTER I
AN IDEA AND A FORTUNE
“I am sure we can build such a flying boat, father.”
“Humph! I wish I had your confidence, Tom,” chuckled Mr. Barton
Swift, the old inventor.
His son laughed, too. “It isn’t confidence you lack,” he said. “It is
just that you are too cautious to seem optimistic.”
“Have it your own way,” rejoined his father. “Just the same, a speed
boat for the air, land, and sea that will do all you suggest is
something to consider fearfully. Nothing to compare to it has ever
yet been launched.”
“But it will be launched,” cried Tom Swift eagerly. “Somebody will
put it into the air before we know it. Why not get ahead of the rest
of the smart folks? Why not put out a flying boat that will make all
their eyes bug out?”
“Even your slang gets ahead of me, Tom,” said his father mildly.
“Just why do you wish to strain the optic nerves of your competitors?”
But Tom Swift only laughed. He knew just how young his father’s mind
remained, even if he was a semi-invalid at times and his body was
weakened by age and hard work.
“There is a bunch of rich men, I understand, who mean to build a
flying boat to go hunting in up toward the Arctic Circle next summer.
There are others that believe the mystery of the Antarctic can only
be revealed through the use of such a craft. The interior of Africa,
around Lake Tanganyika and the other great lakes can be properly
explored only by the use of some such machine. Central South America
can be reached more easily from the Amazon and its great branches
than by any other means. Without a flying boat, how may one fly over
the falls and escape the dangers of the rapids?”
“Good! Good!” exclaimed Mr. Barton Swift. “I see you have been
thinking this thing out, at least. A great many people have excuses
for what they want to do; but you, Tom, have a reason. What else?”
Tom Swift laughed again. He was a boyish fellow, in spite of all his
experiences of the past few years; and a boy finds it difficult at
most times to take older people into his confidence, especially about
his dreams and hopes.
“I do not know that my suggestion should seem an impossibility,” Tom
said, soberly. “See what the Swift Construction Company has done in
the past. Of course, I am counting on your help, father, to carry
such a thing to a successful conclusion.”
“You actually talk as though you had conceived a plan and would put
it into effect, Tom!” cried his father.
“I don’t know but I have—and will,” said Tom, smiling once more. “At
any rate, I have been revolving the scheme in my head for a long
time. I admit it. A flying boat, as the storybook fellows write now,
has ‘intrigued’ my interest. I’m coocoo about it, to use Ned Newton’s
slang.”
“So you lay your knowledge of the argot to Ned?” laughed Mr. Swift.
“But this flying boat?”
“A lot has been accomplished by other people. We would not be the
first in the field, by any means. But I believe I have some ideas
about such an invention that would put us ahead of everybody else.
And that is the main thing.”
“The main thing, I should say, would be to have a working hypothesis
of the idea in question,” observed Barton Swift dryly. “What would
you build a flying boat for? To what particular use is it to be put?
Therefore, in making plans for the boat, they must fit the needs of
the craft as devised.
“In other words, Tom, what in the world do you want a flying boat
for? You have your air scout, your aerial warship that you sold to
the Government during the war, your air glider which as yet has not
been equaled, your sky racer, and your old _Red Cloud_ which scarcely
any newer airship marvel has surpassed. You have been up in the air
enough, it seems to me. Why not tackle the practical inventions of
peace, as I pointed out in your last marvel, the electric locomotive?”
“Give me an idea,” grumbled Tom. “What shall I build—a new plough?
Huh!”
“Say, Mist’ Tom! tells yo’ what,” burst into the controversy an
altogether unexpected voice.
The Swifts had been talking on the side piazza of their house near
the works of the Swift Construction Company at Shopton. Just inside
one of the rear windows a grizzled old colored man was busy preparing
vegetables for dinner.
“I tells yo’ what!” repeated Eradicate Sampson, the old serving man
who had been with the Swifts for years and considered himself quite
one of the family. “I tells yo’ what! Yo’ want to invent somethin’
practical like yo’ fader says, yo’ make a machine that’ll scoop the
eyes out o’ ’taters widout wastin’ none o’ de meat. Dat wot yo’ do.
Den yo’ sho’ nuff do somethin’ wuth while.”
Mr. Barton Swift burst into a laugh, as he almost always did when
Eradicate Sampson, or “Rad” for short, made one of his suggestions.
Even Tom, earnest as he was about the flying boat, grinned.
“I’ll take that up some day and fix it for you, Rad,” the young
fellow said.
“Hope yo’ does it ’fore I done git all dis bag of ’taters used up.
Dey is sho’ right eye-y. Sho’ is!”
“If you want to carp and criticize at ‘English as she is spoke,’
there’s your chance, father,” grumbled Tom. “Look after Rad. But this
flying boat idea—a craft that will sail on the water, roll on the
ground, and fly through the air——”
“Old stuff, Tom,” Mr. Swift answered bruskly. “There are very good
inventions of that nature already.”
“Quite true,” admitted Tom, but not at all discouraged. “But none
of them so far built would satisfy me if I were the inventor and
builder.”
“Ah-ha!”
“There are faults in every one already launched. I bet there are
faults in all those now under construction, no matter how much money
there may be behind the invention. I am going after the perfect
flying boat, or I’ll not build any.”
“Well? Tell me how you will overcome the rough-sea obstacle, for
instance?” asked the very practical Mr. Swift. “That has been
puzzling the flying boat folks ever since the beginning. It is unsafe
to descend in a heavy sea, therefore they dare not take long voyages
from land.”
“I mean to overcome that very thing if I tackle the thing at all.”
“You speak very confidently, my son,” said his father, looking at Tom
seriously.
“I have thought about the invention for some time.”
Mr. Barton Swift threw up his hands in mock despair.
“Incurable!” he cried. “Once you get your teeth set in a thing, Tom,
there is no shaking you loose.”
“I come honestly enough by that trait of character,” said Tom, with a
grin. “They say I’m a chip off the old block.”
He sat up suddenly in his reclining chair and stared toward the front
of the house. Idly at first he had heard the noise of a motor-car
arriving before the house. It had stopped there. Mr. Swift had not
appeared to notice it at all, but Tom suddenly overheard voices.
“Yes, sah. Dey is at home, but dey mebbe is engaged on ’portant
business,” said a sonorous voice that could belong to nobody save
Koku, Tom’s giant servant whom the young inventor had brought with
him some years before from far parts, and who had served him well and
faithfully ever since.
“I isn’t sure, sah. But I go see,” went on the important sounding
Koku.
“Listen to dat giant!” grumbled old Rad Sampson. “Jes’ to hear him,
yo’d think he was bossin’ dis hyer fambly. Sho’ nuff! Huh!”
The ancient colored man and the half-civilized Koku were sworn
enemies up to a certain point. Both professed to scorn the other’s
efficiency and abilities. And both usurped the authority of speaking
for either Tom or his father on almost any occasion.
But now Koku had tried the patience of the visitor. Overtopping the
giant’s serious tones came the sharper and more excited voice that
Tom immediately recognized. And what the voice said startled even the
placid Mr. Swift.
“Tom Swift! Tom Swift!” exclaimed the visitor. “Bless my telescope,
Tom Swift, but I must see you! I must see you at once! Tom Swift!”
“Ho!” cried Tom, starting up. “Ho, Koku! Bring Mr. Damon right out
here.”
Hearing the young inventor’s voice, Mr. Wakefield Damon waited for
nothing more. He rushed around the corner of the house, appearing in
an excited and a rather disheveled state upon the side porch where
the two Swifts were sitting.
“Bless my decrepit extremities!” exclaimed the emphatic gentleman,
thus referring to his own feet as they stumbled over a low ottoman
and a rumpled mat. “I’m so excited I can’t even walk straight. It’s
the greatest—well, how-do, Barton Swift? And you, Tom—how are you?”
Both his hosts welcomed the eccentric Wakefield Damon warmly. He was
a good friend.
“What good wind has brought you here, Damon?” asked Mr. Swift, giving
the visitor his hand.
“No such element as wind,” declared Mr. Damon, with his usual energy.
“Air, fire and water—the three principal elements. Nothing like air.
It’s frozen water has brought me here, I reckon,” and he burst into a
great laugh at his own fantasy. “Ice has brought me here, not wind.”
“I heard your motor-car,” said Tom smiling. “You don’t mean to say
you have invented a way of running a car with ice for fuel?”
“Nothing like that! Nothing like that!” cried Mr. Damon. “The
gasoline people still rob me. But listen! I’ve got ice in my head—and
some brains, I hope,” he added. “At any rate, I know where to come
for help when I get stuck in anything.”
“You bring us a problem, do you?” asked Mr. Swift. “Well, Damon, what
is it?”
“I have got to have Tom’s help. I want him to take a journey with me.”
“A journey—just now—when I’ve so much on my hands?” demanded the
young inventor, in considerable doubt.
“I’ll make it worth your while,” said Mr. Damon quickly. “I’ve got to
go to Iceland. There’s money in it——”
“Money in Iceland?” interrupted Tom.
“So they tell me. And a lot of it is mine,” returned the excited
visitor. “I want you to go there with me, Tom, to get a fortune. A
fortune, boy! It will pay us big.”