BAD LUCK
The great leap of the excited giant carried him under and beyond the
overhead rail from which the traveling crane hung. The wind of the
rebounding crane seemed to sweep Koku and Tom aside. They escaped the
swinging hooks and chains by a very close margin.
But all of the unobservant workmen were not so fortunate. Two of
them were knocked senseless by the chain, one with a broken shoulder
blade, the other with a cut on his head that bled profusely. Several
others were knocked down.
Tom was up with a yell, wrenched himself from Koku’s grasp, and
started down the shop with the speed of a deer.
“Who did that? Stop your engine! Throw off the power!” he yelled.
But already the man in charge of the power governing the crane had
come to his senses. He had thrown over the lever and shut off the
power. The swinging loops of heavy steel links were now at the far
end of the shop.
The accident was, for a time, seemingly inexplicable. The crane
traveling toward the shop door had been seemingly stuck. The
controller had been thrown twice to start it. And when the fouled
crane had started, it had rushed backward instead of forward. Only
Koku’s sharp gaze had observed it, and his quick action had saved Tom
Swift from disaster.
An ambulance was sent for to take the two more seriously injured
men to the hospital. Meanwhile the general opinion in the erecting
shop was that a deliberate attempt had been made against the young
inventor’s life.
Koku glared at everybody who came anywhere near his master. He
marched up and down within a stride or two of Tom, and flexed his big
muscles and muttered threats in his own tongue. The half civilized
creature, who was usually the mildest person imaginable, had now
become a figure to strike terror to the bravest.
Before anything further was done to the keel of the flying boat Tom
made an exhaustive examination of the traveling crane, the cables
attached to it, and the steel rail from which its truck hung. He
trusted the engineman, who was an old employee. And he could not
think of any man or boy about the erecting shop that wished the
company—or himself—ill.
“It’s a jinx, boss,” declared one of the older men. “Bad luck! And I
have a feeling in my bones that it’s only the beginning.”
“Come, Carney!” commanded Tom Swift. “You take something to get rid
of any such feeling. Don’t talk that way and let the other men hear
you. Of course there is a perfectly reasonable explanation of the
accident.”
“That doesn’t stop it from being bad luck just the same,” muttered
the man.
A thorough scrutiny of the line of the crane’s travel finally
resulted in a single explanation of the accident. Tom picked
up a loop of steel cable—a piece perhaps two feet long when
straightened—which showed marks of the wheels of the traveler.
“This loop must have been left hanging to the rail by some careless
repair man and, after that last trip of the crane, it shifted and
slid along the rail to that spot where the machinery fouled,” Tom
declared.
“Now, somebody is at fault in this. It has cost the Swift
Construction a great deal of money for employees’ compensation, as
well as the wage loss for this breakdown. If I ever find out who the
careless man is, I’ll fire him. Carelessness is the most dangerous
thing in the world. Our lives are not safe when such a man is around.
Now let’s see what more we can do about laying this keel.”
It did seem, however, as though the old machinist had somehow hit it
right about the “jinx.” Bad luck seemed to accompany the assembling
of the body of the flying boat. Little accidents happened daily. Men
were hurt, tools were broken, delays occurred. Tom got into a touchy
state that even Ned Newton recognized.
“You’d better knock off on this flying boat and get a change of
action,” Ned advised. “Go somewhere with Mary and her mother. Take a
rest.”
“You’d better take a rest yourself,” returned Tom sharply, but
grinning. “I would fly all to pieces just now if I had to be idle.
You know how it is with me, Ned. I have to work it off. And I can
think or talk about nothing now but the _Winged Arrow_.”
“It looks to me,” said the pessimistic Ned, “that that is one arrow
that will never be shot. I have been looking it over, and all it
seems to be is a great pontoon—as clumsy as can be.”
“You are a cheerful beggar!” snapped Tom Swift. “What do you expect
to see at this stage of the work, I’d like to know?”
“Well, two things I hate to see are the bills and the labor-cost
account,” grumbled Ned. “You are going to strain the credit of this
company before you get through, Tom.”
“It’s lucky dad and I held onto so much of the stock,” rejoined
the young inventor, with a sudden grin. “We are the only two with
vision. You are terribly sordid, Ned.”
“I’m terribly practical,” grumbled his friend. “Money is one of the
hardest things to get hold of and the slipperiest things to hold on
to in the world. I wish I could impress these facts on your mind.”
“Say not so!” gibed Tom. “Them cruel words break me hear-r-r-t,
Ned. Wait till you see the _Winged Arrow_ take to the air from Lake
Carlopa——-”
“Wait till I do!” exclaimed Ned, and for once the friends were so far
apart in their opinions that they almost quarreled.
Koku lurked about the shop day and night on the watch for somebody or
something that tried to trouble his young master.
“Him evil one at work,” the giant declared to Rad Sampson.
“Lawsy-marcy!” grumbled Rad, rolling his eyes. “Yo’ suah has a
close’t acquaintance wid Ol’ Satan, Koku. How’d yo’ git dat way?”
A fire started among some oil-soaked waste behind the stationary
engine in the erecting shop. A power belt stripped unexpectedly and
balled up the machinery for most of one day. Certain castings were
discovered to have faults in them that would have endangered the
success of the flying boat if the faults had not been seen in time.
Altogether a less determined fellow than Tom Swift would possibly
have been tempted to abandon his plans—at least, for the time being.
But the young inventor was utterly given up to the building of the
flying boat, and nothing but personal disaster would have stopped him.
The work did go on apace, after all. Tom’s energy and ingenuity
were sufficient for the accomplishment of a deal that might seem
impossible to men much older than himself. As his plans developed for
the flying boat, he worked harder and for longer hours. Mary declared
that he even neglected her.
The young girl realized, however, that her father’s illness had
delayed Tom’s beginning upon his new invention. Now he felt that he
must work the harder to make up the lost time.
Mary and her mother were getting accustomed to the idea of Mr.
Nestor’s absence. Besides receiving a cheerful letter written by the
invalid before he sailed from New York with Mr. Damon for Denmark,
they had received two wireless messages sent while the travelers were
at sea.
Then followed a considerable wait before the letter arrived from
Denmark describing the voyage and explaining how they were to reach
Iceland the following month. Mr. Nestor was much more cheerful and
was feeling better already. He said that Mr. Damon was blessing
everything in the universe because of their delays, but that they
hoped to reach Iceland and the village of Rosestone while the weather
was still comparatively mild.
Of course Tom Swift was interested in all that Mary was interested
in. Nevertheless he had pretty well put out of his mind any anxiety
for the invalid. He believed that Mr. Nestor was in very capable
hands, for the eccentricities of Wakefield Damon did not keep him
from being a loyal friend and a jolly traveling companion.
As Mr. Barton Swift said, Tom ate, slept, and lived _flying boat_!
Nothing else in the world seemed just then of so much importance
as the building of the _Winged Arrow_, which was the name Tom had
selected for the seaplane.
“If the craft accomplished the speed Tom expects, she will be well
named,” the elder Swift said in confidence to Ned Newton.
Secretly Ned was quite as proud of his chum’s ability and brains as
was Tom’s father. But he felt it his duty to put brakes on whenever
he saw a great amount of money being risked in an enterprise that
might toe a fizzle in the end.
To Tom’s mind the weeks passed with astonishing celerity. Mary was
looking for news from Iceland when the huge flying boat was removed
in sections from the erecting shop and trundled down to the edge of
Lake Carlopa on trucks.
There it was once more put together on the ways, every part tested
for faults, the motors put aboard and connected with the propellers,
and then, like any ship, she was launched into the water. It was a
gala day in Shopton when the marvel was given her first bath. The
works closed down and everybody connected with the Swift Construction
Company was on hand to see the launching.
Mary Nestor broke the bottle of grape juice on the nose of the
_Winged Arrow_ as she struck the water and was splashed in return by
the water as the plane “made a hole” in the lake.
It was a rough and windy day when this took place; but the boat
merely rocked gently upon the surface after that first splash. It
made a very brave appearance indeed.
“Mebbe the jinx is finished,” said Carney, the old workman, in
confidence when the launching was over. “Anyway, we got the thing out
of the shops without killing anybody. And that’s a good thing.”
Tom Swift was not thinking about Carney’s “jinx” on this day. He
was much too deeply absorbed in the fact of the boat’s being in
the water. Then, too, he had a small puzzle in his mind while the
ceremony of launching was taking place.
In the crowd of spectators was a man whose face he knew. The man
watched proceedings with an exceedingly keen scrutiny. His interest
in the huge flying boat was professional, Tom was sure. He began to
have some uneasiness about the man, for, although he was sure he had
seen him before, Tom Swift could not remember where he had seen him
or what his name was.