THE CRY FOR HELP
"All ready, Mr. Damon?" asked Tom, as he looked to see that all the
levers, wheels, valves, and other controls were in working order on his
Air Scout.
"As ready as I ever shall be, Tom," was the answer. "I don't know why
it is, but somehow I feel that something is going to happen on this
trip."
"Nonsense!" laughed Tom. "You're nervous; that's all."
"I suppose so. Don't think I'm going to back out, or anything like
that, but I wish it were successfully over with, Tom Swift, I most
certainly do."
"It will be in a little while," returned Tom, as he settled himself
comfortably in his seat and pulled the safety strap tight. "You've gone
up in this same plane before, when it didn't have the silent motor
aboard."
"Yes, I know I have. Oh, I dare say it will be all right, Tom. And
yet, somehow, I can't help feeling--"
But Tom Swift felt that the best way to set Mr. Damon's premonitions to
rest was to start the motor, and this he gave orders to have done,
Jackson and some others of the men from the shops congregating about
the craft to see the beginning of the night flight. Mr. Swift was there
also, and Eradicate. Mary Nestor had been invited, but her Red Cross
work engaged her that evening, she said. Ned Newton was away from town
on Liberty Bond business, and he could not be present at the test.
However, as Tom expected to have other trials when his motor was in
even better shape, he was not exactly sorry for the absence of his
friends.
"Contact!" called the young inventor, when Jackson had stepped back,
indicating it was time to throw over the switch.
"Let her go!" cried Tom, and the next moment the motor was in
operation, but so silently that his voice and that of Mr. Damon's could
easily be heard above the machinery.
"Good, Tom! That's good!" cried Mr. Swift, and Tom easily heard his
father's voice, though under other, and ordinary, circumstances this
would have been impossible.
True, the hearing of Tom and Mr. Damon was muffled to a certain extent
by the heavy leather and fur-lined caps they wore. But Tom had several
small eyelet holes set into the flaps just over the opening of the
ears, and these holes were sufficient to admit sounds, while keeping
out most of the cold that obtains in the upper regions.
The aeroplane moved swiftly along the level starting ground, and away
from the lighted hangars. Faster and faster it swung along as Tom
headed it into the wind, and then, as the speed of the motor increased,
the Air Scout suddenly left the earth and went soaring aloft as she had
done before.
But there was this difference. She moved almost as silently as a great
owl which swoops down out of the darkness--a bit of the velvety
blackness itself. Up and up, and onward and onward, went the Air Scout.
Tom Swift's improved, silent motor urged it onward, and as the young
inventor listened to catch the noise of the machinery, his heart gave a
bound of hope. For he could detect only very slight sounds.
"She's a success!" exulted Tom to himself. "She's a success, but she
isn't perfect yet," he added. "I've got to make the muffler bigger and
put in more baffle-plates. Then I think I can turn the trick."
He swung the machine out over the open country, and then, when they
were up at a height and sailing along easily, he called back to Mr.
Damon in the seat behind him:
"How do you like it?"
"Great!" exclaimed the eccentric man. "Bless my postage stamp, but it's
great! Why, there's hardly a sound, Tom, and I can hear you quite
easily."
"And I can hear you," added Tom. "I don't believe, down below there,"
and he nodded toward the earth, though Mr. Damon could not see this, as
the airship, save for a tiny light over the instrument board, was in
darkness, "they know that we're flying over their heads."
"I agree with you," was the answer. "Tom, my boy, I believe you've
solved the trick! You have produced a silent aeroplane, and now it's up
to the government to make use of it."
"I'm not quite ready for that yet," replied the young inventor. "I
have several improvements to make. But, when they are finished, I'll
let Uncle Sam know what I have. Then it's up to him."
"And you must be careful, Tom, that some of your rivals don't hear of
your success and get it away from you," warned Mr. Damon, as Tom guided
the Air Scout along the aerial way--an unlighted and limitless path in
the silent darkness.
"Oh, they'll have to get up pretty early in the morning to do that!"
boasted Tom, and afterward he was to recall those words with a bit of
chagrin.
On and on they sailed, and as Tom increased the speed of the motor, and
noted how silently it ran, he began to have high hopes that he had
builded better than he knew. For even with the motor running at almost
full speed there was not noise enough to hinder talk between himself
and Mr. Damon.
Of course there was some little sound. Even the most perfect electric
motor has a sort of hum which can be detected when one is close to it.
But at a little distance a great dynamo in operation appears to be
silence itself.
"I can go this one better, though," said Tom as he sailed along in the
night. "I see where I've made a few mistakes in the baffle plate of the
silencer. I'll correct that and--"
As he spoke the machine gave a lurch, and the motor, instead of
remaining silent, began to cough and splutter as in the former days.
"Bless my rubber boots, Tom! what's the matter?" cried Mr. Damon.
"Something's gone wrong," Tom answered, barely able to hear and make
himself heard above the sudden noise. "I'll have to shut off the power
and glide down. We can make a landing in this big field," for just then
the moon came out from behind a cloud, and Tom saw, below them, a great
meadow, not far from the home of Mary Nestor. He had often landed in
this same place.
"Something has broken in the muffler, I think, letting out some of the
exhaust," he said to Mr. Damon, for, now that the motor was shut off,
Tom could speak in his ordinary tones. "I'll soon have it fixed, or, if
I can't, we can go back in the old style--with the machine making as
much racket as it pleases."
So Tom guided the machine down. It went silently now, of course,
making, with the motor shut off, no more sound than a falling leaf.
Down to the soft, springy turf in the green meadow Tom guided the
machine. As it came to a stop, and he and Mr. Damon got out, there was
borne to their ears a wild cry:
"Help! Help!"