Chapter 11 Tom Swift and his Chest of Secrets by Victor Appleton
A DOUBLE PERIL
With a roar the motor accepted the additional gas Tom turned into the cylinders, and a moment later the little plane began to move over the smooth surface of the field. Gathering speed, the Hummer slowly rose as the young inventor depressed the horizontal rudder, and a moment later up rose the machine like some creature of life—up and up toward the clouds.
“This is glorious!” cried Mary, thrilled by the sensation. Riding in a plane was not new to her, but she never failed to get a sense of exhilaration out of even a short spin in the air.
“Not so bad,” answered Tom.
By raising their voices slightly they could make themselves audible to one another, for, as the young man had said, there was a silencer, or muffler, on his engine.
“It makes one forget all their trouble,” called out Mary, as she looked over the side of the rear cockpit where she sat strapped in and glanced down at the earth rapidly dropping away below them.
“Yes, it does,” assented Tom. “That’s one reason I wanted to come out to-day—to get rid of some of the cobwebs.”
“And are they being brushed away?” asked Mary.
“Almost all gone!” he laughed, as he sent the Hummer up at a little steeper angle to gain a higher altitude more quickly.
The two young people gave themselves up to the thrill and revivifying influence of clear, pure, sunlit air. Deeply they breathed in of the life-giving particles, and the cheeks of Tom and Mary were ruddy with renewed health.
With no special object in view, they spun on through the air, now going up until they were above some low-lying clouds and again dipping down to view with pleasure the contour of some wonderful, green valley.
“Getting tired, Mary?” called Tom, after a while.
“No!” she called back to him. “I could go on like this forever.”
“Guess I’ll have to invent some new kind of machine if you want to do anything like that,” the youth countered.
“What do you mean?” challenged Mary.
“I mean perpetual motion hasn’t yet been solved, and I don’t believe it ever will be. As long as we have gasoline engines they will have to be given a drink now and then. Which reminds me that I haven’t enough in the tanks of the Hummer to go on for more than a few hours more.”
“I don’t want to ride quite that long, of course! Don’t take any chances. Go back now if you think anything is going to happen.”
“Nothing is likely to happen!” chuckled the young inventor. “But I didn’t want you to go on dreaming that dream of yours about keeping on forever.”
“As if I meant that!” laughed the girl. “Better turn back now.”
“In a little while,” promised Tom, whose eyes were just then fixed on some object or some view just ahead. Mary was quick to notice his preoccupation as he spoke to her and at once asked:
“Is anything the matter, Tom?”
“Matter? No! Why do you ask?”
“Because you weren’t thinking of what you were saying, that’s all. I can always tell. Do you see anything?”
“To be perfectly frank, Mary, I do. I see a cloud of smoke over there in the direction of Shopton, and when I see smoke I think of fire. As we recently had a little blaze at one of the shops, I am a bit anxious to see if this is another. Of course it will be as well fought with me away as with me there. But still——”
“Oh, Tom, I see it, too!” cried the girl, as a little puff of smoke made itself visible near a wooded part of the country. “Perhaps you’d better head back that way.”
“I think I will,” decided the pilot.
He moved the steering wheel slightly, banked the plane a bit, and was off in another direction, heading directly for the haze of smoke which by this time had considerably increased in volume.
At the time when Tom first saw the smoke menace he was several miles from it, though the clear air made the fire seem nearer than it was. But the Hummer was a speedy craft, and she quickly covered the distance.
As Tom Swift and Mary Nestor approached the blaze—for blaze it was, since they could now notice a redness that betokened flames—they could see it more plainly, and a sense of relief came to the young man when he noted that it was in a spot remote from his shops.
“Guess it’s a forest fire, Mary,” Tom observed. “I thought one would break out soon, it’s been so dry.”
“I’ve never seen a forest fire,” she responded. “It must be very thrilling.”
“It is—and dangerous,” replied Tom. “Well, you’re going to see one now, for we’re going right over it.”
“Do you think it will be safe, Tom?”
“Why not? We’re so high you won’t even smell the smoke. And as for the heat—well, they do get pretty warm, but you won’t feel that.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean that so much,” Mary hastened to say. “But if anything should happen to the plane——”
“Nothing is going to happen!” laughed Tom. “I’m going to give you a real view of a forest fire.”
The smoke was rolling up in great clouds now. But of course the Hummer was far above the conflagration. Nor could they hear the crackling of flames, though this sound was audible to those fighting the fire.
Men and boys were at work combating the forest fire. Tom and Mary, from their vantage point high in the air, could note figures, like ants or flies, hastening from the surrounding country toward the scene of the blaze. Some were hastening up in autos, and others in horse-drawn vehicles.
“What do they do when they fight forest fires?” asked Mary. “I don’t see any engines.”
“Engines aren’t of much use—the fire is very seldom near a water supply,” answered Tom. “The only thing to do is to take away the stuff a fire feeds on—dry leaves, sticks, wood or anything else. Sometimes they do this by digging up the ground or plowing it in broad, bare strips.
“Another way is to make a back fire. That is, they start some distance off from the blaze and set fire to a limited area. When this burns off, and of course it has to be kept under control, it leaves a black space with no fuel for the fire to feed upon, and when the original fire gets to the place it just naturally quits. They use wet bags, pieces of carpet, anything to beat out the line of flames when they actually fight the fire.”
“It must be hard work,” decided Mary.
“It is—hot, hard, dirty work. Well, we’ve got a pretty good view of this fire now, and I must say I don’t like the looks of it,” remarked Tom.
They were fairly over the burning area now. Below them were the snapping, leaping flames and the billowing clouds of smoke. More men and boys were hastening up to do what they could to combat the conflagration.
“If there should only come a rain now it would settle the fate of this fire,” remarked the young inventor.
Tom looked up and across the sky. It was blue in nearly every quarter—too blue and beautiful to suit those who wanted water to pour down from the heavens.
“There’s a little haze in the west,” remarked the lad, at length. “It might indicate the coming of a thunderstorm. That’s what is needed—a sudden, drenching thunderstorm. A gentle shower would help, but a regular cloudburst is needed. Of course, a sizzling rain would put the fire out in time, but it would take too long.”
“Oh, I do hope it rains!” exclaimed Mary.
Tom guided the Hummer over the very center of the fire, which seemed to be burning in an area of forest and brush country several miles square in extent. Of course in the very center of the blaze no attempt was being made to fight it; that would have been too dangerous. It was on the edges of the ever-increasing circle that the men and boys were making the attack.
Dropping down a bit, so Mary could see better, Tom pointed out where scores of the fire-fighters were trying to beat the flames to earth with long-handled wet bundles of rags, which from time to time they dipped in brooks and ponds.
“It looks like a losing fight,” sighed the girl. “Oh, Tom, suppose the fire reaches Shopton!”
“It won’t with the wind the way it holds now,” was the reply. “But of course we’d all feel better with the fire out.”
He swung the machine around to take in another angle of the fire.
“Isn’t there anything you can do, Tom?” asked Mary. “This is terrible!”
Tom was himself wondering if he could not be of service instead of merely looking on from his vantage point of safety in the air. He had invented an aerial fire-fighting machine, but this, with its chemical bombs, had been disposed of, and there was none on hand at Shopton.
“I might drop some army bombs down and try to blow up a big, bare area which would bring the fire to a stop,” said Tom. “But it would take some time to get ready for that, and they may have it out in a few hours. No, I’m afraid I can’t do anything just now. But we had better——”
Tom was about to say he had better start back with Mary when, with a suddenness that was startling, the motor of his plane went dead and the machine began to drop toward the heart of the forest fire.
“Oh, Tom!” cried Mary. “Don’t go down so close! It’s dangerous!”