Chapter 3 Tom Swift and His Airline Express by Victor Appleton
MASKED MEN
After the treatment that had been accorded him, Tom Swift rather welcomed than otherwise a chance to come to grips with the men who were responsible for his position. Usually even-tempered and generous, just now he felt eager for vengeance and he would not have cared much if two men had attacked him at once.
Strangely enough he did not feel weak or ill now. He had, somewhat, when he first regained his senses after having been overpowered by some drug. But his brain had cleared and he kept himself in such good physical trim all the while that even a night of unconsciousness had not sapped his strength.
The light in the distance did not increase any, from which Tom gathered that it was full daylight with the sun well above the horizon, and after that first murmur of voices and the sound of footsteps these sounds did not come any nearer. Nor did Tom catch a glimpse of any figures between himself and that little circle of light.
Then from some point outside the cave or tunnel he heard voices calling. They were louder than the first, and there seemed to be some dispute or disturbance.
The voices rose to a high pitch and then died away. Silence followed, and then came the sound of retreating footsteps.
“They’re going away!” exulted Tom. “Now I’ve got a chance to walk toward that daylight and see where I am. Maybe I’d better wait a few minutes, though. They may come back.”
He waited what he thought was several minutes and then, hearing no other sounds of voices or footsteps, began a cautious approach toward that gleam of light. What a blessed thing light was, after all that black and clinging darkness!
In silence Tom crept on, advancing one foot after the other cautiously, and keeping one hand extended to give warning of his approach toward any obstruction while in his other hand he held the file like a dagger, ready to use.
But there was no occasion for this. A little later he found himself standing in a circle of daylight illumination that filtered down an inclined shaft which led out of a tunnel, such as Tom could now ascertain he was in. A natural tunnel it appeared to be, with rocks jutting out here and there in the earthen sides. Roughly the tunnel was in the form of a half circle, the floor being flat and the roof arched. The inclined entrance led upward in a gentle slope.
“Well, now to see what’s up there!” said Tom to himself, taking a long breath and holding his weapon ready. He tensed his muscles and steeled his nerves for what he felt might be a desperate struggle. Yet he did not shrink back.
As he advanced cautiously, step by step, up the incline that led to daylight and the outer world, he felt at first a sense of disappointment when he saw no one with whom he might come to grips. He had been treated so meanly that it would have been a source of satisfaction to have had it out in a rough-and-tumble fight with those responsible.
But, to his surprise, Tom pushed his way out through a tangle of underbrush and bushes which grew about this end of the tunnel and found none to dispute him. This surprise was added to when he looked about him and found out where he was.
“On Barn Door Island!” exclaimed Tom. “Of all places! Barn Door Island! But how did I get here? It’s miles away from where I went down those steps near our plant. Of all places! Barn Door Island!”
This was a small island in Lake Carlopa which had been named Barn Door because, some time or other, one of the early settlers happened to remark that it was no larger than the door of a barn. The island was at the end of the lake farthest removed from Shopton and the Swift plant.
“I never knew there was an entrance to a tunnel here!” said Tom, as he looked about him. “But then I’ve never explored here very much.”
Nor had any of the other lads of Shopton. Barn Door Island was a barren place—merely a collection of scrubby trees and tangled bushes and great boulders set down at the swampy end of Lake Carlopa. It was not a good fishing location and too dreary for picnic parties, so Barn Door was seldom visited.
“But if I had an idea there was a tunnel entrance here—the beginning of a passage that led under the lake and under the land right up to our place I’d have done a lot of exploring, that’s sure!” Tom told himself. “That’s a natural tunnel, I’m positive of it, at least most of it is. Somebody went along it until they got to the end near our fence. Then they broke out, put in those steps and made the plank covering for the opening. They put earth over the planks so no one would see them. That part must have been done recently, for we were trying airships out in that field a month ago and I landed right near that bush behind which the man disappeared. I know I did, for I remember thinking I might crash into the fence. So the land end of this queer tunnel has only been opened lately. This island end must have been here a long while. But it’s queer no one knew of it. And I wonder what it’s being used for? Something to do with our business, I’m sure. Our enemies are at work again!”
Tom quickly reviewed the situation in his mind. Since his Chest of Secrets had been taken and he had had so much trouble in recovering it, he had been very cautious about his plans of new inventions. Suspecting several of his newer employes, he had gotten rid of them and had taken great precautions, on the advice of Ned and his father.
“But if there’s a tunnel from this lonely island under the lake and beneath the shore right up almost to our plant, it means that something desperate is in the wind,” reasoned Tom. “They must have resented my blundering into it as I did, and they tried to put me out of the way. After they doped me they must have carried me a long way through the tunnel, to chain me fast near this end.
“Well, I’m free now, and out in the open. About noon, I should judge by the sun and by the way my stomach feels,” Tom went on, with a grim smile, for he was getting hungry and feeling a bit weak now. “I hope it isn’t more than the next day,” he went on, meaning the day following his night encounter with Ned.
He looked about him. Barn Door Island was about five acres in extent, large enough, on account of its wild character, to give concealment to any number of enemies. But if there were any such here now they did not show themselves as Tom eagerly and anxiously scanned the somewhat wild landscape.
“Well, now that I know where I am, though I can’t understand how or why I was put in that tunnel and chained,” mused the lad, as he looked at the iron still on his leg, “I might as well try to get back home. It’s pretty lonesome down here, and I don’t know whether I can signal any one or not. But it isn’t far to the mainland and I can swim it. Though if I’m going to do that I’d better file this iron off. No fun swimming with that bracelet on my ankle.”
He looked about for a place where he could sit down and file in comfort at the remaining evidence of his recent bondage when, as he approached the shore, he saw, pulled up close to a rude dock in a little cove, a small motor boat.
“Well, if this isn’t luck!” cried Tom. “There must be some picnic party here and that’s their boat. But no—wait a minute! Maybe it belongs to those men I heard talking in the tunnel. I’ll wager that’s it. And this is my chance! I’ll appropriate their boat since they treated me like a roughneck. I’ll get back home, maybe in time to stop their trick—whatever it is.”
There was not much about a motor boat that Tom Swift did not know, and it took him but a few seconds to ascertain that this one was in good working order. No longer considering the need of filing off the leg-iron, Tom pushed the boat out from the dock, which was merely a few old logs and planks, and prepared to start the engine.
He turned the flywheel and, almost at the first revolution after he had thrown the spark switch, the engine was in motion. But even as it glided out of the little cove Tom was aware of the presence of another craft. Around one of the points of the cove, as he guided his boat out, the other swung in, and a glance showed it to be occupied by four rough-looking men.
Two of them wore masks. The faces of the other two were familiar to Tom, for they were two of his recently discharged workmen—Kenny and Schlump!
Tom had a feeling that some desperate work was in prospect. The attack on him, the rendering of him unconscious, his being chained fast—all this was more than accidental coincidence following his trailing of the man who had disappeared down in the tunnel.
For a moment those in the second boat remained gazing, spellbound, it seemed, at Tom, who was rapidly putting distance between himself and those he felt were his enemies. The boat he had so unexpectedly found proved to be a speedy little craft. But the other was also.
“There’s Tom Swift now!” cried Schlump, pointing.
“Where?” asked one of the masked men.
“In our boat!” Schlump answered. “Come back here!” he roared, shaking his fist at Tom.
“Come back nothing!” taunted the young inventor.
“Don’t stop to talk!” shouted one of the masked men. “Speed up! We must catch Swift at any cost!”