Chapter 19 Tom Swift and His Airline Express by Victor Appleton
DENVER
Tom, by his calculations and by computing their rate of speed for the past five hours, was already pretty sure in his own mind that they would reach the City of the Lakes at least within the time limit he had set for himself. But he was, nevertheless, glad of Ned’s confirmation.
“Now if they have everything in readiness at the field, we won’t lose much time in detaching this car from the Falcon and in hitching it on to the Eagle,” Tom remarked to his chum as he prepared to make the landing.
“It wouldn’t do any harm to wireless them and make sure,” Ned suggested.
“No, you’re right. Go ahead and do it. And, by crickity grasshoppers!” cried Tom, as he looked at the gasoline and oil gages, “we’re getting in just by the skin of our teeth, too.”
“How come?” asked Ned.
“We’ve got just about enough gas left to make the field,” Tom said. “I didn’t realize we’d used up quite so much. The engine was cold when we started so early in the morning, I guess, and it took more fuel to pep it up. I’ll take along a bit extra on the next two legs.”
“A good idea,” suggested Ned, as he began working the wireless instrument, to call the operator at the Chicago landing field. He was not long in getting him, for Tom had made his arrangements well, and those associated with him in the airline express were anxiously awaiting his arrival.
“We’ll land in about three minutes,” Ned sent the message. “Is everything in readiness for a quick change?”
“All O. K., sir,” was the reply, for a former army flier was in charge here and he held to the traditions of the service.
“Better send word back to Dad,” went on Tom, as he banked the plane slightly in readiness for bringing it up into the wind to make the landing on the big field just below them. Off to the left was the glistening lake, and Tom had a momentary glimpse of the wide and beautiful Lake Shore Drive, Chicago’s principal boulevard.
“Did you get him, Ned?” asked the young inventor, as he noted below him the crowd that had assembled to await his landing. Word of the sensational attempt to link the two edges of the United States by a dawn-to-dark flight had been broadcasted all over the country.
“Yes, your father’s all right,” reported Ned, who had been listening. “He sends his congratulations and so does Mary.”
“Is she there?”
“Yes, and anxious for your success,” reported Ned.
“Tell her I’ll talk to her after we hop off on the other leg,” directed Tom, and then his attention had to be given to making a safe landing—no easy feat when it is remembered that he had no ordinary aeroplane to bring down, but a heavy car attached to it and passengers to look after.
But he was successful, letting the Falcon gently down to the ground with scarcely a perceptible jolt, and then rolling gently along the even field toward the place where the other plane was in readiness, with motors slowly turning over.
“Lively now!” cried Tom to the men who gathered about him—trained workers from his own shops who had been sent on ahead to make the changes. “Every second counts, boys!”
A curious crowd surged forward to see the daring men who had set out to do their best to annihilate time and space. The throng would have overwhelmed the plane and its occupants, thus preventing the quick shift of the car, but for the fact that mounted police, whose aid Tom had enlisted, kept the curious ones back a certain distance. As it was, however, there was another small army of movie cameramen, newspaper photographers, and reporters on the scene, anxious to get the news.
“Will you please stick your head out of the window, Mr. Swift! Thanks. There! I got you!” Thus spoke one of the newspaper cameramen. Meanwhile others were clicking their shutters while the movie men were industriously grinding the cranks of their machines.
“What were your sensations? Did anything happen on the trip? Do you think you’ll make the next leg on schedule?”
These were only samples of the scores of questions that were fired at Tom by the newspaper reporters as he sat in the car while it was being unclamped from the first plane ready to run, under its own power, to the other plane a short distance away.
Tom answered as best he could, while Meldrum piloted the car carefully through the mass of men eager for information. They were the only ones allowed to approach closely, for Tom well knew the value of newspaper and movie news-reel publicity. He wanted his venture to be well known, since he needed much capital to put it on a paying basis, and the more people who knew about it the better chance he would stand of getting capital into the venture.
So Tom, and Ned occasionally, answered all the questions, gave a brief summary of the first thousand miles of travel and told something of their expectations.
“All ready?” called Tom anxiously, as he looked at his watch. The change was taking a little more time than he had counted on.
“All ready, sir!” came the answer.
“Let go!” Tom called to his new mechanician Sam Stone, who, with his helper, Jim Waldo, was to do most of the driving on the second lap of the journey. Of course Tom would take the wheel now and then to relieve the pilot, who was, necessarily, under a great strain.
The throttles were opened and the twin motors responded with a thundering volume of explosions which sent the Eagle across the field at ever increasing speed, carrying the car and its passengers with it. Then, like some great bird, true to her name, the Eagle rose into the air.
Chicago seemed to drop rapidly below the passengers as the plane mounted higher and higher, and her nose was pointed due west. Tom took anxious observations of the various gages, noted the increasing speed, and seemed well satisfied until he scanned the weather reports which one of his assistants handed him. They had just come in from the government observatory in Denver, and as Tom laid them back on the operator’s table there was a worried look on his face.
“What’s the matter?” asked Ned.
“There’s a report of storms ahead,” was the answer. “But we may be able to go above them. Strong head winds, the report says. They are likely to delay us. But we won’t worry until we have to. And now what do you say to something to eat, Ned?”
“I’m in favor of it,” was the answer. “We had breakfast a bit early,” which was true enough.
“Then tell Rad to serve up what he has,” directed the young inventor to another colored man who had been brought along to wait on the table, since Eradicate insisted on doing the cooking.
It was nothing new for Ned, Mr. Damon, and Tom to eat while traveling at high speed far above the earth. They had made many trips in dirigible balloons and other craft, sometimes remaining up almost a week at a time. But this was the first occasion where so much depended on long-continued speed, and the meal which was soon served was more or less interrupted as Tom left the table to ascertain what progress they were making.
On the whole, it was satisfactory. As hour after hour passed, the time being whiled away by communicating back to Shopton now and again—Tom holding his promised conversation with Mary—it began to look as if the great project would succeed. It was an hour after lunch when Tom, peering down toward earth through a pair of powerful binoculars, announced with exultation:
“There’s Denver!”
“On time, too!” exclaimed Ned. “Tom, we’re going to make it!”
They had just come down from the plane cockpit, where Tom, with Ned’s help, had been guiding the craft.
“Yes, it looks as if we had two-thirds of our journey behind us,” the young inventor was saying when from the galley came the cry of Eradicate:
“Fire! Fire! She’s on fire!”