Chapter 24 Tom Swift and His Airline Express by Victor Appleton
TROUBLES AND WORRIES
Instantly the scene just outside the hangar where the plane and the car were kept was in confusion. So quickly had Schlump given his captor the slip that, for a moment, every one was stunned. Even Tom Swift, accustomed as he was to emergencies, did not know what to do. But this hesitation was only momentary.
“Get him!” shouted the young inventor. “We’ve got to get him! Scatter and round him up!”
“Turn on the searchlight!” yelled Ned.
“By golly!” chuckled Eradicate, who had seen the man get away from the giant, “dat big man ain’t so smart whut he t’ink he am.”
“Never mind that now, Rad!” ordered Tom, a bit sternly. “Forget your fights with Koku and see if you can find this fellow! We want to question him and see if we can’t get on the trail of the masked men and others who are trying to queer my plans!”
“Yes, sah,” humbly answered the colored man. “I’ll cotch him!”
But this was more easily said than done. Though the big searchlight was flashed on, its beams crossing and recrossing the field about the hangar like a giant’s finger, the plotter was not picked up. The chances were greatly in his favor, running off in the darkness as he had, and after an hour’s search it became evident that he was not to be caught.
“Come back,” Tom advised his friends and the workmen. “We’ll have to let him go,” he added, as they made their way back to their temporary headquarters. “We got the bomb away from him, and we’ll take care that he doesn’t approach near enough the remainder of the night to plant another. We’ll have to organize a patrol, Ned.”
“I guess that’s right,” assented the financial manager. “We can’t take any chances.”
Reluctantly Koku gave up the search, for he felt it was his fault that Schlump had escaped.
“Nex’ time I sot on him!” declared the giant.
“He’ll be like a pancake when you get up,” chuckled Ned.
The rest of the night every precaution was taken to prevent any damage being done to the plane or the car. Men walked about the hangar in relays, and the slightest suspicious object or movement was at once investigated. Nothing happened, and when the first glimmer of dawn appeared, Tom made ready to hop off on what he hoped would be the last trip before he would fulfil the conditions of Jason Jacks.
“Those fellows must know that everything depends on my completion of the six round trips, Ned,” said the young inventor as he took his place in the car, while Meldrum and Dodge went to the cockpit of the aeroplane. “They think if they can put me out of business I won’t get the money to complete the patent work and establish the line as a practical concern.”
“I suppose so,” agreed Ned. “But how do you think they know that?”
“Oh, there has been a lot of talk over the financing of this thing. You know that,” remarked Tom. “It isn’t extraordinary that some of these plotters would get to hear about it. I wish we could have held on to Schlump, though.”
“So do I! He might have given information that would help us catch those other two—the ones you say wore masks. I wonder who they could be?”
“I have an idea,” said Tom. “I’ll tell you later if my suspicions are correct. But now we’ve got to get busy. I’m going to try to break the time record this trip. If I do it will please the old millionaire. Then, when we come back from San Francisco—if we do—and make it somewhere near the sixteen hours, he’ll put in the rest of the cash.”
“And believe me, we’ll need it!” exclaimed Ned, in such fervent tones that Tom asked:
“Why, is our bank balance low?”
“Well, it isn’t anything to boast of,” Ned answered. “You know we had to dip into it pretty heavily to finance this thing—not only in building the planes but in securing the landing fields and paying the men who look after them.”
“Yes, it has taken a bit of money,” admitted Tom. “But then, after we are successful, and I’m sure we shall be, we’ll get it all back, and more, too.”
“Yes,” agreed Ned. “Well, let’s go!”
He followed Ned and the others into the main compartment of the car which had been clamped to the aeroplane in readiness for the start. Though Ned did not tell Tom, the finances of the Swifts were in a very precarious state just then. Of course the firm owned much property and many valuable patents, but the Swift Construction Company had drawn largely on its credit, borrowing from the banks, and to raise more cash meant the stretching of the credit to a danger point. By selling some of their holdings, cash could have been raised, certainly; but no business man likes to sacrifice any of his principle, and Ned was a good business man.
In order to keep the airline going, Ned had been forced to use some of his own money which he had saved, though he did not tell Tom this for fear it would worry him. And then, when it was found that more cash was needed, Ned had spoken of the matter to Mary Nestor, having already gotten all Mr. Damon could spare.
“Take all I have!” exclaimed the girl. “I’m glad to invest it in anything Tom has to do with.”
“No, we won’t take it all,” Ned had replied. He knew she had quite a large sum that she had inherited from her grandmother, and it was in her own name. “But if you could lend a few thousands and not worry if it was lost for a time, we could use it nicely.”
“Take it!” generously offered Mary. “But what do you mean about being lost for a time?”
“I mean that even if this airline express project fails in the present instance,” replied Ned, “that Tom will eventually succeed with it and pay off his debts.”
“Of course he will!” said Mary proudly.
“And even if this is a complete failure,” went on Ned, “and we must, as a business proposition, take that into consideration, Tom will start something else that will pay big and he’ll get back all he loses on this. So it isn’t as if I were asking you to throw your money away.”
“Take all I have!” exclaimed Mary impulsively.
But Ned was content with a comparatively small sum. And it was on this money and some of his own, together with what remained from the original sale of stock, that the last two trips were financed. If they failed—well, Ned did not like to think of that.
So in blissful ignorance of the sword of failure that was hanging over his head, suspended, as it were, on a thin thread of dollar bills, Tom prepared to make this last trip.
It was hardly daylight when they hopped off, careful watch being kept by the men at the hangar lest, in the last moment, Schlump might slip up and toss a bomb that would kill, injure, and destroy. But nothing untoward happened, and soon the plane and its accompanying car was speeding away over the New Jersey meadows while behind the travelers the east grew lighter and lighter as the sun slowly mounted in the heavens.
Aside from the anxiety of all on board to make the best time possible on this trip, nothing unusual occurred during the first lap. Tom had to stop a quarrel between Eradicate and Koku, for the colored man could not refrain from taunting the giant over letting Schlump get away. So infuriated did the big man become under the taunts of Eradicate that he might have done the latter an injury had not Tom sternly forbidden all further mention of the incident.
Chicago was reached safely, almost half an hour ahead of the schedule, which fact, when Tom ascertained it, made him exclaim:
“Fine! If we can keep that up we’ll do better than sixteen hours to the coast. We’re going to push the motors for all they’re capable of from now on.”
“Better not strain ’em too much, sir,” suggested Sam Stone, who was to pilot the Eagle part of the way on the second lap. “We don’t want to break anything.”
“No,” said Tom, “we don’t want to break anything but records. How has everything been here? Any signs of those rascals?”
“Well, there have been one or two suspicious fellows loitering around the hangar,” reported the mechanician. “But we warned them away. They didn’t blow us up, at any rate.”
“I’m glad of that,” said Tom. “They tried it on Long Island,” and he related the Schlump incident. “He’ll probably wire his confederates out here or in Denver or San Francisco to muss us up if they can—anything to prevent this last trip from succeeding. So we must redouble our precautions.”
“We’ll do that,” agreed Stone.
The Eagle at first did even better than the Falcon, and it seemed as if the hop between Chicago and Denver would be a record-breaker. But slight trouble developed about halfway across the plains, and though it was remedied, still they were forty minutes late, which not only ate up the half hour they had gained on the first lap, but cut ten minutes from the remaining time.
“But we’ll make it up on the last lap!” declared Tom, with confidence. “Push her for all she’s got in her, boys!” he said to Dolan and Wright, who climbed into the cockpit at Denver.
They got off to a roaring start, rose high in the air, and then headed straight for the Golden Gate.
“I sure will be glad when the last trip is over,” remarked Mr. Damon, who sat in the car near Tom and Ned.
“Why, are you getting tired of it?” asked the young inventor.
“No. But my wife doesn’t speak to me, and she says she won’t as long as I take these crazy air trips. But I said I’d come on the last trip with you, Tom, and I’m going to stick!”
“Well, I hope you don’t drop out now,” grimly joked Ned, as he looked from an observation window to the earth, several thousand feet below.
“Bless my feather bed, I should hope not!” cried the odd man.
Tom kept note of the distance traveled and the time used, and as several hours passed and the figures grew a pleased smile came over his face.
“It begins to look as if we’d make up all we lost and more too, Ned!” he cried to his chum.
The whistle of the tube communicating from the car to the cockpit sent out a shrill summons.
“Hello! What is it?” called Tom.
“You’d better come up here, Mr. Swift,” answered the voice of Art Wright. “Dolan seems to be knocked out and the motor is behaving very queerly. I’m afraid it’s going to die on us!”