Chapter 6 Tom Swift and His Sky Train by Victor Appleton
A STRANGE REQUEST
When Tom Swift reached his office and laboratory, earlier than usual next morning, he found Daniel already at his desk, busy over some complicated drawings.
“You’re a little ahead of time,” spoke Tom, giving his assistant a sharp glance.
“Well, yes, I thought I’d get these blue prints out of the way so the casting shop could turn out the parts for you. I thought maybe you were in a hurry to do some more experimenting with the sky train.”
“I am, yes. But I’ve got to get those couplers right. Did you work out the new wrist pins and magnetic switch as I told you?”
“I think so, Mr. Swift. Take a look at these,” and he passed over a sheet of drawings. Tom saw that they were along the lines he had suggested and complimented the young fellow. There was a sullen, unenthusiastic look on Daniel’s face, however. He did not seem pleased even when told that his work was satisfactory. Tom had noted this characteristic in the helper before this and wondered at it. Coupled as it now was with Tom’s suspicions about the road incident the day before, and having caught Daniel in an untruth, the young inventor did not know just what to do.
“I won’t say anything to him now about finding that his car had been in use when he said it hadn’t,” Tom decided. “I’ll let things ride for a few days and see what happens.”
Tom examined the drawings carefully. They were well done and the young inventor was not sorry he had engaged this new assistant—that is, he was not sorry as far as his work was concerned.
“But I don’t like to lose confidence in him because of my suspicions,” Tom reasoned. “That makes it bad. However, I’ll give him a chance to clear himself when the time comes.”
“Will they do?” Daniel asked, but there was no enthusiasm in his voice or manner—still that same, sullen, unhappy look.
“Yes, very well, I think,” Tom said. “Take them to Mr. Jackson and ask him to have the new castings made as soon as possible. Then see Mr. Porgon in the glider department and tell him to have three or four of the larger ones ready for another test as soon as the new couplers are ready. I’m going to give my sky train another chance to prove it will work.”
“I hope it does, Mr. Swift,” Daniel murmured, but for all the real interest he showed, he might have been speaking about the weather, Tom thought.
However the young inventor had a great deal to do to get his new invention ready for another trial and he flung himself into the task with his usual boundless energy. Ned Newton came in to say he was going over to Waterfield to see Mr. Damon about the bank loan and Tom wished him success.
It was later that day when Tom, coming back to his private office after a visit to the casting shop, to see how the new couplers were coming through, received a telephone message from Ned in Waterfield.
“How’d you make out?” the young inventor anxiously inquired.
“Well, I think it’s going through, Tom; I mean the loan. Mr. Damon put it up to the other directors as strong as he could and said he’d be personally responsible for you.”
“Then didn’t they grant the loan?” asked Tom, anxiously.
“They postponed action until tomorrow, Tom.”
“Why was that?”
“Well, of course I wasn’t at the director’s meeting, but from what Mr. Damon told me, afterward, it seems there’s a new member of the finance board, Taylor Burdick, who said he’d like a little more time to look into our financial standing.”
“What was that name, Ned?” Tom asked over the wire.
“You mean the director who held things up? Why that was Taylor Burdick—new member.”
“Hum! Taylor Burdick!” murmured Tom. “All right, Ned. Come on back here and you can shoot over there tomorrow to close matters if it’s all right.”
When Ned reached the office, finding Tom busily working over his sky train problems, the financial manager asked, curiously:
“What about this Taylor Burdick? I could tell by your voice, when I mentioned his name, that there was some catch in it.”
“Why,” said Tom, leaning back in his chair to rest his back, “it happens that Taylor Burdick is a great friend of Lester Willam—played golf with him that day I went to the club to see Willam about the loan. So I was just wondering, Ned, if Willam could have said anything to Burdick to influence him not to let us have the money.”
“By Jove, Tom! You may be right! I never thought of that. Say, there are a lot of ends to this business, aren’t there?”
“Yes, Ned. But we may come out all right. I think I’m on the right track for the coupler at last. But here’s a thing I don’t like,” and while Daniel was absent from the office Tom related some of his new suspicions.
“Whew!” whistled Ned. “We’ve got to keep our eyes open.”
However, next day, the skies appeared to be clearing a bit, for the Waterfield bank directors voted to grant the Swift Construction Company the large loan asked for.
“Even Burdick voted for it,” Ned reported over the wire. “So I guess Willam didn’t try to queer it.”
“Maybe not,” said Tom. “Well, that’s good news, Ned. Now I’ll go ahead and finish my sky train—that is, as far as I can go without the regular passenger gliders. We’ve got to have the National folks hurry them along.”
In spite of all Tom Swift’s hustling work it was a week later before the sky train was ready for another trial with the substitute gliders. New couplers had been put on all of them and the pilots who were to ride in the gliders were carefully instructed to watch them. The couplers worked by double independent control—that is, the pilot in the rear glider could release his craft from the sky train, or this could be done from the pulling airplane. Of course in each case due warning would be given. With one glider released the one that had been immediately in front of it on the sky train became the rear car and this, in turn, could be cut off either by the pilot in it or the pilot, or his assistant in the pulling plane.
As has been related, Tom also planned to have gliders raised and towed into the air from the field by an auxiliary plane, and they could be coupled to the rear of the sky train.
To accomplish this Tom had to perfect a device so that the glider towed up from the ground would be pulled by the auxiliary plane not by the “nose” as gliders are ordinarily towed, but from a point back of the “nose.” This left that portion of the rising glider free to be coupled to the rear of the last glider in the sky train.
So, about a week after the crack-up in which Northrup was injured, Tom got his big, powerful towing plane out on the field and several experimental gliders were attached to it. Each glider would hold two persons in addition to the pilot, and, in order to give his new invention a thorough test, Tom called for volunteer glider riders among his air mechanics. He had no lack of them, for all Tom’s men had great faith in him.
“How about you, Rad, don’t you want to take a trip in the sky train?” asked Ned, when it was almost ready for the start.
“Who, me, Massa Ned? No, indeedy! I’ll take a chance on bein’ kicked by mah mule Boomerang—I mean I would when he was alive—but I won’t go up in no such contraption as dat!” And Rad shuffled away as if fearful that he would be made to go against his will.
Koku, the giant, coming out of the shop, saw what was in progress and called:
“Me go, Master Tom. Koku hold glider from goin’ up too high.”
“Yes, I guess you’d do that all right, Koku,” Tom assented with a chuckle. “And maybe it isn’t a bad idea to have you in one. You weigh as much as two ordinary men and it’s sort of a weight test I want now. Get in that third glider, Koku.”
Hearing this, Rad came running back as fast as his rheumatic legs would allow.
“Ef dat big fool ob a giant go up in de sky train, I go too!” he exclaimed. “Take me, Massa Tom! Ole Rad ain’t afraid. But I won’t sit by Koku—not by dat fool giant, no, sah!”
“No, Rad,” said Tom, kindly but firmly. “Ned was only joking when he spoke about you going up. I don’t believe there’ll be much danger, but you might have to hop out of a glider in a hurry if it landed and you might hurt your old legs. You stay here!” and he turned a deaf ear to the old colored man’s pleadings. Rad was very jealous of Koku.
“Well, den ef I cain’t go up, I hopes dat fool giant falls out an’ breaks a laig!” muttered Eradicate, as he shuffled away.
“Let’s see now, are we all ready?” asked Tom, as he and Ned were about to enter the big airplane, the motors of which were idly turning over to warm up.
“We need one more man if you plan to have three in each glider,” Ned answered. “And I’m counting Koku as two in his machine.”
“Another man, eh? Well, tell Mr. Jackson——”
“Excuse me!” interrupted Davis Daniel, stepping forward from amid a group of office workers who had gathered to see the test. “But will you let me go up?”
“Do you really mean it?” asked Tom, somewhat surprised by this strange request.
“I surely do. I think perhaps it would give me a better idea of what is needed in case we have to redesign the couplers.”
“Perhaps you’re right. Get in the rear glider. There’s a man short there. You’re sure you’re not afraid?”
“Not at all, Mr. Swift.”
“All aboard then!” called Tom. He entered the cabin of the big, towing plane with Ned Newton, and gave the signal to start.