Chapter 22 Tom Swift and His Sky Train by Victor Appleton
READY TO GO
Daniel might have reached Tom, with what results can only be guessed at, but faithful Koku was on the alert. The giant had not left the vicinity of the sky train since it had been made up. Tom had charged him with its safety and Koku was right there. Before the infuriated man could reach Tom, Koku fairly leaped on him, bore him to the earth and then, rising, held him aloft as he had before.
“Now I bust you!” cried the giant savagely.
The milling, shouting crowd held its breath in horror. Tom guessed what might happen and, in a voice which Koku never disobeyed, and in the giant’s own language, so there might be no mistake, the young inventor shouted:
“Put him down, Koku, and gently! Don’t hurt him!”
Koku, showing disappointment over the revenge out of which he felt he was being cheated, obeyed. He set Daniel upon his feet but did not let go his hold of him.
Even then, forgetting the terrible death he had so narrowly escaped, Daniel continued to struggle, but uselessly. He yelled in his rage:
“You’ve ruined me and mine, Tom Swift! You’ve reduced me to poverty until I haven’t even money enough to save my boy from going blind! You tried to kill my boy! You want to ruin me! I’ll have my revenge! I—I——”
Then his spasm of rage overcame him and he sank senseless to the earth.
“Take him away,” Tom said, gently. “Poor fellow! His brain must have cracked under his troubles, though they were none of my making. You’d better have a doctor see to him,” he said to the sergeant in charge of the police squad. “Have him well cared for at my expense and I’ll see to him when I get back. But guard him!”
“Indeed we’ll do that, Mr. Swift,” said the officer.
“And look out for that pool of acid!” cried Tom, as he saw some of the crowd dangerously near it. “Here, Koku, get a shovel and cover it with earth. Don’t let a drop get on you, though!”
“Indeed it is powerful stuff, Mr. Swift,” said a policeman. “Look what it did to my shoe!” He held up his shoe which he had taken off. Inadvertently he had gone too near the acid pool in the excitement and the heavy leather sole was almost eaten off. “As soon as I heard you yell it was acid, and I saw some on my shoe, I took it off, Mr. Swift. I used to work in a chemical plant and I know what acid can do.”
“You did right,” Tom said. “Jove, but this makes a hectic start for my sky train!” he went on to Ned, as the now inert form of Daniel was carried away. Then Tom went to where he had seen the man open the bottle of acid between two of the gliders. A look showed that some of the powerful fluid had been dropped on the two couplers. Already the metal parts were pitted.
“I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen,” Tom said to those in the last two gliders, “but I’ll have to ask you to change cars, so to speak. It will not be safe to take those up. The couplings have been weakened by the acid spilled on them by this unfortunate man. I’ll soon have two new gliders here. This will be only a short delay.”
The damaged gliders were towed away, two others were put in their places, a test was made of the dual double magnetic control and at last Tom stood in the doorway of the cabin of the Eagle.
“Let’s go!” he cried, signalling that all was in order.
He closed and fastened the cabin door and, trying to calm himself after the half hour of strenuous excitement, sat down beside his wife.
“You aren’t hurt, are you?” asked Mary.
“Not in the least. No one is harmed, luckily. That was terrible stuff Daniel had.”
“What made him act that way?”
“I don’t know, Mary. I’ll go into that later, just now I’m going to run my sky train!”
The motors of the Eagle roared, the big plane shot up on a slant pulling the three gliders after her. Up and up the sky train soared, amid the cheers of the crowds on the ground. It was a perfect start.
Tom now greeted his guests, some of whom he had not had a chance to speak with up to this time. For some it was their initial trip in the air and they marveled first at the wonder of it and then at the seeming simplicity. But back of all that seeming simplicity lay hard work on the part of Tom Swift.
Rapidly the sky train gained speed until it was shooting along at a great height headed for Portboro where the first glider was to let down and the first one picked up, that is, if a “tail” glider can be said to be “first.”
To his newspaper and newsreel guests Tom explained as much of the workings and mechanisms of his latest invention as was necessary. All eagerly awaited the first real test—that of dropping a full-sized glider and picking one up. But of course Tom felt sure, by previous tests on a less elaborate scale, that the favorable chances were with him.
“We’re sighting Portboro, Mr. Swift!” one of the pilots reported in what seemed a short time after leaving the Shopton airport.
“Say, that’s a record run, isn’t it?” asked one of the reporters.
“No, I’ve made better time than that in some of my other machines,” Tom modestly answered. “We’re not trying for a speed record now; merely giving a demonstration of the sky train’s ability to drop off and pick up separate glider units in full flight.”
A little later they were over the first of the test cities, and Tom called to the pilot:
“Stand by for a glider landing!”
“Right!” came the acknowledgment. And then, ascertaining by observation that the other plane and glider were waiting to come up, the young inventor wirelessed down:
“Come on up!”
It was as simple as that!
Signalling to the pilot in the rear glider to trip his magnetic switch, Tom Swift did the same in the Eagle cabin. A moment later the rear glider went down as easily as a bird with her load of passengers.
There was a murmur of delighted surprise from the newspaper men and guests. Then, like another bird leaving earth, the plane with the glider to be attached started up. Meanwhile the Eagle, pulling the sky train, kept on going. Nor did she slacken speed.
“He’ll never be able to hook on going this fast,” said one man.
“Bless my cocoanut pie! You don’t know Tom Swift!” exclaimed the delighted and enthusiastic Mr. Damon.
Then, while the passengers in the train watched, through observation windows in various places, in either the Eagle or the towed gliders, the plane with the glider from earth shot rapidly up, hovered ahead of and above the train until it was just in the right position.
For a moment Tom felt just a bit apprehensive. Suppose it should fail with this critical audience?
But it didn’t fail. The pilot of the small plane knew just what to do. There was a slight jar, and Tom knew, an instant later, by the glowing of his tell-tale lights, that proper contact had been made; that the glider from earth was coupled on and that the magnetic control would hold it there until, by dual action of himself and the pilot, the glider would be released.
“By Jove, he’s done it!” yelled one newspaper man who rather ostentatiously carried a big cane.
“She’s on! She’s on!” cried the delighted Ned Newton, capering about. “She’s on! Oh, boy!”
No less enthusiastic were all the others in the Eagle, those on the ground who had witnessed the successful coupling, and those in the glider itself and those just ahead of it.
On speeded the sky train. It was a longer run to Kenville, but it was made in almost record time, and there the glider taken up at Portboro was released and another taken on. This contact was not quite as successful as the first, a nasty cross wind interfering somewhat with the attempt. But at the second try the couplings locked and the train, never slackening speed, throbbed on its way.
“Well, I don’t want to be too sure,” Tom said to Ned, “but I guess this clinches it!”
“I’m sure it does!” was the answer.
After that Tom gave his party a trip through, under and over the clouds in the sky train, passing about a hundred miles beyond Kenville. Then he turned about, dropped a glider there, picked up another and repeated the stunt at Portboro. There wasn’t a hitch in the whole proceeding, except the necessity for two trials in taking on the first glider at Kenville.
“And now,” said Tom a bit wearily when it was all over, “I guess we’ll head for home, Ned.”
“And get ready for a try at the prize!” Ned exclaimed. “Tom, I didn’t tell you before, but we’re pretty near close to being ‘busted,’ as the boys say.”
“You mean we need more cash?”
“Yes, and I don’t want to ask for another loan. But if you can win this prize——”
“Don’t worry, Ned, I’m going to win it,” said Tom, quietly.
“If Daniel, or some other crazy chap, doesn’t put the kibosh on you.”
“Yes, I’ve got to be careful of that,” Tom admitted. “But I think Daniel is out of the way for good. Poor fellow! I must do something about his boy!”
Tom found it hard work, after a successful landing at Shopton, to get away from the admiring throng. He was pressed by the reporters for statements, and had to stand for a lot of pictures being taken. But at last the Eagle was run in the hangar and Tom was able to get a little quiet. It was then Mary, with shining eyes, came to him.
“I didn’t want to tell you in front of all the others,” she murmured, “but, oh, Tom! I’m so proud of you!”
One of the first things Tom Swift did, after making arrangements for having his gliders and the Eagle inspected by his mechanics to see that no flaws had developed on the trip, was to inquire for Daniel. The man had come out of his faint, but was in such a state that he had to be taken to a hospital.
“Then I’ve got to go see his wife,” said Tom to Mary.
“I’ll go with you,” she offered. “Maybe Mrs. Daniel will let us arrange to have Davy’s eyes mended, now that her poor husband is out of the way.”
They found Davy’s mother in tears, but she greeted them quietly.
“I’m so sorry all this happened, Mrs. Daniel,” began Tom. She stopped him with an odd gesture.
“You may as well know the truth,” she said. “Our name isn’t Daniel—it’s Davis. My husband is Daniel Davis, formerly head of the Davis Aero and Airline Corporation.”
“Why,” cried Tom in surprise, “I know that firm, or used to! Your husband came to me with a recommendation from them.”
“Yes,” said the woman in a low voice, as she held little Davy close to her. “Daniel wrote that recommendation himself—for himself. Oh, it has been hard—so hard!” she sighed. “He didn’t know what to do when you ruined his business, Mr. Swift!”
“When I ruined his business?” cried Tom in surprise. “What do you mean?”
“Yes,” she answered, “you did. Oh, I’m not accusing you of doing it on purpose,” she hastily added. “It was the way of the world and trade, I suppose. My husband used to have a nice little business making airplane parts. But a year ago he had to give up. He said he could not compete with you. Everything soon went. We became very poor—too poor, in fact, to have Davy’s eyes looked after. Then my husband got the desperate idea of changing his name, writing a recommendation from himself for himself, and applying for work at your plant.”
“I took him on—he was a good workman,” said Tom. “But he has not repaid me very kindly.”
“I know he hasn’t, Mr. Swift. But I hope you will forgive him. He was out of his mind, I think.”
“He must have been when he tried that acid trick!”
“I heard about that,” wearily said Mrs. Davis. “If I had known in time I would have warned you. But that wasn’t the first time Daniel tried to injure your property, though I only knew of it last night. Then he confessed to me that he tripped the couplings once or twice. I don’t know the mechanical details, but that’s what he called it—tripping couplers.”
“So that’s what made my gliders fall!” exclaimed Tom. “My suspicions were well founded. Did he do anything else?”
“Yes,” confessed Mrs. Davis, “though it shames me to have to tell you. In some way my husband became involved with Lester Willam, of the bank here. Mr. Willam knew who my husband was and, I suspect, he hired him to try and keep you from perfecting your sky train, Mr. Swift. There was something about a telephone message, mentioning a failure, when you went to see about a loan, wasn’t there?”
“So that’s how Willam knew,” Tom mused. “Daniel telephoned the bad news to him while I was at the golf club. But why is Willam so against me, I wonder?”
“Can’t you guess?” asked Mrs. Davis.
“No.”
“Mr. Willam, so Daniel told me,” she went on, “is part owner of the Acton plant which also makes airplanes and dirigibles. I suppose the success of their invention would be affected by yours, Mr. Swift, so he tried to keep you from going on by refusing money. I don’t know that he urged my husband on actually to damage your sky train, Mr. Swift, but you can inquire about that.”
“I shall,” said Tom sternly. “I wouldn’t put it past Willam to do a thing like that. But I am going to forgive and forget as far as your husband is concerned, Mrs. Daniel—I mean Davis. I can realize what he went through—losing his business. But I want to say I had no idea, in going into the making of airplane parts, as I did, that I was killing off a small competitor! I wouldn’t do that for the world! Why didn’t your husband ask me to buy him out at a fair price?”
“Too proud, I suppose,” was the weary answer.
“Well, I’d have done it, and taken him on, too,” said Tom. “It isn’t too late yet. There were some things the Davis concern made that we haven’t been able successfully to duplicate. I think I can promise you happier times from now on, Mrs. Davis. The doctors say your husband will soon recover from this—indisposition. And then——”
“Then,” broke in Mary, “I am going to have something to say about this little fellow’s eyes; mayn’t I?” she asked the weeping mother as she took Davy into her arms.
Mrs. Davis did not answer, but she clasped Mary’s hand in a way that said more than words.
“Well,” said Tom with a shake of his shoulders when he and his wife had left, “I’m glad that’s over. Poor Daniel Davis! What happened to him explains a lot. But it doesn’t explain Willam’s actions! I’ve got it in for that bird! I’ll show him!”
“Oh, Tom, you won’t fight, will you?” Mary clasped his arm.
“I’ll fight him with my sky train!” cried Tom Swift. “I’ll beat him and his Acton concern! I’ll fly out to the coast and take that prize! That will be the best way of getting square with such a man—hit him in his softest place—his pocketbook! Mary, a lot of things are going to happen soon!”
They began the very next day. Never had the Swift plant been busier.
After making arrangements to have Daniel Davis cared for, and starting negotiations looking to having his son’s eyes operated on, Tom bent all his energies to getting his sky train in shape for a cross-country flight, to drop off gliders at Chicago and Denver, and pick up “cars” at the same cities. He had word from the World Exposition managers that the Silver Cloud had arrived, and the advent of his sky train was eagerly awaited.
Then, two weeks after the successful “dress rehearsal,” Tom Swift, early one morning, stood once more in the cabin of the Eagle. This time his wife was not going with him, but Mr. Damon was, likewise Ned, and several assistants, including Koku.
“Koku will be an exhibit all by himself,” said Ned, laughing.
The gliders and planes had been sent to Chicago and Denver and waited at the airports of those cities. The sky train, with a string of gliders, and many passengers, many of whom paid for the ride, was all ready to start on the prize trip. Tom looked out of the door, waved to Mary and his father, called a cheerful word to faithful, black Eradicate and then, after a quick glance at the registering instruments, and at the lights indicating that all the couplers were in order, he closed the portal, gave the signal to the Eagle pilots and called:
“We’re off for the coast!”