Chapter 25 Tom Swift and His Sky Train by Victor Appleton
PORT AT LAST
Almost as suddenly as it had come up, the terrible storm began to subside. What had really happened was that the sky train ran into a cloudburst and ran out of it again. Probably the cyclonic blast remained centred over that particular part of the Rockies.
But toward the end, when at the outer edge of the raging storm, the Eagle was so suddenly whirled around and sideways that, for one awful moment, Tom feared she would tear loose from all the gliders. He looked at the stress and strain indicators, which were in the motor compartment and which showed the state of every coupler. One, between the second and third gliders seemed about to crack, but it held, and then, suddenly, the worst was over. But it took all Tom Swift’s skill to pilot his sky train safely out.
Emerging from the black clouds into the sunshine of a calm region west of the Rockies was a great surprise and relief to all on board.
“It’s like coming out of a terrible night into a glorious morning, Mr. Swift,” said one man, rather poetically inclined.
“Well, it isn’t exactly morning,” Tom remarked when he had turned the control of the Eagle over to his pilots again and had returned to the cabin. “For this is afternoon and, if we have luck, we ought, soon, to be in port.”
“You mean San Francisco?” asked a reporter.
“Yes.”
“Good news! I’ll wire my paper we’re coming,” for he was on one of the Golden Gate papers.
“And ask them to let us know if the Dirigible Flyer is in,” suggested Tom. “I had a glimpse of her through the storm. She was ahead of us and——”
“Ahead of us?” gasped Ned.
“Yes,” Tom assented. “I’m afraid we’re beaten, old man!”
“Whew!” There was a worried look on Ned’s face as he whistled. He knew, better than Tom, how desperate were their finances.
“Well, we can’t have everything,” said Tom with half a smile. “At least my sky train has proved it can go through a terrible storm. We have also proved that we can drop gliders and pick them up at full speed and when I form the stock company to exploit my train the shares will go like hot cakes. We’ll have plenty of money after a while, Ned.”
“We need it now, Tom. That prize——” But Ned could not go on. He was too downhearted.
Several of the news men sent dispatches to their papers telling of the approach of the sky train toward the San Francisco airport. And the one Tom had asked to obtain, if possible, some word of the Dirigible Flyer, said:
“She hasn’t landed nor been heard of yet!”
“Wow!” cried Ned, his spirits suddenly reviving.
“Then we still have a chance!” exclaimed Tom, scanning the horizon for a sight of his rival. “Full speed ahead!” he ordered the pilots, and the sky train roared on faster than ever.
It was soon after this, toward late afternoon, and about fifteen hours from the time of leaving Shopton, that through the motor room telephone came the welcome announcement:
“San Francisco just ahead, Mr. Swift!”
“That’s good news. Now I plan to let each glider off before we go down. So watch everything!”
“O.K.!”
A little later the sky train was circling the San Francisco landing field, just outside the ground of the World Exposition. Word of the approach of the sensational sky flyer had been received and an immense crowd, that taxed the police to the utmost, had gathered.
“Drop the tail glider!” Tom ordered, letting Mr. Jackson take charge of the magnetic coupler controls, while he and Ned looked down on the field below.
A moment later the first glider went gracefully down. It was greeted with a roar of cheers. In turn the other four made successful landings and then, after a few more circles of the field the Eagle was landed. As it slowly taxied to a stop the crowd broke through the police lines and fairly swarmed over and into the craft. Some one recognized Tom Swift and, a moment later, he was fairly torn from the cabin and triumphantly carried on the shoulders of many men to the hangar office of the World Exposition management.
“Here you are, Mr. Swift. Right into this mike!” pleaded one man whose clothes were nearly torn off him in his fight to get through the crowd to hold the microphone in front of the young inventor. “Say just a few words—this is the Universal Broadcaster Company—the whole world is on the hook-up. Tell them how you succeeded.”
“But have I succeeded?” gasped Tom, trying to compose himself after some rather enthusiastic but rough handling. “What about the Dirigible Flyer? Did I beat her?”
“Did you beat her? I should say you did!” cried an Exposition official. “You win the prize, Mr. Swift!”
“Oh, boy! Somebody hold me!” murmured Ned.
“What became of the dirigible?” asked Tom. He was anxious lest something serious might have happened—perhaps lives might have been lost. But he was soon reassured.
“The Dirigible Flyer was forced down to a safe landing soon after crossing the Rockies, Mr. Swift,” an official said. “Nobody hurt but she doesn’t win the twenty-five thousand dollars. You do! The check is waiting for you.”
“Oh, sweet words!” murmured Ned. “Where can I get an ice cream soda?”
By this time Tom was speaking into the microphone, telling a waiting world, briefly, what had happened. And then, while the first passengers ever to cross the continent in a sky train were dispersing to their destinations, and when newspapers all over the land were printing accounts of the epochal journey, Tom managed to get away to have a long distance telephone talk with his wife.
“And tell dad,” he begged Mary, after greeting her and narrating his successful fight through the storm, “that everything is fine.”
“I will, Tom. When are you coming home?”
“As soon as I can, after putting the sky train on exhibition.”
That World Exposition was a sensation. Never had so many craft of the air been shown. Eventually the Dirigible Flyer came on and was put on view. Her pilots were sportsmen enough to openly congratulate Tom Swift. But aside from the Silver Cloud the centre of all attraction was Tom Swift’s sky train.
Even before the exposition was formally opened, the success of the venture became known and Tom and Ned received many orders for duplicate outfits, while the sale of the world rights was put at a sum sufficient to clear off all the Swift plant debts and leave a big margin.
“Well, my worries are over now,” Ned remarked when, after spending a week in San Francisco, during which Tom had been honored to the limit. “We’ve got all the cash we need.”
“And most of my worries are over, now that my sky train is a success,” said Tom.
“Why, what other worries have you?” asked Ned.
“I want to mend little Davy’s eyes,” was the answer.
Leaving his sky train on exhibition, in charge of Ned and Mr. Jackson, Tom took a plane for Shopton, arriving safely after an uneventful trip. On the way he stopped at Denver and Chicago to make arrangements about having stations located there for his sky train, as he was now planning regular trans-continental trips.
“Oh, Tom, you’re just wonderful!” murmured Mary as she greeted him.
“So are you!” he answered, softly. “And what about little Davy?”
“I’m sure everything is going to be all right there. Mr. Davis is much better, and so sorry and ashamed for what he tried to do to you, Tom. But he really doesn’t remember much about it. I think he must have been sort of insane from the very first—I mean soon after he lost his business, knew his boy was going blind and came to work for you.”
“Probably,” Tom agreed. “It was then that Willam took advantage of him, using him for his own ends to hamper me so the Acton outfit might get ahead. But I beat ’em, just as I said I would!”
Later Tom saw Daniel Davis, extending his forgiveness and got from the man a full account of what had happened.
Davis admitted that it was he who had tried to break in the Eagle hangar the night Koku summoned Tom. Davis had also been the rider in the car that nearly collided with Tom’s. The man was hurrying to see Willam about hampering Tom’s work. And it was Davis who had tampered with the couplings to cause the gliders to fall twice. He had saved himself once with the parachute. And the snarling refusal of Davis to first accept Tom’s aid in saving Davy’s eyes was because the unfortunate man’s conscience was troubling him for what he had done against the young inventor.
“I never knew I was crowding you to the wall, Davis, in going into the manufacture of aircraft accessories,” Tom said. “But we’ll fix all that up. What is more important, will you let me help you in financing the operation on your boy’s eyes?”
“Gladly, Mr. Swift! Oh, what a fool I’ve been!”
“Forget that. And will you take your old job back?”
“If you’ll give it to me?”
“It’s waiting for you,” said Tom, simply. “And now we’ll go see about this operation.”
It was a delicate one, and risky, but the skillful surgeon performed it successfully and now Davy never need fear going blind.
“Oh, I am so happy!” murmured Mrs. Davis.
“So am I!” said Mary.
Mr. and Mrs. Davis tried to thank Tom Swift, but he pretended to be too busy to listen.
“I’ve got to go down to the bank to make a deposit,” he said.
As Tom was handing the checks in at the receiving teller’s window, the door of the president’s private office opened and Mr. Willam came out. It needed but a glance to show him what Tom was doing. And then he proved himself a bigger man than he was supposed to be.
“Mr. Swift,” he said, holding out his hand, “I want to congratulate you and say how sorry I am for what happened. It was a matter of business on my part to beat your sky train, if I could. I was a big holder of Acton stock, and perhaps I didn’t play as fair as I should. But I want you to know I never urged Davis to any desperate acts against you. I only told him to use decent means to hamper you.”
“Yes, I know, Mr. Willam. I know you had nothing to do with the acid business nor with Davis trying to attack me. It may have been legitimate business for you to try and hold me back as you did—but I beat you out!”
“Yes, Mr. Swift, you did! I’m out of the Acton concern now. And if you should happen to want a loan——”
“Thanks,” interrupted Tom, dryly, “but we have all the money we need now.”
“But if you should need it in the future,” Mr. Willam insisted, “come to me. I suppose you will be turning out something new, soon, at that plant of yours.”
“Maybe,” said Tom. “You never can tell.”
THE END