Tom Swift Among the Fire Fighters; Or, Battling with Flames from the Air

by Victor Appleton

  CHAPTER XIV

  OUT OF THE CLOUDS

  Almost as though some giant hand had dropped an immense cloak over thefire in the barn, so did the blaze die down instantly after Tom Swift'sextinguishing liquid had been dropped into the seething caldron offlame. For a moment there was even no smoke, but as the embers remainedhot and glowing for a time, though the flames themselves were quenched,a rolling vapor cloud began to ascend shortly after the first cessationof the fire. But this only lasted a little while.

  "You've turned the trick, Tom!" cried Ned, leaning far over to look atwhat was left of the barn and its contents.

  "Bless my insurance policy, I should say so!" exclaimed Mr. Damon. "Itwas certainly neat work, Tom!"

  "It does look as if I'd struck the right combination," admitted Tom,and he felt justifiable pride in his achievement.

  "Look so! Why, hang it all, man, it is so!" declared Ned. "That firewent out as if sent for by a special delivery telegram to give ahurry-up performance in another locality. Look, there's hardly anysmoke even!"

  This was so, as the three occupants of the rapidly moving airship couldsee when Tom circled back to pass again over the almost destroyedstructure. He had waited until it was almost consumed before droppinghis chemicals, as he wished to make the test hard and conclusive. Nowthe fire was out except for a few small spots spouting up here andthere, away from the center of the blaze.

  "Yes, I guess she doesn't need a second dose," observed Tom, when hesaw how effective had been his treatment of the fire. "I had anadditional batch of chemicals on hand, in case they were needed," headded, and he tapped some unused bombs at his feet.

  "I call this a pretty satisfactory test," declared Ned. "If you want toform a stock company, Tom, and put your aerial fire-fighting apparatuson the market, I'll guarantee to underwrite the securities."

  "Hardly that yet," said Tom, with a laugh. "Now that I have my chemicalcombination perfected, or practically so, I've got to rig up an airshipthat will be especially adapted for fighting fires in sky-scrapers."

  "What more do you want than this?" asked Ned, as his chum prepared todescend in the speedy machine.

  "I want a little better bomb-releasing device, for one thing. Thisworked all right. But I want one that is more nearly automatic. Then Iam going to put on a searchlight, so I can see where I am heading atnight."

  "Not your great big one!" cried Ned, recalling the immense electriclantern that had so aided in capturing the Canadian smugglers.

  "No. But one patterned after that." Tom answered.

  "Bless my candlestick!" exclaimed Mr. Damon, "what do you want with asearchlight at a fire, Tom? Isn't there light enough at a blaze,anyhow?"

  "No," answered the young inventor, as he made his usual skillfullanding. "You know all the big city fire departments have searchlightsnow for night work and where there is thick smoke. It may be that someday, in fighting a sky-scraper blaze from the clouds at night, I'llhave need of more illumination than comes from the flames themselves."

  "Well, you ought to know. You've made a study of it," said Mr. Damon,as he and Ned alighted with Tom, the latter receiving congratulationsfrom a number of his friends, including members of the Shopton firedepartment who were present to witness the test.

  "Mighty clever piece of work, Tom Swift!" declared a deputy chief. "Ofcourse we won't have much use for any such apparatus here in Shopton,as we haven't any big buildings. But in New York, Chicago, Pittsburghand other cities--why, it will be just what they need, to my way ofthinking."

  "And he needn't go so far from home," said Mr. Damon. "There is onetall building over in Newmarket--the Landmark. I happen to own a littlestock in the corporation that put that up, along with other buildings,and I'm going to have them adopt Tom Swift's aerial fire-fightingapparatus."

  "Thank you. But you don't need to go to that trouble," asserted Tom."My idea isn't to have every sky-scraper equipped with an airshipextinguisher."

  "No? What then?" asked Mr. Damon.

  "Well, I think there ought to be one, or perhaps two, in a big citylike New York," Tom answered. "Perhaps one outfit would be enough, forit isn't likely that there would be two big fires in the tall buildingsection at the same time, and an airship could easily cover thedistance between two widely separated blazes. But if I can perfectthis machine so it will be available for fires out of the reach ofapparatus on the ground, I'll be satisfied."

  "You'll do it, Tom, don't worry about that!" declared the deputy chief."I never saw a slicker piece of work than this!"

  And that was the verdict of all who had witnessed the performance.

  With the successful completion of this exacting test and theknowledge that he had perfected the major part of his aerialfire-extinguisher--the chemical combination--Tom Swift was now able todevote his attention to the "frills" as Ned called them. That is, hecould work out a scheme for attaching a searchlight to his airship andmake better arrangements for a one-man control in releasing thechemical containers into the heart of a big blaze.

  Tom Swift owned several airships, and he finally selected one of nottoo great size, but very powerful, that would hold three and, ifnecessary, four persons. This was rebuilt to enable a considerablequantity of the fire-extinguishing liquid to be stored in the underpart of the somewhat limited cockpit.

  This much done, and while his men were making up a quantity of theextinguisher, using the secret formula, and storing it in suitablecontainers, Tom began attaching a searchlight to his "cloudfire-engine," as Koku called it.

  The giant was aching to be with Tom and help in the new work, but Kokuwas faithful to the blinded Eradicate, and remained almost constantlywith the old colored man.

  It was touching to see the two together, the giant trying, in his kind,but imperfect way, to anticipate the wishes of the other, with whom hehad so often disputed and quarreled in days past. Now all that wasforgotten, and Koku gave up being with Tom to wait on Eradicate.

  While the colored man was, in fact, unable to see, following theaccident when Tom was experimenting with the fire extinguisher, it washoped that sight might be restored to one eye after an operation. Thisoperation had to be postponed until the eyes and wounds in the facewere sufficiently healed.

  Meanwhile Rad suffered as patiently as possible, and Koku shared hisloneliness in the sick room. Tom came to see Rad as often as he could,and did everything possible to make his aged servant's lot happier. ButRad wanted to be up and about, and it was pathetic to hear him askabout the little tasks he had been wont to perform in the past.

  Rad was delighted to hear of Tom's success with the new apparatus,after having been told how quickly the barn fire was put out.

  "Yo'--yo' jest wait twell I gits up, Massa Tom," said Rad. "Den Ah'llhelp make all de contraptions on de airship."

  "All right, Rad, there'll be plenty for you to do when the time comes,"said the inventor. And he could not help a feeling of sadness as heleft the colored man's room.

  "I wonder if he is doomed to be blind the rest of his life," thoughtTom. "I hope not, for if he does it will be my fault for letting himtry to mix those chemicals."

  But, hoping for the best, Tom plunged into the work ahead of him. Hedid not want to offer his aerial fire extinguisher to any large cityuntil he had perfected it, and he was now laboring to that end.

  One day, in midsummer, after weary days of toil, Tom took Ned out for aride in the machine which had been fitted up to carry a large supply ofthe chemical mixture, a small but powerful searchlight, and other new"wrinkles" as Tom called them, not going into details.

  "Any special object in view?" asked Ned, as Tom headed across country."Are you going to put out any more tree fires?"

  "No, I haven't that in mind," was the answer. "Though of course if wecome across a blaze, except a brush fire, I may put it out. I have thebombs here," and Tom indicated the releasing lever.

  "What I want to try now is the stability of this with all I have onboard," he resumed. "If she is able to travel alon
g, and behave as wellas she did before I made the changes, I'll know she is going to be allright. I don't expect to put out any fires this trip."

  In testing the ship of the air Tom sent her up to a good height,heading out over the open country and toward a lake on the shores ofwhich were a number of summer resorts. It was now the middle of theseason, and many campers, cottagers and hotel folk were scattered aboutthe wooded shore of the pretty and attractive body of water.

  Tom and Ned had a glimpse of the lake, dotted with many motor boats andother craft, as the airship ascended until it was above the clouds.Then, for a time, nothing could be seen by the occupants but masses offeathery vapor.

  "She's working all right," decided Tom, when he found that he couldperform his usual aerial feats with his craft, laden as she was withapparatus, as well as he had been able to do before she was soburdened. "Guess we might as well go down, Ned. There isn't much moreto do, as far as I can see."

  Down out of the heights they swept at a rapid pace. A few moments laterthey had burst through the film of clouds and once more the lake wasbelow them in clear view.

  Suddenly Ned pointed to something on the water and cried:

  "Look, Tom! Look! A motor boat in some kind of trouble! She's sinking!"