But he did not finish the sentence. Suddenly from the air above them came a curious whirring, throbbing noise. Tom sat up with a jump! He and Ned gazed toward the zenith. The noise increased and, a moment later, there came into view a big airship, sailing right over their heads.
“Look at that!” cried Tom.
“Hush! They’ll hear you,” cautioned Ned.
“Nonsense! They’re too high up,” was Tom’s reply. “Mr. Damon, bring me the big binoculars, please!” he called.
“Bless my spectacles, what’s up?” asked the odd gentleman as he ran with the glasses toward Tom.
Our hero focused them on the airship that was swiftly sailing across the open space in the wilderness but so high up that there was no danger of our friends being recognized. Then the young inventor uttered a cry of astonishment.
“It’s Andy Foger!” he cried. “He’s in that airship, and he’s got two men with him. Andy Foger, and it’s a new biplane. Say, maybe that’s the new clue Mr. Whitford wired me about. We must get ready for action! Andy in a new airship means business, and from the whiteness of the canvas planes, I should say that craft was on its first trip.”
CHAPTER XII
WARNED AWAY
“Tom, are you sure it’s Andy?”
“Take a look yourself,” replied the young inventor, passing his chum the binoculars.
“Bless my bottle of ink!” cried Mr. Damon. “Is it possible?”
“Quick, Ned, or you’ll miss him!” cried Tom.
The young bank clerk focused the glasses on the rapidly moving airship, and, a moment later, exclaimed:
“Yes, that’s Andy all right, but I don’t know who the men are with him.”
“I couldn’t recognize them, either,” announced Tom. “But say, Ned, Andy’s got a good deal better airship than he had before.”
“Yes. This isn’t his old one fixed over. I don’t believe he ever intended to repair the old one. That hiring of Mr. Dillon to do that, was only to throw him, and us, too, off the track.”
Ned passed the glasses to Mr. Damon, who was just in time to get a glimpse of the three occupants of Andy’s craft before it passed out of sight over the trees.
“I believe you’re right,” said Tom to his chum. “And did you notice that there’s quite a body, or car, to that craft?”
“Yes, room enough to carry considerable goods,” commented Ned. “I wonder where he’s going in it?”
“To Logansville, most likely. I tell you what it is, Ned. I think one of us will have to go there, and see if Mr. Whitford has arrived. He may be looking for us. I’m not sure but what we ought not to have done this first. He may think we have not come, or have met with some accident.”
“I guess you’re right, Tom. But how shall we go? It isn’t going to be any fun to tramp through those woods,” and Ned glanced at the wilderness that surrounded the little glade where they had been camping.
“No, and I’ve about concluded that we might as well risk it, and go in the airship. Mr. Whitford has had time enough to work up his clue, I guess, and Andy will be sure to find out, sooner or later, that we are in the neighborhood. I say let’s start for Logansville.”
Ned and Mr. Damon agreed with this and soon they were prepared to move.
“Where will you find Mr. Whitford?” asked Ned of his chum, as the Falcon arose in the air.
“At the post-office. That’s where we arranged to meet. There is a sort of local custom house there, I believe.”
Straight over the forest flew Tom Swift and his airship, with the great searchlight housed on top. They delayed their start until the other craft had had a chance to get well ahead, and they were well up in the air; there was no sight of the biplane in which Andy had sailed over their heads a short time before.
“Where are you going to land?” asked Ned, as they came in view of the town.
“The best place I can pick out,” answered Tom. “Just on the outskirts of the place, I think. I don’t want to go down right in the centre, as there’ll be such a crowd. Yet if Andy has been using his airship here the people must be more or less used to seeing them.”
But if the populace of Logansville had been in the habit of having Andy Foger sail over their heads, still they were enough interested in a new craft to crowd around when Tom dropped into a field near some outlying houses. In a moment the airship was surrounded by a crowd of women and children, and there would probably been a lot of men, but for the fact that they were away at work. Tom had come down in a residential section.
“Say, that’s a beauty!” cried one boy.
“Let’s see if they’ll let us go on!” proposed another.
“We’re going to have our own troubles,” said Tom to his chum. “I guess I’ll go into town, and leave the rest of you on guard here. Keep everybody off, if you have to string mildly charged electrical wires about the rail.”
But there was no need to take this precaution, for, just as the combined juvenile population of that part of Logansville was prepared to storm, and board the Falcon, Koku appeared on deck.
“Oh, look at the giant!”
“Say, this is a circus airship?”
“Wow! Ain’t he big!”
“I’ll bet he could lift a house!”
These and other expressions came from the boys and girls about the airship. The women looked on open-mouthed, and murmurs of surprise and admiration at Koku’s size came from a number of men who had hastily run up.
Koku stepped from the airship to the ground, and at once every boy and girl made a bee-line for safety.
“That will do the trick!” exclaimed Tom with a laugh. “Koku, just pull up a few trees, and look as fierce as Bluebeard, and I guess we won’t be troubled with curiosity seekers. You can guard the airship, Koku, better than electric wires.”
“I fix ’em!” exclaimed the giant, and he tried to look fierce, but it was hard work, for he was very good natured. But he proved a greater attraction than the aircraft, and Tom was glad of it, for he did not like meddlers aboard.
“With Koku to help you, and Mr. Damon to bless things. I guess you can manage until I come back, Ned,” said the young inventor, as he made ready to go in to town to see if Mr. Whitford had arrived.
“Oh, we’ll get along all right,” declared Ned. “Don’t worry.”
Tom found Mr. Whitford in one of the rooms over the post-office. The custom house official was restlessly pacing the floor.
“Well, Tom!” he exclaimed, shaking hands, “I’m glad to see you. I was afraid something had happened. I was delayed myself, but when I did arrive and found you hadn’t been heard from, I didn’t know what to think. I couldn’t get you on the wireless. The plant here is out of repair.”
Tom told of their trip, and the wait they had decided on, and asked:
“What about the new clue; the Fogers?”
“I’m sorry to say it didn’t amount to anything. I ran it down, and came to nothing.”
“You know Andy has a new airship?”
“Yes. I had men on the trail of it. They say Andy is agent for a firm that manufactures them, but I have my doubts. I haven’t given up yet. But say, Tom, you’ve got to get busy. A big lot of goods was smuggled over last night.”
“Where?”
“Well, quite a way from here. I got a telegram about it. Can you get on the job tonight, and do some patrol work along the border? You’re only half a mile from it now. Over there is Canada,” and he pointed to a town on a hill opposite Logansville.
“Yes, I can get right into action. What place is that?”
“Montford, Canada. I’ve got men planted there, and the Dominion customs officials are helping us. But I think the smugglers have changed the base of their operations for the time being. If I were you I’d head for the St. Lawrence tonight.”
“I will. Don’t you want to come along?”
“Why, yes. I believe I’m game. I’ll join you later in the day,” Mr. Whitford added, as Tom told him where the Fal
con was anchored.
The young inventor got back to find a bigger crowd than ever around his airship. But Koku and the others had kept them at a distance.
With the government agent aboard Tom sent his craft into the air at dusk, the crowd cheering lustily. Then, with her nose pointed toward the St. Lawrence, the Falcon was on her way to do a night patrol, and, if possible, detect the smugglers.
It was monotonous work, and unprofitable, for, though Tom sent the airship back and forth for many miles along the wonderful river that formed the path from the Great Lakes to the sea, he had no glimpse of ghostly wings of other aircraft, nor did he hear the beat of propellers, nor the throb of motors, as his own noiseless airship cruised along.
It came on to rain after midnight, and a mist crept down from the clouds, so that even with the great searchlight flashing its powerful beams, it was difficult to see for any great distance.
“Better give it up, I guess,” suggested Mr. Whitford toward morning, when they had covered many miles, and had turned back toward Logansville.
“All right,” agreed Tom. “But we’ll try it again tomorrow night.”
He dropped his craft at the anchorage he had selected in the gray dawn of the morning. All on board were tired and sleepy. Ned, looking from a window of the cabin, as the Falcon came to a stop, saw something white on the ground.
“I wonder what that is?” he said as he hurried out to pick it up. It was a large white envelope, addressed to Tom Swift, and the name was in printed characters.
“Somebody who wants to disguise their writing,” remarked Tom, as he tore it open. A look of surprise came over his face.
“Look here! Mr. Whitford,” he cried. “This is the work of the smugglers all right!”
For, staring at Tom, in big printed letters, on a white sheet of paper, was this message:
“If you know what is good for you, Tom Swift, you had better clear out. If you don’t your airship will burned, and you may get hurt. We’ll burn you in mid-air. Beware and quit. You can’t catch us.”
“The Committee of Three.”
“Ha! Warned away!” cried Tom. “Well, it will take more than this to make me give up!” and he crumpled the anonymous warning in his hand.
CHAPTER XIII
KOKU SAVES THE LIGHT
“Don’t do that!” cried Mr. Whitford.
“What?” asked Tom, in some surprise.
“Don’t destroy that letter. It may give us a clue. Let me have it. I’ll put a man at work on that end of this game.”
“Bless my checkerboard!” cried Mr. Damon. “This game has so many ends that you don’t know where to begin to play it.”
The government man smoothed out the crumpled piece of paper, and looked at it carefully, and also gazed at the envelope.
“It’s pretty hard to identify plain print, done with a lead pencil,” he murmured. “And this didn’t came through the mail.”
“I wonder how it got here?” mused Ned. “Maybe some of the crowd that was here when we started off dropped it for the smugglers. Maybe the smugglers were in that crowd!”
“Let’s take a look outside,” suggested Mr. Whitford. “We may be able to pick up a clue there.”
Although our friends were tired and sleepy, and hungry as well, they forgot all this in the desire to learn more about the mysterious warning that had come to them during the night. They all went outside, and Ned pointed to where he had picked up the envelope.
“Look all around, and see if you can find anything more,” directed the custom agent.
“Footprints won’t count,” said Tom. “There was a regular circus crowd out here yesterday.”
“I’m not looking for footprints,” replied Mr. Whitford, “I have an idea—”
“Here’s something!” interrupted Mr. Damon. “It looks like a lead weight for a deep-sea fishing line. Bless my reel. No one could do fishing here.”
“Let me see that!” exclaimed Mr. Whitford eagerly. Then, as he looked at it, he uttered a cry of delight. “I thought so,” he said. “Look at this bit of cord tied to the weight.”
“What does that signify?” asked Tom.
“And see this little hole in the envelope, or, rather a place that was a hole, but it’s torn away now.”
“I’m not much the wiser,” confessed Ned, with a puzzled look.
“Why, it’s as plain as print,” declared the government agent. “This warning letter was dropped from an airship, Tom.”
“From an airship?”
“Yes. They sailed right over this place, and let the letter fall, with this lead weight attached, to bring it to earth just where they wanted it to fall.”
“Bless my postage stamp!” cried Mr. Damon. “I never heard of such a thing.”
“I see it now!” exclaimed Tom. “While we were off over the river, watching for the smugglers, they were turning a trick here, and giving us a warning into the bargain. We should have stayed around here. I wonder if it was Andy’s airship that was used?”
“We can easily find that out,” said Mr. Whitford. “I have a detective stationed in a house not far from where the Fogers live. Andy came back from Shopton yesterday, just before you arrived here, and I can soon let you know whether he was out last night. I’ll take this letter with me, and get right up to my office, though I’m afraid this won’t be much of a clue after all. Print isn’t like handwriting for evidence.”
“And to think they sailed right over this place, and we weren’t home,” mourned Tom. “It makes me mad!”
But there was no use in regretting what had happened, and, after a hot breakfast in the airship, with Mr. Damon presiding at the electrical stove, they all felt more hopeful. Mr. Whitford left for his office, promising to send word to Tom as to whether or not Andy was abroad in the airship during the night.
“I wonder if that ‘Committee of Three’ is Andy and these two fellows with him in the airship?” asked Ned.
“Hard telling,” responded his chum. “Now for a good sleep. Koku, keep the crowd away while we have a rest,” for the giant had indulged in a good rest while the airship was on patrol during the night.
Not so much of a crowd came out as on the first day, and Koku had little trouble in keeping them far enough away so that Tom and the others could get some rest. Koku walked about, brandishing a big club, and looking as fierce as a giant in a fairy tale. It was afternoon when a message came from Mr. Whitford to the effect that Andy’s airship was not out the previous night, and that so far no clues had developed from the letter, or from any other source.
“We’ll just have to keep our eyes open,” wrote Mr. Whitford. “I think perhaps we are altogether wrong about the Fogers, unless they are deeper than I give them credit for. It might be well to let the smugglers think you are frightened, and go away for a day or so, selecting a more secluded spot to remain in. That may cause them to get bolder, and we may catch them unawares.”
“That’s a good plan. I’ll try it,” decided Tom. “We’ll move tomorrow to a new location.”
“Why not tonight?” asked Ned.
“Because it’s getting late, and I want to circle about in daylight and pick out a good place. Morning will do all right.”
“Then you’re not going out tonight?”
“No. Mr. Whitford writes that as goods were smuggled over last night it will hardly be likely that they will repeat the trick tonight. We’ll have a little rest.”
“Going to mount guard?” asked Ned.
“No, I don’t think so. No one will disturb us.”
Afterward the young inventor wished that he had kept a better watch that night, for it nearly proved disastrous for him.
It must have been about midnight that Tom was awakened by a movement in the airship.
“Who’s that?” he asked suddenly.
“Koku,” came the reassuring reply. “Too hot to sleep in my bunk. I go out on deck.”
“All right, Koku,” and Tom dozed off again.
Suddenly
he was awakened by the sound of a terrific scuffle on deck. Up he jumped, rushing toward the door that led from his sleeping cabin.
“What is it! What’s the matter!” he cried.
There came the sound of a blow, a cry of pain, and then the report of a gun.
“Bless my cartridge belt!” cried Mr. Damon.
“What’s the matter? Who is it? What happened?” yelled Ned, tumbling out of his bunk.
“Something wrong!” answered Tom, as he switched on the electric lights. He was just in time to see Koku wrench a gun from a man who stood near the pedestal, on which the great searchlight was poised. Tossing the weapon aside, Koku caught up his club, and aimed a blow at the man. But the latter nimbly dodged and, a moment later leaped over the rail, followed by the giant.
“Who is he? What did he do?” cried Tom after his big servant. “What happened?”
“Him try to shoot searchlight, but I stop him!” yelled back Koku, as he rushed on in pursuit. With a leap Tom sprang to the switch of his lantern, and sent a flood of light toward where Koku was racing after the intruder.
CHAPTER XIV
A FALSE CLEW
Full in the glare of the powerful beam from the light there was revealed the giant and the man he was pursuing. The latter neither Tom, nor any one on the airship, knew. All they could see was that he was racing away at top speed, with Koku vainly swinging his club at him.
“Bless my chicken soup!” cried Mr. Damon. “Is anything damaged, Tom?”
“No, Koku was too quick for him.” yelled the youth, as he, too leaped over the rail and joined in the pursuit.
“Stop! Stop!” called Koku to the man who had sought to damage the great searchlight. But the fellow knew better than to halt, with an angry giant so close behind him. He ran on faster than ever.
Suddenly the stranger seemed to realize that by keeping in the path of the light he gave his pursuers a great advantage. He dodged to one side, off the path on which he had been running, and plunged into the bushes.
“Where him go?” called Koku, coming to a puzzled halt.
“Ned, play the light on both sides!” ordered Tom to his chum, who was now on the deck of the airship, near the wheels and levers that operated the big lantern. “Show him up!”
The Tom Swift Megapack Page 185
