The Tom Swift Megapack

by Victor Appleton

  “Indians no come for one sol, mebby not for two,” he said. “I no can git.”

  “Then I’ll try!” cried Job. “I’ll get the workers. I’ll make our old ones come back, for they’ll be the best.”

  Accompanied by his brother and Tom he went to the various Indian villages, including the one whence most of the men now on strike had come. The fifteen missing ones were not found, though, as before, their relatives, and, in some cases, their families, did not seem alarmed. But the men who had gone on strike were found lolling about their cabins and huts, smoking and taking their ease, and no amount of persuasion could induce them to return.

  Some of them said they had worked long enough and were tired, needing a rest. Others declared they had money enough and did not want more. Even two more sols a week would not induce them to return.

  And many were frankly afraid. They said so, declaring that if they went back to the tunnel some unknown devil might carry them off under the earth.

  Job Titus and his brother, who could speak the language fairly well, tried to argue against this. They declared the tunnel was perfectly safe. But one native worker, who had been the best in the gang, asked:

  “Where um men go?”

  The contractors could not answer.

  “It’s a trick,” declared Walter. “Our rivals have induced the men to go on strike in order to hamper us with the work so they’ll get the job.”

  But the closest inquiry failed to prove this statement. If Blakeson & Grinder, or any of their agents, had a hand in the strike they covered their operations well. Though diligent inquiry was made, no trace of Waddington, or any other tool, could be found.

  Tom, who had some sort of suspicion of the bearded man on the steamer, tried to find him, even taking a trip in to Lima, but without avail.

  The tunnel work was at a standstill, for there was little use in setting off blasts if there were no men to remove the resulting piles of debris. So, though Tom was ready with some specially powerful explosive, he could not use it.

  Efforts were made to get laborers from another section of the country, but without effect. The contractors heard of a big force of Italians who had finished work on a railroad about a hundred miles away, and they were offered places in the tunnel. But they would not come.

  “Well, we may as well give up,” said Walter, despondently, to his brother one day. “We’ll never get the tunnel done on time now.”

  “We still have a margin of safety,” declared job. “If we could get the men inside of a couple of weeks, and if Tom’s new powder rips out more rock, we’ll finish in time.”

  “Yes, but there are too many ifs. We may as well admit we’ve failed.”

  “I’ll never do that!”

  “What will you do?”

  But Job did not know.

  “If we could git a gang of min from the ould sod—th’ kind I used t’ work wit in N’Yark,” said Tim Sullivan, “I’d show yez whot could be done! We’d make th’ rock fly!”

  But that efficient labor was out of the question now. The tunnel camp was a deserted place.

  “Come on, Koku, we’ll go hunting,” said Tom one day. “There’s no use hanging around here, and some venison wouldn’t go bad on the table.”

  “I’ll come, too,” said Mr. Damon. “I haven’t anything to do.”

  The Titus brothers had gone to a distant village, on the forlorn hope of getting laborers, so Tom was left to his own devices, and he decided to go hunting with his electric rifle.

  The taruco, or native deer, had been plentiful in the vicinity of the tunnel until the presence of so many men and the frequent blasts had driven them farther off, and it was not until after a tramp of several miles that Tom saw one. Then, after stalking it a little way, he managed to kill it with the electric rifle.

  Koku hoisted the animal to his big shoulders, and, as this would provide meat enough for some time, Tom started back for camp.

  As he and Mr. Damon, with Koku in the rear, passed through a little clearing, they saw, on the far side, a native hut. And from it rushed a woman, who approached Tom, casting herself on her knees, while she pressed his free hand to her head.

  “Bless my scarf pin!” exclaimed Mr. Damon. “What does this mean, Tom?”

  “Oh, this is the mother of the child I saved from the condor,” said Tom. “Every time she sees me she thanks me all over again. How is the baby?” he asked in the Indian tongue, for he was a fair master of it by now.

  “The baby is well. Will the mighty hunter permit himself to enter my miserable hovel and partake of some milk and cakes?”

  “What do you say, Mr. Damon?” Tom asked. “She’s clean and neat, and she makes a drink of goat’s milk that isn’t bad. She bakes some kind of meal cakes that are good, too. I’m hungry.”

  “All right, Tom, I’ll do as you say.”

  A little later they were partaking of a rude, but none the less welcome, lunch in the woman’s hut, while the baby whose life Tom had saved cooed in the rough log cradle.

  “Say, Masni,” asked Tom, addressing the woman by name, “don’t you know where we can get some men to work the tunnel?” Of course Tom spoke the Indian language, and he had to adapt himself to the comprehension of Masni.

  “Men no work tunnel?” she inquired.

  “No, they’ve all skipped out—vamoosed. Afraid of some spirit.”

  The woman looked around, as though in fear. Then she approached Tom closely and whispered:

  “No spirit in tunnel—bad man!”

  “What!” cried Tom, almost jumping off his stool. “What do you mean, Masni?”

  “Me tell mighty hunter,” she went on, lowering her voice still more. “My man he no want to tell, he ’fraid, but I tell. Mighty hunter save Vashni,” and she looked toward the baby. “Me help friends of mighty hunter. Bad man in tunnel—no spirit!

  “Men go. Spirit no take um—bad man take um.”

  “Where are they now?” asked Tom. “Jove, if I could find them the secret would be solved!”

  The woman looked fearfully around the hut and then whispered:

  “You come—me show!”

  “Bless my toothbrush!” cried Mr. Damon. “What is going to happen, Tom Swift?”

  “I don’t know,” was the answer, “but something sure is in the wind. I guess I shot better than I knew when I killed that condor.”

  CHAPTER XX

  DESPAIR

  Calling to a girl of about thirteen years to look after her baby, Masni slipped along up a rough mountain trail, motioning to Tom, Mr. Damon and Koku to follow. Or rather, the woman gave the sign to Tom, ignoring the others, who, naturally, would not be left behind. Masni seemed to have eyes for no one but the young inventor, and the manner in which she looked at him showed the deep gratitude she felt toward him for having saved her baby from the great condor.

  “Come,” she said, in her strange Indian tongue, which Tom could interpret well enough for himself now.

  “But where are we going, Masni?” he asked. “This isn’t the way to the tunnel.”

  “Me know. Not go to tunnel now,” was her answer. “Me show you men.”

  “But which men do you mean, Masni?” inquired Tom. “The lost men, or the bad ones, who are making trouble for us? Which men do you mean?”

  Masni only shook her head, and murmured: “Me show.”

  Probably Tom’s attempt to talk her language was not sufficiently clear to her.

  “My man—he good man,” she said, coming to a pause on the rough trail after a climb which was not easy.

  “Yes, I know he is,” Tom said. “But he went on a strike with the others, Masni. He no work. He go on a ‘hit,’ as Serato calls it,” and Tom laughed.

  “My man he good man—but he ’fraid,” said the wife. “He want to tell you of bad mans, but he ’fraid. You save my baby, I no ’fraid. I tell.”

  “Oh, I see,” said Tom. “Your husband would have given away the secret, only he’s afraid of the bad men. He likes me, t
oo?”

  “Sure!” Masni exclaimed. “He want tell, but ’fraid. He go ’way, I tell.”

  Tom was not quite sure what it all meant, but it seemed that after his slaying of the condor both parents were so filled with gratitude that they wanted to reveal some secret about the tunnel, only Masni’s husband was afraid. She, however, had been braver.

  “Something is going to happen,” said Tom Swift. “I feel it in my bones!”

  “Bless my porous plaster!” cried Mr. Damon. “I hope it isn’t anything serious.”

  “We’ll see,” Tom went on.

  They resumed their journey up the mountain trail. It wound in and out in a region none of them had before visited. Though it could not be far from the tunnel, it was almost a strange country to Tom.

  Suddenly Masni stopped in a narrow gorge where the walls of rock rose high on either hand. She seemed looking for something. Her sharp, black eyes scanned the cliff and then with an exclamation of satisfaction she approached a certain place. With a quick motion she pulled aside a mass of tangled vines, and disclosed a path leading down through a V shaped crack in the cliff.

  “Mans down there,” she said. “You go look.”

  For a moment Tom hesitated. Was this a trap? If he and his friends entered this narrow and dark opening might not the Indian woman roll down some rock back of them, cutting off forever the way of escape?

  Tom turned and looked at Masni. Then he was ashamed of his suspicion, for the honest black face, smiling at him, showed no trace of guile.

  “You go—you see lost men,” the woman urged.

  “Come on!” cried Tom. “I believe we’re on the track of the mystery!”

  He led the way, followed by Mr. Damon, while Koku came next and then Masni. It could be no trap since she entered it herself.

  The path widened, but not much. There was only room for one to walk at a time. The trail twisted and turned, and Tom was wondering how far it led, when, from behind him, came the cry of the woman:

  “Watch now—no fall down.”

  Tom halted around a sharp turn, and stood transfixed at the sight which met his gaze. He found himself looking out through a crack in the face of a sheer stone cliff that went straight down for a hundred feet or more to a green-carpeted valley.

  Tom was standing in a narrow cleft of rock—the same rock through which they had made their way. And at the foot of the cliff was a little encampment of Indians. There were a dozen huts, and wandering about them, or sitting in the shade, were a score or more of Indians.

  “There men from tunnel,” said Masni, and, as he looked, wondering, Tom saw some of the workers he knew. One especially, was a laborer who walked with a peculiar limp.

  “The missing men!” gasped the young inventor.

  “Bless my almanac!” cried Mr. Damon. “Where?”

  “Here,” answered Tom. “If you squeeze past me you can see them.”

  Mr. Damon did so.

  “How did they get here?” asked the odd man, as he looked down in the little valley where the missing ones were sequestered.

  “That’s what we’ve got to find out,” Tom said. “At any rate here they are, and they seem to be enjoying life while we’ve been worrying as to what had become of them. How did they get here, Masni?”

  “Me show you. Come.”

  “Wait until I take another look,” said Tom.

  “Be careful they don’t see you,” cautioned Mr. Damon.

  “They can’t very well. The cleft is screened by bushes.”

  Tom looked down once more on the group of men who had so mysteriously disappeared. The little valley stretched out away from the face of the cliff, through which, by means of the crack, or cleft in it, Tom and the others had come. Tom looked down the wall of rock. It was as smooth as the side of a building, and offered no means of getting down or up. Doubtless there was an easier entrance to the valley on the other side. It was like looking down into some vast hall through an upper window or from a balcony.

  “And those men have been in hiding, or been hidden here, ever since they disappeared from the tunnel,” said Mr. Damon.

  “It doesn’t look as though they were detained by force,” Tom remarked. “I think they are being paid to stay away. How did they get here, Masni?”

  “Me show you. Come!”

  They went back along the trail that led through the split in the rock, until they had come to the place where the natural curtain of vines concealed the entrance. Tom took particular notice of this place so he would know it again.

  Then Masni led them over the mountain, and this time Tom saw that they were approaching the tunnel. He recognized some places where he had taken samples of rock from the outcropping to test the strength of his explosive.

  Reaching a certain wild and desolate place, Masni made a signal of caution. She seemed to be listening intently. Then, as if satisfied there was no danger, she parted some bushes and glided in, motioning the others to follow.

  “Now I wonder what’s up,” Tom mused.

  He and the others were soon informed.

  Masni stopped in front of a pile of brush. With a few vigorous motions of her arms she swept it aside and revealed a smooth slab of rock. In the centre was what seemed to be a block of metal Masni placed her foot on this and pressed heavily.

  And those watching saw a strange thing.

  The slab of rock tilted to one side, as if on a pivot, revealing a square opening which seemed to lead through solid stone. And at the far end of the opening Tom Swift saw a glimmer of light.

  Stooping down, he looked through the hole thus strangely opened and what he saw caused him to cry out in wonder.

  “It’s the tunnel!” he cried. “I can look right down into the tunnel. It’s the incandescent lights I see. I can look right at the ledge of rock where I kept watch that day, and where I saw—where I saw the face of Waddington!” he cried. “It wasn’t a dream after all. This is a shaft connecting with the tunnel. We didn’t discover it because this rock fits right in the opening in the roof. It must have been there all the while, and some blast brought it to light. Is this how the men got out, or were taken out of the tunnel, Masni?” Tom asked.

  “This how,” said the Indian woman. “See, here rope!”

  She pawed aside a mound of earth, and disclosed a rope buried there, a rope knotted at intervals. This, let down through the hole in the roof of the tunnel, provided a means of escape, and in such a manner that the disappearance of the men was most mysterious.

  “I see how it is!” cried Tom. “Some one interested, Waddington probably, who knew about this old secret shaft going down into the earth, used it as soon as our blasting was opened that far. They got the men out this way, and hid them in the secret valley.”

  “But what for?” cried Mr. Damon.

  “To cripple us! To cause the strike by making our other workers afraid of some evil spirit! The men were taken away secretly, and, doubtless, have been kept in idleness ever since—paid to stay away so the mystery would be all the deeper. Our rivals finding they couldn’t stop us in any other way have taken our laborers away from us.”

  “Bless my meal ticket! It does look like that!” cried Mr. Damon.

  “Of course that’s the secret!” cried Tom. “Blakeson & Grinder, or some of their tools—probably the bearded man or Waddington—found out about this shaft which led down into our tunnel. They induced the first ten men to quit, and when Tim went to get the fuse the rope was let down, and the men climbed up here, one after the other. Those Indians can climb like cats. Once the ten were out the shaft was closed with the rock, and the ten men taken off to the valley to be secreted there.

  “The same was done with the next fifteen, and, I suppose, if the strike hadn’t come, more of our workers would have been induced to leave in this way. They’re probably being better paid than when earning their wages; and their relatives must know where they are, and also be given a bonus to keep still. No wonder they didn’t make a fuss.

&n
bsp; “And no wonder we couldn’t find any opening in the tunnel roof. This rock must fit in as smoothly as a secret drawer in the kind of old desk where missing wills are found in stories.”

  “You say you saw Waddington, or the bearded man?” asked Mr. Damon.

  “At the time,” replied Tom, “I thought it was a dream. Now I know it wasn’t. He must have opened the shaft just as I awakened from a doze. He saw me and closed it again. He may have been getting ready then to take off more of our men, so as to scare the others. Well, we’ve found out the trick.”

  “And what are you going to do next?” asked Mr. Damon.

  “Get those missing men back. That will break the hoodoo, and the others will come back to work. Then we’ll get on the trail of Waddington, or Blakeson & Grinder, and put a stop to this business. We know their secret now.”

  “You mean to get the men out of the secret valley, Tom?”

  “Yes. There must be some other way into it than down the rock where we were. How about it, Masni?” and he inquired as to the valley. The Indian woman gave Tom to understand that there was another entrance.

  “Well, close up this shaft now before some one sees us at it—the bearded man, for example,” Tom suggested. He took another look down into the tunnel, which was now deserted on account of the strike, and then Masni pressed on the mechanism that worked the stone. She showed Tom how to do it.

  “Just a counter-balanced rock operating on the same principle as does a window,” Tom explained, after a brief examination. “Probably some of the old Indian tribes made this shaft for ceremonial purposes. They never dreamed we would drive a tunnel along at the bottom of it. The shaft probably opened into a cave, and one of our blasts made it part of the tunnel. Well, this is part of the secret, anyhow. Much obliged to you, Masni!”

  The Indian woman had indeed revealed valuable information. They covered the secret rock with brush, as it had been, hid the rope and came away. But Tom knew how to find the place again.

  Events moved rapidly from then on. The Titus brothers were more than astonished when Tom told them what he had learned. Masni had told him how to get into the secret valley by a round about, but easy trail, and thither Tom, the contractors, Mr. Damon and some of the white tunnel workers went the next day.