“Neither one, Mr. Damon,” laughed Ned. “It’s only a blaze that Koku and Rad started.”
“And the fire department is here,” added Tom.
“Where?” inquired the eccentric man.
“Here,” and Tom pointed to his airship—one of the smaller craft—into which the tank of chemicals had been hoisted.
“Oh!” exclaimed Mr. Damon. “Something new, eh, Tom?” His eyes glistened.
“Yes. Fighting fires from the air. I got the idea after the fireworks factory went up in smoke. Will you come along? There’s plenty of room.”
“I believe I will,” assented Mr. Damon. It was not the first time, by any means, that he had gone aloft with Tom. “I happened to be coming over in my auto,” he went on to explain, “when I happened to see the fire down in the meadow. I was afraid you didn’t know about it.”
“Oh, yes,” replied Tom. “I had Rad and Koku light a big pile of packing boxes, to represent, as nearly as possible, on a small scale, a burning building. I plan now to sail over it and drop the tins of chemicals. They are arranged to burst as they fall into the blaze, and I hope the carbon dioxide set loose will blanket out the fire.”
“Sounds interesting,” commented Mr. Damon. “I’ll go along.”
The airship was wheeled out of the hangar and was soon ready for the flight. A big cloud of black vapor down in the meadow told Tom and Ned that Koku and Eradicate had done their work well. The giant and the colored man had poured oil over the wood to make a fierce blaze that would give Tom’s new chemical combination a severe test.
A mechanic turned the propeller of the airship until there was an accumulation of gas in the different cylinders. Then he stepped back while Tom threw on the switch. This was not one of the self-starting types, of which Tom possessed one or two.
“Contact!” cried Tom sharply, and the man stepped forward to give the big blades a final turn that would start the motor. There was a muffled roar and then a steady staccato blending of explosions. Tom raced the motor while his men held the machine in place, and then, satisfied that all was well, the young inventor gave the word, and the craft raced over the ground, to soar aloft a little later.
Tom, Ned and Mr. Damon could look down to the meadow where the bonfire was blazing. A crowd had collected, but the heat of the blaze kept them at a good distance. Then, as many of the throng caught sight of the airship overhead, there was a new interest for them.
Tom had told Ned and Mr. Damon, before the trio had entered the machine, what he wanted them to do. This was to toss the chemicals overboard at the proper time. Of course in his perfected apparatus Tom hoped to have a device by which he could drop the fire extinguishing elements by a mere pressure of his finger or foot, as bombs were released from aircraft during the war. But this would serve for the time being.
Nearer and nearer the blaze the airship approached until it was almost above it. Tom had had some experience in bomb-dropping, and knew when to give the signal.
At last the signal came. Mr. Damon and Ned heaved over the side the metal containers of the powerful chemicals.
Down they went, unerring as an arrow, though on a slant, caused by the impetus given them by the speed of the airship.
Tom and his friends leaned over the side of the machine to watch the effect. They could see the chemicals strike the blaze, and it was evident from the manner in which the fire died down that the containers had broken, as Tom intended they should to scatter their contents.
“Hurray!” cried Ned, forgetting that he could not be heard, for no head telephones were used on this occasion and the roar of the motor would drown any human voice. “It’s working, Tom!”
Truly the effect of the chemicals was seemingly to cause the fire to go out, but it was only a momentary dying down. Koku and Rad had made a fierce, yet comparatively small, conflagration, and though for a time the gas generated by Tom’s mixture dampened the blaze, in a few seconds—less than half a minute—the flames were shooting higher than ever.
Tom made a gesture of disappointment, and swung his craft around in a sharp, banking turn. He had no more chemicals to drop, as he had thought this supply would be sufficient. However, he had guessed badly. The fire burned on, doing no damage, of course, for that had been thought of when it was started in the meadow.
“Something wrong!” declared the young inventor, when they were back at the hangar, climbing out of the machine.
“What was it?” asked Ned.
“Didn’t use the right kind of chemicals,” Tom answered. “From the way the flames shot up, you’d think I had poured oil on the blaze instead of carbon dioxide.”
“Bless my insurance policy, Tom!” cried Mr. Damon, “but I’d hate to trust to your apparatus if my house caught.”
“Don’t blame you,” Tom assented. “But I’ll do the trick yet! This is only a starter!”
During the next two weeks the young inventor worked hard in his laboratory, Mr. Swift sometimes helping him, but more often Koku and Eradicate. Mr. Baxter had recovered sufficiently to leave the Swift home. But though the chemist seemed well physically, his mind appeared to be brooding over his loss.
“If I could only get my secret formulae back!” he sighed, as he thanked Tom for his kindness. “I’m sure Field and Melling have them. And I believe they got them the night of the fireworks blaze; the scoundrels!”
“Well, if I can help you, please let me,” begged Tom. And then he dismissed the matter from his mind in his anxiety to hit upon the right chemical mixture for putting out fires from the air.
One afternoon, at the end of a week in which he had been busily and steadily engaged on this work, Tom finally moved away from his laboratory table with a sigh of relief, and, turning to Eradicate, who had been helping him, exclaimed:
“Well, I think I have it now!”
“Good lan’ ob massy, I hopes so!” exclaimed the colored man. “It sho’ do smell bad enough, Massa Tom, to make any fire go an’ run an’ drown hisse’f! Whew-up! It’s turrible stuff!”
“Yes, it isn’t very pleasant,” Tom agreed, with a smile. “Though I am getting rather used to it. But when it’s in a metal tube it won’t smell, and I think it will put out any fire that ever started. We’ll give it a test now, Rad. Just take that flask of red stuff and pour it into this one of yellow. I’ll go out and light the bonfire, and we’ll make a small test.”
Leaving Rad to mix some of the chemicals, a task the colored man had often done before, Tom went out into the yard near his laboratory to start a blaze on which his new mixture could be tested.
He had not got far from the laboratory door when he felt a sudden jar and a rush of air, and then followed the dull boom of an explosion. Like an echo came the voice of Eradicate:
“Oh, Massa Tom, I’se blowed up! It done sploded right in mah face!”
CHAPTER VI
TOM IS WORRIED
Dropping what he had in his hands, Tom Swift raced back to the laboratory where he had left Eradicate to mix the chemicals. Again the despairing, frightened cry of the colored man rang out.
“I hope nothing serious has happened,” was the thought that flashed through Tom’s mind. “But I’m afraid it has. I should have mixed those new chemicals myself.”
Koku, the giant, who was at work in another part of the shop yard, heard Rad’s cry and came running up. As there was always more or less jealousy between Eradicate and Koku, the latter now thought he had a chance to crow over his rival, not, of course, understanding what had happened.
“Ho! Ho!” laughed Koku. “You much better hab me work, Master Tom. I no make blunderstakes like dat black fellow! I never no make him!”
“I don’t know whether Rad has made a mistake or not,” murmured Tom. “Come along, Koku, we may need your help. There has been an explosion.”
“Yep, dat Rad he don’t as know any more as to blow up de whole place!” chuckled Koku.
He thought he would have a chance to make fun of Eradicate, but neither he no
r Tom realized how serious had been the happening. As the young inventor reached the laboratory, which he had left but a few seconds before, he saw the interior almost in ruins. All about were scattered various pieces of apparatus, test tubes, alembics, retorts, flasks, and an electric furnace.
But what gave Tom more concern than anything else was the sight of Eradicate lying in the midst of broken glass on the floor. The colored man was moaning and held his hands over his face, and the young inventor could see that the hands, which had labored so hard and faithfully in his service, were cut and bleeding.
“Rad! Rad! what has happened?” cried Tom quickly.
“It sploded! It done sploded right in mah face!” moaned Eradicate. “I—I can’t see no mo’, Massa Tom! I can’t see to help yo’ nevah no mo’!”
“Don’t worry about that, Rad!” cried Tom, as cheerfully as possible under the circumstances. “We’ll soon have you fixed up! Come in here, Koku, and help me carry Rad out!”
Though the fumes from the chemicals that had exploded were choking, causing both Tom and Koku to gasp for breath, they never hesitated. In they rushed and picked up the limp figure of the helpless colored man.
“Poor Rad!” murmured the giant Koku tenderly. “Him bad hurt! I carry him, Master Tom! I take him bed, an’ I go for doctor! I run like painted pig!”
Probably Koku meant “greased pig,” but Tom never thought of that. All his concern was for his faithful Eradicate.
“Me carry him, Master Tom!” cried Koku, all the petty jealousy of his rival passing away now. “Me take care ob Rad. Him no see, me see for him. Anybody hurt Rad now, got to hurt Koku first!”
It was a fine and generous spirit that the giant was showing, though Tom had no time to speculate on it just then.
“We must get him into the house, Koku,” said the young inventor. “And two of us can carry him better than one. After we get him to a bed you can go for the doctor, though I fancy the telephone can run even quicker than you can, Koku.”
“Whatever Master Tom say,” returned the giant humbly, as he looked with pity at the suffering form of his rival—a rival no longer. It seemed that Rad’s working days were over.
Tenderly the aged colored man was laid on a lounge in the living room, Mr. Swift and Mrs. Baggert hovering over him.
“Where are you worst hurt, Rad?” asked Tom, with a view to getting a line on which physician would be the best one to summon.
“It’s all in mah face, Massa Tom,” moaned the colored man. “It’s mah eyes. Dat stuff done sploded right in ’em! I can’t see—nevah no mo’!”
“Oh, I guess it isn’t as bad as that,” said Tom. But when he had a glimpse of the seared and wounded face of his faithful servant he could not repress a shudder.
A physician was summoned by telephone, and he arrived in his automobile at the same time that Mr. Damon reached Tom’s house.
“Bless my bottle of arnica, Tom!” exclaimed the eccentric man, with sympathy in his voice. “What’s this I hear? One of your men tells me old Eradicate is killed!”
“Not as bad as that, yet,” replied Tom, as he came out, leaving the doctor to make his first examination. “It was an explosion of my new aerial fire-fighting chemicals that I left Rad to mix for me. If anything serious results to him from this I’ll drop the whole business! I’ll never forgive myself!”
“It wasn’t your fault, Tom. Perhaps he did something wrong,” said Mr. Damon.
“Yes, it was my fault. I should not have let him take the chance with a mixture I had tried only a few times. But we’ll hope for the best. How is he, Doctor?” Tom asked a little later when the physician came out on the porch.
“He’s doing as well as can be expected for the present,” was the answer. “I have given him a quieting mixture. His worst injury seems to be to his face. His hands are cut by broken glass, but the hurts are only superficial. I think we shall have to get an eye specialist to look at him in a day or two.”
“You mean that he—that he may go blind?” gasped Tom.
“Well, we’ll not decide right away,” replied the doctor, as cheerfully as he could. “I should rather have the opinion of an oculist before making that statement. It may be only temporary.”
“That’s bad enough!” muttered Tom. “Poor old Rad!”
“Me take care ob him,” put in Koku, who had been humbly standing around waiting to hear the news. “Me never be mad at dat black man no more! Him my best friend! I lub him like I did my brudder!”
“Thank you, Koku,” said Tom, and his mind went back to the time when he had escaped in his airship from the gigantic men, of whom Koku and his brother were two specimens. The brother had gone with a circus, and Koku, for several years, only saw him occasionally.
Everything possible was done for Eradicate, and the doctor said that it would be several days, until after the burns from the exploding chemicals had partly healed, before the eye-doctor could make an examination.
“Then we can only wait and hope,” said Tom.
“And hope for the best!” advised Mr. Damon.
“I’ll try,” promised Tom. He went back to the laboratory with his eccentric friend and with Ned, who had come over as soon as he heard the news. Not much of an examination could be made, as the place was in such ruins. But it was surmised that in combining the two chemical mixtures a new one had been created, or at least one that Tom had not counted on. This had exploded, blowing Eradicate down, flaring a sheet of flame up into his face, scattering broken glass about, and generally creating havoc.
“I can’t understand it,” said Tom. “I was trying to make a fire extinguishing liquid, and it turned out to be a fire creator. I don’t see what was wrong.”
“One chemical might have been impure,” suggested Ned.
“Yes,” agreed Tom. “I’ll check them over and try to find out where the mistake happened.”
“This place will have to be rebuilt,” observed Ned. “It’s in bad shape, Tom.”
“I don’t mind that in the least, if Rad doesn’t lose his eyesight,” was the answer of the young inventor, and his friends could see that he was much worried, as well he might be.
In silence Tom Swift looked about the ruins of what had been a fine chemical laboratory.
“It will take a month to get this back in shape,” he said ruefully. “I guess I shall have to postpone my experiments.”
“Why not ask Mr. Baxter to help you?” suggested Ned.
“What can he do?” Tom wanted to know. “He hasn’t any laboratory.”
“He has a sort of one,” Ned rejoined. “You know you told me to keep track of him and give him any help I could.”
“Yes,” Tom nodded.
“Well, the other day he came to me and said he had a chance to set up a small laboratory in a vacant shop near the river. He needed a little capital and I lent it to him, as you told me to.”
“Glad you did,” returned Tom. “But do you suppose his plant is large enough to enable me to work there until mine is in shape again?”
“It wouldn’t do any harm to take a look,” suggested Ned.
“I’ll do it!” decided Tom, more hopefully than he had spoken since the accident.
CHAPTER VII
A FORCED LANDING
Josephus Baxter seemed to have recovered some of his spirits after his narrow escape from death in the fireworks factory blaze. He greeted Tom and Ned with a smile as they entered the improvised laboratory he had been able to set up in what had once been a factory for the making of wooden ware, an industry that, for some reason, did not flourish in Shopton.
“I’m glad to see you, Mr. Swift,” said the chemist, who seemed to have aged several years in the few weeks that had intervened since the fire. “I want to thank you for giving me a chance to start over again.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” said Tom easily. “We inventors ought to help one another. Are you able to do anything here?”
“As much as possible without my secret formulae,”
was the answer. “If I only had those back from the rascals, Field and Melling, I would be able to go ahead faster. As it is, I am working in the dark. For some of the formulae were given to me by a Frenchman, and I had only one copy. I kept that in the safe of the fireworks concern, and after the fire it could not be found.”
“Was the safe destroyed?” asked Tom.
“No. But the doors were open, and much of what had been inside was in ashes and cinders. Amos Field claimed that the explosion had blown open the safe and burned a lot of their valuable fireworks formulae too.”
“And you believe they have yours?” asked Ned.
“I’m sure of it!” was the fierce answer. “Those men are unprincipled rogues! They had been at me ever since I was foolish enough to tell them about my formulae to get me to sell them a share. But I refused, for I knew the secret mixtures would make my fortune when I could establish a new dye industry. Field and Melling claimed they wanted the formulae for their fireworks, but that was only an excuse. The formulae were not nearly so valuable for pyrotechnics as for dyes. The fireworks business is not so good, either, since so many cities have voted for a ‘Sane Fourth of July.’”
“I can appreciate that,” said Tom. “But what we called for, Mr. Baxter, is to find if you have room enough to let me do a little experimenting here. I am working on a new kind of fire extinguisher, to be dropped on tall buildings from an airship.”
“Sounds like a good idea,” said the chemist, rather dreamily.
“Well, I have the airship, and I can see my way clear to perfecting a device to drop the chemicals in metal tanks or bombs,” went on Tom. “But what bothers me is the chemical mixture that will put out fires better than the carbon dioxide mixtures now on the market.”
“I haven’t given that much study myself,” said Mr. Baxter. “But you are welcome to anything I have, Mr. Swift. The whole place, such as it is, will be at your disposal at any time. I intend to have it in better shape soon, but I have to proceed slowly, as I lost nearly everything I owned in that fire. If I could only get those formulae back!” he sighed.
The Tom Swift Megapack Page 301
