“And now,” observed Ned, as his chum resumed the wheel, “suppose you enlighten me on how that tree came to be on fire—if you didn’t set it yourself.”
“No, I didn’t do that,” Tom said, with a laugh. “And I only have a theory as to the cause of the blaze. But suppose we go down and take a look. There’s a good field around this grove, and we can get a fine take off. I’ll have to go back to Shopton anyhow, to get some more of the chemical.”
So the aeroplane made a landing, and then the mystery was explained. The dead oak, to which some of its last year’s foliage still clung, was the abiding place of thousands of crows that had built their nests in it. There were hundreds of the big nests, made of dried sticks, mostly, and these made an ideal fuel for the fire.
“But where are the crows, and what started the fire?” asked Ned.
“I fancy the birds flew away as soon as they saw their homes on fire,” said Tom. “Or they may not have been at home. Flocks of crows often go to some distant feeding ground for the day, returning at night. I fancy that is what happened here.
“As for the cause of the blaze, I believe it was set by some mischievous boys, who saw a good chance to have some fun without thought of doing any real damage. For the dead tree was of no value, and I imagine the farmers would be glad to see the flock of crows dispersed. Some boys probably climbed up and set fire to one of the nests, and then, when they saw the whole lot going, they became frightened and ran away.”
And Tom’s theory was, eventually, proved to be true. Some lads, wandering afield, had set fire to the crows’ nests and then, frightened as they saw a bigger blaze than they intended, ran away.
Tom and Ned did not remain to see what the returning crows might think about the destruction of their homes, provided they saw fit to return, but, starting the aeroplane, were again on their way.
Tom had lingered long enough to make sure that his latest combination of chemicals had been just what was needed. He felt sure that by using a larger quantity, no fire, however fierce, could continue to blaze.
“But I want to give it a good trial, Ned, as we did from the tower,” said Tom. “Though I don’t believe there’ll be a fizzle this time.”
It did not take long for Tom to secure another supply of the new chemical. He then went with it to the firm in Newmarket that was making his containers, or “bombs” as he called them.
On his return he consulted with Mr. Baxter as to the ingredients of the fluid that had put out the blaze in the tree.
“I believe you have at last hit on the right combination,” said the chemist. “You are on the road to success, Tom. I wish I could say the same of myself.”
“Perhaps your formulae may come back to you as suddenly as they disappeared, or as quickly as I discovered that I had the right thing to put out the fire,” said Tom hopefully.
Busy days followed for the young inventor. Now that he was convinced he had at last evolved the right mixture of chemicals, he prepared to make a test on a larger scale than merely a blazing tree.
“I’ll try it with a fire in the pit,” he said to his chum.
Preparations were made, and the day before Tom was to carry out his plans he received a letter.
“What’s the matter? Bad news?” asked Ned, as he saw his friend’s face change after reading the epistle.
“Nothing much. Only Mary is going away, and I had expected her to be at the test,” Tom answered.
“Going away?” echoed Ned. “For long?”
“Oh, no, only for a couple of weeks. She is going to visit an uncle and aunt in Newmarket, or just outside of that city. Another uncle, Barton Keith, has offices in the Landmark Building, I believe.”
“Landmark Building,” murmured Ned. “Isn’t that where Field and Melling hang out?”
“Yes. But don’t mention Mary’s uncle in connection with them,” laughed Tom. “He wouldn’t like it.”
“I should say not!”
Ned well remembered Mary’s uncle, who had been associated with Tom in recovering the treasure in the undersea search.
“Well, if she can’t be here, she can’t,” said Tom, as philosophically as possible. “I’d better run over and bid her goodbye.”
This Tom did, though Ned noticed that his chum acted as though lonesome on his return.
“But when he gets to work testing his new chemical he’ll be all right,” decided Ned.
CHAPTER XIII
A SUCCESSFUL TEST
“It took you long enough,” Ned remarked as Tom entered the main office of the plant, having been to see Mary off on her trip to Newmarket. This was following his call of the night before to learn more particulars of her unexpected visit.
“Yes, I didn’t plan to be gone so long,” apologized Tom. “But I thought while I was there I might as well go all the way with her.”
“And did you?”
“Yes. In the electric runabout. I wanted to come back and get the airship, but she said she wanted to look nice when she met her relatives, and as yet airship travel is a bit mussy. Though when I get my cabined cruiser of the clouds I’ll guarantee not to ruffle a curl of the daintiest girl!”
“Getting poetical in your old age!” laughed Ned. “Well, here is that statement you said you wanted me to get ready. Want to go over it now?”
“No, I guess not, as long as you know it’s all right. I’m going to start right in and get ready for a bang-up test.”
“Of what—your new aerial fire fighting apparatus?”
“Yes. Mr. Baxter and I are going to make up a lot of the chemical compound that—we discovered through using it on the blazing tree—will best do the trick. Then I’m going to try it on a pit fire, and after that on a big blaze with an airship.”
“Let me know when you do,” begged Ned. “I want to see you do it.”
“I’ll send you word,” promised the young inventor.
Then he began several days and nights of hard work. And he was glad to have the chance to occupy himself, for, though Tom professed not to be much affected by the departure of Mary Nestor, he really was very lonesome.
“How is her uncle, Barton Keith, by the way?” asked Ned, when he called on his chum one day, to find him reading a letter which needed but half an eye to tell was from Mary.
“About as usual,” was the answer. “He sends word by Mary that he’ll be glad to see us any time we want to call. He has some nice offices in the Landmark Building.”
“Those papers proving his right to the oil land, which you recovered from the sunken ship for him, must have made his fortune.”
“Well, yes—that and other things,” agreed Tom. “Say, we had some exciting times on that undersea search, didn’t we?”
“Did you call on Mr. Keith when you went to Newmarket with Mary?” Ned wanted to know, for he and Tom had taken quite a liking to Miss Nestor’s uncle.
“No, I didn’t get a chance. Besides, I wanted to keep away from the Landmark Building.”
“Why?”
“Oh, I might run into Field and Melling, and I don’t want to see them until I can accuse them, and prove it, of having taken Mr. Baxter’s dye formulae.”
“Oh, yes, they’re in the same building with Mr. Keith, aren’t they? Why do they call it the Landmark? Though I suppose the answer is obvious.”
“Yes,” assented Tom. “It’s a big building—the tallest ever erected in that city, and a fine structure. Though while they were about it I don’t see why they didn’t make it fireproof.”
“Didn’t they?” asked Ned, in surprise. “Then the insurance rates must be unusually high, for the companies are beginning to realize how fire departments, even in big cities, are hampered in fighting blazes above the tenth or twelfth stories.”
“Yes, it was a mistake not to have the Landmark Building fireproof,” admitted Tom. “And Mr. Keith says the owners are beginning to realize that now. It is what is called the ‘slow burning’ construction.”
“Insurance companies don’t
go much on that,” declared Ned, who was in a position to know. “Well, let us hope it never catches fire.”
These were busy days for the young inventor. He laid aside all his other activities in order to perfect the plans for manufacturing his new chemical fire extinguisher on a large scale. For Tom realized that while a small quantity of chemicals in a compound might act in a certain way on one occasion, if the bulk should happen to be increased the experimenter could not always count on invariably the same results.
There appeared to be at times a change engendered when a large quantity of chemicals were mixed which was not manifest in a small and experimental batch.
So Tom wanted to mix up a big tank of his new chemical compound and see if it would work in large quantities as well as it did with the small amount Ned had dropped on the blazing tree.
To this end Tom worked at night, as well as by day, and finally he announced to Ned and Mr. Damon, who called one evening, that he believed he had everything in readiness for an exhaustive test the next day.
“There’s the stuff!” exclaimed Tom, not a little proudly, as he waved his hand toward an immense carboy in the main shop. “That’s what I hope will do the trick. Just take a—”
“Hold on! Stop! That’s enough! Bless my hair brush!” cried Mr. Damon, holding up a protesting hand. “If you take that cork out, Tom Swift, you and I will cease to be friends!”
“I wasn’t going to open it,” laughed the young inventor. “It has a worse odor and seems to choke you more in a big quantity than when there’s only a little. I was just going to shake the carboy to let you realize how full it was.”
“We’ll take your word for it!” laughed Ned. “Now about your test. How are you going to work it?”
“There are to be two tests,” answered Tom. “The first, and the smaller, will be in the pit, as before, only this time we shall have what, I believe, will be the successful combination of chemicals to drop on it.
“The second test will be the main one. In that I plan to have an old barn which I have bought set ablaze. Then Ned and I will sail over it in the airship and drop chemicals on it. The barn will be filled with empty boxes and barrels, to make as hot a fire as possible. You are invited to accompany us, Mr. Damon.”
“Will there be any smell?” asked the eccentric man, who seemed to have a dislike for anything that was not as agreeable as perfume.
“No, the chemicals will be sealed in containers, which will be dropped from my airship as bombs were dropped in the war,” said Tom.
“On those conditions I’ll go along,” agreed Mr. Damon. “But bless my wedding certificate, Tom! don’t tell my wife. She thinks I’m crazy enough now, associating with you and flying occasionally. If she thought I would help you battle with flames from the air she’d likely never speak to me again.”
“I’ll not tell,” promised Tom, laughing.
Preparations for the test went on rapidly. In the morning a fire was to be started in the same pit where the experiment had partly failed before.
From the platform over the blazing hole some of the new combination of chemicals was to be dropped. If it acted with success, as Tom believed it would, he proposed to go on with the more important test in the afternoon.
To this end he had purchased from a farmer the right to set on fire an old ramshackle barn, standing in the midst of a field about three miles outside of Shopton. The barn was on an untilled farm, the house having been destroyed some years before, and it was not near any other structures, so that, even in a high wind, no damage would result.
Tom had filled the barn with inflammable material, and was going to spare no effort to have the test as exhaustive as possible.
The time came for the preliminary trial, and there were a few anxious moments after the oil-soaked boards and boxes in the pit were set ablaze.
“Let her go!” cried Tom to his man on the elevated platform, and down fell the container of chemicals. It had no sooner struck and burst, letting loose a mass of flame-choking vapor, than the fire died out.
“You’ve struck it, Tom! You’ve struck it!” cried Ned.
“It begins to look so,” agreed the young inventor. “But I’ll not call myself out of the woods until this afternoon. Though we can consider it a success so far.”
Quite a throng was on hand when the old barn was set ablaze. Tom and Ned and Mr. Damon were there with the airship which had been especially fitted to carry the bombs filled with the extinguisher.
In order to insure a quick, hot blaze the barn was fired on all four sides at once by Tom’s men. When it was seen to be a veritable raging furnace of fire, Tom and his two friends took their places in the airship and rapidly mounted upward.
Necessarily they had to circle off away from the blaze to get to the necessary height, but Tom soon brought the airship around again and headed for the black pall of smoke which marked the place of the blazing barn.
“We’ll all three send down bombs at the same time,” Tom told his friends, as they darted forward. “When I give the word press the levers, and the chemical containers will drop. Then we’ll hope for the best.”
Higher mounted the flames, and more fiercely raged the fire. The heat of it penetrated even aloft, where Tom and his friends were scudding along in the airship.
“Now!” cried Tom, as his craft hovered for an instant in a favorable position for dropping the bombs. The young inventor, Mr. Damon, and Ned Newton pressed the levers. Looking over the sides of the craft, they saw three dark objects dropping into the midst of the burning barn.
CHAPTER XIV
OUT OF THE CLOUDS
Almost as though some giant hand had dropped an immense cloak over the fire in the barn, so did the blaze die down instantly after Tom Swift’s extinguishing liquid had been dropped into the seething caldron of flame. For a moment there was even no smoke, but as the embers remained hot and glowing for a time, though the flames themselves were quenched, a rolling vapor cloud began to ascend shortly after the first cessation of the fire. But this only lasted a little while.
“You’ve turned the trick, Tom!” cried Ned, leaning far over to look at what was left of the barn and its contents.
“Bless my insurance policy, I should say so!” exclaimed Mr. Damon. “It was 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 fire went out as if sent for by a special delivery telegram to give a hurry-up performance in another locality. Look, there’s hardly any smoke even!”
This was so, as the three occupants of the rapidly moving airship could see when Tom circled back to pass again over the almost destroyed structure. He had waited until it was almost consumed before dropping his chemicals, as he wished to make the test hard and conclusive. Now the fire was out except for a few small spots spouting up here and there, away from the center of the blaze.
“Yes, I guess she doesn’t need a second dose,” observed Tom, when he saw how effective had been his treatment of the fire. “I had an additional batch of chemicals on hand, in case they were needed,” he added, and he tapped some unused bombs at his feet.
“I call this a pretty satisfactory test,” declared Ned. “If you want to form a stock company, Tom, and put your aerial fire-fighting apparatus on the market, I’ll guarantee to underwrite the securities.”
“Hardly that yet,” said Tom, with a laugh. “Now that I have my chemical combination perfected, or practically so, I’ve got to rig up an airship that will be especially adapted for fighting fires in sky-scrapers.”
“What more do you want than this?” asked Ned, as his chum prepared to descend in the speedy machine.
“I want a little better bomb-releasing device, for one thing. This worked all right. But I want one that is more nearly automatic. Then I am going to put on a searchlight, so I can see where I am heading at night.”
“No. But one patterned after that.” Tom answered.
“Bless my candlestick!” exclaimed Mr. Damon, “what do you want with a searchlight at a fire, Tom? Isn’t there light enough at a blaze, anyhow?”
“No,” answered the young inventor, as he made his usual skillful landing. “You know all the big city fire departments have searchlights now for night work and where there is thick smoke. It may be that some day, in fighting a sky-scraper blaze from the clouds at night, I’ll have 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 congratulations from a number of his friends, including members of the Shopton fire department who were present to witness the test.
“Mighty clever piece of work, Tom Swift!” declared a deputy chief. “Of course 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, Pittsburgh and other cities—why, it will be just what they need, to my way of thinking.”
“And he needn’t go so far from home,” said Mr. Damon. “There is one tall building over in Newmarket—the Landmark. I happen to own a little stock in the corporation that put that up, along with other buildings, and I’m going to have them adopt Tom Swift’s aerial fire-fighting apparatus.”
“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 airship extinguisher.”
“No? What then?” asked Mr. Damon.
“Well, I think there ought to be one, or perhaps two, in a big city like New York,” Tom answered. “Perhaps one outfit would be enough, for it isn’t likely that there would be two big fires in the tall building section at the same time, and an airship could easily cover the distance between two widely separated blazes. But if I can perfect this machine so it will be available for fires out of the reach of apparatus on the ground, I’ll be satisfied.”
The Tom Swift Megapack Page 305
