“These she is!” cried Ned, for when the exhaust from the motor was sent through the new muffler Tom had attached it was possible to talk aboard the Lucifer. The young manager pointed down toward the earth, over which the craft was then skimming, though at no great height.
“It is the lumberyard!” exclaimed Mr. Baxter presently.
“It sure is,” assented Tom. “I know I haven’t enough stuff to cover as big a blaze as that, but I’ll do my best. Fortunately there is no wind to speak of,” he added, as he guided the craft in the direction of the fire.
“What has that to do with it—I mean as far as the working of your chemical extinguisher is concerned?” asked Mr. Baxter. “Can’t you drop the bomb containers accurately in a wind?”
“Well, the wind has to be allowed for in dropping anything from an aeroplane,” Tom answered. “And, naturally, it does spoil your aim to an extent. But the reason I’m glad there is no wind to speak of is that the chemical blanket I hope to spread over the fire won’t be so quickly blown away.”
“Oh, I see,” said Mr. Baxter. “Well, I’m glad that you will be able to have a successful test of your invention.”
“The regular land apparatus is on hand,” observed Ned, for they were now so near the fire that they could look down and, in the reflection from the blaze, could see engines, hose-wagons and hook and ladder trucks arriving and deploying to different places of advantage, from which to fight the lumberyard fire that was now a roaring furnace of flames.
“No skyscraper work needed here,” observed Tom. “But it will give me a chance to use the latest combination I worked out. I’ll try that first. Are you ready with it, Mr. Baxter?”
“Yes,” was the answer.
The young inventor, not heeding the cries of wonder that arose from below and paying no attention to the uplifted hands and arms pointing to him, steered his craft to a corner of the yard where there was a small isolated fire in a pile of boards. It was Tom’s idea to try his new chemical first on this spot to watch the effect. Then he would turn loose all his other containers of the chemical mixture that had proved so effective in other tests.
Attention of those who had gathered to look at the fire was about evenly divided between the efforts of the regular department and the pending action by Tom Swift. The latter was not long in turning loose his latest sensation.
“Let it go!” he cried to Mr. Baxter, and down into the seething caldron of flame dropped a thin sheet-iron container of powerful chemicals. Leaning over the cockpit of the aircraft, the occupants watched the effect. There was a slight explosion heard, even above the roar of the flames, and the tongues of fire in the section where Tom’s extinguisher had fallen died down.
“Good work!” cried Ned.
“No!” answered Tom, shaking his head. “I was a little afraid of this. Not enough carbon dioxide in this mixture. I’ll stick to the one I found most effective.” For the flames, after momentarily dying down, burst out again in the spot where he had dropped the bomb.
Tom wheeled the airship in a sharp, banking turn, and headed for the heart of the fire in the lumberyard. It was clearly getting beyond the control of the regular department.
“How about you, Ned?” called Tom, for he had given his chum charge of dropping the regular bombs containing a large quantity of the extinguisher Tom had practically adopted.
“All ready,” was the answer.
“Let ’em go!” came the command, and down shot the dark, spherical objects. They burst as they hit the ground or the piles of blazing lumber, and at once the powerful gases generated by the mixture of several different chemicals were released.
Again the three in the airship leaned eagerly over the side of the cockpit to watch the effect. It was almost magical in its action.
The bombs had been dropped into the very fiercest heart of the fire, and it was only an instant before their action was made manifest.
“This will do the trick!” cried Ned. “I’m certain it will.”
“I didn’t have much fear that it wouldn’t,” said Tom. “But I hoped the other would be better, for it is a much cheaper mixture to make, and that will count when you come to sell it to big cities.”
“But the fire is certainly dying down,” declared Mr. Baxter.
And this was true. As container after container of the bomb type fell in different parts of the burning lumberyard, while Tom coursed above it, the flames began to be smothered in various sections.
And from the watching crowds, as well as from the hard-working members of the Shopton fire department, came cheers of delight and encouragement as they saw the work of Tom Swift’s aerial fire-fighting machine.
For he had, most completely, subdued what threatened to be a great fire, and when the last of his bombs had been dropped, so effective was the blanket of fire-dampening gases spread around that the flames just naturally expired, as it were.
As Tom had said, the absence of wind was in his favor, for the generated gases remained just where they were wanted, directly over the fire like an extinguishing blanket, and were not blown aside as would otherwise have been the case.
And, by the peculiar manner in which his chemicals were mixed, Tom had made them practically harmless for human beings to breathe. Though the fire-killing gases were unpleasant, there was no danger to life in them, and while several of the firemen made wry faces, and one or two were slightly ill from being too close to the chemicals, no one was seriously inconvenienced.
“Well, I. guess that’s all,” said Tom, when the final bomb had been dropped. “That was the last of them, wasn’t it, Ned?”
“Yes, but you don’t need any more. The fire’s out—or what isn’t can be easily handled by the hose lines.”
“Good!” cried Tom. “But, all the same, I wish I had been able to make the first mixture work.”
“Perhaps I can help you with that,” suggested Mr. Baxter.
And the following day, after Tom had received the thanks of the town officials and of the fire department for his work in subduing the lumberyard blaze, the young inventor called Josephus Baxter in consultation.
“I feel that I need your help,” said the young inventor. “You have been at this chemical study longer than I, and I am willing to pay you well for your work. Of course I can’t make up to you the loss of your dye formulae. But while you are waiting for something to turn up in regard to them, you may be glad to assist me.”
“I will, and without pay,” said the chemist.
But Tom would not hear of that, and together he and Mr. Baxter set about putting the finishing touches to Tom’s latest invention.
CHAPTER XIX
ON THE TRAIL
“There, Tom Swift, it ought to work now!”
Josephus Baxter held up a large laboratory test tube, in which seethed and bubbled some strange mixture, turning from green to purple, then to red, and next to a white, milky mixture.
“Do you think you’ve hit on the right combination?” asked the young inventor, whose latest idea, the plan of fighting fires in skyscrapers from an airship as a vantage point, was taking up all his spare moments.
“I’m positive of it,” said Mr. Baxter. “I’ve dabbled in chemicals long enough to be certain of this, even if I can’t get on the track of the missing dye formulae.”
“That certainly is too bad,” declared Tom. “I wish I could help you as much as you have helped me.”
“Oh, you have helped me a lot,” said the chemist. “You have given me a place to work, much better than the laboratory I had in the old fireworks factory of Field and Melling. And you have paid me, more than liberally, for what little I have done for you.”
“You’ve done a lot for me,” declared Tom. “If it had not been for your help this chemical compound would not be nearly as satisfactory as it is, nor as cheap to manufacture, which is a big item.”
“Oh, you were on the right track,” said Mr. Baxter. “You would have stumbled on it yourself in a short time, I believe. B
ut I will say, Tom Swift, that, between us, we have made a compound that is absolutely fatal to fires. Even a small quantity of it, dropped in the heart of a large blaze, will stop combustion.”
“And that’s what I want,” declared Tom. “I think I shall go ahead now, and proceed with the manufacture of the stuff on a large scale.”
“And what do you propose doing with it?” asked Mr. Baxter.
“I’m going to sell the patent and the idea that goes with it to as many large cities as I can,” Tom answered. “I’ll even manufacture the airships that are needed to carry the stuff over the tops of blazing skyscrapers, dropping it down. I’ll supply complete aerial fire-fighting plants.”
“And I think you’ll do a good business,” said the chemist.
It was the conclusion of the final tests of an improved chemical mixture, and the reaction that had taken place in the test tube was the end of the experiment. Success was now again on the side of Tom Swift.
But when that has been said there remains the fact that it was just the other way with the unfortunate Mr. Baxter.
Try as he had, he could not succeed in getting the right chemical combination to perfect the dye process imparted to him by his late French friend. With the disappearance of the secret formulae went the good luck of Josephus Baxter.
He had worked hard, taking advantage of Tom’s generosity, to bring back to his memory the proper manner of mixing certain ingredients, so that permanent dyes of wondrous beauty in coloring would be evolved. But it was all in vain.
“I know who have those formulae,” declared the chemist again and again. “It is those scoundrels, Field and Melling. And they are planning to build up their own dye business with what is mine by right!”
And though Tom, also, believed this, there was no way of proving it.
As the young inventor had said, he was now ready to put his own latest invention on the market. After many tests, aided in some by Mr. Baxter, a form of liquid fire extinguisher had been made that was superior to any known, and much cheaper to manufacture. Veteran members of fire departments in and about Shopton told Tom so. All that remained was to demonstrate that it would be as effective on a large scale as it was on a small one, and big cities, it was agreed, must, of necessity, add it to their equipment.
“Well, I think I’ll give orders to start the works going,” said Tom, at the conclusion of the final test. “I have all the ingredients on hand now, and all that remains is to combine them. My airship is all ready, with the bomb-dropping device.”
“And I wish you all sorts of luck,” said Mr. Baxter. “Now I am going to have another go at my troubles. I have just thought of a possible new way of combining two of the chemicals I need to use. It may be I shall have success.”
“I hope so,” murmured Tom. He was about to leave the room when Koku, the giant, entered, with a letter in his hand. The big man showed some signs of agitation, and Tom was at once apprehensive about Eradicate.
“Is Rad—has anything happened—shall I get the doctor?”
“Oh, Rad, him all right,” answered Koku. “That is him not see yet, but mebby soon. Only I have to chase boy, an’ he make faces at me—boy bring this,” and the giant held out the envelope.
“Oh!” exclaimed Tom, and he understood now. Messenger boys frequently came to Tom’s house or to the shops, and they took delight in poking fun at Koku on account of his size, which made him slow in getting about. The boys delighted to have him chase them, and something like this had evidently just taken place, accounting for Koku’s agitation.
“This is for you, Mr. Baxter, not for me,” said Tom, as he read the name on the envelope.
“For me!” exclaimed the chemist. “Who could be writing to me? It’s a big firm of dye manufacturers,” he went on, as he caught a glimpse of the superscription in the upper left hand corner.
Quickly he read the contents of the epistle, and a moment later he gave a joyful cry.
“I’m on the trail! On the trail of those scoundrels at last!” exclaimed Josephus Baxter. “This gives me just the evidence I needed! Now I’ll have them where I want them!”
CHAPTER XX
A HEAVY LOAD
Josephus Baxter was so excited by the receipt of the letter which Koku delivered to him that for some seconds Tom Swift could get nothing out of him except the statement:
“I’m on their trail! Now I’m on their trail!”
“What do you mean?” Tom insisted. “Whose trail? What’s it all about?”
“It’s about Field and Melling! That’s who it’s about!” exclaimed Mr. Baxter, with a smothered exclamation. “Look, Tom Swift, this letter is addressed to me from one of the biggest dye firms in the world—a firm that is always looking for something new!”
“But if you haven’t anything new to give them, of what use is it?” Tom asked, for he knew that the chemist had said his process, stolen, as he claimed, by Field and Melling, was his only new project.
“But I will have something new when I get those secret formulae away from those scoundrels!” declared Mr. Baxter.
“Yes, but how are you going to do it, when you can’t even prove that they have them?” asked Tom.
“Ah, that’s the point! Now I think I can prove it,” declared Mr. Baxter. “Look, Tom Swift! This letter is addressed to me in care of Field and Melling at the office I used to have in their fireworks factory.”
“The office from which you were rescued nearly dead,” Tom added.
“Exactly. The place where you saved me from a terrible death. Well, if you will notice, this letter was written only two days ago. And it is the first mail I have received as having been forwarded from that address since the fire. I know other mail must have come for me, though.”
“What became of it?” asked Tom.
“Those scoundrels confiscated it!” declared the chemist. “But, in some manner, perhaps through the error of a new clerk, this letter was remailed to me here, and now I have it. It is of the utmost importance!”
“In what way?” asked Tom.
“Why, it is directed to me, outside and in, and it makes an inquiry about the very dyes of the lost secret formulae, one dye in particular.”
“I don’t quite understand yet,” said Tom.
“Well, it’s this way,” went on Mr. Baxter. “I had, in the office of Field and Melling, all the papers telling exactly how to make the dyes. After the fire, in which I was rendered unconscious, those papers disappeared.
“The only way in which any one could make the dyes in question was by following the formulae given in those papers. And now here is a letter, addressed to me from a big firm, asking my prices on a certain dye, which can only be made by the process bequeathed to me by the Frenchman.”
“Which means what?” asked Tom.
“It means that Field and Melling must have been writing to this firm on their own hook, offering to sell them some of this dye. But, in some way, my name must have appeared on the letter or papers sent on by the scoundrels, and this big firm replies to me direct, instead of to Field and Melling! Even then I would not have benefited if they had confiscated this letter as I am sure, they have done in the case of others. But, by some slip, I get this.
“And it proves, Tom Swift, that Field and Melling are in possession of my dye formulae, and that they have tried to dispose of some of the dye to this firm. Not knowing anything of this, the firm replies to me. So now I have direct evidence—just what I wanted—and I can get on the trail of the scoundrels who have cheated me of my rights.”
Tom looked at the letter which, it appeared, had been left with Koku by a special delivery boy from the post office. It was an inquiry about certain dyes, and was addressed to Mr. Baxter in care of Field and Melling, the former fireworks firm, which now had started a big dye plant, with offices in the Landmark Building in Newmarket.
“It does look as though you might get at them through this,” Tom said, as he handed back the letter. “But I’m afraid you’ll have to get
further evidence before you could convict them in a court of law—you’ll have to show that they actually have possession of your formulae.”
“That’s what I wish I could do,” said the chemist, somewhat wistfully. His first enthusiasm had been lessened.
“I’ll help you all I can,” offered Tom. And events were soon to transpire by which the young inventor was to render help to the chemist in a most sensational manner.
“Just now,” Tom went on, “I must arrange about getting a large supply of these chemicals made, and then plan for a test in some big city.”
“Yes, you have done enough for me,” said Mr. Baxter. “But I think now, with this letter as evidence, we’ll be able to make a start.”
“I agree with you,” Tom said. “Why don’t you go over to see Mr. Damon? He’s a good business man, and perhaps he can advise you. You might also call on that lawyer who does work for Mr. Keith and Mr. Blake. And that reminds me I must call Mary Nestor up and find out when she is coming home. I promised to fetch her in one of the airships.”
“I will go and see Mr. Damon,” decided Mr. Baxter. “He always gives good advice.”
“Even if he does bless everything he sees!” laughed Tom. “But if you’re going to see him I’ll run you over. I’m going to Waterfield.”
“Thanks, I’ll be glad to go with you,” said the chemist.
Mr. Damon was glad to see his friends, and, when he had listened to the latest developments, he exclaimed with unusual emphasis:
“Bless my law books, Mr. Baxter! but I do believe you’re on the right trail at last. Come in, and we’ll talk this over.”
So Tom left them, traveling on to a distant city where he arranged for a large supply of the chemicals he would need in his extinguisher.
For several days Tom was so busy that he had little time to devote to Mr. Baxter, or even to see him. He learned, however, that the chemist and Mr. Damon were in frequent consultation, and the young inventor hoped something would come of it.
Tom’s own plans were going well. He had let several large cities know that he had something new in the way of a fire-fighting machine, and he received several offers to demonstrate it.
The Tom Swift Megapack Page 308
