Tom Swift and his big dirigible

OFF TO MT. CAMON

Several thoughts were in the mind of Tom Swift as he hastened to see what had happened to his father, following the alarm of Eradicate. The colored man, kind and faithful as he was, did not seem to know anything more than that Mr. Swift was “tuck mighty bad.”

“Poor dad is getting old,” was one of Tom’s thoughts. “I can see him failing. But maybe when I get him to Mt. Camon it will build him up. I’m glad I’ve got Mary, she’ll look after him.”

Then an ugly suspicion came into the mind of the young inventor. Like a flash which might have come from one of the skyrockets, Tom remembered the night he had brought home the fireworks and had felt a suspicion that he was being followed.

“Maybe,” mused Tom, as he hurried on to his father’s quarters, “some of the gangs that we put out of business in the past have come back to try their dirty work!”

The feeling that any one would dare attack his aged father sent a hot wave of resentment through Tom Swift and he clenched his hands as if eager to wreak vengeance on the scoundrels.

“But it couldn’t have been that,” Tom reasoned. “Eradicate wouldn’t stand for anything of the sort. He’d even call in Koku, jealous as he is of the giant, before he’d let dad be hurt.”

When Tom and Ned, with Eradicate shuffling in the rear, reached Mr. Swift’s private workshop and laboratory, they found the aged inventor lying on a couch, pale and evidently weak, but showing no sign of injury.

“What’s the matter, Dad?” asked Tom, hurrying over to kneel at his side.

“Oh, it isn’t anything, really, Tom,” was the answer in a low voice. “I just sort of keeled over.”

“Dat’s whut he done!” said Eradicate. “He were lookin’ at some papers an’ I were dustin’ de bookcases an’, all of a suddint like, I heahs him moan an’ he were on de flo’. I picked him up an’ ran to git yo’ all, Massa Tom.”

“That was the right thing to do. But what happened, Dad?”

“I guess I overdid myself a bit, and the weather is rather warm. I felt a bit faint and dizzy and then everything got black. The next I knew I was on the couch and Rad was giving me some water.”

“Dat’s how it were,” said the old colored man.

“But what made you keel over?” Tom wanted to know. “You didn’t see anybody, did you?”

“What do you mean—‘see anybody,’ Tom?”

“I mean no one came in to attack you.”

“Of course not,” and Mr. Swift smiled a little. “Who would attack me?”

“Oh, maybe some of our old enemies.”

“No, Tom, no one came in except Mr. Jardine. By the way, he seemed in a hurry for some calculations that must be made before we can finish the big dirigible, so I offered to make them for him, as he said you were too busy.”

“That’s nervy on his part!” exclaimed Tom. “He should let you alone, Dad. I can manage this end of the business.”

“Oh, he meant no harm, Tom. And you know the calculations used to be my greatest strength. But I guess I’m getting old,” and Mr. Swift spoke sadly.

“You’re a lot younger than most men of your age,” said Ned.

“Of course,” Tom agreed, looking about the room. In spite of what his father had said, Tom had not given over his suspicions. But there were no signs of any intruder and Mr. Swift bore no marks of any wound. It must have been too much concentration over intricate mathematical formulae that had caused the aged inventor to faint—that and the hot weather.

He was soon himself again, and wanted to go on with his work, but Tom insisted that he at once go home and took him up to the house, in company with Ned, in the electric runabout.

“Is anything the matter?” cried Tom’s wife, when she saw him come home from the shop at this unusual hour.

“Nothing serious, Mary,” he replied. “Dad is a little under the weather. He needs looking after, I guess. I’ll leave him with you and Mrs. Baggert.”

“I couldn’t be in better hands,” said the old gentleman, with a kind smile and glance at his son’s pretty young wife.

In spite of Mr. Swift’s assertions that he felt “fine,” Tom insisted on sending for the nearest doctor, who, after looking his patient over, announced:

“He needs rest, quiet, and freedom from work, worry, and excitement for a while.”

“I thought of taking him to Mt. Camon,” announced Tom.

“When?” the doctor wanted to know.

“In a few days I had hoped, but my plans are rather upset because a certain car I wanted to use will have to be repaired.”

“I wouldn’t move Mr. Swift for a while yet,” the physician went on. And when he said that Tom felt the case to be rather serious. “Just let him rest here. Later, perhaps in the fall, you can go to Mt. Camon.”

“That will be all right,” Mary said. “It’s lovely up there in the fall, Tom. Anyhow, if we can’t use the House on Wheels for a while it’s just as well to wait.”

“I guess we’ll have to wait for the House to be repaired,” Tom said. “But that’s no reason for not going to Mt. Camon. I can use any other machine, or even a plane.”

“I wouldn’t take your father in an airplane if I were you,” said the medical man, and his voice was rather serious. “Wait until fall and then go in that House you speak of. It will be cooler then. I’m sure that by September or October he will be all right.”

It seemed the only thing to do, and so it was decided, though Tom Swift hated to disappoint his wife and her parents. But the Nestors, when telephoned to about the change of plans, said it suited them, as Mr. and Mrs. Nestor wanted to go to the seashore for a time.

“Then you go with them, Mary,” Tom urged. “When you come back dad will be all right and we can go to Mt. Camon together.”

“No,” said Mary in a low voice.

“Why not?” asked Tom.

“Because,” was all she said aloud, but as he leaned over to kiss her she whispered: “I don’t want to leave you, my dear.”

“Ahem!” exclaimed Ned Newton loudly, as he unexpectedly started to enter the room as Tom was kissing his wife. “I beg your pardon!”

“Oh, come on in!” chuckled Tom. “Well, I guess I’ll have more time to rush work on the big dirigible,” he added, for Ned had been out of the room during the talk by which the decision was reached.

“Maybe it’s all for the best,” Ned went on after he had been told the situation. “I know, Mary, if Tom went to Mt. Camon with you, leaving a half-finished dirigible in the shop, you wouldn’t have a good time. He’d be thinking of nothing but motors, oralum plates, and so on.”

“I know it,” said the girl, with a laugh. “It will be a lot nicer in the fall. The forest is lovely then and the woods about the Mt. Camon hotel extend for miles and miles without a break.”

So the mountain trip was postponed until autumn and, meanwhile, Tom Swift worked busily on the Silver Cloud. Mr. Swift was under strict orders to remain at home and not go near the shop, and Martin Jardine was as strictly forbidden to see the aged inventor.

“But I don’t want this to be delayed!” he said to Tom, nervously pacing up and down the office, alternately puffing at and relighting one of his strong cigars.

“There will be no delay,” Tom promised. “I expect to work the men in a double shift beginning next week, and if you keep rushing the oralum plates to me I’ll guarantee to deliver the ship on time.”

“Good!” exclaimed Mr. Jardine. “Have a cigar! Oh, I forgot, you don’t use tobacco. Well, give it to your father,” and, thrusting it into Tom’s hand, the nervous man hurried away.

“I wonder if it’s real or if he’s putting on,” thought Tom, as he put the cigar on his desk. “Maybe Ned was right about him. But, anyhow, we’re getting the cash so far. He’s keeping up his payments.”

The weeks passed and the Silver Cloud was fast approaching completion. Even Mr. Jardine was satisfied. Then came a spell of hot weather and Tom saw that his father was suffering from it. Mary, too, though saying nothing, missed her usual summer vacation at some mountain or shore resort.

Then Tom Swift came to a sudden decision. The work on the big dirigible was well under way and the House on Wheels had been repaired and renovated.

“We’ll go to Mt. Camon at once if you say so,” Tom told his wife one evening.

“Oh, Tom, can we?”

“Of course. Dr. Potter said dad could stand the trip now, and your mother and father are back from the shore. We’ll start to-morrow if you want and can get ready.”

“Of course I can. But what about your work—I mean on the big, new airship?”

“That will go along all right. Garret Jackson and Ned will be on the job until I get back. I can start for Mt. Camon to-morrow if you and your father and mother can.”

They did this, making an early start before the usual morning visit of Mr. Jardine to the plant. This would forestall any nervous objection on his part to Tom’s going away for a few days. The young inventor intended to leave his father, his wife, and her parents at the mountain hotel and return to the works to finish the Silver Cloud. As a matter of fact, the labor was so far along that Mr. Jardine really had no occasion to find fault. But he was so fussy he might do so.

The House on Wheels was a delightful vehicle in which to travel, and made its owner independent of hotels along the way.

Mt. Camon was the summit of a series of big hills, about two days’ journey by automobile from Shopton. It was in a wild region of forests and there was no other resort near the one Tom’s wife and her parents had picked out for their fall sojourn.

“I wish you could stay with us and didn’t have to go back, Tom,” said Mary, as she sat beside him on the front seat of the House on Wheels, Tom doing the driving. His father and Mr. and Mrs. Nestor were within.

“I wish I didn’t, myself,” Tom answered. “But I have to. I have signed a contract to finish the Silver Cloud for the Jardine company and I must keep my word.”

“Of course. But you’ll come back as soon as you can, won’t you?”

Tom Swift did not answer, and Mary looked at him for a reason. They were proceeding along a road that bordered part of the big Swift plant and Tom’s eyes were fixed on a man he saw digging a hole, apparently in order to crawl under the fence.

“What’s he up to, I wonder?” muttered the young inventor, as he guided the big car toward the intruder who was evidently seeking a surreptitious entrance. “Hey, you!” Tom Swift called. “Snap out of that!”

THE STRANGE DWARF

With a suddenness that showed how completely he had been taken by surprise, the figure that had been burrowing under the fence slipped from the hole partly dug beneath the barrier and stood upright at the side of the road.

“Why, Tom, he’s only a boy!” exclaimed Mary. “Look!” and she gazed a little reproachfully at her husband because of the rather harsh words he had used toward the intruder.

“A boy!” exclaimed the young inventor.

“Yes,” answered Mary. “He probably lost a ball over your big fence and he wanted to crawl under to get it.”

“If he’s a boy, I’m an infant in arms,” chuckled Tom. “His ball days were over long ago. There’s something queer going on here,” he said in a lower voice. “That’s a dwarf, Mary. A man dwarf!”

Then Mary saw that, indeed, this was so. The fellow was a dwarf, and not a pleasant one, either.

“What’s the game?” asked Tom, as the short, squatty fellow, powerful in build, but only a boy in height, waddled, rather than walked, toward the House on Wheels.

“Game?” questioned the dwarf in surly tones. “I wasn’t playing any game.”

“It looked so,” went on Tom. “Why were you trying to crawl under the fence? There’s no game inside there, and if you lost your golf ball you’ll have to let it go. What’s the idea?”

“Do I have to tell you?” The dwarf’s voice was surly.

“Well, seeing that this is my place and my fence, I don’t think it’s out of order to ask why you’re burrowing under it,” and Tom let a note of sarcasm inject itself.

“Oh, you’re Mr. Swift, are you?” and the manner of the dwarf changed as if by magic. “Well, I beg your pardon. I have a message for you.”

“A message for me?” exclaimed Tom, in surprise.

“Yes, a letter.”

“Well, the least I can say is that this is a queer way to deliver it. Why didn’t you go around to the entrance and see the watchman? Where is this letter?”

Tom’s voice showed his disbelief. The stopping of the House on Wheels and the talk had brought Mr. Swift and the Nestors from where they were conversing on the rear observation platform to the little vestibule behind the front seat where Tom and Mary rode.

“What is it, Tom?” asked his father.

“I found this—this man trying to get under our fence,” the young inventor answered. “He says he was coming in to hand me a letter. But——”

“And here’s the letter, Mr. Swift,” the dwarf broke in, waddling closer to the auto and reaching up with an envelope in his hand. He was not tall enough, and Tom could not stoop low enough to get the missive, so the young inventor descended from his seat, first making sure that there was no chance for an ambush.

For Tom Swift had a distinctly unpleasant feeling, one not unmixed with apprehension, at the sight of the dwarf, a feeling which was increased by what the fellow was doing and his surly manner. This, coupled with Ned Newton’s suspicion of Martin Jardine, made Tom careful.

More than once in the past some clever tricks had been worked against Tom Swift and his father, and he was well aware that all their enemies were not disposed of. This dwarf, however, was a new one.

To Tom’s surprise, the letter was not only addressed to him, but was in an envelope bearing the imprint of the Jardine company which had its headquarters in a large city not far off.

“Read it,” urged the dwarf, with what passed for a smile on his queer face, a man’s face on a boy’s body.

“All right,” Tom assented, after turning the missive over. The envelope contained but a single sheet of paper and a hasty look at the bottom showed that it was signed by Martin Jardine. The letter said:

Tom read the letter twice, and then said:

“Humph!”

“Is it all right, dear?” asked Mary anxiously.

“Seems to be,” Tom answered, as he passed the letter to his father. Then addressing the dwarf he said:

“I certainly didn’t intend to speak harshly to you, Mr. Chock——”

“Call me Jim. Everybody does,” interrupted the dwarf, with one of his grotesque smiles. “You won’t hurt my feelings. But you did give me a start.”

“And you greatly surprised me by burrowing under my fence,” Tom said more genially. “What’s the idea? Why didn’t you go around to the gate and hand in this letter for me?”

“Too far,” said the dwarf, with an uncanny chuckle. “My legs are short and it takes me twice as long to walk a mile as it would you. I didn’t want to go all the way around to the gate, so I started to crawl under your fence. I didn’t think there was any harm.”

“There might have been some harm to you,” Tom stated rather grimly. “Usually both the upper and lower edges of my fence are guarded by a wire carrying a heavy charge of electricity. It just happens the juice is off now, or you might have been tied in a double bowknot as you dug under.”

“I’m glad I wasn’t!” chuckled the dwarf. “I can’t stand being shrunk any more. But I didn’t mean any harm. I was taking the shortest way on account of my legs. I couldn’t climb over your fence, Mr. Swift, so I had to go under. Excuse me!”

“All right,” Tom said. “You seem to have the proper credentials. What about it, Dad?” he asked his father, who had read the note.

“Well,” said Mr. Swift, “this is up to Jardine. If he wants this little man aboard the craft he is paying for, I don’t see that we can object. As he says in the letter, this Mr. Chock may be useful getting into corners. Send him on to the works, Tom. But,” he added in a low voice, “send word to have him watched. Don’t take any chances.”

“I won’t,” said Tom, in a voice equally low. Then to the dwarf he said: “All right, Jim. Take this letter to Mr. Jackson. He’s my foreman. Tell him I’ve seen it.”

“You’d better make an endorsement on the note to that effect, Mr. Swift,” said the dwarf, thus showing he had some business sense. “Mr. Jackson might not take my word that you had seen me and had read Mr. Jardine’s note. Especially if any of your men see me crawling in under the fence.”

“I wouldn’t go in that way if I were you,” and Tom spoke gravely. “Go around by the main gate. I’ll write a line on this note. By the way, where is Mr. Jardine? I haven’t seen him these last two days.”

“He’s very busy,” the dwarf said. “That’s why he sent me with this note instead of bringing me around personally. I have worked in his oralum factory,” he said. “I’m a good machinist and I can get in places other men can’t.”

“That’s so,” admitted Tom, writing a brief note to his foreman on the back of Jardine’s letter. “Well, you may be of use to us. But next time please don’t come in like a boy under a fence at a ball game. It’s rather unusual and may be dangerous.”

“I like to do unusual things,” chuckled the dwarf in a rather strange voice—a man’s tones coming from a child’s body. “But it’s a long way around to your front gate,” he said, rather wistfully.

“Oh, Tom, don’t make him walk all the way back,” urged Mary, in a low voice. “It’s such a hot day and so far. We aren’t in any hurry. Turn the House back!”

“Well,” Tom began, “I suppose——” Just then he saw a flivver containing one of his workmen who had been to the neighboring city of Mansburg for some supplies coming down the road. The workman was on his way back to the factory.

“Here, Kelly, take Mr. Chock to the works with you,” Tom requested, halting his man. “He has a letter for Mr. Jackson.”

“All right, Mr. Swift,” Kelly answered. “Hop in, son,” he went on, evidently thinking the dwarf was a boy. “Oh!” he exclaimed, when he saw his mistake.

“All right, Kelly, step on it!” chuckled the uncanny little fellow, as he scrambled nimbly up to a seat beside the workman. With a farewell wave of his hand containing the endorsed letter of introduction he was off down the road, calling back:

“See you later, Mr. Swift!”

“That’s rather a queer proceeding,” remarked Mr. Nestor.

“A little too queer,” commented Tom. “But maybe it’s all right.”

“Poor fellow!” murmured Mary. “It must be hard to go through life as he is.”

“He seemed jolly enough,” Mrs. Nestor said. “I think he could make money in a circus.”

“Do you think that letter was genuine, Tom?” asked his father.

“Oh, yes. It was Jardine’s signature, and we can easily check up on it. I’ll get word to Jackson before that dwarf arrives.”

“Are you going back, Tom?” Mary asked.

“No,” the young inventor answered. “I can telephone to him from here.” He went to a place in the high fence where there was a telephone outlet. This was one of several in the barrier about the Swift plant. Tom carried a portable telephone in his House on Wheels and he was soon in communication with Mr. Jackson, telling him of the occurrence.

“Put the dwarf to work, but watch him,” was Tom’s final instruction. “I’ll be back in a few days.”

“All right, Mr. Swift,” the foreman said. “Kelly hasn’t come in yet with this bird you speak of, but I’ll be on the watch. Don’t worry.”

Nevertheless, Tom Swift did worry a bit. It seemed very strange that Martin Jardine would send such a dwarf to be taken up in Silver Cloud when that great dirigible should be ready to sail. Yet there was reason in the request.

“Only I didn’t like his crawling under the fence,” Tom said, as he talked his doubts over with Mary and the others while they journeyed along in the House on Wheels.

“Oh, I think he showed good sense,” Mary said. “He knew he had a proper letter of introduction and that everything was in order.”

“If the current had been on the lower wire,” remarked Tom grimly, “everything would have been in disorder for a while. Well, maybe it’s all right. I’ll see Jardine when I get back and make sure.”

“Aren’t you going to stay with us at Mt. Camon, Tom?” asked Mrs. Nestor.

“Only a few days this time,” was the answer. “I must get back and rush work on the dirigible. After that is finished I’ll spend the rest of the summer up there resting.”

“It will be lovely,” Mary said, leaning against him as he drove the big car rapidly over the road.

They stopped for lunch at a pretty little tea room, for, though they could well have cooked in the House on Wheels, for they had supplies with them, it was decided not to take the time to do their own cooking just now. After a rest, they went on again, planning to stop at a hotel if night found them near one, or if not, to camp out in the House on Wheels, which was equipped with comfortable beds.

The afternoon was drawing to a close, and they were some miles from a city where they might stop if they wished when, as they went around a turn in the road, they saw just ahead of them a small auto van which had come to grief.

The van, built on the chassis of a flivver, was turned on its side. Standing looking at it were a man and a woman, both young and evidently Italians. The man, with a gesture of despair as Tom and his friends approached, said pathetically:

“Well, Maria, this is the end!”

“So it seems, Pietro,” said the woman, or rather, girl, for she was no older than Tom’s wife. “Oh, what are we to do?” There were tears in her voice and tears in her eyes as Tom Swift and his friends plainly saw when the House on Wheels was stopped opposite the overturned van.

“What’s the matter?” Tom asked. “You’ve had an accident—I can see that,” he went on. “Is anybody hurt?”

“I am much afraid so,” answered the man. “All my poor children are in there, and I much fear that some have been crushed!”

“Oh, how terrible!” cried Mary.

“Come on, Dad! Mr. Nestor! We’ve got to help those children!” cried Tom, springing from his seat, followed by the two men.

A MERRY PARTY

Tom Swift caught hold of one edge of the overturned van and started to right it. At the same time he called out:

“Take hold here alongside of me, Dad! You too, Mr. Nestor! You lift over there, Mr. Pietro,” he added to the Italian standing beside the weeping young woman.

“Pardon, my name is Notine—Pietro Notine,” said the foreigner, with a smile that showed his white, even teeth. “And there is no need to be in such a rush. I thank you kindly for your offer. But I think if you have a lifting jack it will be better so to raise my car.”

“Get out a jack when the poor children are crushed inside?” cried Tom. “What’s the matter with you? Get hold here, everybody! Maybe you can help a little, Mary, and you too, Mrs. Nestor! And if your wife——”

Tom paused questioningly and eased his lifting efforts for a moment.

“Yes, Maria is my wife,” said Pietro Notine. “But, a thousand pardons, my kind friend, there is no need to so rapidly exert yourself. The damage is done!”

“You must be crazy!” cried Tom. “Children crushed in there and you want to wait!”

“Oh, Pietro, there you do it again!” cried the young woman, suddenly drying her eyes and smiling. “I told you everybody doesn’t understand your poetical talk. Calling them children!”

“Why, aren’t there children in that wreck?” asked Tom, hardly knowing what to think.

“I call them my children,” said the Italian man, with a sigh.

“But they are only marionettes—animated dolls that we use in giving our plays,” explained the young woman.

“Marionettes?” murmured Tom Swift.

“Plays! Oh, how lovely!” exclaimed his wife.

“Animated dolls!” ejaculated Mr. Nestor.

“Like Punch and Judy, I suppose?” asked Mrs. Nestor.

“Somewhat, and yet different,” explained Mrs. Notine. “We like to think our marionettes are different from dear Mr. Punch.”

“Oh, but my dear children are all killed, I know!” sighed the Italian. “It was such a crash!”

“Look here! Let me get this right!” said Tom, desisting from his efforts to right the van. “Do you travel about giving Punch and—I mean marionette shows?” he asked, for he knew the difference between the two performances.

“That’s it!” exclaimed Mr. Notine, who was peering first into one end of his overturned van and then the other. “I am sorry if I unduly alarmed you by calling the marionettes my children. But they are very dear to me. I made them—every one—with the help of my wife. Now—alas!”

“But, Pietro dear,” murmured his wife, “they may not be as badly damaged as you fear. I am sure if these kind people will help us right the van we may save something and be able to give our show.”

“Of course we’ll help you get things to rights!” exclaimed Tom. “I don’t believe your chariot is badly damaged,” he went on, looking with critical eyes at the overturned flivver. “These busses can stand a lot of punishment. How did it happen?”

“I turned to one side quickly, to avoid running over a dog,” explained the Italian puppet master. “Then—poof—over we went! Oh, what a crash for my poor children! We jumped and saved ourselves. But——”

“Do not grieve, my dear!” cried his wife, putting her arms around him like a mother.

“Tom, aren’t they dear?” whispered Mary. “We must help them!”

“Of course,” he responded.

Then, when the traveling show people were calmer and a survey had been made of the situation, Tom Swift saw that it would be very easy for him to attach a rope to the top of the van and pull it back on its wheels, for the road here was very wide.

“I’ll soon have you in shape,” the young inventor told Mr. Notine. “Mr. Nestor, will you lend a hand?”

“Of course, Tom.”

“Count me in!” cried Mr. Swift.

“You’d better take it easy, Dad,” Tom said. But his father insisted on doing at least some of the lighter tasks, and in a short time, with the pull exerted by the powerful House on Wheels, the marionette van was righted, little the worse for its mishap.

Mary murmured in delight when she saw that the van was like a little traveling theater—in effect a glorified Punch and Judy show. The sides of the van opened outward, a little stage was made, and from behind it the Italian and his wife could manipulate the strings that worked the puppets, or animated dolls.

“Ah, my dear children! My little ones!” murmured the Italian when the van was righted and he delved into its interior. He came out with several long, calico bags, their necks tied with strings. From each bag stuck out a curious wooden contrivance with many black strings wound about it.

“Try some of them, Pietro, and see if they are damaged,” suggested his wife. “I think most of them are all right.”

“May the good fairies grant it!” murmured the puppet master. He whisked off the calico bag from a grotesque figure representing a clown, and in a trice he had stepped into his van, behind some scenery representing a forest. Then, to the wondering eyes of Tom, Mary, and the others, the clown with its painted wooden face seemed to come to life, dancing about, cutting up antics, while the puppet master’s voice came out with such effect that it seemed the clown was speaking.

“Oh, how wonderful!” cried Mary.

“Clever!” murmured Tom.

“Where are you going to give a show?” asked Mrs. Nestor. “I should like to see it.”

“We planned to exhibit at the hotel in Colchester,” said Mrs. Notine. “But if our car is so damaged that it cannot go on——” she paused, and made a gesture of resignation.

“We’ve going to Colchester,” Tom said. “If your machine won’t go I’ll either make it go or take you there in ours.”

“It is kind of you,” the Italian said. “But I need my scenery, my effects, and——”

“Perhaps our van will go on, though,” interrupted his wife, more hopefully.

“That’s the way to talk!” cried Tom. “I’ll have a look, and we’ll give it a trial.”

So while the Italian puppet master examined his characters, which is to say his various marionettes, Tom went over the mechanism of the van. He found that a few broken wires of the ignition system constituted the total damage, except for some scratches, and he soon had the car in working order.

“A thousand thanks!” exclaimed the enthusiastic Mr. Notine. “Now we can go on!”

“It was wonderful of you!” murmured the pretty Italian woman. And she made such “eyes” at Tom that later Mary laughingly said she would soon have been jealous.

“I should like very much to see a marionette show,” said Mrs. Nestor.

“Nothing is easier,” returned Tom. “We planned at least to call at the Colchester hotel, for I told Mr. Jackson if he had any messages he could reach me there. So we’ll stop, anyhow, and if you like you can spend the night there and see this performance.”

So it was arranged, and after Tom Swift and his party had seen the marionette van start off, they followed in the House on Wheels and both soon arrived at Colchester. The House on Wheels was put in a garage for the night and the hotel proprietor warmly welcomed the traveling marionette company to his establishment. He was in need of a night’s entertainment for his guests, and a good crowd was assured. For be it known that marionettes are as much a source of amusement to adults as they are to children. The plays Mr. Notine and his wife gave with the puppets were poetical and historical and not juvenile plays.

So it was a merry party that gathered in the hotel parlor that evening to watch the marionette show, a temporary stage having been set up and the scenery and effects brought in from the van.

Tom was thoroughly enjoying himself and so was his wife. There was plenty of applause for the marionette show and its picturesque proprietors, and a goodly sum was realized for their benefit.

After the show there was a jolly gathering about the Italian and his wife, and they made much of the “rescue,” as Pietro Notine termed it, on the part of Tom Swift.

“Without my benefactor I should never be here!” said the Italian, with dramatic gestures.

“Oh, cut it out!” chuckled Tom.

The hotel guests were examining the workings of the marionettes from “behind the scenes,” and Mary, who had met a few acquaintances among the persons in the audience, was talking and laughing with them when a bellboy came along calling:

“Telegram! Telegram for Mr. Swift!”

“Here!” exclaimed Tom, slipping the lad a quarter.

“Oh,” murmured Mary, as her husband tore open the yellow envelope, “I hope there is no bad news.”

THE LANDSLIDE

Little could be gathered from the expression on Tom Swift’s face as to the import of the telegraph message he hurriedly read. But then the young inventor was accustomed to concealing his feelings.

“Tom has a regular sphinx face,” Ned Newton used to say.

However, schooled as Tom was in the art of hiding his emotion when necessary, it was evident to Mary, at least, that the telegram contained news of importance, if not of trouble.

“I didn’t know Tom expected any messages here,” said Mrs. Nestor, as she and her husband stood among the hotel guests that were marveling at the clever ability shown by the marionette performer and his wife.

“Tom always leaves word at the shop where he can be found,” said Mr. Swift, as his son was conversing in a low tone with his wife. “So whether he is here or there they can always communicate with him.”

“They couldn’t do it very well when Tom was on some of his submarine trips,” suggested Mrs. Nestor, with a smile.

“They did when we were wrecked on Earthquake Island,” her husband answered, with a chuckle. “Don’t you remember how Tom rigged up a machine and sent a wireless message that brought us help?” he asked.

“So he did!” agreed Mary’s mother. “But I wonder what’s the matter now?”

“Anything wrong, Tom?” asked his father, with the privilege his relationship entailed.

“Not so much wrong, as a puzzle,” and Tom laughed a little, but uneasily. “It’s that dwarf, Chock,” he added.

“What did he do?” asked Mr. Swift quickly.

“Did he try to wreck the dirigible?” Mary wanted to know. For in times past she knew unscrupulous enemies had taken even such desperate methods as this to cripple Tom Swift.

“It isn’t so much what he did as what he didn’t do,” said Tom. “He didn’t stay—quit suddenly, Mr. Jackson wires me. It looks a bit queer, after he made such an effort to get in the plant.”

“What do you think it means?” Tom’s father asked.

“I don’t know, Dad.”

“Did he take away any of your things—I mean secret plans or anything having to do with the dirigible?”

“I think not, or Jackson would have said so. But I’ll get him on the long distance wire and find out.”

A little later Tom was talking to his foreman over the telephone and later still the young inventor told his father the details.

“Queerly enough, it was Koku and the dwarf that clashed,” Tom said. “My giant made such fun of the little man that Jackson says Chock flew into a rage, tried to beat Koku up, got well threshed for his pains, and then quit in a fit of temper.”

“I don’t know that you can blame him,” remarked Mr. Nestor. “Small people are more touchy about their size than big ones.”

“But is everything all right at the plant, Tom?” Mr. Swift asked, and it was evident that he was nervously apprehensive.

“Everything is all right as far as they can tell. As I warned Jackson, they kept a careful watch over the dwarf, though not letting him suspect it. In spite of Jardine’s letter of introduction, I was suspicious. However, I don’t believe he got a chance to do anything or take anything. He just left because Koku got on his nerves, I guess. Well, I’m glad it was no worse.”

“I am, too,” Mary said. “I’d hate to have anything happen to the big dirigible, Tom, after all your work.”

“Oh, well, we can’t always have good luck,” Tom said, with a smile. “And now you must be tired, Mary. What about going upstairs?”

“Yes, it has been rather an exciting day, what with thinking we had come upon an overturned van of children,” and Mary laughed a little at the recollection of the marionettes.

“Neat little show he has,” commented Tom. “I’m glad we could help them. They’re going to travel in their van until cold weather sets in, so Notine told me. Then they go about in different theaters on a vaudeville circuit. Well, by this time to-morrow we ought to be at Mt. Camon.”

“I shall love it there,” Mary said, as she and Tom went up in the hotel elevator to their rooms. “Only I wish you could stay longer.”

“I’ll be with you as soon as I get this dirigible off my mind,” he promised her.

When he had seen Mary safely settled in their quarters, Tom said he would go downstairs and look over the evening papers.

The marionette show had been put away, the guests who had gathered to witness the performance had dispersed, but Tom saw the poetical little Italian puppet master in the smoking room.

“Excuse me, Mr. Swift,” said Pietro Notine, beckoning to Tom to enter and making room for him on a leather settee. “Did I hear you speak of a certain dwarf named Chock?”

“Yes,” Tom answered wonderingly. “I engaged a dwarf of that name early to-day for my plant on my way from home. But I just had a telegram from my shop superintendent saying that this evening he took French leave, so to speak—that is, he went away suddenly.”

“I understand, Mr. Swift,” said the Italian, and his voice was grave. “Perhaps it is as well for you that he did leave, and with no great harm to anything of yours, as I could not help overhearing you say to your friends.”

“No, he didn’t take anything or do any damage,” Tom said. “But what do you mean that it is just as well he has left my plant? What do you know about this dwarf, Chock?”

“I know little good of him,” was the earnest and almost whispered answer, as the Italian slid nearer to Tom along the settee. “You have been a good friend to me. Let me repay you in a small way, by advising you to have nothing to do with this dwarf!”

“You surprise me!” Tom said. “I had no idea you knew him. Can you tell me more?”

“Not much more, except to repeat my warning.”

“How did you happen to know Chock? Do you know anything about why he went to my place with a letter from a man I am building a big dirigible for?”

“I know nothing of your works, Mr. Swift. I have heard of you, but I never met you before. Only, if I had a place where ships of the air were made I would not let this dwarf come near them.”

“Look here!” exclaimed Tom, hardly knowing whether or not to credit the Italian. “You’ve said either too much or too little. Tell me first how you know James Chock.”

“He is a clever little dwarf,” was the answer. “Clever, but of such a character as not to be trusted. He has exhibited himself in many theaters where my wife and I have also given our marionette shows.”

“I thought he would make a good theater attraction,” Tom said. “But do you know anything of him personally?”

“To my sorrow,” replied the Italian. “I once engaged him, for, being small, I thought he could get around easily behind the scenery of our miniature stage where, as you have seen, we have little room to spare. For a time Chock did well and helped us. But in the end I had to discharge him for getting drunk, if you will excuse me, and one night he tried to set fire to my van and burn it with all my children!”

Tom knew now what the puppet master meant by “children” and was not as shocked as he would have been at first. But he was sufficiently impressed as it was.

“You don’t mean it!” he exclaimed.

“Truly, I am telling you,” said Pietro Notine solemnly. “But for my wife’s alertness, this dwarf would have destroyed all my marionettes. That is why I say he is vindictive, not to be trusted, and one who must be watched. You are well rid of him.”

“I should say so!” murmured Tom. “I wonder if Jardine knows that? He recommended him. I must look farther into this. I’ll write Jackson a letter and send it by the air mail so he’ll be on the watch to-morrow. I don’t want to get him out of bed to the telephone again. But I’m obliged to you for letting me know this, Mr. Notine.”

“The obligation is still on my side,” said the Italian, with a friendly smile and a characteristic gesture.

He and Tom sat up talking for half an hour longer, but the puppet master could tell little more of the dwarf than he had already disclosed.

“Only I beg of you to have nothing to do with him,” he concluded.

“I should say not!” agreed Tom.

He wrote the letter to his foreman and went up to where Mary was sleepily awaiting him. But he said nothing to her about what had been told him, for he did not want her to worry over what were as yet only rumor and suspicion, even though very disquieting ones.

“I guess the folks back at the plant can look after things until I return,” Tom thought.

The puppet folks had departed next morning when Tom and his party were ready to resume their trip in the House on Wheels, and they were soon traveling along the road at a fast rate, hoping to reach Mt. Camon before nightfall.

But just after they left one city, after a bountiful lunch, they came upon a detour sign, and when they took the cut-off road it was soon evident that they were not going to make good time, for the highway was very rough. At last Tom, in despair, stopped at a crossroad hot-dog stand and asked the young fellow in charge whether there was any other route to Falkenberg, which was the town they must go through in order to get on the road to Mt. Camon.

“Why, yes,” said the stand-keeper. “If you go back along this road to the last turn,” and he indicated, “and bear to the right, you’ll get on an old logging road that runs along the side of the cliff. That’s a short cut, but it’s a bad grade.”

“I’ve yet to see the grade my machine won’t take,” Tom said. “But is it wide enough on the shoulder of the cliff?”

“Oh, yes, two cars can pass, even counting one as wide as yours,” for Tom’s House on Wheels was not small.

“Then I’m going to take that cut-off,” Tom decided. “If we keep on this way it means another night at some hotel or sleeping in the House, and I want to get you settled, Dad, at the Mt. Camon hotel where you can rest.”

So Tom swung his big machine off the detour and they were soon climbing up a fairly good road, one that was quite wide enough for any motorist, but with a very steep grade.

“She’d take it on high if I forced her,” Tom said proudly as he guided the House around one turn after another. “But we don’t need to. We’ll soon be there now.”

“I hope so,” murmured Mary. “It seems dangerous.”

Tom laughed at her fears, and went on and on and up and up. They reached the summit of the cut-off, and swung around a place where the descending road had been literally dug through a shoulder of a great hill, really a small mountain. Tom threw the motor into low gear, to save his brakes, and was congratulating himself on saving time and not meeting with any traffic when there was a sudden strange rumble and tremor behind him.

“What’s that?” cried Mr. Nestor.

“Another car coming, I guess,” Tom said. “Sounds like a big truck.”

His father glanced back and cried:

“Tom, it’s a landslide! This road is slipping away back of us and we’re going down with it! It’s a new road and hasn’t been well settled. Look out for yourself, Tom!”

Alarmed by his father’s excited voice and by a scream of fear from Mrs. Nestor, Tom shot a look back around the edge of the front seat. He saw great cracks appearing in the roadway over which he had just traveled. Looking ahead, he saw a big piece of the towering cliff above him break off and crash to the road in front with a thundering roar.

There was a sickening lurch, a swaying of the House on Wheels. As Mary gave a cry of alarm, the whole side of the mountain and Tom’s great conveyance went down with the landslide.