Tom Swift and his big dirigible

MR. DAMON ARRIVES

“What shall I do, Tom?” called Mary Swift in a tense voice into the ear of her husband beside whom she sat on the seat of the House on Wheels. “Is this the end?”

For it seemed that only death awaited them at the foot of the mountain down which they were sliding, beyond control, gripped in the mass of earth, trees, and rocks that formed the great slide.

“Sit still, Mary dear!” exclaimed Tom. He did not turn his eyes to look at her, much as he wished to, for he must keep a steady hand on the wheel and keep his eyes in front to avoid, if possible, crashing into some great boulder. He realized that he could still steer the House on Wheels, though to hold it back or send it forward out of danger on top of that slide was beyond human power.

“Don’t fear for me. I’ll sit still,” Mary answered quietly and, white-lipped, she braced herself on the seat, waiting for the great crash she expected to come at any moment.

Mrs. Nestor, clinging to her husband back in the big car, was terrified, and with reason; but she was a woman of great common sense and not panicky. Her experience on Earthquake Island with Tom Swift had taught her that he was to be relied upon in an emergency. So, though she clung to her husband and moaned a little, she did not try to leap out of a window or the door at the rear, as some might have done.

“Steady!” murmured Mr. Nestor, holding his wife to him. “If we are to come out of this alive, Tom Swift will accomplish it. If it is to be the end we must meet it bravely,” he said, though there was a tremor in his voice as he looked at Mary sitting beside her husband.

“Tom, do you want any help?” asked his father. “I can do a lot yet.”

“No. Stay where you are—all of you!” Tom called over his shoulder. “And keep to the rear as far as you can, to hold the back wheels down. If we don’t up-end I think we’ll be all right.”

“What did the car do—leave the road?” asked Mr. Nestor.

They all had to shout to be heard above the rumble, roar, crash, clatter, bang, and rattle of the landslide.

“No, we didn’t leave the road,” Tom said grimly. “The road tried to leave us and I’m not sure yet but what it may. But, so far, we have stuck together.”

What had happened was that a section of the side of the mountain, into which the highway was cut, had suddenly broken off, either because of much rain or because there was a fault in the rock and earth of which it was composed. This big piece, weighing thousands of tons, had broken off the road itself, and the portion of the highway, on which the House on Wheels rested, began to slip down into the valley below. Fortunately, none of the falling earth, stones and trees had struck the big auto. But the House on Wheels was being carried down the slope as an integral part of the landslide, even as were some of the gigantic boulders and tall trees.

“Do you think we can come through it safely, Tom?” asked Mary softly, her face close against his shoulder.

“I think so—I hope so. Steady now! If we can get past that big rock I think we’ll make it.”

Ahead of them was a great boulder, as big, if not bigger, than the House on Wheels itself. It was moving more slowly than was Tom’s car, for the reason that the latter had wheels.

Closer and closer to the great rock the House on Wheels slid. Tom was pulling with all his might on the steering wheel. Mary saw that he was using his last ounce of strength, and she quickly put her hands beside his and helped him turn the front wheels, which were hard to move, in spite of being arranged on a gear, for they were now embedded deep in sand and gravel.

“Oh, we’re going to hit!” cried Mrs. Nestor nervously.

“Pull, Mary!” shouted Tom.

The wheel slowly turned—oh, so slowly.

But when it seemed that there must be a crash, the great House slid past the immense rock and came to rest against a bank of sand in the valley below the broken road. The gigantic boulder rolled off to one side. The House on Wheels quivered and was still.

“Safe!” cried Mr. Nestor, looking out of a window as he gently released himself from his wife’s arms.

“Safe, but stuck,” murmured Tom, his hands white and tensed from the strain of pulling around the steering wheel. Mary sank against her husband limply, game but “all in,” as she expressed it.

“What do you mean, ‘stuck,’ Tom?” asked his father.

“I mean we’ve run her nose into a sand bank. Nothing is broken, I think, but we’ll have to be dug out before we can get back on the road. I guess it means staying here for the night.”

“And we can be very thankful,” said Mrs. Nestor, “that we have such a wonderful house to stay in, Tom Swift. You’re a dear boy!” and she kissed him.

“Yes, we can put up at this hotel!” chuckled Mr. Nestor. “It will be rather fun, I think. For I’m a bit shaky and I’d just as soon stop where we are as fuss up for a regular hotel dining room.”

Tom was out of the car looking around, over, and under it. He could see nothing wrong except that all four wheels were buried deep in sand, gravel, and rocks. The landslide had reached bottom, carrying the great car with it, but not damaging it.

“All right. Here’s where we stay until I can get a gang of men with shovels in the morning to dig us out,” Tom said. “It’s lucky we have our beds and kitchen with us.”

“Yes, and mother and I will get the meal!” offered Mary. “You’re to do nothing but rest, Tom!”

“That won’t be a bad idea!” he chuckled. Really the danger had been great and the strain on him terrific. For he thought that Mary and all of them would be killed, or at least badly hurt. But they were now safe and sound.

It did not take long to prepare the meal and get ready to spend the night. The car rested on almost a level “keel,” if that expression is permissible, and there was a little stream of clear, sparkling water in the valley where they had come to rest.

So they made not such a bad night of it after all, as the beds, though small, were comfortable. Tom soon recovered his nerve, but he was more than a little anxious, though he did not say so, about the grotesque dwarf and what he had heard about him from Mr. Notine.

“I wonder if Jardine is playing some game,” mused Tom, as he fell asleep. “Well, I’ll find out when I get back home.”

The next day when men from the state highway department came out to investigate the landslide, they were much surprised to see the big House on Wheels standing where it had been caught in the slipping earth.

“That road around the cliff wasn’t supposed to be used,” one of the engineers said to Tom. “How’d you come to take it?”

“A young fellow at a hot-dog stand told me it was a short cut. But this was a little too short,” and Tom glanced significantly up the side of the mountain down which they had literally slid.

“I should say so!” remarked the engineer. “Well, we’ll dig you out and then I’ll have a talk with that lad. He might have sent you all to your deaths.”

“I wondered why we didn’t meet other cars,” Tom said.

It did not take long to dig out the House, though afterward it had to proceed slowly over rough ground to get back to a hard road. But after all no great damage was done, proving that when Tom Swift built a machine he built it well.

A little later they were well on their road to the great hotel in the big woods of Mt. Camon and reached their stopping place before noon.

“Isn’t this a wonderful hotel, Tom?” cried Mary, when the car had been run around to a garage and they were being shown to their rooms.

“Great!” he said. “I didn’t know there were so many trees in the world!”

The Mt. Camon Hotel was situated on a mountain top, girt around by immense forest stretches in every direction.

“I am glad you like it here,” said Mr. Thorndyke, the hotel manager, as he greeted the Nestors, who had been his guests many seasons. “The only thing is that we are very dry up here.”

“We’re all prohibitionists, so we won’t mind that,” laughed Tom.

“You mistake me,” said Mr. Thorndyke, with a smile. “I mean we have had no rain for a long time. It is that dryness I mean.”

“Is the hotel water supply running low?” Tom asked. He knew what a shortage like that meant in the height of the season.

“Not that,” the manager said. “We have our own artesian well that never goes dry. But all about us the forests are like tinder. It is feared that if there are forest fires they may get beyond control. The fire wardens are worried and are constantly on the alert.”

“Let us hope that doesn’t happen,” Tom said, lightly enough. “And it may rain.”

“It may. I hope so,” said Mr. Thorndyke but he had a worried air.

However, Tom, Mary and the others had come to Mt. Camon for a good time and such a thing as a dry spell was not going to spoil their vacation. So they got settled in their rooms, Mary saw that her mother and father and Mr. Swift were comfortable, then she took Tom out to show him around the place, for she had spent many summers there.

“I suppose,” said Tom, rather jokingly, “that you will take me to Bridal Veil Falls, Lovers’ Leap, the Maiden’s Retreat, and all sorts of places like that.”

“We have them all!” laughed Mary. “But I do hope the dry weather hasn’t spoiled the flower gardens. They are, or were when I was last here, quite a feature of this hotel. Let’s go out and look.”

They went through the main entrance, out on a broad piazza, and started down the long walk that led up to the hotel from the road. On either side were beds of flowers, plants, and shrubs, and Tom was beginning to admire them.

“Oh, this isn’t what I want to show you yet,” said Mary. “Come over this way.”

She led him through a path of shrubbery. Just ahead of them were two men, one evidently a gardener. The figure of the other was familiar to Tom Swift. Then he heard a well known voice say:

“Bless my watering can, but those are the finest roses I ever saw! I must have one!”

He reached over to pick a blossom.

“Mr. Damon!” cried Tom in delight.

“Tom Swift!” ejaculated the other, turning about. “When did you get here?”

“Just arrived,” Tom answered. “But I never expected to see you. When did you come?”

“I just arrived, too. The bus brought me here from that little jerkwater station shaped like a mushroom. But see these flowers! In spite of the dry spell this fellow has made them bloom,” and he motioned to the gardener standing beside him.

Mr. Damon reached over again to pick a rose. As he did so, the man beside him, with a cry like that of a wild animal, shouted:

“No! You must not! I forbid you!”

“My man, you forget yourself!” said Mr. Damon severely. “I have been a guest here before and I know it is allowed to pick a few flowers. Stand aside!” for the man, with a face showing rage, seemed about to prevent him.

“No! No! You must not pick that rose!” cried the man, and he raised his hand as if to strike Mr. Damon. But that eccentric character was very quick, and a moment later the gardener went flying backward into some bushes, propelled by the vigorous fist of Wakefield Damon.

A FLASHING KNIFE

“There!” exclaimed Mr. Damon with a grunt of satisfaction, as he straightened up. “Bless my golf clubs, but I think I’ve taught that insolent fellow a lesson!”

“What’s it all about?” asked Tom, greatly surprised by this scene.

“Oh, he’s a crank about flowers, that’s all,” Mr. Damon said. “But I have never known him to go to such lengths before.”

“Did he hurt you?” asked Mary anxiously, for she was very fond of Mr. Damon, as was Tom, in spite of his odd ways.

“Not at all, my dear,” answered the eccentric man. “I hit him first.”

“And, speaking of golf,” said Tom, “you seem to have made a hole in one, Mr. Damon.”

“What do you mean, Tom?”

The young inventor smiled and pointed to the gardener who was getting up out of a hole beneath the bushes into which Mr. Damon had knocked him. There was a strange, strained look on the man’s face, but he said nothing nor did he attempt to renew the quarrel. He dusted himself off, looked at some scratches on his hands, glanced once at Mr. Damon, and went away.

“You had better look out for him, Mr. Damon,” Tom warned. “He had an ugly look.”

“I know him of old,” was the answer. “He is very jealous of his flowers, but Mr. Thorndyke has said that we guests may pick a few when we please. I shall speak to the manager about this fellow. But, Tom, I am delighted to see you and Mary here. How did it happen?”

“The folks needed a rest and change, particularly dad,” Tom explained. “So I brought them up in the House on Wheels.”

“And we came nearly not getting here,” added Mary.

“How was that, my dear?”

“We were caught in a landslide.”

“Bless my toothbrush!” cried Mr. Damon. “You don’t tell me!”

Then Tom related some of the events leading up to the visit to Mt. Camon. In turn, Mr. Damon stated that his wife had gone to visit some of her relatives, and he not fancying a trip to the little town where they lived, had come by himself to the mountain resort.

“We will have a good time while you are here, Tom,” said the odd character. “Bless my first base, but we must get up a ball game! They have a very good diamond here. We married men will play the single men, and you’ll have to be in the former class now, Tom.”

“That’s right, Mr. Damon, and I’m not sorry!” laughed Tom, with a fond look at his wife.

“She can play tennis,” went on Mr. Damon. “They have some fine courts here.”

“Indeed they have,” said Mary. “I’ve played here before. Is there a good crowd up this season, Mr. Damon?”

“Well, really, my dear, I don’t know. I arrived only a little while ago, like yourselves. But from what I have seen I should say it was going to be a good season. Are you up for long, Tom?”

“No, I must go back in a few days. We have a big, new dirigible in process of construction, and it’s taking a good bit of my time. But I hope to have it finished in another month and then Mary and I will enjoy our vacation together. How long are you going to stay?”

“As long as my wife will let me and while she is contented to stay with her relatives,” chuckled the odd man, for it was no secret that Mrs. Damon was rather censorious and she and her odd husband led a more or less troubled life.

A little later Mr. Damon went up to speak to Mr. Swift and the Nestors, leaving Tom and Mary to wander about the hotel grounds. Tom saw the tennis courts and the well-laid-out ball field. The hotel and its grounds occupied the level plateau of the highest of the mountain peaks in that neighborhood. All about it on every side, only pierced by a few roads, was a dense forest.

“It is dry,” Tom observed, when he and his wife had gone a little way into the outlying woods. “If this ever got on fire it would be a hard job to put it out.”

“Let us hope then,” said Mary, with a smile, “that it will never get on fire.”

“Oh, sure!” exclaimed Tom.

On the way back to the hotel veranda, where Mary said she wanted to rest awhile before dressing for dinner, they met the strange gardener who had tried to stop Mr. Damon from picking a rose.

“You want to be careful!” said the man to Tom.

“What do you mean?” asked the young inventor with not a little indignation in his voice.

“Keep away from that man who picks my roses,” went on the gardener. “He is in danger. And don’t you pick any flowers, either.”

“Look here!” began Tom, but Mary pulled him by the arm and whispered:

“Don’t have a fuss with him, Tom dear. He is a bit queer. A sort of crank about his flowers.”

“I must speak to the manager about him,” Tom decided, as he and his wife walked on, leaving the evil-faced gardener pottering about some laurel bushes.

Tom left Mary with her father and mother, Mr. Swift having gone to his room to rest. Then, while walking about the beautiful grounds, the young inventor came upon Mr. Damon talking with Mr. Thorndyke, the hotel manager.

“Well, Mr. Swift, are you enjoying yourself?” Mr. Thorndyke wanted to know.

“Very much,” was the reply. “But I have been a little annoyed by the actions of one of the gardeners on the grounds.”

“I was just telling him about that man myself,” said Mr. Damon. “Really, Mr. Thorndyke, your guests should not be annoyed by such a fellow when they want to pick a rose or two.”

“Indeed they shouldn’t!” agreed the manager angrily. “I must speak to Cosso Tobini.”

“Is that his name?” asked Tom. “Sounds Italian.”

“It is Italian, I believe.”

“Well, he got in Dutch with Mr. Damon!” chuckled Tom. “It was one fine little knock-out.”

“Perhaps I shouldn’t have hit him,” said the odd man. “But, bless my boxing gloves, I didn’t want him to hit me.”

“You did perfectly right, Mr. Damon,” the manager said. “Wait. Here comes Tobini now. I shall speak to him. He is a very good workman and an excellent gardener. He has achieved results here with flowers and plants that no other man has ever been able to equal. But we are in the hotel business to please our guests, not to raise roses for a cranky gardener to keep on the bushes. Tobini is very hot-headed, but I must make him listen to reason and mend his ways.”

The man with whom Mr. Damon had had such a lively little argument was coming along a path with a barrow of dirt, evidently destined for some flower bed. Mr. Thorndyke stopped him as Tom and Mr. Damon stood near.

“Look here, Tobini,” said the manager, “you must stop this nonsense of trying to prevent our guests from picking roses or I will discharge you.”

“They are my roses!” snapped the man, and one could see that he had a passionate love of flowers. “No one must pick them! Why should they not live out their lives on their own stems? To pick them is to kill them. Let them live their alloted lives.”

“That’s all nonsense,” said Mr. Thorndyke. “Our guests may pick a few flowers when they choose. If you interfere with any of them again, Cosso—with Mr. Swift or Mr. Damon—you will get your walking papers. Understand?”

“They can pick my roses?” the man growled out the question.

“Certainly! Keep your tongue and hands to yourself! Now go!”

The gardener wheeled the barrow of dirt a little distance and then deliberately upset it in the middle of a gravel path. A moment later, as Tom and Mr. Damon looked in surprise at this manifestation of anger, the man took a shovel and slowly began refilling his barrow from the pile he had made.

“Bless my thermometer!” cried Mr. Damon, “what’s the idea?”

“It’s just one of his fits of temper,” said the manager, with a shrug of his shoulders. “He has done stranger things than that. But he is such a good gardener that I hate to let him go, though I have threatened to many times.”

“Well,” chuckled Tom, “as long as he makes work for himself and cleans up after it, he’ll be kept busy.”

“It’s an outlet for his rage, I suppose,” the manager said. “I don’t really believe he is dangerous, though he has all the hotness of the Italian race and is unreasonable in the extreme.”

The incident was soon forgotten, as Tom and Mr. Damon strolled about, talking over old times and the many adventures they had shared together. If they had known it, a great adventure was just around the corner for them.

Mr. Damon was given a seat at the table where Tom Swift and his party ate, and they were making a pleasant meal, laughing and conversing, when a sound on a veranda just outside the window near which the Swift table was placed, attracted their attention.

Mr. Thorndyke, the manager, was walking along the veranda. Suddenly, out of some side passage, sprang the gardener, Cosso Tobini. As Tom Swift looked he saw something flashing in the man’s upraised hand. A moment later the young inventor knew what it was—a knife glinting in the rays of the sun.

“Look out, Mr. Thorndyke!” Tom cried.

As he spoke, the evil-faced man leaped forward, raising the knife high to strike. Mr. Thorndyke, warned by Tom Swift’s cry, looked over his shoulder just in time, and, seeing the danger, began to run. There were excited shouts from those at Tom’s table and from other guests.

“I will kill you!” screamed Tobini, as he raced after the fleeing manager. “You let people kill my roses! I will kill you!”

UGLY THREATS

For a moment no one seemed to know what to do, and after the first excited cries the only sounds audible were the pattering of the feet of the pursued and the pursuer on the flagged pavement of the hotel veranda.

“Bless my courthouse,” gasped Mr. Damon, “there’ll be murder done by that mad scoundrel!”

“Unless somebody stops him!” ejaculated Mr. Nestor.

Tom pushed back his chair and scrambled through the low window near his table and out on the broad porch. A moment later he was chasing after Tobini, who was rapidly drawing nearer to Mr. Thorndyke. The manager was a portly person, and evidently not accustomed to running. But fear lent him some speed.

“Drop that knife, you scoundrel!” cried Tom, hastening after what was, if not a madman, a man mad with rage.

“I kill him! I kill him!” screamed Tobini. “No one shall kill my roses and live!”

He was almost upon the panting manager now, but when Mr. Thorndyke looked back again and saw that murderous, gleaming knife, he took a desperate chance and leaped over the low balustrade of the veranda into some shrubbery at a place where it was not far to the ground.

“Good!” cried Tom Swift.

With a cry of rage Tobini reached the same place and started to leap down, but the young inventor was close behind him and, reaching forth a hand, tore the upraised knife from the gardener. At the same time Tom stuck out his foot and tripped Tobini so that he fell heavily. Tom was upon him in an instant, seeking to hold his hands to prevent the drawing of any other weapon. Tom had cast the knife back of him.

There was a fierce struggle for a few moments, Tobini seeking to tear himself loose; but Tom Swift was strong and would not let go. He got the fellow on his face and sat upon his back, twisting his arms up and around behind him.

By this time Mr. Damon, Mr. Nestor, and several other guests had hurried to Tom’s aid, and the raging, fuming gardener was subdued, but not without a further struggle. Like all such persons, he seemed to possess the strength of several men.

“Did he kill poor Thorndyke?” asked Mrs. Nestor, after the hands and feet of Tobini had been tied with large table napkins in lieu of ropes.

“I think not,” Tom said. “I believe he jumped over the railing in time.”

This proved to be true, for a few moments later the manager, rather pale and disheveled from his leap into the shrubbery, came back up on the veranda and surveyed the now subdued and temporarily quiet Italian.

“I’ve put up with enough of your tricks!” said the incensed manager. “You are a good workman, Tobini; but we have had too many complaints from our guests about you. This is the end!”

“What are you going to do with me?” growled the fellow.

“Send you to jail where you belong. Telephone for the state troopers,” he said to one of the waiters, that constabulary being the nearest authority to the isolated hotel.

“To jail!” growled Tobini.

“Yes. That is my last word to you!”

“But it is not my last word to you!” screamed the man, trying to break from his napkin bonds and from his captors. “You shall hear from me again! I shall have my revenge!”

His face was distorted with rage and his body writhed like that of a captive snake. But Tom Swift and the others had tied the napkins well and they held. The man was led from the veranda to a secure closet on the basement floor until the state troopers should arrive. Then the interrupted meal went on.

“He must be insane,” stated Mary.

“A bad number, whatever he is,” agreed Tom.

“I wish you didn’t have to go, Tom,” said Mary wistfully.

“So do I. But business is business.”

“I know, my dear. But I—I——”

“What is it?” asked Tom, as she hesitated.

“I have such a strange feeling, as if something were going to happen,” she said, looking over her shoulder apprehensively. “I feel as if we were surrounded by great danger.”

“Nonsense!” laughed Tom. “Mr. Thorndyke was the only one in any danger, and the cause has been removed, or soon will be. I think the troopers are coming now,” he went on, as the sound of an auto was heard in the lower road. “I’ll go and see.”

“No, Tom, stay with me, please!” begged Mary. They were out on the veranda after dinner.

“What’s the danger?” he asked. “That fellow is well trussed.”

“He might break loose,” said Mary. “And he made such a dreadful threat—about revenge and killing people. I’d rather you wouldn’t go. Let the state troopers take him away.”

“All right,” assented Tom, with a smile and a shrug of his shoulders.

A little later the madman, for such he was, temporarily at least, was taken away by the police and, so the hotel manager said, locked securely in the jail of a small town several miles away.

The excitement caused by Tobini passed away with the evening, though it was a fruitful source of conversation the next day among the guests, one and all of whom praised Tom Swift highly for so quickly disarming the fellow.

The season was now in full swing, and the hotel was well filled with guests who enjoyed the various forms of amusement and the activities provided by the manager and his helpers.

Tom and Mary went off much by themselves, as newly married couples have done since the beginning of the world and probably always will do. Mary showed Tom the various points of interest about the big estate. They went on excursions in the surrounding forests and once or twice met fire wardens who spoke of the danger of fires on account of the continued dryness.

“But we’re on the watch,” one deputy warden said, talking to Tom and Mary at the foot of his observation tower, from which he had descended for a little walk.

“I’ll feel more at ease when I’ve gone back to know that the firemen are on the alert,” Tom said to his wife as they returned to the hotel.

“If anything happens, will you come and get me, Tom?” Mary asked.

“Of course!” he exclaimed and, there being none to see, he put his arms around her and kissed her.

Tom had intended to stay four days at Mt. Camon with Mary, but the second night a long distance telephone call came for him.

“It’s from Mr. Jackson,” he said, when he had finished the talk. “He wants me back as soon as possible. I’ll go in the morning.”

“Anything wrong?” asked Mr. Swift.

“Oh, Jardine is making a fuss about a lot of things regarding his dirigible,” Tom said, in annoyed tones. “I’ve got to go and help Jackson and Ned straighten matters out.”

“I hope that dwarf won’t make any trouble,” said Mary.

SHADOWS OF THE NIGHT

Tom Swift believed among other things that when persons are on a vacation to enjoy themselves they should be bothered, annoyed and worried as little as possible. So, though he was not altogether easy in his mind regarding the message from his shop and though he was a bit apprehensive concerning that sinister dwarf, he affected to be quite at his ease.

“Don’t worry, Mary,” he said. “Everything will be all right.”

“But why does Mr. Jackson want you to come back before your time is up?”

“Oh, a lot of little details that they think I must settle,” Tom said. “I dare say they really amount to nothing. There are many things to decide in building such a big dirigible, and naturally Jackson and Ned don’t want to take the responsibility.”

So, though he had intended to spend another day at Mt. Camon, Tom Swift made arrangements for leaving early in the morning. When the time came, the House on Wheels was brought around from the hotel garage.

“Be careful of that place where the landslide was, won’t you, Tom?” Mary called to him when he was ready to leave.

“I’m not going back that way,” he answered.

“When will you come up again?” she asked.

“I’ll come for my long vacation as soon as the dirigible is finished,” Tom said. “But I may run up for a few days before then if things are all right.”

Tom was a little downcast at leaving his wife, and Mary frankly cried a little at the parting, brief though it would be. But when Tom Swift was at length on the way back, speeding along in the House on Wheels, he was thinking of so many things that even his new wife was, for the moment, crowded out of his mind.

“I hope that bird Jardine isn’t going to butt in and spoil my plans,” Tom said. “The dirigible may be in part his idea, but I’ve got to build it and do it my own way. We may come to a bust yet, if he’s too fussy.”

Tom stayed over night at a small country town where his strange House on Wheels attracted much attention. He received several offers to purchase it, one from the proprietor of a moving picture theater who said it would be a good advertisement. But when he learned the cost he whistled and said:

“I guess that’s a bit too steep for me!”

Tom drove the machine to the limit next day, and arrived at his shop just before closing time.

“Well, I certainly am glad to see you back!” exclaimed Ned. “Oh, boy, what a relief!”

“Why, what’s the matter?” asked Tom.

“That baby Jardine,” was Ned’s reply. “He’s had the life almost bothered out of me. He just left, and when I said you might be here by dark he said he’d be back.”

“What’s the idea? What does he want?” Tom asked.

“Oh, he’s got some new notions about the dirigible. Wants to make changes in her construction. It’s all Greek to me. I put him off as best I could.”

“You didn’t let him order any changes, did you?” Tom asked.

“Certainly not! Jackson held him with a firm hand. But you’re going to have trouble with that bird!”

“No, I’m not,” Tom said. “If there’s any trouble I’ll throw over the contract. It has a revoking clause, if any changes unauthorized by me are incorporated, and I won’t make them.”

“Stick to your guns!” chuckled Ned. “Only you’re going to have your hands full, believe me.”

“What about that dwarf?” asked Tom.

“Oh, that wasn’t really anything. It was just a fuss between Chock and the giant. Koku certainly gave the little man the raspberry, and I don’t blame him for not standing it.”

“Then Chock didn’t make any trouble?”

“Not what you would call trouble, I guess. But he sure had one sweet row with your giant. Offered to lick him with one hand tied behind his back and all that, with Rad egging Chock on. For, naturally, Rad and Koku don’t get on any too well.”

“I know that. So the dwarf left?”

“Vamoosed in a hurry and as mad as a wet hen. Jardine, too, raised a row when he found Chock was gone, and threatened to bring him back. But I haven’t noticed him doing it. Outside of that, everything is all right.”

“How’s the dirigible coming on?”

“Fine. The work can be rushed if Jardine doesn’t make a lot of changes.”

“He won’t—don’t worry!”

“It sure is lucky he could supply all the oralum plates ready made, and getting a lot of the machinery made up of stock parts saved a lot of time. I shouldn’t wonder, Tom, but that in a few weeks you could fly the Silver Cloud.”

“I hope so. Well, I’ll take a look at things in the shop and then be ready for Jardine if he comes back.”

“He will. Don’t worry. How are Mary and the bunch?”

“Fine as silk. Everything went beautifully except that we were pretty nearly killed in a landslide going up and then a crazy gardener at the hotel tried to stab the manager.”

“Outside of that there ain’t no news, I suppose!” chuckled Ned.

“Right, me lad! And now to business!”

Tom found that his men had made good progress during his short absence and he was hopeful of an early test of the great machine, which dwarfed everything else in the big hangar where it was being constructed.

Tom and Ned had supper together and were back in the private office, going over many matters, when there was a step in the corridor outside and a well-known voice exclaimed:

“Well, you’re back! I’m glad of it! There are a number of important matters I want to take up with you, Tom Swift. Here, have a cigar, and we’ll consider some changes.”

“Changes in what, Mr. Jardine?” Tom asked, as he laid aside the cigar offered.

“Changes in the Silver Cloud.”

“What is the nature of the changes?” asked Tom patiently.

“Well, here’s one. Now what is that sort of little dog kennel on top of the oralum envelope?” and he pointed to the detailed blue prints on Tom’s desk.

“That is the weather observatory,” Tom said. “An observer there will predict storms so that we may stay out of their course.”

“It isn’t necessary!” said Mr. Jardine, taking his cigar out of his mouth, tossing it in the air and catching it between his lips as it descended. “A little trick I just learned,” he said, with an odd smile. “I could go on the stage, maybe.”

“Maybe!” murmured Ned.

“Why do you consider the weather observatory unnecessary, Mr. Jardine?” asked Tom, and his voice was still patient.

“Because,” was the answer, “my dirigible is to be so strong she will fear no storms, so what’s the use of knowing when they are coming or from where?”

“The Silver Cloud will outride any ordinary storm,” Tom said. “But it is well to be advised even of them. I consider the observatory vital and necessary.”

“I want it enlarged and made into a private cabin for me and my friends,” said Mr. Jardine. “We don’t need an observatory.”

“What’s that?” cried Tom Swift.

“Enlarge that useless weather observatory and make it a private cabin for me and my friends,” insisted the fussy little man. “And here are some other matters. There is too much space given to the crew. Cut it down by half!”

“Forty men can’t get along in any less space,” Tom said.

“Forty men? I’m not going to carry half that crew!” cried Mr. Jardine. “We want more room for passengers so we can make some money out of this. You’ve got to cut off half the crew space.”

“I’ll not do it!” said Tom determinedly.

“And I want one extra big motor put on, just behind the private cabin you are to build for me,” said Mr. Jardine. “In case the other motors fail, I can run the ship myself with the extra big one.”

“It is out of the question,” Tom said, and his voice was losing some of its patience. “I have calculated the power required to move the Silver Cloud, and we have ample, and to spare, in the motors already planned. Another would not only be unnecessary but a positive danger, placed where you want it.”

“Well, I’m going to insist on it,” Mr. Jardine said. “I won’t go into any more details now, but I’ll take this up with you in the morning, when you are fresher. I understand you just came in from Mt. Camon.”

“Yes,” Tom said, “I did. But morning isn’t going to change my mind about doing what you request. It is impossible!”

“We’ll talk it over in the morning,” said Mr. Jardine lightly. “Have another cigar! Oh, I forgot—you don’t smoke. I’ll see you later. About that dwarf. I want him taken back on and your giant must let him alone. But we’ll take that up to-morrow.”

He hurried away, lightly humming a song as if there was nothing on his mind and as if the alterations he proposed were as easily made as changing the color to go on a new house.

“What did I tell you?” asked Ned, as he and Tom were alone again.

“He is the limit!” exclaimed Tom, in disgust. “Why, he’s crazy to think those things can be done!”

“He’s a nut, if you ask me!” declared Ned. “Well, you don’t have to do as he says.”

“You bet I don’t!” exclaimed Tom fervently.

Then he and Ned considered other matters, but Tom Swift could not get out of his mind certain worrisome thoughts concerning the big dirigible and the man who had ordered it built and was paying for it. For Ned reported that the money was still coming in from the Jardine company, according to contract.

“You’ll just have to stall him along, Tom,” were Ned’s parting words as he left his chum in the laboratory, for Tom had some experiments to finish in connection with the Silver Cloud.

It was late when the young inventor came out of his shop to go home in a small car that was in waiting. As he was about to step from his private office to go to the garage he thought he saw something like the shadow of a man flit across a lighted, open space in front of the laboratory.

“That dwarf!” exclaimed Tom in a whisper as he stopped and listened.

But he heard no sound and was about to proceed when another shadow of the night flitted in front of the doorway. This shadow was taller.

“Jardine!” whispered Tom. “What are he and that dwarf doing around here at this time of night?”