Tom Swift and his flying boat;

It was possible, of course, to cable funds to Captain Olaf Karofsen for the financing of a searching party to go in quest of those marooned on the giant iceberg. But Tom Swift knew that the result of such a search could not be known in the United States for weeks. He felt that he could not restrain his desire to take an active part in the search. Mary’s father and Mr. Wakefield Damon must be found soon. And he believed the best way to do this was to go personally with the searching party.

Mr. Swift might have had some objections to his son’s plan. He was getting old, and, although his health now was much improved, he worried whenever Tom left him for any extended trip.

In this case, however, he knew the young fellow felt strongly that his duty lay in the only chance of quickly assisting Mr. Nestor. The Winged Arrow had proved her speed, her seaworthiness, and her balance in the air. If she was good for anything at all, here was a set of circumstances seemingly made by Fate for the trying-out of the flying boat.

“Go if you must, my boy,” said the old gentleman, with his hand on Tom’s shoulder when he agreed to the arrangement. “But be very, very careful.”

Although Tom was courageous, he was never reckless. He had accepted Mary’s challenge on the instant. But it was not without thought.

“The moment I read that cablegram from Karofsen I saw what it meant,” he told Ned. “The Winged Arrow can go where no vessel can sail. If she arrives at Reykjavik in good condition, she can sweep the whole of the Greenland Sea, back and forth, until the berg on which the men were cast away is found. If Karofsen is honest——”

“That is a chance, too,” retorted Ned. “It looks fishy to me, Tom.”

“What looks fishy?”

“His story. He knew all about that treasure of more than a hundred and twenty thousand Danish crowns. Humph! Suppose he and some of his crew got up a scheme to grab the gold and pitch those who were not in their confidence, as well as the passengers, overboard? Looks fishy.”

“You sound mighty suspicious. And it might be so. Anyway, how are we going to prove even such an awful thing if we can’t be on the ground——”

“Huh! On the ice would sound better,” grumbled Ned.

“All right. Whichever way you wish to put it. Anyway, if we let the thing go on until next spring any crime of the character you suggest would be well covered up. I am going to get there as soon as the wings of the wind will take me.”

His decision, which he communicated to Captain Olaf Karofsen by cable, must have amazed that individual immensely. Tom cabled two hundred dollars through a Danish-American bank for the captain’s use until Tom himself arrived in Reykjavik.

“Expect me on Friday,” was the concluding sentence of Tom’s cablegram to the skipper of the wrecked Kalrye. That day was three days following the date of the cablegram. Later it was proved that the message shook society in the Icelandic port to its very foundations.

The fact that the new flying boat was about to start upon a flight into the Arctic could not be kept out of the newspapers, for the crew had to be told where they were going if they stuck to their jobs. And not one of the mechanicians refused to take part in the expedition.

Besides, Koku was to go. Rad Sampson scoffed openly at this. He knew well enough that he could not go himself. He must stay and take care of Mr. Swift. But the old colored man refused to acknowledge that Koku could be of any possible use up near the Arctic Circle.

“Mus’ be, Mars’ Tom, you is wantin’ to weight down dat flying boat so she can’t eben rise out o’ de sea. Dat big chunk of meat won’t be no good to yo’ lessen yo’-all uses him fo’ an anchor.”

“Whuf!” snorted Koku. “Koku great man. Koku fight!”

“See here, big boy,” returned Rad, “yo’ll have a hot time fightin’ icebergs an’ polar bears. Won’t be much else fo’ yo’ to fight—no, sir.”

However, the giant was proud indeed to be one of the party booked for a transatlantic passage heretofore never tried. The newspapers made much of it. In the sheets issued the day following the announcement of Tom’s determination there were photographs of the crew of the Winged Arrow, and prominent in the group was Koku, dressed in the violently checked suit that had been given him by the president of the Hendrickton & Pas Alos Railroad.

Beside Koku, who could actually be called a member of the working crew of the Winged Arrow, Ned Newton had announced his intention of being of the party.

“If the inventor and head of the Swift Construction Company risks his life in such a venture, the treasurer of the concern might as well go along,” Ned declared. “If you are lost, Tom Swift, there will be no company, so my job as treasurer won’t be worth much. Count me in.”

In like manner Kingston, the wireless operator, asked for a berth in the cabin of the seaplane. Tom really was touched by these expressions of loyalty and good will.

“Mary is crazy to go, as well!” he said, with a laugh. “But Mrs. Nestor vetoed the proposition and saved me from doing so. Mary has pluck enough to go.”

Two hours before the time set for the flying boat’s departure the inventor was astonished by still another application for passage on the Winged Arrow. It was a request signed by Rear Admiral Gilder, of the Naval Board, asking Tom Swift to allow a representative of that Board to accompany the party which the Admiral understood was about starting for Iceland. A representative, with full credentials from Washington, was on the way to Shopton.

“What do you suppose this means?” Tom demanded of Ned, who was his only confidant in this event. “I have had no correspondence with any Government official about the boat. I know Rear Admiral Gilder by name, but——”

“I bet you it is the French looking chap we marked down!” cried Ned eagerly.

“You think he represented the Naval Board and was spying about for them?” asked Tom, with much doubt.

“Who else could he be?”

“He could be almost anybody else,” declared Tom, shaking his head. “He was too foreign looking to please me. And if he is the representative the Admiral sends I shall not let him aboard in any case.”

“Maybe the Government will buy the plane at a big price,” suggested Ned, with some eagerness.

“Nobody will get a chance to buy it—not yet,” Tom rejoined firmly. “And there is something queer about this request, I tell you. It does not look right. There is no time now to find out about it. We shall be in the air, I hope, before this representative, whoever he is, arrives at Shopton. Not even the Naval Board can delay our departure in this instance. Every hour is precious.”

Tom was not entirely correct in his expectation. While the last preparations were being made a powerful motor-car came into the open lot behind the shops from which point the flying boat was about to take its flight. The man who got briskly out of the enclosed tonneau of the car was exactly the individual both Tom and Ned had in mind—the dressy individual with the Charlie Chaplin mustache and diminutive goatee!

The man ran through the throng that had gathered to watch the jump-off. He bore several papers in his hands and he shouted to the boys whom he saw in the windows of the prow of the ship.

“Monsieur Swift! Monsieur Newton! Hi!”

“Hi yourself,” growled Ned. “There’s the fellow, Tom.”

Tom gave the stranger a single glance and then spoke to Koku:

“Stand by the open door, Koku. Let nobody in over the gangplank but the crew. Understand?”

“Me understand, master,” said the giant, and immediately stationed himself at the top of the narrow gangplank near the stern which was about to be drawn inboard.

When the stranger with the papers came to the plank the giant waved him commandingly away. The man started to argue. He might as well have argued with a stone post. Koku could not understand a word of English when he felt that way! Nor did any other language sound right, although the man tried French, German, and several other tongues. Koku was deaf.

When the supposed representative of the Naval Board tried to advance up the plank, the giant stooped, raised both plank and man, and shook the latter off to the ground as though he had been a beetle.

Then the last of the crew came aboard and Koku drew in the plank and closed the door. Every other arrangement had been made. The propellers began to spin. The hawsers had been cast off. The great flying boat began bumping over the field.

They could not hear the foreign looking fellow’s voice, but they saw that he ran after the flying boat, screaming, for several hundred yards. Then the Winged Arrow gathered speed enough for her jump-off, and she rose heavily, slanting upward at a good pitch, and wheeled away toward the sea.

“If that fellow does represent a Government Bureau, we’ll hear about it when we get back,” said Ned, somewhat worried.

“Don’t bother your head about that,” rejoined Tom. “There are more anxieties than that on my mind.”

Tom had bidden good-bye to Mary Nestor and her mother early that morning.

“Bring him back to me, Tom,” Mrs. Nestor had murmured, through her tears.

“I know you will do your best, Tom, dear,” whispered Mary.

“I’ll do my best for you, Mary,” replied Tom softly. And he lingered a little over his good-bye to the girl, even though they both realized the need for haste.

Had the young inventor needed any inspiration for the journey, he would have gained it from the thought that these two helpless women were utterly dependent upon his good offices and that they believed he would be able to find and rescue the castaways on the giant iceberg.

The venture was one that was bound to bring to the surface of Tom Swift’s character all his better and braver qualities. He did not take this trip in the big flying boat without fully understanding what he was likely to be up against before he returned home—if, indeed, he safely made the return!

Twenty-four hours before, he had made up his mind to take the journey. During that time he had put every agency at his disposal at work to the end that the party should be amply provisioned and well secured against accident of every kind.

Of course, fresh supplies of gasoline and oil could be obtained at Reykjavik. Food, as well, could be bought there. But the young inventor did not leave Shopton and home without seeing personally that every man with him was well clothed, that in the cabin there were all the simple medical remedies usually supplied to a sailing ship, and that there were arms and ammunition for every man.

Koku insisted on bringing his long spear and a great war club. Ned wanted to forbid this display of savage implements, but Tom allowed his servant to bring the weapons in the use of which he was versed.

“Those Icelanders will think we are American aborigines instead of civilized beings,” grumbled Ned.

“I reckon the polar bears will not criticize Koku’s selection of weapons,” chuckled Tom. “I’ve seen Koku catch a charging jaguar on the point of that spear in mid-air and impale it as you would stick a beetle with a pin. And one crack with that war club would knock over a walrus, I believe. Let him alone, Ned.”

“Humph!” said Ned. “You are quite sure, are you, that we shall search the Greenland Sea for Mr. Damon and Mr. Nestor? You thoroughly believe Skipper Karofsen’s report?”

“Give him the benefit of the doubt,” said Tom placidly. “You can scarcely judge a man’s character by his cablegrams.”

Discussion was mostly barred, however, when the Winged Arrow was well up and away from her base. They followed a slightly different course to the ocean line than they had on the trial trip. On the chart table Tom Swift had thumbtacked a brand new map and had plotted out their course from the vicinity of Shopton to the principal seaport of Iceland.

The direction was almost exactly north of east. It would take the flying boat over the great fishing banks south of Newfoundland, across the northern, or summer, route of the transatlantic steamships, and over the lonely reaches of that great northern ocean on which at this season of the year drifted countless icebergs.

Ned studied the course as closely as Tom had previously done. “If Mr. Damon and Mr. Nestor started for Greenland to catch a steamer, how is it Karofsen reports that they were wrecked in the Greenland Sea?” he asked. “That is north of Iceland. The most direct route to the Greenland coast from Reykjavik is across Denmark Strait.”

“I guess the only town from which fish is shipped south is on what they call the Liverpool Coast,” his friend replied. “You will see that that section of Greenland is across Greenland Sea. If the current sets toward the south, however,” Tom added, “this gigantic iceberg that Karofsen tells about may be drifting into Denmark Strait. That being the case, it may possibly narrow our search.”

Ned merely grunted in rejoinder. Even if they reached Iceland safely in the flying boat, he had grave doubts as to their ever finding a “chunk of ice,” as he expressed it, floating around in the Arctic seas with seven men upon it and a treasure chest containing more than a hundred and twenty thousand Danish crowns!

When the flying boat crossed the line of the seacoast and flew out over the Atlantic it was plain that the sea had gone down. When they were well out from the shore the surface of the water seemed as smooth as a mill pond.

But, smooth or rough, Tom hoped that he would not be obliged to descend in the seaplane until the Winged Arrow arrived at her destination. He had taken every precaution, he believed, for the long and arduous flight. The speed at which they traveled encouraged him to believe that his hope would be realized.

As they went on, flying so high that shipping on the sea could only be distinguished through the glass, the atmosphere became very cold. They were getting farther away from the source of earth heat and the thermometer fastened outside one of the windows of the pilot room showed a rapid decline of the fluid.

Every man aboard the great flying boat had been dressed in warm clothing—the batten-lined leather suits of the ordinary flying men—when they left the ground. But Tom had furnished fur coats and hoods and gloves for them all. Their boots were sheepskin lined. Water began to freeze inside the boat; but the crew kept warm.

Their breath began to congeal upon the inside of the windows and Ned spent most of his time cleaning the glass with alcohol. Kingston at first had sent news of the flight by wireless; but now the altitude and the temperature interfered with the working of the radio. Static made the sending and receiving of messages all but impossible.

The member of the crew who acted as cook brought coffee and sandwiches into the cabin and reported that the electric heaters did not work as well as previously and that it was difficult to boil water.

“We are up pretty high,” Tom admitted; “but I believe if I scale her down much we shall be buffeted a good deal by head winds. We are making excellent time as she is. If we can stand the cold until nightfall——”

“Go ahead,” replied Ned. “I might as well be a frozen turnip as the way I am,” he grumbled. “Do you see Iceland yet?”

“I’ll wake you up when I see Olaf Karofsen smoking his pipe on the dock at Reykjavik,” scoffed Tom.

It was cold! And the idea of waiting until nightfall before dropping to a lower altitude was found not to be feasible. In the first place, they had flown into the region of long twilight. Darkness did not come until near midnight.

The Winged Arrow had by that time flown more than a thousand miles. Her inventor did not push her to her top-notch speed, but the time she made was perfectly satisfactory.

Crew and officers of the flying boat stood watch and watch, as on shipboard. Tom could not be at the controls all of the time, and he slept at least two full four-hour watches during the flight. But he was in charge when, late the following day, a hazy spot on the sea ahead announced the presence of land.

The perfectly adjusted instruments with which the pilot room in the prow of the flying boat was supplied had enabled them to keep on almost a direct course for Iceland. There could be no mistake in this. As she drew nearer and Tom pitched her nose on a downward slant, they saw the white horses of the surf breaking against the rockbound shore of the great island.

They spied a cluster of houses and several church spires on the southwestern coast, and steered for that point.

“Reykjavik,” declared Tom Swift.

“I thought that must be on the north side of the island if that wrecked schooner started across Greenland Sea,” remarked Ned.

“They passed along the western and northern coast of the island before pushing out for Liverpool Coast,” announced his friend. “At any rate, that schooner captain must be a pilot for these seas, and knows his business. The thing that troubles me is, will he go with us in the Winged Arrow? He may be afraid.”

“We’ll kidnap him, then, and make him go,” declared Ned warmly. “We haven’t come all this way to be balked like that, I should hope!”