The doctor took the seat Tom pointed out to him, with his bag of instruments on his knees. He put on the face protector, and had, at the suggestion of our hero, donned a heavy coat.
"For it"s cold in the upper regions," said Tom.
Several servants in the physician"s household had gathered to see him depart in this novel fashion, and the chauffeur of the auto, in which the specialist usually made his calls, was also there.
"I"ll give you a hand," said the chauffeur to the young inventor. "I was at an aviation meet once, and I know how it"s done."
"Good," exclaimed Tom. "Then you can hold the machine, and shove when I give the word."
Tom started the propeller himself, and quickly jumped into his seat.
The chauffeur held back the Humming-Bird until the young aviator had speeded up the motor.
"Let go!" cried the youthful inventor, and the man gave the little craft a shove. Across the rather uneven ground of the doctor"s yard it ran, straight for a big iron barrier.
"Look out! We"ll be into the fence!" shouted the surgeon. "We"ll be killed!" He seemed about to leap off.
"Sit still!" cried Tom, and at that instant he tilted the elevation planes, and the craft shot upward, going over the fence like a circus horse taking a seven-barred gate.
"Oh!" exclaimed the physician in a curious voice. They were off on their trip to save the life of Mr. Swift.
What the sensations of the celebrated specialist were, Tom never learned. If he was afraid, his fright quickly gave place to wonder, and the wonder soon changed to delight as the machine rose higher and higher, acquired more speed, and soared in the air over the country that spread out in all directions from Kirkville.
"Magnificent! Magnificent!" murmured the doctor, and then Tom knew that the surgeon was in the grip of the air, and was one of the "bird-men."
Every moment the Humming-Bird increased her speed. They pa.s.sed over the river near where men were working on the broken bridge. It was now no barrier to them. Tom, noting the barograph, and seeing that they were twenty-two hundred feet high, decided to keep at about that distance from the earth.
"How fast are we going?" cried Dr. Hendrix, into the ear of the young inventor.
"Just a little short of a hundred an hour!" Tom shouted back. "We"ll hit a hundred and five before long."
His prediction proved true, and when about forty miles from Shopton that terrific speed had been attained. It seemed as if they were going to have a trip devoid of incident, and Tom was congratulating himself on the quick time made, when he ran into a contrary strata of air.
Almost before he knew it the Humming-Bird gave a dangerous and sickening dive, and tilted at a terrifying angle.
"Are we going to turn turtle?" cried the doctor.
"I--I hope not!" gasped Tom. He could not understand why the equilibrium weights did not work, but he had no time then to investigate. Quickly he warped the wing tips and brought the craft up on an even keel.
He gave a sigh of relief as the aeroplane was once more shooting forward, and he was not mistaken when he thought he heard Dr. Hendrix murmur a prayer of thankfulness. Their escape had been a narrow one.
Tom"s nerve, and the coolness of the physician, had alone saved them from a fall to death.
But now, as if ashamed of her prank, the Humming-Bird went along even better than before. Tom was peering through the slight haze that hung over the earth, for a sight of Shopton. At length the spires of the churches came into view.
"There it is," he called, pointing downward. "We"ll land in two minutes more."
"No time to spare," murmured the doctor, who knew the serious nature of the aged inventor"s illness. "How long did it take us?"
"Fifty-one minutes," replied Tom, glancing at a small clock in front of him. Then he shut off the motor and volplaned to earth, to the no small astonishment of the surgeon. He made a perfect landing in the yard before the shed, leaped from his seat, and called:
"Come, Dr. Hendrix!"
The surgeon followed him. Dr. Gladby and Dr. Kurtz came to the door of the house. On their faces were grave looks. They greeted the celebrated surgeon eagerly.
"Well?" he asked quickly, and they knew what he meant.
"You are only just in time," said Dr. Gladby, softly, and Tom, following the doctors into the house, wondered if his trip with the specialist had been in vain.
Chapter Twenty-One
"Will He Live?"
Soon there were busy scenes in the Swift home, as preparations were made for a serious operation on the aged inventor. Tom"s father had sunk into deep unconsciousness, and was stretched out on the bed as though there was no more life in him. In fact, Tom, for the moment, feared that it was all over. But good old Dr. Kurtz, noting the look on the lad"s face, said:
"Ach, Dom, doan"t vorry! Maybe it vill yet all be vell, und der vater vill hear of der great race. Bluck up your courage, und doan"t gif up.
Der greatest surgeon in der vorld is here now, und if anybody gan safe your vater, Herr Hendriz gan. Dot vos a great drip you made--a great drip!"
Tom felt a little comforted and, after a sight of his father, and a silent prayer that G.o.d would spare his life for years to come, the young inventor went out in the yard. He wanted to be busy about something, for he knew, with the doctors, and a trained nurse who had been hastily summoned, there was no immediate need for him. He wanted to get his mind off the operation that would soon take place, and so he decided to look over his aeroplane.
Mr. Damon came out when Tom was going over the guy wires and braces, to see how they had stood the strain.
"Well, Tom, my lad," said the eccentric man, sadly, as he grasped our hero"s hand, "it"s too bad. But hope for the best. I"m sure your father will pull through. We will have to begin taking the Humming-Bird apart soon; won"t we, if we"re going to ship it to Eagle Park?" He wanted to take Tom"s mind off his troubles.
"I don"t know whether we will or not," was the answer, and Tom tried to speak unbrokenly, but there was a troublesome lump in his throat, and a mist of tears in his eyes that prevented him from seeing well. The Humming-Bird, to him, looked as if she was in a fog.
"Nonsense! Of course we will!" cried Mr. Damon. "Why, bless my wishbone! Tom, you don"t mean to say you"re going to let that little shrimp Andy Foger walk away with that ten-thousand-dollar prize without giving him a fight for it; are you?"
This was just what Tom needed, and it seemed good to have Mr. Damon bless something again, even if it was only a wishbone.
"No!" exclaimed Tom, in ringing tones. "Andy Foger isn"t going to beat me, and if I find out he is going to race with a machine made after my stolen plans, I"ll make him wish he"d never taken them."
"But if the machine he had flying over here when he dropped that bomb on the shed roof, and set fire to it, is the one he"s going to race with, it isn"t like yours," suggested Mr. Damon, who was glad he had turned the conversation into a more cheerful channel.
"That"s so," agreed the young inventor. "Well, we"ll have to wait and see." He was busy now, going over every detail of the Humming-Bird. Mr.
Damon helped him, and they discovered the defect in the equilibrium weights, and remedied it.
"We can"t afford to have an accident in the race," said Tom. He glanced toward the house, and wondered if the operation had begun yet. He could see the trained nurse hurrying here and there, Mrs. Baggert helping her.
Eradicate Sampson shuffled out from the stable where he kept his mule Boomerang. On the face of the honest colored man there was a dejected look.
"Am Ma.s.sa Swift any better, Ma.s.sa Tom?" he asked.
"We can"t tell yet," was the answer.
"Well, if he doan"t git well, den I"m goin" t" sell mah mule," went on the dirt-chaser, from which line of activity Eradicate had derived his name.