Tom Swift Among the Fire Fighters Part 9

"I do love these rides, Tom!" the girl cried one day when the two were soaring aloft. "And this one I really believe is better than any of the rest. Though I always think that," she added, with a slight laugh.

"Glad you like it," Tom answered, and there was something in his voice that caused Mary to look curiously at him.

"What's the matter, Tom?" she asked. "Has anything happened? Is Rad's case hopeless?"

"Oh, no, not yet. Of course it isn't yet sure that he will ever see again, but, on the other hand, it isn't decided that he can't. It's a fifty-fifty proposition."

"But what makes you so serious?"

"Was I?"

"I should say so! You haven't told me one funny thing that Mr. Damon has said lately."

"Oh, haven't I? Well, let me see now," and he sent the machine up a little. "Well, the other day he--"

Tom suddenly stopped speaking and began rapidly turning several valve wheels and levers.

"What--what's the matter?" gasped Mary, but she did not clutch his arm.

She knew better than that.

"The motor has stopped," Tom answered, and the girl became aware of a cessation of the subdued hum.

"Is it--does it mean danger?" she asked.

"Not necessarily so," Tom replied. "It means we have to make a forced landing, that's all. Sit tight! We're going down rather faster than usual, Mary, but we'll come out of it all right!"'

CHAPTER VIII

STRANGE TALK

There was a rapid and sudden drop. Mary, sitting beside Tom Swift in the speedy aeroplane, watched with fascinated eyes as he quickly juggled with levers and tried different valve wheels. The girl, through her goggles, had a vision of a landscape shooting past with the speed of light. She glimpsed a brook, and, almost instantly, they had skimmed over it.

A jar, a nerve-racking tilt to one side, the creaking of wood and the rattle of metal, a careening, and then the machine came to a stop, not exactly on a level keel, but at least right side up, in the midst of a wide field.

Tom shut off the gas, cut his spark, and, raising his goggles, looked down at Mary at his side.

"Scared?" he asked, smiling.

"I was," she frankly admitted. "Is anything broken, Tom?"

"I hope not," answered the young inventor. "At least if it is, the damage is on the under part. Nothing visible up here. But let me help you out. Looks as if we'd have to run for it."

"Run?" repeated Mary, while proving that she did not exactly need help, for she was getting out of her seat unaided. "Why? Is it going to catch fire?"

"No. But it's going to rain soon--and hard, too, if I'm any judge," Tom said. "I don't believe I'll take a chance trying to get the machine going again. We'll make for that farmhouse and stay there until after the storm. Looks as if we could get shelter there, and perhaps a bit to eat. I'm beginning to feel hungry."

"It is going to rain!" decided Mary, as Tom helped her down over the side of the fusilage. "It's good we are so near shelter."

Tom did not answer. He was making a hasty but accurate observation of the state of his aeroplane. The landing wheels had stood the shock well, and nothing appeared to be broken.

"We came down rather harder than I wanted to," remarked Tom, as he crawled out after his inspection of the machine. "Though I've made worse forced landings than that."

"What caused it?" asked Mary, glancing up at the clouds, which were getting blacker and blacker, and from which, now and then, vivid flashes of lightning came while low mutterings of thunder rolled nearer and nearer. "Something seemed to be wrong with the carburetor," Tom answered. "I won't try to monkey with it now. Let's hike for that farmhouse. We'll be lucky if we don't get drenched. Are you sure you're all right, Mary?"

"Certainly, Tom. I can stand a worse shaking up than that. And you needn't think I can't run, either!"

She proved this by hastening along at Tom's side. And there was need of haste, for soon after they left the stranded aeroplane the big drops began to pelt down, and they reached the house just as the deluge came.

"I don't know this place, do you, Tom?" asked Mary, as they ran in through a gateway in a fence that surrounded the property. A path seemed to lead all around the old, rambling house, and there was a porch with a side entrance door. This, being nearer, had been picked out by the young inventor and his friend.

"No, I don't remember being here before," Tom answered. "But I've pa.s.sed the place often enough with Ned and Mr. Damon. I guess they won't refuse to let us sit on the porch, and they may be induced to give us a gla.s.s of milk and some sandwiches--that is, sell them to us."

He and Mary, a little breathless from their run, hastened up on the porch, slightly wet from the sudden outburst of rain. As Tom knocked on the door there came a clap of thunder, following a burst of lightning, that caused Mary to put her hands over her ears.

"Guess they didn't hear that," observed Tom, as the echoes of the blast died away. "I mean my knock. The thunder drowned it. I'll try again."

He took advantage of a lull in the thundering reverberations, and tapped smartly. The door was almost at once opened by an aged woman, who stared in some amazement at the young people. Then she said:

"Guests must go to the front door."

"Guests!" exclaimed Tom. "We aren't exactly guests. Of course we'd like to be considered in that light. But we've had an accident--my aeroplane stopped and we'd like to stay here out of the storm, and perhaps get something to eat."

"That can be arranged--yes," said the old woman, who spoke with a foreign accent. "But you must go to the front door. This is the servant's entrance."

Mary was just thinking that they used considerable formality for casual wayfarers, when the situation dawned on Tom Swift.

"Is this a restaurant--an inn?" he asked.

"Yes," answered the old woman. "It is Meadow Inn. Please go to the front door."

"All right," Tom agreed good-naturedly. "I'm glad we struck the place, anyhow."

The porch extended around three sides of the old, rambling house.

Proceeding along the sheltered piazza, Tom and Mary soon found themselves at the front door. There the nature of the place was at once made plain, for on a board was lettered the words "Meadow Inn."

"I see what has happened," Tom remarked, as he opened the old-fas.h.i.+oned ground gla.s.s door and ushered Mary in. "Some one has taken the old farmhouse and made it into a roadhouse--a wayside inn. I shouldn't think such a place would pay out here; but I'm mighty glad we struck it."

"Yes, indeed," agreed Mary.

The old farmhouse, one of the best of its day, had been transformed into a roadhouse of the better cla.s.s. On either side of the entrance hall were dining rooms, in which were set small tables, spread with snowy cloths.

"In here, sir, if you please," said a white-ap.r.o.ned waiter, gliding forward to take Tom's leather coat and Mary's jacket of like material.

The waiter ushered them into a room, in which at first there seemed to be no other diners. Then, from behind a screen which was pulled around a table in one corner, came the murmur of voices and the clatter of cutlery on china, which told of some one at a meal there.