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Page 4
He gazed aloft toward where a queerly-shaped machine was
circling about nearly five hundred feet in the air, for the
craft, after Swooping down close to the house, had ascended
and was now hovering just above the line of breakers that
marked the New Jersey seacoast, where Mr. Swift had taken up
a temporary residence.
"Don't begin worrying, Mr. Swift," advised Mrs. Baggert,
the housekeeper. "You've got too much to do, if you get that
new boat done, to worry."
"That's so. I must not worry. But I wish Tom and Mr. Sharp
would land, for I want to talk to them."
As if the occupants of the airship had heard the words of
the aged inventor, they headed their craft toward earth. The
combined aeroplane and dirigible balloon, a most wonderful
traveler of the air, swung around, and then, with the
deflection rudders slanted downward, came on with a rush.
When near the landing place, just at the side of the house,
the motor was stopped, and the gas, with a hissing noise,
rushed into the red aluminum container. This immediately
made the ship more buoyant and it landed almost as gently as
a feather.
No sooner had the wheels which formed the lower part of
the craft touched the ground than there leaped from the
cabin of the Red Cloud a young man.
"Well, dad!" he exclaimed. "Here we are again, safe and
sound. Made a record, too. Touched ninety miles an hour at
times--didn't we, Mr. Sharp?"
"That's what," agreed a tall, thin, dark-complexioned man,
who followed Tom Swift more leisurely in his exit from the
cabin. Mr. Sharp, a veteran aeronaut, stopped to fasten guy
ropes from the airship to strong stakes driven into the
ground.
"And we'd have done better, only we struck a hard wind
against us about two miles up in the air, which delayed us,"
went on Tom. "Did you hear us coming, dad?"
"Yes, and it startled him," put in Mrs. Baggert. "I guess
he wasn't expecting you."
"Oh, well, I shouldn't have been so alarmed, only I was
thinking deeply about a certain change I am going to make in
the submarine, Tom. I was day-dreaming, I think, when your
ship whizzed through the air. But tell me, did you find
everything all right at Shopton? No signs of any of those
scoundrels of the Happy Harry gang having been around?" and
Mr. Swift looked anxiously at his son.
"Not a sign, dad," replied Tom quickly. "Everything was
all right. We brought the things you wanted. They're in the
airship. Oh, but it was a fine trip. I'd like to take
another right out to sea."
"Not now, Tom," said his father. "I want you to help me.
And I need Mr. Sharp's help, too. Get the things out of the
car, and we'll go to the shop."
"First I think we'd better put the airship away," advised
Mr. Sharp. "I don't just like the looks of the weather, and,
besides, if we leave the ship exposed we'll be sure to have
a crowd around sooner or later, and we don't want that."
"No, indeed," remarked the aged inventor hastily. "I don't
want people prying around the submarine shed. By all means
put the airship away, and then come into the shop."
In spite of its great size the aeroplane was easily
wheeled along by Tom and Mr. Sharp, for the gas in the
container made it so buoyant that it barely touched the
earth. A little more of the powerful vapor and the Red
Cloud would have risen by itself. In a few minutes the
wonderful craft, of which my readers have been told in
detail in a previous volume, was safely housed in a large
tent, which was securely fastened.
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