Tom Swift Among the Fire Fighters; Or, Battling with Flames from the Air

by Victor Appleton

  CHAPTER VIII

  STRANGE TALK

  There was a rapid and sudden drop. Mary, sitting beside Tom Swift inthe speedy aeroplane, watched with fascinated eyes as he quicklyjuggled with levers and tried different valve wheels. The girl, throughher goggles, had a vision of a landscape shooting past with the speedof light. She glimpsed a brook, and, almost instantly, they had skimmedover it.

  A jar, a nerve-racking tilt to one side, the creaking of wood and therattle of metal, a careening, and then the machine came to a stop, notexactly on a level keel, but at least right side up, in the midst of awide field.

  Tom shut off the gas, cut his spark, and, raising his goggles, lookeddown 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, thedamage is on the under part. Nothing visible up here. But let me helpyou 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 catchfire?"

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

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

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

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

  "What caused it?" asked Mary, glancing up at the clouds, which weregetting blacker and blacker, and from which, now and then, vividflashes of lightning came while low mutterings of thunder rolled nearerand nearer. "Something seemed to be wrong with the carburetor," Tomanswered. "I won't try to monkey with it now. Let's hike for thatfarmhouse. We'll be lucky if we don't get drenched. Are you sure you'reall right, Mary?"

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

  She proved this by hastening along at Tom's side. And there was need ofhaste, for soon after they left the stranded aeroplane the big dropsbegan 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 inthrough a gateway in a fence that surrounded the property. A pathseemed to lead all around the old, rambling house, and there was aporch with a side entrance door. This, being nearer, had been pickedout by the young inventor and his friend.

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

  He and Mary, a little breathless from their run, hastened up on theporch, slightly wet from the sudden outburst of rain. As Tom knocked onthe 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 blastdied away. "I mean my knock. The thunder drowned it. I'll try again."

  He took advantage of a lull in the thundering reverberations, andtapped 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 liketo be considered in that light. But we've had an accident--my aeroplanestopped and we'd like to stay here out of the storm, and perhaps getsomething to eat."

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

  Mary was just thinking that they used considerable formality for casualwayfarers, 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 thefront 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 foundthemselves at the front door. There the nature of the place was at oncemade plain, for on a board was lettered the words "Meadow Inn."

  "I see what has happened," Tom remarked, as he opened the old-fashionedground glass door and ushered Mary in. "Some one has taken the oldfarmhouse and made it into a roadhouse--a wayside inn. I shouldn'tthink such a place would pay out here; but I'm mighty glad we struckit."

  "Yes, indeed," agreed Mary.

  The old farmhouse, one of the best of its day, had been transformedinto a roadhouse of the better class. On either side of the entrancehall were dining rooms, in which were set small tables, spread withsnowy cloths.

  "In here, sir, if you please," said a white-aproned waiter, glidingforward 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 tobe no other diners. Then, from behind a screen which was pulled arounda table in one corner, came the murmur of voices and the clatter ofcutlery on china, which told of some one at a meal there.

  "Somebody is fond of seclusion," thought Tom, as he and Mary took theirplaces. And as he glanced over the bill of fare his ears caught themurmur of the voices of two men coming from behind the screen. Onevoice was low and rumbling, the other high-pitched and querulous.

  "Talking business, probably," mused Tom. "What do you feel likeeating?" he asked Mary.

  "I wasn't very hungry until I came in," she answered, with a smile."But it is so cozy and quaint here, and so clean and neat, that itreally gives one an appetite. Isn't it a delightful place, Tom? Did youknow it was here?"

  "It is very nice. And as this is the first I have been here for a longwhile I didn't know, any more than you, that it had been made into aroadhouse. But what shall I order for you?"

  "I should think you would have had enough experience by this time,"laughed Mary, for it was not the first occasion that she and Tom haddined out.

  Thereupon he gave her order and his own, too, and they were soon eatingheartily of food that was in keeping with the appearance of the place.

  "I must bring Ned and Mr. Damon here," said Tom. "They'll appreciatethe quaintness of this inn," for many of the quaint appointments of theold farmhouse had been retained, making it a charming resort for a meal.

  "Mr. Damon will like it," said Mary. "Especially the big fireplace,"and she pointed to one on which burned a blaze of hickory wood. "He'llbless everything he sees."

  "And cause the waiter to look at me as though I had brought in anescaped inmate from some sanitarium," laughed Tom. "No use talking, Mr.Damon is delightfully queer! Now what do you want for dessert?"

  "Let me see the card," begged Mary. "I fancy some French pastry, ifthey have it."

  Tom gazed idly but approvingly about as she scanned the list. Thesound of the rumbling and the higher-pitched voices had gone onthroughout the entire meal, and now, as comparative silence filled theroom, the clatter of knives and forks having ceased, Tom heard moreclearly what was being said behind the screen.

  "Well, I tell you what it is," said the man whom Tom mentally dubbedMr. High. "We got out of that blaze mighty luckily!"

  "Yes," agreed he of the rumbly voice, whom Tom thought of as Mr. Low,"it was a close shave. If it hadn't been for his chemicals, though,there would have been a cleaner sweep."

  "Indeed there would! I never knew that any of them could act a
s fireextinguishers."

  Tom seemed to stiffen at this, and his hearing became more acute.

  "They aren't really fire extinguishers in the real sense of the word,"went on the other man behind the screen. "It must have been someaccidental combination of them. But in spite of that we put it all overJosephus Baxter in that fire!"

  "What's this? What's this?" thought Tom, shooting a glance at Mary andnoting that apparently she had not heard what was said. "What strangetalk is this?"