“Well, the operator didn’t listen much after that, knowing that any talk between Tom and you was of a nature not to need a witness. Tom hung up and then he came in here, quite excited, and began to get ready to go out.”
“What was he excited about?” asked Mr. Damon. “Bless my unlucky stars, but a person ought to keep calm under such circumstances! That’s the only way to do! Keep calm! Great Scott! But if I had my way, all those German spies would be—Oh, pshaw! Nothing is too bad for them! It makes my blood boil when I think of what they’ve done! Tom should have kept cool!”
“Go on. What was Tom excited about?” Ned turned to the housekeeper.
“Well, he said you had called him to tell him to meet you over at that farmer’s place,” went on Mrs. Baggert. “He said you had some news for him about the men who had tried to get hold of some of his tank secrets, and he was quite worked up over the chance of catching the rascals.”
“Whew!” whistled Ned. “This is getting more complicated every minute. There’s something deep here, Mr. Damon.”
“I agree with you, Ned. And the sooner we find Tom Swift the better. What next, Mrs. Baggert?”
“Well, Tom got ready and went away in his small automobile. He said he’d be back as soon as he could after meeting you.”
“And I never said a word to him!” cried Ned. “It’s all a plot—a scheme of that Blakeson gang to get him into their power. Oh, how could Tom be so fooled? He knows my voice, over the phone as well as otherwise. I don’t see how he could be taken in.”
“Let’s ask the telephone operator,” suggested Mr. Damon. “She knows your voice, too. Perhaps she can give us a clue.”
A talk with the young woman at the telephone switchboard in the Swift plant brought out a new point. This was that the speaker, in response to whose information Tom Swift had left home, had not said he was Ned Newton.
“He said,” reported Miss Blair, “that he was speaking for you, Mr. Newton, as you were busy in the bank. Whoever it was, said you wanted Tom to meet you at the Kanker farm. I heard that much over the wire, and naturally supposed the message came from you.”
“Well, that puts a little different face on it,” said Mr. Damon. “Tom wasn’t deceived by the voice, then, for he must have thought it was some one speaking for you, Ned.”
“But the situation is serious, just the same,” declared Ned. “Tom has gone to keep an appointment I never made, and the question is with whom will he keep it?”
“That’s it!” cried the eccentric man. “Probably some of those scoundrels were waiting at the farm for him, and they’ve got him no one knows where by this time!”
“Oh, hardly as bad as that,” suggested Ned. “Tom is able to look out for himself. He’d put up a big fight before he’d permit himself to be carried off.”
“Well, what do you think did happen?” asked Mr. Damon.
“I think they wanted to get him out to the farm to see if they couldn’t squeeze some more money out of him,” was the answer. “Tom was pretty easy in that barn business, and I guess Kanker was sore because he haven’t asked a larger sum. They knew Tom wouldn’t come out on their own invitation, so they forged my name, so to speak.”
“Can you get Tom back?” asked Mrs. Baggert anxiously.
“Of course!” declared Ned, though it must be admitted he spoke with more confidence than he really felt. “We’ll begin the search right away.”
“And if I can get my hands on any of those villains—” spluttered Mr. Damon, dancing around, as Mrs. Baggert said, “like a hen on a hot griddle,” which seemed to describe him very well, “if I can get hold of any of those scoundrels, I’ll—I’ll—Bless my collar button, I don’t know what I will do! Come on, Ned!”
“Yes, I guess we’d better get busy,” agreed the young bank clerk. “Tom has gone somewhere, that’s certain, and under a misapprehension. It may be that we are needlessly alarmed, or they may mean bad business. At any rate, it’s up to us to find Tom.”
In Ned’s runabout, which was a speedier car than that of the eccentric man, the two set off for Kanker’s farm. On the way they stopped at various places in town, where Tom was in the habit of doing business, to inquire if he had been seen.
But there was no trace of him. The next thing to do was to learn if he had really started for the Kanker farm.
“For if he didn’t go there,” suggested Ned, “it will look funny for us to go out there making inquiries about him. And it may be that after he got that message Tom decided not to go.”
Accordingly they made enough inquiries to establish the fact that Tom had started for the farm of the rascally Kanker, who had been so insistent in the matter of his almost worthless barn.
A number of people who knew Tom well had seen him pass in the direction of Kanker’s place, and some had spoken to him, for the young inventor was well known in the vicinity of Shopton and the neighboring towns.
“Well, out to Kanker’s we’ll go!” decided Ned. “And if anything has happened to Tom there—well, we’ll make whoever is responsible wish it hadn’t!”
“Bless my fountain pen, but that’s what we will!” chimed in Mr. Damon.
And so the two began the search for the missing youth.
CHAPTER XXI
A PRISONER
Amos Kanker came to the door of his farmhouse as Ned and Mr. Damon drove up in the runabout. There was an unpleasant grin on the not very prepossessing face of the farmer, and what Ned thought was a cunning look, as he slouched out and asked:
“Well, what do you want? Come to smash up any more of my barns at three thousand dollars a smash?”
“Hardly,” answered Ned shortly. “Your prices are too high for such ramshackle barns as you have. Where’s Tom Swift?” he asked sharply.
“Huh! Do you mean that young whipper-snapper with his big traction engine?” demanded Mr. Kanker.
“Look here!” blustered Mr. Damon, “Tom Swift is neither a whipper-snapper nor is his machine a traction engine. It’s a war tank.”
“That doesn’t matter much to me,” said the farmer, with a grating laugh. “It looks like a traction engine, though it smashes things up more’n any one I ever saw.”
“That isn’t the point,” broke in Ned. “Where is my friend, Tom Swift? That’s what we want to know.”
“Huh! What makes you think I can tell you?” demanded Kanker.
“Didn’t he come out here?” asked Mr. Damon.
“Not as I knows of,” was the surly answer.
“Look here!” exclaimed Ned, and his tones were firm, with no bluster nor bluff in them, “we came out here to find Tom Swift, and we’re going to find him! We have reason to believe he’s here—at least, he started for here,” he substituted, as he wished to make no statement he could not prove. “Now we don’t claim we have any right to be on your property, and we don’t intend to stay here any longer than we can help. But we do claim the right, in common decency, to ask if you have seen anything of Tom. There may have been an accident; there may have been foul play; and there may be international complications in this business. If there are, those involved won’t get off as easily as they think. I’d advise you to keep a civil tongue in your head and answer our questions. If we have to get the police and detectives out here, as well as the governmental department of justice, you may have to answer their questions, and they won’t be as decent to you as we are!”
“Hurray!” whispered Mr Damon to Ned. “That’s the way to talk!”
And indeed the forceful remarks of the young bank clerk did appear to have a salutary effect on the surly farmer. His manner changed at once and his grin faded.
“I don’t know nothing about Tom Swift or any of your friends,” he said. “I’ve got my farm work to do, and I do it. It’s hard enough to earn a living these war times without taking part in plots. I haven’t seen Tom Swift since the trouble he made about my barn.”
“Then he hasn’t been here today?” asked Ned.
“No; and n
ot for a good many days.”
Ned looked at Mr. Damon, and the two exchanged uneasy glances. Tom had certainly started for the Kanker farm, and indeed had come to within a few miles of it. That much was certain, as testified to by a number of residents along the route from Shopton, who had seen the young inventor passing in his car.
Now it appeared he had not arrived. The changed air of the farmer seemed to indicate that he was speaking the truth. Mr. Damon and Ned were inclined to believe him. If they had any last, lingering doubts in the matter, they were dispelled when Mr. Kanker said:
“You can search the place if you like. I haven’t any reason to feel friendly toward you, but I certainly don’t want to get into trouble with the Government. Look around all you like.”
“No, we’ll take your word for it,” said Ned, quickly concluding that now they had got the farmer where they wanted him, they could gain more by an appearance of friendliness than by threats or harsh words. “Then you haven’t seen him, either?”
“Not a sign of him.”
“One thing more,” went on Tom’s chum, “and then we’ll look farther. Weren’t you induced by a man named Simpson, or one named Blakeson, to make the demand of three thousand dollars’ damage for your barn?”
“No, it wasn’t anybody of either of those names,” admitted Mr. Kanker, evidently a bit put out by the question.
“It was some one, though, wasn’t it?” insisted Ned.
“Waal, a man did come to me the day the barn was smashed, and just afore it happened, and said an all-fired big traction engine was headed this way, and that a young feller who was half crazy was running it. This man—I don’t know who he was, being a stranger to me—said if the engine ran into any of my property and did damages I should collect for it on the spot, or hold the machine.
“Sure enough, that’s what happened, and I did it. That man had an auto, and he brought me and some of my men out to the smashed barn. That’s all I know about it.”
“I thought some one put you up to it,” commented Ned. “This was some of the gang’s work,” he went on to Mr. Damon. “They hoped to get possession of Tom’s tank long enough to find out some of the secrets. By having the Liberty Bonds, I fooled ’em.”
“That’s what you did!” said Mr. Damon. “But what can we do now?”
“I don’t know,” Ned was forced to admit. “But I should think we’d better go back to the last place where he was seen to pass in his auto, and try to get on his trail.”
Mr. Damon agreed that this was a wise plan, and, after a casual look around the farmhouse and other buildings on Kanker’s place and finding nothing to arouse their suspicions, the two left in Ned’s speedy little machine.
“It is mighty queer!” remarked the young bank clerk, as they shot along the country road. “It isn’t like Tom to get caught this way.”
“Maybe he isn’t caught,” suggested the other. “Tom has been in many a tight place and gotten out, as you and I well know. Maybe it will be the same now, though it does look suspicious, that fake message coming from you.”
“Not coming from me, you mean,” corrected Ned. “Well, we’ll do the best we can.”
They proceeded back to where they had last had a trace of Tom in his machine, and there could only confirm what they had learned at first, namely, that the young inventor had departed in the direction of the Kanker farm, after having filled his radiator with water, and chatting with a farmer he knew.
“Then this is where the trail divides,” said Ned, as they went back over the road, coming to a point where the highway branched off. “If he went this way, he went to Kanker’s place, or he would be in the way of going. He isn’t there, it seems, and didn’t go there.”
“If he took the other road, where would he go?” asked Mr. Damon.
“Any one of a dozen places. I guess we’ll have to follow the trail and make all the inquiries we can.”
But from the point where the two roads branched, all trace of Tom Swift was lost. No one had seen him in his machine, though he was known to more than one resident along the high way.
“Well, what are we going to do?” asked Mr. Damon, after they had traveled some distance and had obtained no news.
“Suppose we call up his home,” suggested Ned, as they came to a country store where there was a telephone. “It may be he has returned. In that case, all our worry has gone for nothing.”
“I don’t believe it has,” said Mr. Damon. “But if we call up and ask if Tom is back it will show we haven’t found him, and his father will be more worried than ever.”
“We can ask the telephone girl, and tell her to keep quiet about it,” decided Ned; and this they did.
But the answer that came back over the wire was discouraging. For Tom had not returned, and there was no word from him. There was an urgent message for him, too, from government officials regarding the tank, the girl reported.
“Well, we’ve just got to find him—that’s all!” declared Ned. “I guess we’ll have to make a regular search of it. I did hope we’d find him out at the Kanker farm. But since he isn’t there, nor anywhere about, as far as we can tell, we’ve got to try some other plan.”
“You mean notify the authorities?”—asked Mr. Damon.
“Hardly that—yet. But I’ll get some of Tom’s friends who have machines, and we’ll start them out on the trail. In that way we can cover a lot of ground.”
Late that afternoon, and far into the night, a number of the friends of Tom and Ned went about the country in automobiles, seeking news of the young inventor. Mr. Swift became very anxious over the non-return of his son, and felt the authorities should be notified; but as all agreed that the local police could not handle the matter and that it would have to be put into the hands of the United States Secret Service, he consented to wait for a while before doing this.
All the next day the search was kept up, and Ned and Mr. Damon were getting discouraged, not to say alarmed, when, most unexpectedly, they received a clue.
They had been traveling around the country on little-frequented roads in the hope that perhaps Tom might have taken one and disabled his machine so that he was unable to proceed.
“Though in that case he could, and would, have sent word,” said Ned.
“Unless he’s hurt,” suggested Mr. Damon.
“Well, maybe that is what’s happened,” Ned was saying, when they noticed coming toward them a very much dilapidated automobile, driven by a farmer, and on the seat beside him was a small, barefoot boy.
“Which is the nearest road to Shopton?” asked the man, bringing his wheezing machine to a stop.
“Who are you looking for in Shopton?” asked Ned, while a strange feeling came over him that, somehow or other, Tom was concerned in the question.
“I’m looking for friends of a Tom Swift,” was the answer.
“Tom Swift? Where is he? What’s happened to him?” cried Ned.
“Bless my dyspepsia tablets!” exclaimed Mr. Damon. “Do you know where he is?”
“Not exactly,” answered the farmer; “but here’s a note from some one that signs himself ‘Tom Swift,’ and it says he’s a prisoner!”
CHAPTER XXII
RESCUED
For a moment Ned and Mr. Damon gazed at the farmer in his rattletrap of an auto, and then they looked at the fluttering piece of paper in his hand. Thence their gaze traveled to the ragged and barefoot lad sitting beside the farmer.
“I found it!” announced the boy.
“Found what?” asked Ned.
“That there note!”
Without asking any more questions, reserving them until they knew more about the matter, Mr. Damon and Ned each reached out a hand for the paper the farmer held. The latter handed it to Ned, being nearest him, and at a sight of the handwriting the young bank clerk exclaimed:
“It’s from Tom, all right!”
“What happened to him?” cried Mr. Damon. “Where is he? Is he a prisoner?”
“So it s
eems,” answered Ned. “Wait, I’ll read It to you,” and he read:
“‘Whoever picks this up please send word at once to Mr. Swift or to Ned Newton in Shopton, or to Mr. Damon of Waterfield. I am a prisoner, locked in the old factory. Tom Swift’.”
“Bless my quinine pills!” cried Mr Damon. “What in the world does it mean? What factory?”
“That’s just what we’ve got to find out,” decided Ned. “Where did you get this?” he asked the farmer’s boy.
“Way off over there,” and he pointed across miles of fields. “I was lookin’ for a lost cow, and I went past an old factory. There wasn’t nobody in the place, as far as I knowed, but all at once I heard some one yell, and then I seen something white, like a bird, sail out of a high window. I was scared for a minute, thinkin’ it might be tramps after me.”
“And what did you do, Sonny?” asked Mr. Damon, as the boy paused.
“Well, after a while I went to where the white thing lay, and I picked it up. I seen it was a piece of paper, with writin’ on it, and it was wrapped around part of a brick.”
“And did you go near the factory to find out who called or who threw the paper out?” Ned queried.
“I didn’t,” the boy answered. “I was scared. I went home, and didn’t even start to find the lost cow.
“No more he did,” chimed in the farmer. “He come runnin’ in like a whitehead, and as soon as I saw the paper and heard what Bub had to say, I thought maybe I’d better do somethin’.”
“Did you go to the factory?” asked Ned eagerly.
“No. I thought the best thing to do would be to find this Mr. Swift, or the other folks mentioned in this letter. I knowed, in a general way, where Shopton was, but I’d never been there, doing my tradin’ in the other direction, and so I had to stop and ask the road. If you can tell me—”
“We’re two of the persons spoken of in that note,” said Mr. Damon, as he mentioned his name and introduced Ned. “We have been looking for our friend Tom Swift for two days now. We must find him at once, as there is no telling what he may be suffering.”
“Where is this old factory you speak of,” continued Mr. Damon, “and how can we get there? It’s too bad one of you didn’t go back, after finding the note, to tell Tom he was soon to be rescued.”
The Tom Swift Megapack Page 268