to fish, I presume?”
Then, at least for once, the man’s suave manner dropped from him as if it had been a mask. He bared his teeth in a snarl as he answered:
“Mind your own business!”
“Something I’d advise you also to do,” replied Ned smoothly. “You can’t see anything from there,” he went on. “Better go back to the tree and–cut a fishing pole!”
With this parting shot Ned sauntered down the hill, and swung around to make his way toward Tom’s home. He paid no further attention to the man, save to determine, by listening, that the fellow was searching among the bushes for the dropped telescope.
The young inventor was at home, taking a hasty lunch which Mrs. Baggert had set out for him, the while he poured over some blueprint drawings that, to Ned’s unaccustomed eyes, looked like the mazes of some intricate puzzle.
“Well, where have you been keeping yourself, old man?” asked Tom Swift, after he had greeted his friend.
“I might ask the same of you,” retorted Ned, with a smile. “I’ve been trying to find you to give you some important information, and I made up my mind, after what happened to- day, to write it and leave it for you if I didn’t see you.”
“What happened to-day?” asked Tom, and there was a serious look on his face.
“You are being spied upon–at least, that part of your works enclosed in the new fence is,” replied Ned.
“You don’t mean it!” Cried Tom. “This accounts for some of it, then.”
“For some of what?” asked Ned.
“For some of the actions of that Blakeson, He’s been hanging around here, I understand, asking too many questions about things that I’m trying to keep secret–even from my best friends,” and as Tom said this Ned fancied there was a note of regret in his voice.
“Yes, you are keeping some things secret, Tom,” said Ned, determined “to take the bull by the horns,” as it were.
“I’m sorry, but it has to be,” went on Tom. “In a little while
“Oh, don’t think that I’m at all anxious to know things!” broke in Ned. “I was thinking of some one else, Tom–another of your friends.”
“Do you mean Mary?”
Ned nodded.
“She feels rather keenly your lack of explanations,” went on the young bank clerk. “If you could only give her a hint
“I’m sorry, but it can’t be done,” and Tom spoke firmly. “But you haven’t told me all that happened. You say I am being spied upon.”
“Yes,” and Ned related what had taken place in the tree.
“Whew!” whistled Tom. “That’s going some with a vengeance! I must have that tree down in a jiffy. I didn’t imagine there was a spot where the yard could be overlooked. But I evidently skipped that tree. Fortunately it’s on land owned by a concern with which I have some connection, and I can have it chopped down without any trouble. Much obliged to you, Ned. I shan’t forget this in a hurry. I’ll go right away and–“
Tom’s further remark was interrupted by the hurried entrance of Eradicate Sampson. The old man was smiling in pleased anticipation, evidently, at the same time, trying hard not to give way to too much emotion.
“I’s done it, Massa Tom!” he cried exultingly.
“Done what?” asked the young inventor. “I hope you and Koku haven’t had another row.”
“No, sah! I don’t want nuffin t’ do wif dat ornery, low- down white trash! But I’s gone an’ done whut I said I’d do!”
“What’s that, Rad? Come on, tell us! Don’t keep us in suspense.”
“I’s done some deteckertiff wuk, lest laik I said I’d do, an’ I’s cotched him! By golly, Massa Tom! I’s cotched him black-handed, as it says!”
“Caught him? Whom have you caught, Rad?” cried Tom. “Do you suppose he means he’s caught the man you saw up the tree, Ned? The man you think is a German spy?”
“It couldn’t be. I left him only a little while ago hunting for his telescope.”
“Then whom have you caught, Rad?” cried Tom. “Come on, I’ll give you credit for it. Tell us!”
“I’s cotched dat Dutch Sauerkrauter, dat’s who I’s cotched, Massa Tom! By golly, I’s cotched him!”
“But who, Rad? Who is he?”
“I don’t know his name, Massa Tom, but he’s a Sauerkrauter, all right. Dat’s whut he eats for lunch, an’ dat’s why I calls him dat. I’s cotched him, an’ he’s locked up in de stable wif mah mule Boomerang. An’ ef he tries t’ git out Boomerang’ll jest natchully kick him into little pieces–dat’s whut Boomerang will do, by golly!”
Chapter IX
A Night Test
“Come on, Ned,” said Tom, after a moment or two of silent contemplation of Eradicate. “I don’t know what this cheerful camouflager of mine is talking about, but we’ll have to go to see, I suppose. You say you have shut some one up in Boomerang’s stable, Rad?”
“Yes, sah, Massa Tom, dat’s whut I’s gone an done.”
“And you say he’s a German?”
“I don’t know as to dat, Massa Tom, but he suah done eat sauerkraut ‘mostest ebery meal. Dat’s whut I call him–a Sauerkrauter! An’ he suah was spyin’.”
“How do you know that, Rad?”
“‘Cause he done went from his own shop on annuder man’s ticket into de secret shop, dat’s whut he went an’ done!”
“Do you mean to tell me, Rad,” went on Tom, “that one of the workmen from another shop entered Number Thirteen on the pass issued in the name of one of the men regularly employed in my new shop?”
“Dat’s whut he done, Massa Tom.”
“How do you know?”
“‘Cause I detected him doin’ it. Yo’-all done made me a deteckertiff, an’ I detected.”
“Go on, Rad.”
“Well, sah, Massa Tom, I seen dish yeah Dutchman git a ticket-pass offen one ob de reg’lar men. Den he went in de unlucky place an’ stayed fo’ a long time. When he come out I jest natchully nabbed him, dat’s whut I done, an’ I took him to Boomerang’s stable.”
“How’d you get him to go with you?” asked Ned, for the old colored man was feeble, and most of the men employed at Tom’s plant were of a robust type.
“I done fooled him. I said as how I’d lest brought from town in mah mule cart some new sauerkraut, an’ he could sample it if he liked. So he went wif me, an’ when I got him to de stable I pushed him in and locked de door!”
“Come on!” cried Tom to his chum. “Rad may be right, after all, and one of my workmen may be a German spy, though I’ve tried to weed them all out.
“However, no matter about that, if he was employed in another shop, he had no right to go into Number Thirteen. That’s a violation of rules. But if he’s in Rad’s ramshackle stable he can easily get out.”
“No, sah, dat’s whut he can’t do!” insisted the colored man.
“Why not?” asked Tom.
“‘Cause Boomerang’s on guard, an’ yo’-all knows how dat mule of mine can use his heels!”
“I know, Rad,” went on Tom; “but this fellow will find a way of keeping out of their way. We must hurry.”
“Oh, he’s safe enough,” declared the colored man. “I done tole Koku to stan’ guard, too! Dat low-down white trash ob a giant is all right fo’ guardin’, but he ain’t wuff shucks at detectin’!” said Eradicate, with pardonable pride. “By golly, maybe I’s too old t’ put on guard, but I kin detect, all right!”
“If this proves true, I’ll begin to believe you can,” replied Tom. “Hop along, Ned!”
Followed by the shuffling and chuckling negro, Tom and Ned went to the rather insecure stable where the mule Boomerang was kept. That is, the stable was insecure from the standpoint of a jail. But the sight of the giant Koku marching up and down in front of the place, armed with a big club, reassured Tom.
“Is he in there, Koku?” asked the young inventor.
“Yes, Master! He try once come out, but he approach his head very close my defense weapon and he go back again.”
“I should think he would,” laughed Ned, as he noted the giant’s club.
“Well, Rad, let’s have a look at your prisoner. Open the door, Koku,” commanded Tom.
“Better look out,” advised Ned. “He may be armed.”
“We’ll have to take a chance. Besides, I don’t believe he is, or he’d have fired at Koku. There isn’t much to fear with the giant ready for emergencies. Now we’ll see who he is. I can’t imagine one of my men turning traitor.”
The door was opened and a rather miserable-looking man shuffled out. There was a bloody rag on his head, and he seemed to have made more of an effort to escape than Koku described, for he appeared to have suffered in the ensuing fight.
“Carl Schwen!” exclaimed Tom. “So it was you, was it?”
The German, for such he was, did not answer for a moment He appeared downcast, and as if suffering. Then a change came over him. He straightened up, saluted as a soldier might have done, and a sneering look came into his face. It was succeeded by one of pride as the man exclaimed:
“Yes, it is I! And I tried to do what I tried to do for the Fatherland! I have failed. Now you will have me shot as a spy, I suppose!” he added bitterly.
Tom did not answer directly. He looked keenly at the man, and at last said:
“I am sorry to see this. I knew you were a German, Schwen, but I kept you employed at work that could not, by any possibility, be considered as used against your country. You are a good machinist, and I needed you. But if what I hear about you is true, it is the end.”
“It is the end,” said the man simply. “I tried and failed. If it had not been for Eradicate–Well, he’s smarter than I gave him credit for, that’s all!”
The man spoke very good English, with hardly a trace of German accent, but there was no doubt as to his character.
“What will you do with him, Tom?” asked Ned.
“I don’t know. I’ll have to do a little investigating first. But he must be locked up. Schwen,” went on the young inventor, “I’m sorry about this, but I shall have to give you into the custody of a United States marshal. You are not a naturalized citizen, are you?”
The man muttered something in German to the effect that he was not naturalized and was glad of it.
“Then you come under the head of an enemy alien,” decided Tom, who understood what was said, “and will have to be interned. I had hoped to avoid this, but it seems it cannot be. I am sorry to lose you, but there are more important matters. Now let’s get at the bottom of this.”
Schwen was, after a little delay, taken in charge by the proper officer, and then a search was made of his room, for, in common with some of the other workmen, he lived in a boarding house not far from the plant
There, by a perusal of his papers, enough was revealed to show Tom the danger he had escaped.
“And yet I don’t know that I have altogether escaped it,” he said to Ned, as they talked it over. “There’s no telling how long this spy work may have been going on. If he has discovered all the secrets of Shop Thirteen it may be a bad thing for the Allies and–“
“Look out!” warned Ned, with a laugh. “You’ll be saying things you don’t want to, Tom and not at all in keeping with your former silence.”
“That’s so,” agreed the young inventor, with a sigh. “But if things go right I’ll not have to keep silent much longer. I may be able to tell you everything.”
“Don’t tell me–tell Mary,” advised his chum. “She feels your silence more than I do. I know how such things are.”
“Well, I’ll be able to tell her, too,” decided Tom. “That is, if Schwen hasn’t spoiled everything. Look here, Ned, these papers show he’s been in correspondence with Blakeson and Grinder.”
“What about, Tom?”
“I can’t tell. The letters are evidently written in code, and I can’t translate it offhand. But I’ll make another attempt at it. And here’s one from a person who signs himself Walter Simpson, but the writing is in German.”
“Walter Simpson!” cried Ned. “That’s my friend of the tree!”
“It is?” cried Tom. “Then things begin to fit themselves together. Simpson is a spy, and he was probably trying to communicate with Schwen. But the latter didn’t get the information he wanted, or, if he did get it, he wasn’t able to pass it on to the man in the tree. Eradicate nipped him just in time.”
And, so it seemed, the colored man had done. by accident he had discovered that Schwen had prevailed on one of the workmen in Shop 13 to change passes with him. This enabled the German spy to gain admittance to the secret place, which Tom thought was so well guarded. The man who let Schwen take the pass was in the game, too, it appeared, and he was also placed under arrest. But he was a mere tool in the pay of the others, and had no chance to gain valuable information.
A hasty search of Shop 13 did not reveal anything missing, and it was surmised (for Schwen would not talk) that he had not found time to go about and get all that he was after.
Soon after Schwen’s arrest the “Spy Tree,” as Tom called it, was cut down.
“Eradicate certainly did better than I ever expected he would,” declared Tom. “Well, if all goes well, there won’t be so much need for secrecy after a day or so. We’re going to give her a test, and then–“
“Give who a test?” asked Ned, with a smile.
“You’ll soon see,” answered Tom, with an answering grin. “I hereby invite you and Mr. Damon to come over to Shop Thirteen day after to-morrow night and then– Well, you’ll see what you’ll see.”
With this Ned had to be content, and he waited anxiously for the appointed time to come.
“I surely will be glad when Tom is more like himself,” he mused, as he left his chum. “And i guess Mary will be, too. I wonder if he’s going to ask her to the exhibition?”
It developed that Tom had done so, a fact which Ned learned on the morning of the day set for the test.
“Come over about nine o’clock,” Tom said to his chum. “I guess it will be dark enough then.”
Meanwhile Schwen and Otto Kuhn, the other man involved, had been locked up, and all their papers given into the charge of the United States authorities. A closer guard than ever was kept over No. 13 shop, and some of the workmen, against whom there was a slight suspicion, were transferred.
“Well, we’ll see what we shall see,” mused Ned on the appointed evening, when a telephone message from Mr. Damon informed the young bank clerk that the eccentric man was coming to call for him before going on to the Swift place.
Chapter X
A Runaway Giant
“What do you think it’s all about, Mr. Damon?”
“I’m sure I don’t know, Ned.”
The two were at the home of the young bank clerk, preparing to start for the Swift place, it being nearly nine o’clock on the evening named by the youthful inventor.
“Bless my hat-rack!” went on the eccentric man, “but Tom isn’t at all like himself of late. He’s working on some invention, I know that, but it’s all I do know. He hasn’t given me a hint of it.”
“Nor me, nor any of his friends,” added Ned. “And he acts so oddly about enlisting–doesn’t want even to speak of it. How he got exempted I don’t know, but I do know one thing, and that is Tom Swift is for Uncle Sam first, last and always!”
“Oh, of course!” agreed Mr. Damon. “Well, we’ll soon know, I guess. We’d better start, Ned.”
“It’s useless to try to guess what it is Tom is up to. He has kept his secret well. The nearest any one has come to it was when Harry figured out that Tom had a band of giant elephants which he was fitting with coats of steel armor to go against the Germans,” observed Ned, when be and Mr. Damon were on their way.
“Well, that mightn’t be so bad,” agreed Mr. Damon. “But– um–elephants–and wild giant ones, too! Bless my circus ticket, Ned! do you think we’d better go in that case?”
“Oh, Tom hasn’t anything like that!” laughed Ned. “That was only Harry’s crazy notion after he saw something big and ungainly careening about the enclosed yard of Shop Thirteen. Hello, there go Mary Nestor and her father!” and Ned pointed to the opposite side of the street where the girl and Mr. Nestor could be seen in the light of a street lamp.
“They’re going out to see Tom’s secret,” said Mr. Damon. “There’s plenty of room in my car. Let’s ask them to go with us.”
“Surely,” agreed Ned, and a moment later he and Mary were in the rear seat while Mr. Damon and Mr. Nestor were in the front, Mr. Damon at the wheel, and they were soon speeding down the road.
“I do hope everything will go all right,” observed Mary.
“What do you mean?” asked Ned.
“I mean Tom is a little bit anxious about this test.”
“Did he tell you what it was to be?”
“No; but when he called to invite father and me to be present he seemed worried. I guess it’s a big thing, for he never has acted this way before–not talking about his work.”
“That’s right,” assented Ned. “But the secret will soon be disclosed, I fancy. But how is it you aren’t going to the dance with Lieutenant Martin? He told me you had half accepted for to-night.”
“I had.” And if it had been light enough Ned would have seen Mary blushing. “I was going with him. It’s a dance for the benefit of the Red Cross to get money for comfort kits for the soldiers. But when Tom sent word that he’d like to have me present to-night, why–“
“Oh, I see!” broke in Ned, with a little laugh. “‘Nough said!”
Mary’s blushes were deeper, but the kindly night hid them.
Then they conversed on matters connected with the big war- -the selling of Liberty Bonds, the Red Cross work and the Surgical Dressings Committee, in which Mary was the head of a junior league.
“Everybody in Shopton seems to be doing something to help win the war,” said Mary, and as there was just then a lull in the talk between her father and Mr. Damon her words sounded clearly.
“Yes, everybody–that is, all but a few,” said Mr. Nestor, “and they ought to get busy. There are some young fellows in this town that ought to be wearing khaki, and I don’t mean you, Ned Newton. You’re doing your bit, all right.”
“And so is Tom Swift!” exclaimed Mr. Damon, as if there had been an implied accusation against the young inventor. “I heard, only to-day, that one of his inventions–a gas helmet that he planned–is in use on the Western front in Europe. Tom gave his patents to the government, and even made a lot of the helmets free to show other factories how to turn them out to advantage.”
“He did?” cried Mr. Nestor.
“That’s what he did. Talk about doing your bit–“
“I didn’t know that,” observed Mary’s father slowly. “Do you suppose it’s a test of another gas helmet that Tom has asked us out to see to-night?”
“I hardly think so,” said Ned. “He wouldn’t wait until after dark for that This is something big, and Tom must intend to have it out in the open. He probably waited until after sunset so the neighbors wouldn’t come out in flocks. There’s been a lot of talk about what is going on in Shop Thirteen, especially since the arrest of the German spies, and the least hint that a test is under way would bring out a big crowd.”
“I suppose so,” agreed Mr. Nestor. “Well, I’m glad to know that Tom is doing something for Uncle Sam, even if it’s only helping with gas helmets. Those Germans are barbarians, if ever there were any, and we’ve got to fight them the same way they fight us! That’s the only way to end the war! Now if I had my way, I’d take every German I could lay my hands on–“
“Father, pretzels!” exclaimed Mary.
“Eh? What’s that, my dear?”
“I said pretzels!”
“Oh!” and Mr. Nestor’s voice lost its sharpness.
“That’s my way of quieting father down when he gets too strenuous in his talk about the war,” explained Mary. “We agreed that whenever he got excited I was to say ‘pretzels’ to him, and that would make him remember. We made up our little scheme after he got into an argument with a man on the train and was carried past his station.”
“That’s right,” admitted Mr. Nestor, with a laugh. “But that fellow was the most obstinate, pig-headed Dutchman that ever tackled a plate of pig’s knuckles and sauerkraut, and if he had the least grain of common sense he’d–“
“Pretzels!” cried Mary.
“Eh? Oh, yes, my dear. I was forgetting again.”
There was a moment of merriment, and then, after the talk had run for a while in other and safer channels, Mr. Damon made the announcement:
“I think we’re about there. We’ll be at Tom’s place when we make the turn and–“
He was interrupted by a low, heavy rumbling.
“What’s that?” asked Mr. Nestor.
“It’s getting louder–the noise,” remarked Mary. “It sounds as if some big body were approaching down the road– the tramp of many feet. Can it be that troops are marching away?”
“Bless my spark plug!” suddenly cried Mr. Damon. “Look!”
They gazed ahead, and there, seen in the glare of the automobile headlights, was an immense, dark body approaching them from across a level field. The rumble and roar became more pronounced and the ground shook as though from an earthquake.
A glaring light shone out from the ponderous moving body, and above the roar and rattle a voice called:
“Out out of the way! We’ve lost control! Look out!”
“Bless my steering wheel!” gasped Mr. Damon, “that was Tom Swift’s voice! But what is he doing in that–thing?”
“It must be his new invention!” exclaimed Ned.
“What is it?” asked Mr. Nestor.
“A giant,” ventured Ned. “It’s a giant machine of some sort and –“
“And it’s running away!” cried Mr. Damon, as he quickly steered his car to one side–and not a moment too soon! An instant later in a cloud of dust, and with a rumble and a roar as of a dozen express trains fused into one, the runaway giant–of what nature they could only guess–flashed and lumbered by, Tom Swift leaning from an opening in the thick’ steel side, and shouting something to his friends.
Chapter XI
Tom’s Tank
“What was it?” gasped Mary, and, to her surprise, she found herself close to Ned, clutching his arm.
“I have an idea, but I’d rather let Tom tell you,” he answered.
“But where’s it going?” asked Mr. Nestor. “What in the world does Tom Swift mean by inviting us out here to witness a test, and then nearly running us down under a Juggernaut?”
“Oh, there must be some mistake, I’m sure,” returned his daughter. “Tom didn’t intend this.”
“But, bless my insurance policy, look at that thing go! What in the world is it?” cried Mr. Damon.
The “thing” was certainly going. It had careened from the road, tilted itself down into a ditch and gone on across the fields, lights shooting from it in eccentric fashion.
“Maybe we’d better take after it,” suggested Mr. Nestor. “If Tom is–“
“There, it’s stopping !” cried Ned. “Come on!”
He sprang from the automobile, helped Mary to get out, and then the two, followed by Mr. Damon and Mr. Nestor, made their way across the fields toward the big object where it had come to a stop, the rumbling and roaring ceasing.
Before the little party reached the strange machine–the “runaway giant,” as they dubbed it in their excitement–a bright light flashed from it, a light that illuminated their path right up to the monster. And in the glare of this light they saw Tom Swift stepping out through a steel door in the side of the affair.
“Are you all right?” he called to his friends, as they approached.
“All right, as nearly as we can be when we’ve been almost scared to death, Tom,” said Mr. Nestor.
“I’m surely sorry for what happened,” Tom answered, with a relieved laugh. “Part of the steering gear broke and I had to guide it by operating the two motors alternately. It can be worked that way, but it takes a little practice to become expert.”
“I should say so!” cried Mr. Damon. “But what in the world does it all mean, Tom Swift? You invite us out to see something–“
“And there she is!” interrupted the young inventor. “You saw her a little before I meant you to, and not under exactly the circumstances I had planned. But there she is!” And he turned as though introducing the metallic monster to his friends.
“What is she, Tom?” asked Ned. “Name it!”
“My latest invention, or rather the invention of my father and myself,” answered Tom, and his voice showed the love and reverence he felt for his parent. “Perhaps I should say adaptation instead of invention,” Tom went on, “since that is what it is. But, at any rate, it’s my latest–dad’s and mine–and it’s the newest, biggest, most improved and powerful fighting tank that’s been turned out of any shop, as far as I can learn.
“Ladies–I mean lady and gentlemen–allow me to present to you War Tank A, and may she rumble till the pride of the Boche is brought low and humble!” cried Tom.
“Hurray! That’s what I say!” cheered Ned.
“That’s what I have been at work on lately. I’ll give you a little history of it, and then you may come inside and have a ride home.”
“In that?” cried Mr. Damon.
“Yes. I can’t promise to move as speedily as your car, but I can make better time than the British tanks. They go about six miles an hour, I understand, and I’ve got mine geared to ten. That’s one improvement dad and I have made.”
“Ride in that!” cried Mr. Nestor. “Tom, I like you, and I’m glad to see I’ve been mistaken about you. You have been doing your bit, after all; but–“
“Oh, I’ve only begun!” laughed Tom Swift.
“Well, no matter about that. However much I like you,” went on Mr. Nestor, “I’d as soon ride on the wings of a thunderbolt as in Tank A, Tom Swift.”
“Oh, it isn’t as bad as that!” laughed the young scientist. “But neither is it a limousine. However, come inside, anyhow, and I’ll tell you something about it. Then I guess we can guide it back. The men are repairing the break.”
The visitors entered the great craft through the door by which Tom had emerged. At first all they saw was a small compartment, with walls of heavy steel, some shelves of the same and a seat which folded up against the wall made of like powerful material.
“This is supposed to be the captain’s room, where he stays when he directs matters.” Tom explained. “The machinery is below and beyond here.”
“How’d you come to evolve this?” asked Ned. “I haven’t seen half enough of the outside, to say nothing of the inside.”
“You’ll have time enough,” Tom said. “This is my first completed tank. There are some improvements to be made before we send it to the other side to be copied.
“Then they’ll make them in England as well as here, and from here we’ll ship them in sections.”
“I don’t see how you ever thought of it!” exclaimed the girl, in wonder.
“Well, I didn’t all at once,” Tom answered, with a laugh. “It came by degrees. I first got the idea when I heard of the British tanks.
“When I had read how they went into action and what they accomplished against the barbed wire entanglements, and how they crossed the trenches, I concluded that a bigger tank, one capable of more speed, say ten or twelve miles an hour, and one that could cross bigger excavations–the English tanks up to this time can cross a ditch of twelve feet–I thought that, with one made on such specifications, more effective work could be done against the Germans.”
“And will yours do that?” asked Ned. “I mean will it do ten miles an hour, and straddle over a wider ditch than twelve feet?”
“It’ll do both,” promptly answered Tom. “We did a little better than eleven miles an hour a while ago when I yelled to you to get out of the way just now. It’s true we weren’t under good control, but the speed had nothing to do with that. And as for going over a big ditch, I think we straddled one about fourteen feet across back there, and we can do better when I get my grippers to working.”
“Grippers!” exclaimed Mary.
“What kind of trench slang is that, Tom Swift?” asked Mr. Damon.
“Well, that’s a new idea I’m going to try out It’s something like this,” and while from a distant part of the interior of Tank A came the sound of hammering, the young inventor rapidly drew a rough pencil sketch.
It showed the tank in outline, much as appear the pictures of tanks already in service–the former simile of two wedge- shaped pieces of metal put together broad end to broad end, still holding good. From one end of the tank, as Tom drew it, there extended two long arms of latticed steel construction.
“The idea is,” said Tom, “to lay these down in front of the tank, by means of cams and levers operated from inside. If we get to a ditch which we can’t climb down into and out again, or bridge with the belt caterpillar wheels, we’ll use the grippers. They’ll be laid down, taking a grip on the far side of the trench, and we’ll slide across on them.”
“And leave them there?” asked Mr. Damon.
“No, we won’t leave them. We’ll pick them up after we have passed over them and use them in front again as we need them. A couple of extra pairs of grippers may be carried for emergencies, but I plan to use the same ones over and over again.”
“But what makes it go?” asked Mary. “I don’t want all the details, Tom,” she said, with a smile, “but I’d like to know what makes your tank move.”
“I’ll be able to show you in a little while,” he answered. “But it may be enough now if I tell you that the main power consists of two big gasolene engines, one on either side. They can be geared to operate together or separately. And these engines turn the endless belts made of broad, steel plates, on which the tank travels. The belts pass along the outer edges of the tank longitudinally, and go around cogged wheels at either end of the blunt noses.
“When both belts travel at the same rate of speed the tank goes in a straight line, though it can be steered from side to side by means of a trailer wheel in the rear. Making one belt–one set of caterpillar wheels, you know–go faster than the other will make the tank travel to one side or the other, the turn being in the direction of the slowest moving belt. In this way we can steer when the trailer wheels are broken.”
“And what does your tank do except travel along, not minding a hail of bullets?” asked Mr. Nestor.
“Well,” answered Tom, “it can do anything any other tank can do, and then some more. It can demolish a good-sized house or heavy wall, break down big trees, and chew up barbed-wire fences as if they were toothpicks. I’ll show you all that in due time. Just now, if the repairs are finished, we can get back on the road–“
At that moment a door leading into the compartment where Tom and his friends were talking opened, and one of the workmen said:
“A man outside asking to see you, Mr. Swift.”
“Pardon me, but I won’t keep you a moment,” interrupted a suave voice. “I happened to observe your tank, and I took the liberty of entering to see
“Simpson!” cried Ned Newton, as he recognized the man who had been up the tree. “It’s that spy, Simpson, Tom!”
Chapter XII
Bridging a Gap
Such surprise showed both on the face of Ned Newton and that of the man who called himself Walter Simpson that it would be hard to say which was in the greater degree. For a moment the newcomer stood as if he had received all electric shock, and was incapable of motion. Then, as the echoes of Ned’s voice died away and the young bank clerk, being the first to recover from the shock, made a motion toward the unwelcome and uninvited intruder, Simpson exclaimed.
“I will not bother now. Some other time will do as well.”
Then, with a haste that could be called nothing less than precipitate, he made a turn and fairly shot out of the door by which he had entered the tank.
“There he goes!” cried Mr. Damon. “Bless my speedometer, but there he goes!”
“I’ll stop him!” cried Ned. “We’ve got to find out more about him! I’ll get him, Tom!”
Tom Swift was not one to let a friend rush alone into what might be danger. He realized immediately what his chum meant when he called out the identity of the intruder, and, wishing to clear up some of the mystery of which he became aware when Schwen was arrested and the paper showing a correspondence with this Simpson were found, Tom darted out to try to assist in the capture.
“He went this way!” cried Ned, who was visible in the glare of the searchlight that still played its powerful beams over the stern of the tank, if such an ungainly machine can be said to have a bow and stern. “Over this way!”
“I’m with you!” cried Tom. “See if you can pick up that man who just ran out of here!” he cried to the operator of the searchlight in the elevated observation section of what corresponded to the conning tower of a submarine. This was a sort of lookout box on top of the tank, containing, among other machines, the searchlight. “Pick him up!” cried Tom.
The operator flashed the intense white beam, like a finger of light, around in eccentric circles. but though this brought into vivid relief the configuration of the field and road near which the tank was stalled, it showed no running fugitive. Tom and Ned were observed–shadows of black in the glare–by Mary and her friends in the tank, but there was no one else.
“Come on!” cried Ned. “We can find him, Tom!”
But this was easier said than done. Even though they were aided by the bright light, they caught no glimpse of the man who called himself Simpson.
“Guess he got away,” said Tom, when he and Ned had circled about and investigated many clumps of bushes, trees, stumps and other barriers that might conceal the fugitive.
“I guess so,” agreed Ned. “Unless he’s hiding in what we might call a shell crater.”
“Hardly that,” and Tom smiled. “Though if all goes well the men who operate this tank later may be searching for men in real shell holes.”
“Is this one going to the other side?” asked Ned, as the two walked back toward the tank.
“I hope it will be the first of my new machines on the Western front,” Tom answered. “But I’ve still got to perfect it in some details and then take it apart. After that, if it comes up to expectations, we’ll begin making them in quantities.”
“Did you get him?” asked Mr. Damon eagerly, as the two young men came back to join Mary and her friends.
“No, he got away,” Tom answered.
“Did he try to blow up the tank?” asked Mr. Nestor, who had an abnormal fear of explosives. “Was he a German spy?”
“I think he’s that, all right,” said Ned grimly. “As to his endeavoring to blow up Tom’s tank, I believe him capable of it, though he didn’t try it to-night–unless he’s planted a time bomb somewhere about, Tom.”
“Hardly, I guess,” answered the young inventor. “He didn’t have a chance to do that. Anyhow we won’t remain here long. Now, Ned, what about this chap? Is he really the one you saw up in the tree?”
“I not only saw him but I felt him,” answered Ned, with a rueful look at his fingers. “He stepped right on me. And when he came inside the tank to-night I knew him at once. I guess he was as surprised to see me as I was to see him.”
“But what was his object?” asked Mr. Nestor.
“He must have some connection with my old enemy, Blakeson,” answered Tom, “and we know he’s mixed up with Schwen. From the looks of him I should say that this Simpson, as he calls himself, is the directing head of the whole business. He looks to be the moneyed man, and the brains of the plotters. Blakeson is smart, in a mechanical way, and Schwen is one of the best machinists I’ve ever employed. But this Simpson strikes me as being the slick one of the trio.”
“But what made him come here, and what did he want?” asked Mary. “Dear me! it’s like one of those moving picture plots, only I never saw one with a tank in it before–I mean a tank like yours, Tom.”
“Yes, it is a bit like moving picture–especially chasing Simpson by searchlight,” agreed the young inventor. “As to what he wanted, I suppose he came to spy out some of my secret inventions–dad’s and mine. He’s probably been hiding and sneaking around the works ever since we arrested Schwen. Some of my men have reported seeing strangers about, but I have kept Shop Thirteen well guarded.
“However, this fellow may have been waiting outside, and he may have followed the tank when we started off a little while ago for the night test. Then, when he saw our mishap and noticed that we were stalled, he came in, boldly enough, thinking, I suppose, that, as I had never seen him, he would take a chance on getting as much information as he could in a hurry.”
“But he didn’t count on Ned’s being here!” chuckled Mr. Damon.
“No; that’s where he slipped a cog,” remarked Mr. Nestor. “Well, Tom, I like your tank, what I’ve seen of her, but it’s getting late and I think Mary and I had better be getting back home.”
“We’ll be ready to start in a little while,” Tom said, after a brief consultation with one of his men. “Still, perhaps it would be just as well if you didn’t ride back with me. She may go all right, and then, again, she may not. And as it’s dark, and we’re in a rough part of the field, you might be a bit shaken up. Not that the tank minds it!” the young inventor hastened to add “She’s got to do her bit over worse places than this–much worse–but I want to get her in a little better working shape first. So if you don’t mind, Mary, I’ll postpone your initial trip.”
“Oh, I don’t mind, Tom! I’m so glad you’ve made this! I want to see the war ended, and I think machines like this will help.”
“I’ll ride back with you, Tom, if you don’t mind,” put in Ned. “I guess a little shaking up won’t hurt me.”
“All right–stick. We’re going to start very soon.”
“Well, I’m coming over to-morrow to have a look at it by daylight,” said Mr. Damon, as he started toward his car.
“So am I,” added Mary. “Please call for me, Mr. Damon.”
“I will,” he promised.
Mr. Nestor, his daughter, and Mr. Damon went back to the automobile, while Ned remained with Tom. In a little while those in the car heard once more the rumbling and roaring sound and felt the earth tremble. Then, with a flashing of lights, the big, ungainly shape of the tank lifted herself out of the little ditch in which she had come to a halt, and began to climb back to the road.
Ned Newton stood beside Tom in the control tower of the great tank as she started on her homeward way.
“Isn’t it wonderful!” murmured Mary, as she saw Tank A lumbering along toward the road. “Oh, and to think that human beings made that To think that Tom should know how to build such a wonderful machine!”
“And run it, too, Mary! That’s the point! Make it run!” cried her father. “I tell you, that Tom Swift is a wonder!”
“Bless my dictionary, he sure is!” agreed Mr. Damon.
Along the road, back toward the shop whence it had emerged, rumbled the tank. The noise brought to their doors inhabitants along the country thoroughfare, and some of them were frightened when they saw Tom Swift’s latest war machine, the details of which they could only guess at in the darkness.
“She’ll butt over a house if it gets in her path, knock down trees, chew up barbed-wire, and climb down into ravines and out again, and go over a good-sized stream without a whimper,” said Tom, as he steered the great machine.
There was little chance then for Ned to see much of the inside mechanism of the tank. He observed that Tom, standing in the forward tower, steered it very easily by a small wheel or by a lever, alternately, and that he communicated with the engine room by means of electric signals.
“And she steers by electricity, too,” Tom told his friend. “That was one difficulty with the first tanks. They had to be steered by brute force, so to speak, and it was a terrific strain on the man in the tower. Now I can guide this in two ways: by the electric mechanism which swings the trailer wheels to either side, or by varying the speed of the two motors that work the caterpillar belts. So if one breaks down, I have the other.”
“Got any guns aboard her–I mean machine guns?” asked Ned.
“Not yet. But I’m going to install some. I wanted to get the tank in proper working order first. The guns are only incidental, though of course they’re vitally necessary when she goes into action. I’ve got ’em all ready to put in. But first I’m going to try the grippers.”
“Oh, you mean the gap-bridgers?” asked Ned.
“That’s it,” answered Tom. “Look out, we’re going over a rough spot now.”
And they did. Ned was greatly shaken up, and fairly tossed from side to side of the steering tower. For the tank contained no springs, except such as were installed around the most delicate machinery, and it was like riding in a dump cart over a very rough road.
“However, that’s part of the game,” Tom observed.
Tank A reached her “harbor” safely–in other words, the machine shop enclosed by the high fence, inside of which she had been built.
Tom and Ned made some inquiries of Koku and Eradicate as to whether or not there had been any unusual sights or sounds about the place. They feared Simpson might have come to the shop to try to get possession of important drawings or data.
But all had been quiet, Koku reported Nor had Eradicate seen or heard anything out of the ordinary.
“Then I guess we’ll lock up and turn in,” decided Tom. “Come over to-morrow, Ned.”
“I will,” promised the young bank clerk. “I want to see more of what makes the wheels go round.” And he laughed at his own ingenuousness.
The next day Tom showed his friends as much as they cared to see about the workings of the tank. They inspected the powerful gasolene engines, saw how they worked the endless belts made of plates of jointed steel, which, running over sprocket wheels, really gave the tank its power by providing great tractive force.
Any self-propelled vehicle depends for its power, either to move itself or to push or to pull, on its tractive force- -that is, the grip it can get on the ground.
In the case of a bicycle little tractive power is needed, and this is provided by the rubber tires, which grip the ground. A locomotive depends for its tractive power on its weight pressing on its driving wheels, and the more driving wheels there are and the heavier the locomotive, the more it can pull, though in that case speed is lost. This is why freight locomotives are so heavy and have so many large driving wheels. They pull the engine along, and the cars also, by their weight pressing on the rails.
The endless steel belts of a tank are, the same as the wheels of a locomotive. And the belts, being very broad, which gives them a large surface with which to press on the ground, and the tank being very heavy, great power to advance is thus obtained, though at the sacrifice of speed. However, Tom Swift had made his tank so that it would do about ten miles and more an hour, nearly double the progress obtained up to that time by the British machines.
His visitors saw the great motors, they inspected the compact but not very attractive living quarters of the crew, for provision had to be made for the men to stay in the tank if, perchance, it became stalled in No Man’s Land, surrounded by the enemy.
The tank was powerfully armored and would be armed. There were a number of machine guns to be installed, quick-firers of various types, and in addition the tank could carry a number of riflemen.
It was upon the crushing power of the tank, though, that most reliance was placed. Thus it could lead the way for an infantry advance through the enemy’s lines, making nothing of barbed wire that would take an artillery fire of several days to cut to pieces.
“And now, Ned,” said Tom, about a week after the night test of the tank, “I’m going to try what she’ll do in bridging a gap.”
“Have you got her in shape again?”
“Yes, everything is all right. I’ve taken out the weak part in the steering gear that nearly caused us to run you down, and we’re safe in that respect now. And I’ve got the grippers made. It only remains to see whether they’re strong enough to bear the weight of my little baby,” and Tom affectionately patted the steel sides of Tank A.
While his men were getting the machine ready for a test out on the road, and for a journey across a small stream not far away, Torn told his chum about conceiving the idea for the tank and carrying it out secretly with the aid of his father and certain workmen.
“That’s the reason the government exempted me from enlisting,” Tom said. “They wanted me to finish this tank. I didn’t exactly want to, but I considered it my ‘bit.’ After this I’m going into the army, Ned.”
“Glad to hear it, old man. Maybe by that time I’ll have this Liberty Bond work finished, and I’ll go with you. We’ll have great times together! Have you heard anything more of Simpson, Blakeson and Scoundrels?” And Ned laughed as he named this “firm.”
“No,” answered Tom. “I guess we scared off that slick German spy.”
Once more the tank lumbered out along the road. It was a mighty engine of war, and inside her rode Tom and Ned. Mary and her father had been invited, but the girl could not quite get her courage to the point of accepting, nor did Mr. Nestor care to go. Mr. Damon, however, as might be guessed, was there.
“Bless my monkey wrench, Tom!” cried the eccentric man, as he noted their advance over some rough ground, “are you really going to make this machine cross Tinkle Creek on a bridge of steel you carry with you?”
“I’m going to try, Mr. Damon.”
A little later, after a successful test up and down a small gully, Tank A arrived at the edge of Tinkle Creek, a small stream about twenty feet wide, not far from Tom’s home. At the point selected for the test the banks were high and steep.
“If she bridges that gap she’ll do anything,” murmured Ned, as the tank came to a stop on the edge.
Chapter XIII
Into a Trench
Tom cast a hasty glance over the mechanism of the machine before he started to cross the stream by the additional aid of the grippers, or spanners, as he sometimes called this latest device.
Along each side, in a row of sockets, were two long girders of steel, latticed like the main supports of a bridge. They were of peculiar triangular construction, designed to support heavy weights, and each end was broadly flanged to prevent its sinking too deeply into the earth on either side of a gully or a stream.
The grippers also had a sort of clawlike arrangement on either end, working on the principle of an “orange-peel” shovel, and these claws were designed to grip the earth to prevent slipping.
The spanners would be pulled out from their sockets on the side of the tank by means of steel cables, which were operated from within. They would be run out across the gap and fastened in place. The tank was designed to travel along them to the other side of the gap, and, once there. to pick tip the girders, slip them back into place on the sides, and the engine of war would travel on.
“You are mightily excited, Tom.
“I admit it, Ned. You see, I have not tried the grippers out except on a small model. They worked there, but whether they will work in practice remains to be seen. Of course, at this stage, I’m willing to stake my all on the results. but there is always a half-question until the final try-out under practical conditions.”
“Well, we’ll soon see,” said one of the workmen. “Are you ready, Mr. Swift?”
“All ready,” answered Tom.
Tank A, as she was officially known, had come to a stop, as has been said, on the very edge of Tinkle Creek. The banks were fairly solid here, and descended precipitously to the water ten feet below. The shores were about twenty feet apart.
“Suppose the spanners break when you’re halfway over, Tom?” asked his chum.
“I don’t like to suppose anything of the sort. But if they do, we’re going down!”
“Can you get up again?”
“That remains to be seen,” was the non-committal reply. “Well, here goes, anyhow!”
Going up into the observation tower, which was only slightly raised above the roof of the highest part of the tank, Tom gave the signal for the motors to start. There was a trembling throughout the whole of the vast structure. Tom threw back a lever and Ned, peering from a side observation slot, beheld a strange sight.
Like the main arm of some great steam shovel, two long, latticed girders of steel shot out from the sides of the tank. They gave a half turn, as they were pulled forward by the steel ropes, so that they lay with their broader surfaces uppermost.
Straight across the stream they were pulled, their clawlike ends coming to a rest on the opposite bank. Then they were tightened into place by a backward pull on the operating cables, and Tom, with a sigh of relief, announced:
“Well, so far so good!”
“Do we go over now?” inquired Ned.
“Over the top–yes, I hope,” answered Tom, with a laugh. “How about you down there?” he called to the engine room through a telephone which could only be used when the machinery was not in action, there being too much noise to permit the use of any but visual signals after that.
“All right,” came back the answer. “We’re ready when you are.”
“Then here we go!” said Tom. “Hold fast, Ned! Of course there’s no real telling what will happen, though I believe we’ll come out of it alive.”
“Cheerful prospect,” murmured Ned.
The grippers were now in place. It only remained for the tank to propel herself over them, pick them up on the other side of Tinkle Creek, and proceed on her course.
Tom Swift hesitated a moment, one hand on the starting lever and the other on the steering wheel. Then, with a glance at Ned, half whimsical and half resolute, Tom started Tank A on what might prove to be her last journey.
Slowly the ponderous caterpillar belts moved around on the sprocket wheels. They ground with a clash of steel on the surface of the spanners. So long was the tank that the forward end, or the “nose,” was halfway across the stream before the bottom part of the endless belts gripped the latticed bridge.
“If we fall, we’ll span the creek, not fall into it,” murmured Ned, as he looked from the observation slot.
“That’s what I counted on,” Tom said. “We’ll get out, even if we do fall.”
But Tank A was not destined to fall. In another moment her entire weight rested on the novel and transportable bridge Tom Swift had evolved. Then, as the gripping ends of the girders sank farther into the soil, the tank went on her way.
Slowly, at half speed, she crawled over the steel beams, making progress over the creek and as safely above the water as though on a regularly constructed bridge.
On and on she went. Now her entire weight was over the middle of the temporary structures. If they were going to give way at all, it would be at this point But they did not give. The latticed and triangular steel, than which there is no stronger form of construction, held up the immense weight of Tank A, and on this novel bridge she propelled herself across Tinkle Creek.
“Well, the worst is over,” remarked Ned, as he saw the nose of the tank project beyond the farthermost bank.
“Yes, even if they collapse now nothing much can happen,” Tom answered. “It won’t be any worse than wallowing down into a trench and out again. But I think the spanners will hold.”
And hold they did! They held, giving way not a fraction of an inch, until the tank was safely across, and then, after a little delay, due to a jamming of one of the recovery cables, the spanners were picked up, slid into the receiving sockets, and the great war engine was ready to proceed again.
“Hurrah!” cried Ned. “She did it, Tom, old man!” and he clapped his chum resoundingly on the back.
“She certainly did!” was the answer. “But you needn’t knock me apart telling me that. Go easy!”
“Bless my apple pie!” cried Mr. Damon, who was as much pleased as either of the boys, “this is what I call great!”
“Yes, she did all that I could have hoped for,” said Tom. “Now for the next test.”
“Bless my collar button! is there another?”
“Just down into a trench and out again.” Tom said. “This is comparatively simple. It’s only what she’ll have to do every day in Flanders.”
The tank waddled on. A duck’s sidewise walk is about the only kind of motion that can be compared to it. The going was easier now, for it was across a big field, and Tom told his friends that at the other end was a deep, steep and rocky ravine in which he had decided to give the tank another test.
“We’ll imagine that ravine is a trench,” he said, “and that we’ve got to get on the other side of it. Of course, we won’t be under fire, as the tanks will be at the front, but aside from that the test will be just as severe.”
A little later Tank A brought her occupants to the edge of the “trench.”
“Now, little girl,” cried Tom exultingly, patting the rough steel side of his tank, “show them what you can do!”
“Bless my plum pudding!” cried Mr. Damon, “are you really going down there, Tom Swift?”
“I am,” answered the young inventor. “It won’t be dangerous. We’ll crawl down and crawl out. Hold fast!”
He steered the machine straight for the edge of the ravine, and as the nose slipped over and the broad steel belts bit into the earth the tank tilted downward at a sickening angle.
She appeared to be making the descent safely, when there was a sudden change. The earth seemed to slip out from under the broad caterpillar belts, and then the tank moved more rapidly.
“Tom, we’re turning over!” shouted Ned. “We’re capsizing!”
Chapter XIV
The Ruined Factory
Only too true were the words Ned Newton shouted to his chum. Tank A was really capsizing. She had advanced to the edge of the gully and started down it, moving slowly on the caterpillar bands of steel. Then had come a sudden lurch, caused, as they learned afterward, by the slipping off of a great quantity of shale from an underlying shelf of rock.
This made unstable footing for the tank. One side sank lower than the other, and before Tom could neutralize this by speeding up one motor and slowing down the other the tank slowly turned over on its side.
“But she isn’t going to stop here!” cried Ned, as he found himself thrown about like a pill in a box. “We’re going all the way over!”
“Let her go over!” cried Tom, not that he could stop the tank now. “It won’t hurt her. She’s built for lust this sort of thing!”
And over Tank A did go. Over and over she rolled, sidewise, tumbling and sliding down the shale sides of the great gully.
“Hold fast! Grab the rings!” cried Tom to his two companions in the tower with him. “That’s what they’re for!”
Ned and Mr. Damon understood. In fact, the latter had already done as Tom suggested. The young inventor had read that the British tanks frequently turned turtle, and he had this in mind when he made provision in his own for the safety of passengers and crew.
As soon as he felt the tank careening, Tom had pressed the signal ordering the motors stopped, and now only the force of gravity was operating. But that was sufficient to carry the big machine to the bottom of the gulch, whither she slid with a great cloud of sand, shale and dust.
“Bless my–bless my–” Mr. Damon was murmuring, but he was so flopped about, tossed from one side to the other, and it took so much of his attention and strength to hold on to the safety ring, that he could not properly give vent; to one of his favorite expressions.
But there comes an end to all things, even to the descent of a tank, and Tom’s big machine soon stopped rolling, sliding, and turning improvised somersaults, and rested in a pile of soft shale at the bottom of the gully. And the tank was resting on her back!
“We’ve turned turtle!” cried Ned, as he noted that he was standing on what, before, had been the ceiling of the observation tower. But as everything was of steel, and as there was no movable furniture, no great harm was done. In fact, one could as well walk on the ceiling of the tank as on the floor.
“But how are you going to get her right side up?” asked Mr. Damon.
“Oh, turning upside down is only one of the stunts of the game. I can right her,” was the answer.
“How?” asked Ned.
“Well, she’ll right herself if there’s ground enough for the steel belts to get a grip on.
“But can the motors work upside down?”
“They surely can!” responded Tom. “I made ’em that way on purpose. The gasolene feeds by air pressure, and that works standing on its head, as well as any other way. It’s going to be a bit awkward for the men to operate the controls, but we won’t be this way long. Before I start to right her. though, I want to make sure nothing is broken.”
Tom signaled to the engine room, and, as the power was off and the speaking tube could be used, he called through it:
“How are you down there?”
“Right-o!” came back the answer from a little Englishman Tom had hired because he knew something about the British tanks. “‘Twas a bit of nastiness for a while, but it won’t take us long to get up ag’in.”
“That’s good!” commented Tom. “I’ll come down and have a look at you.”
It was no easy matter, with the tank capsized, to get to the main engine room, but Tom Swift managed it. To his delight, aside from a small break in one of the minor machines, which would not interfere with the operation or motive force of the monster war engine, everything was in good shape. There was no leak from the gasolene tanks, which was one of the contingencies Tom feared, and, as he had said, the motors would work upside down as well as right side up, a fact he had proved more than once in his Hawk.
“Well, we’ll make a start,” he told his chief engineer. “Stand by when I give the signal, and we’ll try to crawl out of this right side up.”
“How are you going to do it?” asked Ned, as his chum crawled back into the observation tower.
“Well, I’m going to run her part way up the very steepest part of the ravine I can find–the side of a house would do as well if it could stand the strain. I’m going to stand the tank right up on her nose, so to speak, and tip her over so she’ll come right again.”
Slowly the tank started off, while Tom and his friends in the observation tower anxiously awaited the result of the novel progress. Ned and Mr. Damon clung to the safety rings. Tom put his arm through one and hung on grimly, while he used both hands on the steering apparatus and the controls.
Of course the trailer wheels were useless in a case of this kind, and the tank had to be guided by the two belts run at varying speeds.
“Here we go!” cried Tom, and the tank started. It was a queer sensation to be moving upside down, but it did not last very long. Tom steered the tank straight at the opposite wail of the ravine, where it rose steeply. One of the broad belts ran up on that side. The other was revolved in the opposite direction. Up and up, at a sickening angle, went Tank A.
Slowly the tank careened, turning completely over on her longer axis, until, as Tom shut off the power, he and his friends once more found themselves standing where they belonged–on the floor of the observation tower.
“Right side up with care!” quoted Ned, with a laugh. “Well, that was some stunt–believe me!”
“Bless my corn plaster, I should say so!” cried Mr. Damon.
“Well, I’m glad it happened,” commented Tom. “It showed what she can do when she’s put to it. Now we’ll get out of this ditch.”
Slowly the tank lumbered along, proper side up now, the men in the motor room reporting that everything was all right, and that with the exception of a slight unimportant break, no damage had been done.
Straight for the opposite steep side of the gully Tom directed his strange craft, and at a point where the wall of the gulch gave a good footing for the steel belts, Tank A pulled herself out and up to level ground.
“Well, I’m glad that’s over,” remarked Ned, with a sigh of relief, as the tank waddled along a straight stretch. “And to think of having to do that same thing under heavy fire !”
“That’s part of the game,” remarked Tom. “And don’t forget that we can fire, too–or we’ll be able to when I get the guns in place. They’ll help to balance the machine better, too, and render her less likely to overturn.”
Tom considered the test a satisfactory one and, a little later, guided his tank back to the shop, where men were set to work repairing the little damage done and making some adjustments.
“What’s next on the program?” asked Ned of his chum one day about a week later. “Any more tests in view?”
“Yes,” answered Tom. “I’ve got the machine guns in place now. We are going to try them out and also endeavor to demolish a building and some barbed wire. Like to come along?”
“I would!” cried Ned.
A little later the tank was making her way over a field. Tom pointed toward a deserted factory, which had long been partly in ruins, but some of the walls of which still stood.
“I’m going to bombard that,” he announced, and then try to batter it down and roll over it like a Juggernaut. Are you game?”
“Do your worst!” laughed Ned. “Let me man one of the machine guns!”
“All right,” agreed Tom. “Concentrate your fire. Make believe you’re going against the Germans!”
Slowly, but with resistless energy, the tank approached the ruined factory.
“Are you sure there’s no one in it, Tom?”
“Sure! Blaze away!”
Chapter XV
Across Country
Ned Newton sighted his machine gun. Tom had showed him how to work it, and indeed the young bank clerk had had some practice with a weapon like this, erected on a stationary tripod. But this was the first time Ned had attempted to fire from the tank while it was moving, and he found it an altogether different matter.
“Say, it sure is hard to aim where you want to!” he shouted across to Tom, it being necessary, even in the conning tower, where this one gun was mounted, to speak loudly to make one’s self heard above the hum, the roar and rattle of the machinery in the interior of Tank A, and below and to the rear of the two young men.
“Well, that’s part of the game,” Tom answered. “I’m sending her along over as smooth ground as I can pick out, but it’s rough at best. Still this is nothing to what you’ll get in Flanders.”
“If I get there!” exclaimed Ned grimly. “Well, here goes!” and once more he tried to aim the machine gun at the middle of the brick wall of the ruined factory.
A moment later there was a rattle and a roar as the quick- firing mechanism started, and a veritable hail of bullets swept out at the masonry. Tom and Ned could see where they struck, knocking off bits of stone, brick and cement
“Sweep it, Ned! Sweep it!” cried Tom. “Imagine a crowd of Germans are charging out at you, and sweep ’em out of the way!”
Obeying this command, the young man moved the barrel of the machine gun from side to side and slightly up and down. The effect was at once apparent. The wall showed spatter- marks of the bullets over a wider area, and had a body of Teutons been before the factory, or even inside it, many of them would have been accounted for, since there were several holes in the wall through which Ned’s bullets sped, carrying potential death with them.
“That’s better!” shouted Tom. “That’ll do the business! Now I’m going to open her up, Ned!”
“Open her up?” cried the young bank clerk, as he ceased firing.
“Yes; crack the wall of that factory as I would a nut! Watch me take it on high–that is, if the old tank doesn’t go back on me!”
“You mean you’re going to ride right over that building, Tom ?”
“I mean I’m going to try! If Tank A does as I expect her to, she’ll butt into that wall, crush it down by force and weight, and then waddle over the ruins. Watch!”
Tom sent some signals to the motor room. At once there was noticed an increase in the vibrations of the ponderous machine.
“They’re giving her more speed,” said Tom. “And I guess we’ll need it.”
Straight for the old factory went Tank A. In spite of its ruined condition, some of the walls were still firm, and seemed to offer a big obstacle to even so powerful an engine of war as this monstrous tank.
“Get ready now, Ned,” Tom advised. “And when I crack her open for you cut loose with the machine gun again. This gun is supposed to fire straight ahead and a little to either side. There are other guns at left and right, amidships, as I might say, and there’s also one in the stern, to take care of any attack from that direction.
“The men in charge of them will fire at the same time you do, and it will be as near like a real attack as we can make it–with the exception of not being fired back at. And I wouldn’t mind if such were the case, for I don’t believe anything, outside of heavy artillery, will have any effect on this tank.”
Tank A was now almost at her maximum speed as she approached closer to the deserted factory. Ned and Tom, in the conning tower, saw the largest of the remaining walls looming before them. Straight at it rushed the ponderous machine, and the next moment there came a shock which almost threw Ned away from his gun and back against the steel wall behind him.
“Hold fast!” cried Tom. “Here we go! Fire. Ned! Fire!”
There was a crash as the blunt nose of the great war tank hit the wall and crumpled it up.
A great hole was made in the masonry, and what was not crushed under the caterpillar belts of the tank fell in a shower of bricks, stone and cement on top of the machine.
Like a great hail storm the broken masonry pelted the steel sides and top of the tank. But she felt them no more than does an alligator the attacks of a colony of ants. Right on through the dust the tank crushed her way. Added to the noise of the falling walls was that of the machine guns, which were barking away like a kennel of angry hounds eager to be unleashed at the quarry.
Ned kept his gun going until the heat of it warned him to stop and let the barrel cool, or he knew he would jam some of the mechanism. The other guns were firing, too, and the bullets sent up little spatter points of dust as they hit.
“Great jumping hoptoads!” yelled Ned above the riot of racket outside and inside. “Feel her go, Tom!”
“Yes, she’s just chewing it up, all right!” cried the young inventor, his eyes shining with delight.
The tank had actually burst her way through the solid wall of the old factory, permission to complete the demolition of which Tom had secured from the owners. Then the great machine kept right on. She fairly “walked” over the piles of masonry, dipped down into what had been a basement, now partly filled with debris, and kept on toward another wall.
“I’m going through that, too!” cried Tom.
And he did, knocking it down and sending his tank over the piled-up ruins, while the machine guns barked, coughed and spluttered, as Ned and the others inside the tank held back the firing levers.
Right through the opposite wall, as through the one she had already demolished, the tank careened on her way, to emerge, rather battered and dust-covered, on the other side of what was left of the factory. And there was not much of it left. Tank A had well-nigh completed its demolition.
“If there’d been a nest of Germans in there,” said Tom, as he brought the machine to a stop in a field beyond the factory, “they’d have gotten out in a hurry.”
“Or taken the consequences,” added Ned, as he wiped the sweat from his powder-blackened and oil-smeared face. “I certainly kept my gun going.”
“Yes, and so did the others,” reported one of the mechanics, as he emerged from the “cubby hole,” where the great motors had now ceased their hum and roar.
“How’d she stand it?” asked Tom.
“All right inside,” answered the man. “I was wondering how she looks from the outside.”
“Oh, it would take more than that to damage her,” said Tom, with pardonable pride. “That was pie for her! Solid concrete, which she may have to chew up on the Western front, may present another kind of problem, but I guess she’ll be able to master that too. Well, let’s have a look.”
He and Ned, with some of the crew and gunners, went outside the tank. She was a sorry-looking sight, very different from the trim appearance she had presented when she first left the shop. Bricks, bits of stone, and piles of broken cement in chunks and dust lay thick on her broad back. But no real damage had been done, as a hasty examination showed.
“Well, are you satisfied, Tom?” asked his chum.
“Yes, and more,” was the answer. “Of course this wasn’t the hardest test to which she could have been submitted, but it will do to show what punishment she can stand. Being shot at from big guns is another matter. I’ll have to wait until she gets to Flanders to see what effect that will have. But I know the kind of armor skin she has, and that doesn’t worry me. There’s one thing more I want to do while I have her out now.”
“What’s that?” asked Ned.
“Take her for a long trip cross country, and then shove her through some extra heavy barbed wire. I’m certain she’ll chew that up, but I want to see it actually done. So now, if you want to come along, Ned, we’ll go cross country.”
“I’m with you!”
“Get inside then. We’ll let the dust and masonry blow and rattle off as we go along.”
The tank started off across the fields, which stretched for many miles on either side of the deserted factory, when suddenly Ned, who was again at his post in the observation tower, called:
“Look, Tom!”
“What at?”
“That corner of the factory which is still standing. Look at those men coming out and running away!”
Ned pointed, and his chum, leaning over from the steering wheel and controls, gave a start of surprise as he saw three figures clambering down over the broken debris and making their way out of what had once been a doorway.
“Did they come out of the factory, Ned?”
“They surely did! And unless I miss my guess they were in it, or around it, when we went through like a fellow carrying the football over the line for a touchdown.”
“In there when the tank broke open things?”
“I think so. I didn’t see them before, but they certainly ran out as we started away.”
“This has got to be looked into!” decided Tom. “Come on, Ned! It may be more of that spy business !”
Tom Swift stopped the tank and prepared to get out
Chapter XVI
The Old Barn
“There’s no use chasing after ’em, Tom,” observed Ned, as the two chums stood side by side outside the tank and gazed after the three men running off across the fields as fast as they could go. “They’ve got too much a start of us.”
“I guess you’re right, Ned,” agreed Tom. “And we can’t very well pursue them in the tank. She goes a bit faster than anything of her build, but a running man is more than a match for her in a short distance. If I had the Hawk here, there’d be a different story to tell.”
“Well, seeing that you haven’t,” replied Ned, suppose we let them go–which we’ll have to, whether we want to or not- -and see where they, were hiding and if they left any traces behind.”
“That’s a good idea,” returned Tom.
The place whence the men had emerged was a portion of the old factory farthest removed from the walls the tank had crunched its way through. Consequently, that part was the least damaged.
Tom and Ned came to what seemed to have been the office of the building when the factory was in operation. A door, from which most of the glass had been broken, hung on one hinge, and, pushing this open, the two chums found themselves in a room that bore evidences of having been the bookkeeper’s department. There were the remains of cabinet files, and a broken letter press, while in one corner stood a safe.
“Maybe they were cracking that,” said Ned.
“They were wasting their time if they were,” observed Tom, “for the combination is broken–any one can open it,” and he demonstrated this by swinging back one of the heavy doors.
A quantity of papers fell out, or what had been papers, for they were now torn and the edges charred, as if by some recent fire.
“They were burning these!” cried Ned. “You can smell the smoke yet. They came here to destroy some papers, and we surprised them!”
“I believe you’re right,” agreed Tom. “The ashes are still warm.” And he tested them with his hand. “They wanted to destroy something, and when they found we were here they clapped the blazing stuff into the safe, thinking it would burn there.
“But the closing of the doors cut off the supply of air and the fire smouldered and went out. It burned enough so that it didn’t leave us very much in the way of evidence, though,” went on Tom ruefully, as he poked among the charred scraps.
“Maybe you can read some of ’em,” suggested Ned.
“Part of the writing is in German,” Tom said, as he looked over the mass. “I don’t believe it would be worth while to try it. Still, I can save it. Here, I’ll sweep the stuff into a box, and if we get a chance we can try to patch it together,” and finding a broken box in what had been the factory office the young inventor managed to get into it the charred remains of the papers.
A further search failed to reveal anything that would be useful in the way of evidence to determine what object the three men could have had in hiding in the ruins, and Tom and Ned returned to the tank.
“What do you think about them, Tom?” asked Ned, as they were about to start off once more for the cross-country test.
“Well, it seems like a silly thing to say–as if I imagined my tank was all there was in this part of the country to make trouble–but I believe those men had some connection with Simpson and with that spy Schwen!”
“I agree with you!” exclaimed Ned. “And I think if we could get head or tail of those burned papers we’d find that there was some correspondence there between the man I saw up the tree and the workman you had arrested.”
“Too bad we weren’t a bit quicker,” commented Tom. “They must have been in the factory when we charged it–probably came there to be in seclusion while they talked, plotted and planned. They must have been afraid to go out when the tank was walking through the walls.”
“I guess that’s it,” agreed Ned. “Did you recognize any of the men, Tom?”
“No, I didn’t see ’em as soon as you did, and when they were running they had their backs toward me. Was Simpson one?”
“I can’t be sure. If one was, I guess he’ll think we are keeping pretty closely after him, and he may give this part of the country a wide berth.”
“I hope he does,” returned Tom. “Do you know, Ned, I have an idea that these fellows–Schwen Simpson, and those back of them, including Blakeson–are trying to get hold of the secret of my tank for the Germans.”
“I shouldn’t be surprised. But you’ve got it finished now, haven’t you? They can’t get your patents away from you.”
“No, it isn’t that,” said Tom. “There are certain secrets about the mechanism of the tank–the way I’ve increased the speed and power, the use of the spanners, and things like that–which would be useful for the Germans to know. I wouldn’t want them to find out these secrets, and they could do that if they were in the tank a while, or had her in their possession.”
“They couldn’t do that, Tom–get possession of her–could they?”
“There’s no telling. I’m going to be doubly on the watch. That fellow Blakeson is in the pay of the plotters, I believe. He has a big machine shop, and he might try to duplicate my tank if he knew how she was made inside.”
“I see! That’s why he was inquiring about a good machinist, I suppose, though he’ll be mightily surprised when he learns it was you he was talking to the time your Hawk met with the little mishap.”
“Yes, I guess maybe he will be a bit startled,” agreed Tom. “But I haven’t seen him around lately, and maybe he has given up.”
“Don’t trust to that!” warned Ned.
The tank was now progressing easily along over fields, hesitating not at small or big ditches, flow going uphill and now down, across a stretch of country thinly settled, where even fences were a rarity. When they came to wooden ones Tom had the workmen get out and take down the bars. Of course the tank could have crushed them like toothpicks, but Tom was mindful of the rights of farmers, and a broken fence