TOM SWIFT AND HIS AIR SCOUT
OR
Uncle Sam's Mastery of the Sky

CONTENTS
CHAPTER

I      A SKY RIDE
II     A NEW IDEA
III    THE BIG OFFER
IV     MR. DAMON'S WHIZZER
V      TOM'S PROJECT
VI     MAKING PLANS
VII    A PROBLEM IN SOUND
VIII   THROUGH THE ROOF
IX     AFTER A SPY
X      A BIG SPLASH
XI     A NIGHT TRIP
XII    THE CRY FOR HELP
XIII   SOMETHING QUEER
XIV    THE TELEPHONE CALL
XV     A VAIN SEARCH
XVI    THE LONG NIGHT
XVII   SILENT SAM
XVIII  SUSPICIONS
XIX    ANOTHER FLIGHT
XX     QUEER MARKS
XXI    THE DESERTED CABIN
XXII   CLEWS AT LAST
XXIII  THE GOVERNMENT TEST
XXIV   IN THE MOONLIGHT
XXV    THE GOLD TOOTH

TOM SWIFT AND HIS AIR SCOUT

CHAPTER I
A SKY RIDE

"Oh Tom, is it really safe?"

A young lady--an exceedingly pretty young lady, she could be
called--stood with one small, gloved hand on the outstretched
wing of an aeroplane, and looked up at a young man, attired in a
leather, fur-lined suit, who sat in the cockpit of the machine
just above her.

"Safe, Mary?" repeated the pilot, as he reached in under the
hood of the craft to make sure about one of the controls. "Why,
you ought to know by this time that I wouldn't go up if it wasn't
safe!"

"Oh, yes, I know, Tom. It may be all right for you, but I've
never been up in this kind of airship before, and I want to know
if it's safe for me."

The young man leaned over the edge of the padded cockpit, and
clasped in his rather grimy hand the neatly gloved one of the
young lady. And though the glove was new, and fitted the hand
perfectly, there was no attempt to withdraw it. Instead, the
young lady seemed to be very glad indeed that her hand was in
such safe keeping.

"Mary!" exclaimed the young man, "if it wasn't safe--as safe as
a church--I wouldn't dream of taking you up!" and at the mention
of "church" Mary Nestor blushed just the least bit. Or perhaps it
was that the prospective excitement of the moment caused the
blood to surge into her cheeks. Have it as you will.

"Come, Mary! you're not going to back out the last minute, are
you?" asked Tom Swift. "Everything is all right. I've made a
trial flight, and you've seen me come down as safely as a bird.
You promised to go up with me. I won't go very high if you don't
like it, but my experience has been that, once you're off the
ground, it doesn't make any difference how high you go. you'll
find it very fascinating. So skip along to the house, and Mrs.
Baggert will help you get into your togs."

"Shall I have to wear all those things--such as you have on?"
asked Mary, blushing again.

"Well, you'll be more comfortable in a fur-lined leather suit,"
asserted Tom. "And if it does make you look like an Eskimo, why
I'm sure it will be very becoming. Not that you don't look nice
now," he hastened to assure Miss Nestor, "but an aviation suit
will be very--well, fetching, I should say."

"If I could be sure it would 'fetch' me back safe, Tom--"

"That'll do! That'll do!" laughed the young aviator. "One joke
like that is enough in a morning. It was pretty good, though. Now
go on in and tog up."

"You're sure it's safe, Tom?"

"Positive! Trot along now. I want to fix a wire and--"

"Oh, is anything broken?" and the girl, who had started away
from the aeroplane, turned back again.

"No, not broken. It's only a little auxiliary dingus I put on
to make it easier to read the barograph, but I think I'll go back
to the old system. Nothing to do with flying at all, except to
tell how high up one is."

"That's just what I don't care to know, Tom," said Mary Nestor,
with a smile. "If I could imagine I was sailing along only about
ten feet in the air I wouldn't mind so much."

"Flying at that height would be the worst sort of danger. You
leave it to me, Mary. I won't take you up above the clouds on
this sky ride; though, later, I'm sure you'll want to try that.
This is only a little flight. You've been promising long enough
to take a trip with me, and now I believe you're trying to back
out."

"No, really I'm not, Tom! Only, at the last minute, the machine
looks so small and frail, and the sky is so--big--"

She glanced up and seemed to shiver just a trifle.

"Don't be thinking of those things, Mary!" laughed Tom Swift.
"Trot along and get ready. The motor never worked better, and we
may break a few speed records this morning. No traffic cops to
stop us, either, as there might be if we were in an auto."

"There you go, Mary !" exclaimed Tom, as if struck with a new
thought. "You've ridden in an auto with me many a time, and you
never were a bit afraid, though we were in more danger than we'll
be this morning."

"Danger, Tom, in an auto? How?"

"Why, danger of a wheel collapsing as we were going full speed;
or the steering knuckle breaking and sending us into a tree;
danger of running into a stone wall or a ditch; danger of some
one running into us, or of us running into some one else. There
isn't one of these dangers on a sky ride."

"No," said Mary slowly. "But there's the danger of falling."

"One against twenty. That's the safety margin. And, if we do
fall, it will be like landing in a feather bed! There, don't wait
any longer. Go and get ready."

Mary sighed, and then, seeming to summon her nerve to her aid,
she smiled brightly, waved her hand to Tom, and hastened toward
his home, where Mrs. Baggert the matronly housekeeper, was
waiting to help the girl attire herself in a flying-suit of
leather.

Mary Nestor, who had a very warm place in the heart of Tom
Swift, had, as he stated, some time since promised to take a trip
in the air with the young inventor. But she had kept putting it
off, for one reason or another, until Tom began to despair of
ever getting her to accompany him. To-day, however, when she had
called to inquire about his father, who had been slightly ill,
Tom had, after the social visit, insisted on the promise being
kept.

He had his mechanic get out one of the safest, though a speedy,
double machine, and, with Mary to watch, Tom had taken a trial
flight, just to show her how easy it was. It was not the first
time she had seen him take to the air, but now she watched with
different emotions, for she was vitally interested.

Tom had sailed down from aloft, making a landing in the
aviation field he had constructed near his home, and then he had
insisted that Mary should keep her promise to take a sky ride
with him.

"Don't be too long now!" called Tom to the girl, as she hurried
toward the house. "Never mind about your hair, or whether your
hat's on straight. You're going to wear a cap, anyhow, and tuck
your hair up under that. It's hot down here, but it will be cold
up above; so tell Mrs. Baggert to see that you're warmly
dressed."

"All right," and gaily she waved her hand to him. Now that she
had made her decision, and was really going up, she was not half
so frightened as she had been in the contemplation of it.

As Tom climbed out of the machine, to give it a careful
inspection, though he was certain there was nothing wrong, an
aged colored man shuffled toward him.

"Yo'--yo'll be mighty careful ob Miss Nestor now, won't yo',
Massa Tom?" asked the man.

"Of course I will, Eradicate," was the young inventor's answer.

"Case we ain't got many laik her no mo', an' dat's de truf,
Massa Tom," went on the old man. "So be mighty careful laik!"

"That's what I will, Rad! And, while I'm up in the air, don't
you and Koku have any trouble."

"Ho! Trouble wif dat onery no-'count giant! I guess not!" and
the colored man limped off, highly indignant.

Satisfied, from an inspection of his machine, that it was as