CHAPTER XVII
OUT OF THE CISTERN
“WHERE am I and what happened?” Tom asked himself. Rather futile and hackneyed questions, but they were just the points Tom desired to be informed about.
Much easier it was to reconstruct what had happened than it was to answer the first question as to where he was. Beyond the fact that he was in some dark place—very dark and that it was damp and noisome, Tom could not imagine where he had been taken.
It was coming back to him now, and he helped his dazed brain to clear by talking aloud to himself. He realized that he was alone—or so he judged—for his first exclamation after recovering consciousness had brought forth no answer.
“Let’s see now,” mused the youth. “I knocked off Barsky’s wig and false beard and saw that he had close-cropped red hair. This makes him, beyond doubt, the scoundrel who attacked dad and the others. It also makes me think this Barsky is a prison bird, or has been at one time.
“He got mad when I fired him, and he came at me. I remember that, but it’s the last thing I do remember. He must have given me a crack on the head with a black-jack and knocked me out. It happened in the little passage near the experiment room, and no one saw it. Then he must have tied me up and carried me here— wherever this is.”
And Tom would have given a goodly sum, just then, to know exactly where he was. It did not seem possible that Barsky could have packed him into an automobile and carried him far away.
“He would have been seen by some one in the office or the shops,” reasoned Tom. “Therefore I must be hidden in some place not very far from my own home or the office. Now where is there a locality like this around our shops?”
Having thus considerably narrowed the inquiry, Tom further simplified it by a process of elimination. He sensed that he was in some place below the level of the ground. The close, stuffy atmosphere of his prison proved that.
“And it’s damp, too,” mused Tom. “It has held water! Ah, I have it —the old cistern under the first shop we built!”
When the Swift Construction Company was first started it was in a modest way, with only a small shop. Beneath this Mr. Swift had had built a large cistern for the storage of rain water, which, because of its softness, or non-chemical quality, was needed in his experiments. Later, when the business grew and the little old shop was abandoned, the cistern was emptied and closed, a larger storage tank being built in another place.
Entrance to the abandoned cistern could be gained by a trap door in the floor of the shop, but as Tom remembered there was no ladder in the reservoir.
“Barsky must have lowered me in here with a rope,” thought Tom. “Then he simply dropped the cover on and ran away. It was clever of him. Now he has time to work some of his plans, I suppose. This is all a deep-laid plot, and it’s been in the making some time. I wish I had taken dad’s advice and never hired that fellow! However, it’s too late to think about that now! I must get myself out of here and stop him—that is, if it isn’t too late!”
Tom managed to squirm to a sitting position. This made him feel better, but it sent the blood again rushing into his sore head, and for a moment or two he felt dizzy and sick. This passed, however, and he began to reason matters out.
“I could shout my lungs out,” reasoned Tom, “and no one would hear me. But, wait! I remember something. The tunnel! It’s all right! I can get out if I can free myself!”
With the further clearing of his brain it occurred to Tom that some years before he and his father had dug a tunnel, leading from a distant hillside into the cistern. The tunnel passed beneath the foundations of the old shop and the passage was used to conduct some experiments in the action of air currents. Aeroplane models, as one knows, are tested in what is called a wind tunnel, and the Swift
underground tunnel was one of the first of these ever made. It had not been used for a long time, however, and the end, opening under the hill, had been boarded up.
“But if I can get loose I can walk along the tunnel and I guess I can manage to kick down those boards,” thought Tom. “However, the question is, can I get loose?”
At first it seemed that this must be answered in the negative. So firmly had Barsky made the bonds that Tom tugged and strained for some time, to his no small discomfort, without any effect.
At last, however, he felt the ropes around his hands, which had been tied behind his back, giving a little. This encouraged him, and, gritting his teeth to keep back involuntary exclamations of pain, he strained harder. It was out of his power to break them, but the ropes stretched a little, and at last, after hard work, he managed to get his hands free.
But such was the cruel force with which the cords had been knotted and so long had they been on the captive’s wrists that, even though his hands were now free, he had little use of them. They were numb and helpless. Like limbs “asleep” and, as Tom said afterward, they felt as big as sofa cushions.
They soon, however, began to tingle as the blood resumed its circulation, and with the sensation of pins and needles pricking his fingers, Tom began to feel that he could use his hands.
This he did in loosening the cords around his feet, and in a few minutes more he was able to stand up, free to move about and take up the matter of getting out of the cistern.
It was as dark as a pocket in there, and Tom wished he had with him a small electric flashlight. Almost always he carried one, but this time, just when it was most needed, he was without it.
“But I guess I can go by feeling,” he told himself. “This cistern isn’t so immense. It’s circular, and no matter where I start on the wall I’m bound to come to the tunnel opening some time or other. I guess it’s a mighty good thing,” grimly thought Tom, “that there’s no water in this place. No thanks to Barsky, I guess, that there isn’t. He’d have dropped me in just the same, I believe.”
Tom, with outstretched hands, began to grope his way about in the dark cistern. He knew there were no holes in the floor, so he did not fear a fall, and there was nothing with which he could collide. From the length of time it took him to reach the wall, Tom judged that he had been lying about in the center of the old watercontainer. This proved his theory that Barsky had lowered him into it from the trap door above.
Once Tom was in contact with the circular wall of the cistern, it was an easy matter to follow it around until he came to the tunnel opening.
“This way out!” exclaimed the young inventor grimly. “I wonder what time it is and how long I’ve been in here. Maybe they’re looking for me up above. And yet, perhaps they think I’m just off on one of my trips.”
Tom started into the black tunnel. It had been several years since it had been put to use, and the youth had not entered it during all that time. Consequently he proceeded a bit cautiously, for he did not know but what there might be holes here and there in the floor of it.
After about five minutes of careful progress Tom felt on his face a cool current of air.
“I’m coming to the boarded-up opening!” he exclaimed exultingly. The boards did not fit tightly, and through one of the larger cracks Tom caught a glint of light.
“But it’s starlight!” he cried. “It’s night! I must have been in that cistern all day—maybe two days! Though I guess not two days or I’d feel hungrier and thirstier than I am.”
Pushing on the boards, Tom felt them give a little, and he knew they must have rotted away from contact with the damp earth. He pushed harder and kicked on them, thus knocking down the barrier.
In rushed the glorious fresh air, and the young inventor saw that he was looking out on a field some distance away from his home. It was night, and the stars were glittering. Also, not far away from the tunnel entrance another light was gleaming. It was the light of a lantern set on the ground.
By the gleam of the lantern on the ground Tom could see a figure moving about and, seemingly, digging in the earth.
“This is queer,” mused the lad. “I wonder who that is? If it’s Barsky, maybe he’s digging to try to get at some of my secrets. Or maybe he thinks I’m dead and he’s making a grave for me.”
Tom dismissed this gruesome thought with a laugh, and walked forward a few paces, the better to see who was doing that queer midnight digging by lantern light.
Some noise Tom made attracted the notice of the digger. He looked toward the tunnel opening, and then Tom exclaimed:
“Good night! It’s Rad!”
At that moment, the colored man, with a cry of fear, made a jump, knocking over and extinguishing the lantern while he shouted:
“De ghost! De ghost! I’s a daid darkey! I’s done seen a h’ant! Oh, lawzy, lawzy! De ghost am after me!”
CHAPTER XVIII
TWO DISAPPEARANCES
DESPITE the fact that he was tired, upset in his mind and that his head was beginning to ache again, Tom Swift could not help laughing at the fright shown by Eradicate as the colored man made the best time possible away from the “ghost.”
“Come back here, Rad! Come back! Nothing’s going to hurt you!” cried Tom, running down toward the upset lantern. “I’m no ghost!”
Hearing his master’s voice, the colored man halted. Still not altogether convinced, he stood looking back and ready to run, as he asked:
“Am dat am dat you, Massa Tom?”
“Of course it is, Rad! Who else would it be? I came out of the old cistern.”
“Oh, den you’s daid! You shore am daid an’ it’s yo’ h’ant I sees!”
Eradicate would have run away again, but Tom called more sternly:
“Wait a minute! Don’t be foolish! Of course I’m not dead, though I’m in pretty bad shape after what that scoundrel Barsky did to me. Have they been looking for me, Rad?”
“Yes, Massa Tom—dat is, ef you is Massa Tom,” he added, as a qualifying remark. “Dey has been done lookin’ fo’ you. But we done thought you gone off to see Massa Damon, maybe, and maybe you done took dat Barsky with you, ’case he’s done gone, too!”
“Yes, I reckon he’s gone all right!” muttered Tom. “But I’ve been around here all the while, Rad. Barsky knocked me senseless, bound me, and dropped me into the cistern under the old shop. I just managed to get out through the tunnel.”
“Yes, sah, Massa Tom. I’s mighty glad you done got out. But is you suah—is you quite suah—Massa Tom, dat you isn’t a ghost?”
“Of course I’m sure!” laughed the young man. “What makes you think I’m a ghost?”
“ ’Case as how you’s all white like.”
Then Tom looked down at his clothes and saw that he was covered with a white powdery substance which must, in the darkness, have given him a weird appearance, especially to the superstitious colored man.
“It’s chalk dust, or something like that,” said Tom, as he slapped at his coat sleeves and trouser legs, thereby setting free a haze of white, powdery stuff. “I remember now that there are soft white rocks in the earth of the cistern and the tunnel. I must have brushed off a lot of the stuff on my clothes as I came along. No wonder you took me for a ghost.”
“Yes, sah, dat’s jest whut you done look like,” said Eradicate.
“Well, you know now that I’m no ghost, don’t you?” asked Tom, as he continued to get rid of the white dust on his clothes.
“Um—yes, sah, I done reckon so,” answered the colored man, a bit doubtfully. “Anyhow, you says so, Massa Tom, an’ whut you says mus’ be so.”
“It is in this case, anyhow,” replied the youth. “But it isn’t Barsky’s fault that I’m not a ghost. Now we’ll go back to the house and relieve their anxiety, for I suppose they must have been a little anxious about me, Rad.”
“Oh, yes, sah, dey has done been huntin’ all ober fo’ you,” was the answer. “Yo’ pa, he done think you done gone to Mr. Damon’s. But Massa Ned he know better, ’case as how Mr. Damon say on the tellyfoam dat you isn’t dere. Koku, he out lookin’ fo’ you, too.”
“Were you also looking for me, Rad?” asked Tom. “And, like Diogenes searching for an honest man, were you looking for me with a lantern? Or were you digging to find my body?”
“I doan know dat fellah doggoneyourknees,” stated Eradicate. “An’ I was goin’ to look fo’ you right soon. But jest now I come out to dig fo’ night-walker worms. I’s gwine fishin’ to-morrow.”
“Oh, so that’s why you were so mysteriously digging, was it?” chuckled Tom. “After night-walkers! Well, I guess I’d better do a little night walking, myself, back to the house and tell Ned he needn’t get up a searching party for me. Light your lantern, Rad, and get all the worms you can. Good luck to you!”
“Yes, sah,” murmured the colored man, who often went out in the fields and garden at night to dig for the big worms that did not venture abroad until after dark. “An’ I’s mighty glad, Massa Tom, dat you isn’t a h’ant!”
“The same here,” chuckled Tom.
The young inventor decided to see Ned before going into his own house, and a little later he was being greeted with delighted surprise by Ned and Mr. Newton, who were much puzzled to account for the long-continued absence of the young inventor. It was now close to midnight, and he had disappeared in the morning.
“Well, for the love of my cash balance, what has happened to you, Tom?” cried Ned, as he greeted his chum.
“Lots,” was the brief answer. “Have you seen that scoundrel Barsky?”
“Barsky!” cried Ned. “Why, we thought you had taken him away to some quiet place to work on your train-stop invention. But we’ve been a bit worried about you for some time, and when, a little while ago, Mr. Damon said you weren’t at his place and Mrs. Baggert telephoned that you had not come home, we didn’t know what to tell your father. We’ve been keeping from him the fact that you haven’t been seen for a number of hours, and dad and I were just wondering how much longer we could keep him in ignorance.”
“Well, I’m glad you didn’t have to worry him,” said Tom. “I’m all right now. But we’ve got to catch this Barsky. Where’s Koku?”
“Out looking for you, I imagine. He seemed to think you might be about the grounds somewhere.”
“I was. In the old cistern. I got out through the tunnel.”
Tom quickly told all that had occurred up to the time when Eradicate mistook him for a ghost.
“Whew!” whistled Ned. “This means something, Tom! Those fellows are getting desperate!”
“I should say so!” agreed the young inventor. “I don’t just see what the game is, but it’s a deep one, I’m afraid. I must look at once to my chest of secrets.”
“It was all right when I left the office, Tom,” said Mr. Newton. “I looked at it the last thing.”
“I’m taking no chances,” was the grim reply. “I’ll just let my father know I’ve come back. Let him suppose that I have been over to Waterford. Don’t tell him what happened. It would do no good and only worry him. Then we’ll make some plans for catching this fellow Barsky and those in with him. For he isn’t working alone, I’m sure of that.”
“No, I suppose not,” returned Ned. “But now, Tom, you’d better go home and get some rest. It’s nearly midnight.”
“No, no, Ned! The first thing is to look around the shops and the yards. It’s better not to let the trail grow any colder.”
“Tom’s right,” declared Mr. Newton. “And Ned and I will go over with you, lad.”
Tom Swift looked at the older man and, seeing how white and weary he looked, he protested. But to his protests Ned’s father would not listen. Though the strain of the suspense and his shame over the question of his honesty in the matter of the theft of the Liberty Bonds—a matter which was by no means cleared up—was telling heavily against him and was depleting his strength, Mr. Newton insisted on accompanying Tom and Ned to the Swift home and the shops.
Though Mr. Swift had been given no intimation that there was anything wrong with the continued absence of his son, yet the aged inventor had begun to worry slightly. However, this was ended when he knew Tom was in the house, and then the old gentleman went to bed.
Tom, with the Newtons, made an inspection of the shop and found everything apparently all right there, with the chest locked and in its usual place in the small room.
Koku came back from one of his tours of the grounds, and he was delighted to find his master had returned.
“You must keep specially good watch tonight, Koku,” said Tom when the place had been looked over. “I’ve got to take something to stop my headache, and I’ll probably sleep like a top.”
“Koku watch,” was the grim answer. “Bad mans come—Koku knock ’um in mince pie pieces!” and he clenched his big fists.
Though much puzzled over what had happened, Tom realized that little could be done toward solving the problem until he had had some rest, food and sleep. His head was aching and he had a queer sense of foreboding.
“But I guess I’ll be all right after I’ve had a good night’s sleep,” he told himself.
The Newtons went home, Eradicate had long before come in from his worm-digging expedition, and by one o’clock the house, grounds and shops of the Swift company were shrouded in darkness and silence.
Tom awakened the next morning, feeling much refreshed. As soon as he was out of bed and had eaten breakfast he began to make plans for apprehending the man who had attacked him.
“If I get this fellow Barsky—though I don’t believe that’s his name—I may be able to trace the others in the plot,” reasoned Tom. “For I believe he’s acting with others. He was the spy. I must find Barsky!”
Tom hurried over to his office. It was early, neither Ned nor his father having arrived, and Tom was the first one to enter.
“Hello, Koku!” he called, for the giant slept in the place. “Any trouble during the night?”
There was no answer.
“He must be sleeping yet,” thought Tom, “Well, we were all up a bit late.” He went into the room where his chest of secrets, as Ned had named it, was kept, and the instant he opened the door Tom saw that the oak box was gone!
“They’ve got it!” he cried. “Koku! Come here! Where are you? How does it happen that my chest is gone? You’re a fine watchman!”
He threw open the door of the room where the giant slept.
Koku, too was gone!
CHAPTER XIX
KOKU IS FOUND
TOM SWIFT lost little time in putting into operation such means as were at his command for tracing the missing chest of secrets and the vanished giant.
He pressed certain push buttons connected with distant summoning bells, located in different parts of the works, and soon there came flocking into his office several of his foremen and Garret Jackson, who had general charge of the works.
As the last of these helpers arrived, Ned Newton and his father reached the office for the day’s work, and it was with no little surprise that they observed this gathering.
“What’s wrong, Tom?” cried Ned. “Has anything happened?”
“I should say there has!” cried the young inventor. “My chest of secrets has been taken away!”
“Whew!” whistled Ned.
“With Koku here to guard it!” cried Mr. Newton. “How was that possible?”
“Well, the robbers took Koku also,” explained Tom. “He’s gone, and so is my chest.”
“Both gone!” cried Mr. Jackson. “Is there any coincidence here, Tom? Maybe Koku took the chest!”
“Nonsense!” exclaimed Tom. “I’d trust that giant with my last dollar. Besides, Koku hasn’t any more notion of the value of the plans and patent papers in my chest than he has of how to work out a cross-word puzzle. It isn’t in him to plan or carry out anything like this, even if he had the wish, which he hasn’t.”
“What’s your theory, Tom, of the two disappearing at the same time?” asked Ned.
“Well, Koku must have surprised the robbers at work lifting my chest out,” explained Tom. “That being so, he went at them. They killed him and carried him off with them, or else his body is hidden
around here somewhere. That’s why I summoned you men,” he went on to his foremen. “I want a search made of every part of the house and grounds. Let the work go for the day. Koku and the chest must be found!”
“It would take a pretty big and husky bunch of robbers to overcome Koku,” suggested Ned. “And if there was such a big gang here they would have made a noise, which I should think you’d have heard up at the house, Tom.”
“I didn’t hear a thing. Perhaps having taken a headache powder would account for that. But neither Eradicate nor Mrs. Baggert heard anything out of the ordinary, I’m sure, or they would have said something about it to me. As for dad, when he goes to bed he sleeps, and does little else.”
“Even if you didn’t hear a row, Tom, there must have been one,” insisted Ned. “Koku wouldn’t let that chest be taken away without a fight, and when he starts to fight something breaks.”
“Yes, that’s the puzzling part of it,” admitted the young inventor. “There isn’t any evidence of anything having been disturbed here. But I found one of the outer doors open, and the electric alarm cut, which shows how the robbers entered and left. They probably used a skeleton key to open the place, and didn’t lock the door after them when they left. I wish I had done what I’ve been planning to do— kept my plans in a burglar-proof vault. Now I’m going to start to build one right here.”
“Any signs of a fight or a struggle in Koku’s bedroom?” asked the foreman of the pattern shop.
“No. The clothes are thrown back off the bed as though the giant got up in the usual way,” answered Tom. “There is no sign of violence. But several heads are better than one, and that’s why I summoned you all here—I’d like your advice on the matter.”
The men were trained observers, quick and accurate in their work, as they needs must be to build the complicated machines evolved by Tom Swift and his father. In a sense, they were as good observers as detectives would have been, and Tom did not want to call in the police. He did not want his loss broadcasted.
“This is fierce!” exclaimed Ned, as the extent of the loss was more fully realized. He and Tom were sitting in the office while the foremen moved about the place, looking for possible clews in the place where the chest had stood, in Koku’s room, and outside the building.
“It sure is,” agreed the young inventor. “All my plans for the trainstopping device were in that chest. Now they’re gone, and I have no duplicates!”
“And your tidal engine, too,” suggested Ned.
“Yes,” sighed Tom. “I guess my dream of harnessing the ocean will not be realized for some time. Of course I may be able to work out the ideas in some other way, but it means a big loss. And there are other papers, too. There were dad’s designs of the gyroscope flier, and——”
“What’s that about my gyroscope flier?” asked Mr. Swift, at that moment entering the place. “I’ve come for those plans now, Tom. I have just thought of a new idea in connection with the engine.”
“I’m afraid you can’t have the plans, Dad,” returned the son. “They’re gone! The whole chest of secrets has been stolen!”
Tom had been debating in his mind whether or not to tell his father the bad news, fearing the effect it might have on the elderly man’s heart. But Barton Swift was no weakling. Like a charger sniffing the powder of battle from afar, he drew himself up and together at the same time crying:
“So our enemies are at some of their old tricks, are they, Tom? Well, don’t let them see that we mind! Don’t show the white feather. We’ll fight ’em, Tom! We’ll fight ’em!”
“That’s the talk!” cried Ned, while Tom was much delighted to note that his father took the blow standing up.
“I can reconstruct those gyroscope plans!” cried the old man. “I remember most of them, though it will set me back very much to have them taken. Of course it’s a big loss, Tom. The whole chestful gone! How did it happen?”
He was told, and then he confirmed Tom’s first idea that he had heard nothing during the night to indicate an attack on the shop.
“I done t’ink I heard somethin’,” Eradicate said when they asked him about the matter. “It was a sort of hootin’, hollerin’ sound. But I figgered it was an owl bird, an’ I went to sleep again!”
“That was probably Koku shouting at the robbers,” decided Tom. “He’s either still after them or they’ve done for him.”
“Koku gone?” cried Rad, and when told him that the giant was missing the colored man forgot all his petty animosity against the big fellow and expressed only sympathy. “I’s gwine to find him!” declared Eradicate. “I go look for him!”
Tom did not pay much attention to his colored helper, since there were other matters that needed his attention. The net result of the searching on the part of his men was nothing. There were no clews that could be followed. Reconstructing the crime, it was thought that the gang of men had gained entrance by means of a false key. Then, being unable to open the chest because of the special locks on it, they had carried it away.
Surprised at this by Koku, they must have silenced the giant in some manner and have carried him off while he was unconscious. Doubtless an auto was used, though so many of these came and went at the Swift office that the tire marks of no special one could be picked out.
“All that remains is for us to make a search,” suggested Tom. “And we have this much to go on—that I suspect my chest was stolen by the same men, or some representing them, whose offer I turned down when Mr. Damon made it on behalf of Mr. Blythe.”
“Then why not have Mr. Damon over here,” suggested Mr. Swift. “He may be able to give us some clews as to these scoundrels.”
“I’ll do it!” cried Tom, and he sent an airship for Wakefield Damon at once.
“Bless my fire insurance policy, Tom Swift, but this is a terrible affair!” cried the odd man when he entered the office a little later. “I wouldn’t have had it happen for a million dollars! Bless my check book if I would! And it’s all my fault.”
“How do you make that out?” asked Tom, with a smile.
“I was foolish enough to bring you that offer from Mr. Blythe, though I took it in good faith, and never knew he was such a
scoundrel! To think of his kidnapping Koku and taking your chest.”
“Blythe didn’t do it!” exclaimed Tom. “Nor did he have anything to do with it! Blythe isn’t that kind of a man. I know that from my oil-gusher dealings with him. Doubtless he has been deceived by these men as I was deceived by Barsky. And I think if we could get hold of Barsky we’d have the key that would unlock this whole puzzle. Why we sent for you, Mr. Damon, is to ask if you could give us any clews as to the men associated with Blythe.”
“I think I can,” was the answer. “Oh, Tom Swift, to think that such a thing could happen! Bless my overshoes! it’s enough to make a man a misanthrope all the rest of his life.”
By dint of further questioning Tom and Ned gleaned certain facts from Mr. Damon, and these were a little later communicated to Mr. Plum, the lawyer, with instructions to set certain confidential investigators at work in distant cities.
“Do you think, Mr. Plum, that this robbery here had any connection with the theft of the Liberty Bonds of which my father is accused?” asked Ned.
“I don’t know,” was the answer. “It’s possible. There’s no obvious connection, but I’ll check up on the matter and let you know.”
With this Tom and Ned had to be content for the time being. After all the information possible had been collected, the foremen went back to their shops and work was resumed. Mr. Swift at once began to redraw his gyroscope plans, and Tom, sick at heart over his big loss, late in the afternoon spoke to Ned about the advisability of going for a ride across country.
“We might get a trace of Koku or the robbers in that way,” Tom said.
“Good idea,” commented Ned. “It will be something to be on the move. Nothing is worse than sitting still waiting for news. Come on.”
As they were about to start in the electric runabout, Eradicate, who had disappeared soon after the discovery of the robbery, came hurrying to the garage.
“Massa Tom! Massa Tom!” cried the colored man, much excited. “I’s done found ’im!”
“Found them? You mean Koku and my chest of secrets?” shouted the young inventor.
“No, I didn’t find de chest, but I found Koku! I found dat big giant!”
“Is he—is he dead?” faltered Tom.
“No, Massa Tom. Dat giant’s off in de woods tied to a tree! I couldn’t loose de ropes or I’d a set him free. Dat’s why I came back fo’ you all. But I done found Koku!”
CHAPTER XX
MANY STRANGE CLEWS
“COME on, Rad! Hop in! Show us where Koku is and we’ll soon have him loose!” cried Tom, as he motioned to the rear of the runabout, for he and Ned were seated in front.
“How is Koku taking being tied up?” asked Ned while the colored man climbed in as quickly as his rheumatic joints would allow. “Is Koku mad?”
“Mad? He done froth at de mouth!” cried the old servant. “By golly, I wouldn’t like to be de one whut done tied him up after he gits free!”
“Koku would be one of the best fellows in the world to take along on the search for the robbers, Tom,” suggested Ned. “He’ll be so angry he can easily handle half a dozen with one hand—if there should prove to be that many in the gang.”
“Shouldn’t wonder but what there are more than that in the plot,” agreed Tom. “It’s a queer game! But come on. We must help Koku.
Where is he, Rad?”
“Over by Lake Carlopa—dat place where you and me used to go fishin’.”
“You mean Chestnut Point?”
“Dat’s de place, Massa Tom.”
“A lonely region,” remarked the young inventor, as he started the runabout. “They couldn’t have picked out a better—or rather, a worse—place to leave poor Koku. How’d you happen to think of looking there, Rad?”
“Well, Massa Tom, I t’ought maybe Koku might go there of his own se’f. Onct I kotched a big fish there, an’ I was tellin’ him ’bout it. He always said he could kotch a bigger fish’n whut I did. So I t’ought maybe he was tryin’ to beat me, an’ maybe de robbers didn’t tuk him after all. So I looked an’ I done see him tied to a tree!”
The run to Chestnut Point did not take long, and, following the directions of Eradicate, Tom guided his machine along a lonely road. They had traversed this a short distance when Ned cried:
“Hark!”
“What did you think you heard?” asked Tom, shutting off the motor to render the machine silent.
“Some one calling,” answered Ned. “Listen!”
A loud voice was borne to their ears by the wind, and Tom had no sooner heard it than he cried:
“That’s Koku! And he sure is mad!”
The giant was like an enraged bull, but so securely was he bound to a tree with many strong ropes and straps that even his great strength was of no avail, especially as he was so cunningly bound that he was unable to exert his full strength.
“Good you come, Master Tom,” grunted Koku, as he saw his friends approaching in a run. “You friend of mine from now on, Rad —you bring help to me.”
“Cou’se I’s you’ friend,” chuckled Eradicate. “De only time when we has any disputations is when you tries to take my place wif Massa Tom.”
It was the work of some time for Ned and Tom, even with their sharp knives, to cut the straps and the ropes, the knots of which had proved too hard for the colored man to loosen. Then, working his great arms and striding up and down amid the trees to restore his stagnant circulation, the giant cried:
“Where are ’um? Where are ’um mans that tied me? Once I git ’um—I mince pie ’um!”
“Guess he’s heard the expression ‘make mince meat of them,’ ” remarked Ned to Tom.
“Very likely. But I’ve got to get him quieted down so I can question him. He will be the best one to give us clews by which we may trace these fellows.”
Accordingly Tom talked to his giant helper and finally got an account of what had happened. Tom could do more with Koku and understand his peculiar English better than any one else. Also Tom knew something of the giant’s own language.
Gradually a coherent story emerged. Koku had been left on guard the previous night in Tom’s private office building, following the attack on the young inventor. The early part of the evening had passed without anything to disturb the giant’s sleep. Later, however, the alarm bell over his bed rang. Tom had not trusted altogether to his giant remaining awake when on guard, and, as old readers know, the whole place was wired in burglar alarm fashion.
So that, even though the door was opened with a skeleton key, as was proved later to have been done, the swinging of the portal set off one signal, the wire to which had remained intact, and Koku awakened.
He had been awakened some months before by the alarm bell, but that time it was Tom himself who entered the place late at night to make notes on a certain plan before he should forget the idea that occurred to him. Tom forgot about the burglar alarm, and set it off, bringing Koku running with a gun in his hands.
Of course Tom laughed at the incident, but Koku now remembered this, and, thinking it might be another false alarm, he did not at once rush to the floor below, but proceeded cautiously. If the intruder should prove to be some one with a right to enter, Koku would go back to bed again.
Going down softly, and looking in the room where the big oak box was kept, the giant saw several strange men trying to force the locks. This being beyond them, one of the men had cried, as Koku understood it:
“Let’s take the whole shooting match along! The Blue Bird will carry it and we can open it in the woods.”
So they had picked up Tom Swift’s chest of secrets and carried it out of the office. Even then Koku did not give the alarm, for his brain did not work as fast as the brain of an ordinary person. Then, too, the giant thought he had plenty of time, and could, when he got ready, sweep the robbers off their feet and take the chest away from them.
But he delayed too long. Following the men—there were eight of them, he counted on his fingers—Koku went out of the office building into the darkness. The men carried the chest to a large
automobile that was waiting in the road, the motor running and the lights off. Then, just as they loaded it in and Koku was about to spring on them, the men discovered his presence and jumped on the giant before he could get into action.
Even a little man will have the advantage of a much larger and more powerful fellow if the little man gets started first, and this was what happened in the case of Koku. Besides, there were eight of the robbers, and though under some circumstances Koku might have been able to fight eight, or even ten men, taken as he was by surprise, he was knocked down.
He struggled, but the men threw “something into his face” that stung and made him “feel funny” and he was gagged, bound and lifted into the auto, though his weight made the men “grunt like pigs,” as the giant expressed it.
So the thing happened, and Koku, helpless, a little stunned, and silent, was driven off in the night, no struggle at all having taken place in the office.
Where he was taken the giant did not know in the darkness. But after a while he was lifted out of the car and tied to the tree where Eradicate found him.
“But what became of the robbers and Tom’s chest?” asked Ned.
“ ’Um robbers go off in BlueBirdwith chest of secrets,” answered the giant.
“What does he mean—BlueBird?” asked the manager.
“It’s a big aeroplane painted blue,” explained Tom. “The men had it hidden in a cove on the lake. It must be a hydroplane, though possibly it’s a combination of both types of machine. Koku had a glimpse of it because the robbers used pocket flashlights. They put the chest in the blue aeroplane and soared off with it. Koku said he could hear the throb of the motors for a long time after they were gone.”
“What’s the next thing to be done?” asked Ned. “We can’t do anything here, and it’s getting late. Did Koku see any of the faces of these fellows?”
“They all wore masks,” Tom said. “Yes, Koku, what is it?” the young inventor asked, for he noticed that his giant wanted to tell
