TOM SWIFT AND HIS HOUSE ON WHEELS

OR

A Trip to the Mountain of Mystery

By VICTOR APPLETON

Author of
"Tom Swift and His Motorcycle,"
"Tom Swift Among the Diamond Makers,"
"Tom Swift and His Talking Pictures,"
"The Don Sturdy Series,"
Etc.

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS

Made in the United States of America

Copyright, 1929, by
GROSSET & DUNLAP, Inc.

"A RACE! WE'LL SEE WHAT YOU CAN DO AGAINST THE HOUSE ON WHEELS!"

CONTENTS

TOM SWIFT AND HIS HOUSE ON WHEELS

CHAPTER I

STRONG WORDS

Tom Swift, with a negative shake of his head, shoved several papers across the table that separated him from a burly, red-faced man whose eyes narrowly observed the young inventor.

"Then you refuse this contract, Mr. Swift—a contract for constructing over one hundred thousand dollars' worth of machinery on which you can make a handsome profit? You absolutely refuse it?"

The red-faced man in his eagerness was leaning forward now.

"Yes, Mr. Cunningham, I refuse!" was Tom's crisp answer. "The Swift Construction Company does not care to handle it."

Mr. Barton Swift, father of the young man who thus calmly turned down what seemed like a good business proposition, nodded in affirmation of what his son had said.

"Is that your last word?" asked Basil Cunningham, who plainly showed his English ancestry, not only in his face and figure but in his general bearing and manner. "This refusal is final?" he inquired.

"Quite final and complete," answered Tom, as he added another document to the pile of those he had pushed toward his visitor. They were blue prints, specifications, and contract forms, but they all went across the table. "The matter is closed."

"But, look here! I say, now!" and Mr. Cunningham began to wax excited, not to say wroth. "I can't understand——"

"Do you mean to say you don't understand English?" asked Mr. Swift, and the smile on the face of the aged inventor took away whatever sting there might otherwise have been in the words. "I thought my son spoke very plainly. He said 'no,' and that's what he means."

"But look here, Mr. Swift! Do you agree with him?"

"Absolutely!"

"And you won't consider the contracts further?"

"The matter is closed, I told you!" and Tom Swift's voice was a bit sharp now.

With an imperious gesture the burly Englishman gathered up his papers and began to stuff them into a leather brief case bulging with other documents. If possible the red of his face deepened.

"Well," he began, "of all the——"

Tom Swift looked up sharply. He was on the verge of saying something that, he himself admitted, he might later have been sorry for when the door of the private office opened and a veritable giant of a man fairly squeezed his way through the doorway.

"What is it, Koku?" asked Tom, not quite pleased with such an interruption at this time.

"Excuse, Master," murmured the foreign giant, whose struggle with a strange tongue sometimes got the best of him. "But new engine him have come an' Mr. Jackson say him got to be lift up—so I lift if you want."

As if to demonstrate his strength, the giant put one finger under the edge of the heavy table around which the three men sat and, with as much ease as if he were lifting a feather, tilted it.

"My word, man! Don't do that!" cried Mr. Cunningham, for one of his feet was close to the leg of the table and he evidently feared the weight would come down on his toes when Koku let go.

"Don't worry," said Tom, with a smile. "Koku won't drop it."

Fascinated by this remarkable exhibition of strength, by which the giant raised several hundred pounds on one finger, the Englishman started to move from his proximity to Koku. But there was no need of alarm, though the timely entrance of Tom Swift's gigantic henchman had evidently stopped a tirade that was on the lips of the visitor.

"That will do, Koku," said Tom, in a low voice. "I will see Mr. Jackson shortly and look at the new engine."

"Yes, Master," murmured the giant, whose whisper, however, was a hoarse bellow in contrast with others.

Koku took himself out and Cunningham, staring at the closed door as though he could not believe what he had seen, continued to stuff his rejected contracts into his case.

"I'm sorry about this," said the Englishman in more subdued tones than he had used before the advent of Koku. "I'm not only sorry, but I'm disappointed and I think I haven't been fairly treated." His anger was rising again, that was evident.

"How do you mean—not fairly treated?" asked Tom sharply.

"Why, dash it all, when I first broached this matter to you I was as much as given to understand that your firm would go ahead and make the apparatus for me."

"You were given to understand nothing of the sort," replied Tom quietly.

"I say I was!" and the Englishman banged his fist hard on the heavy table that Koku had raised with one finger. "I tell you I have been shamefully treated here, and I'm not going to stand it. I——"

Again the door suddenly opened and Basil Cunningham made a move as if to hide beneath the table he had so lately pounded. But instead of Koku, this time the intruder was an aged and decrepit colored man whose whitening, curly hair made a pathetic frame for his black, wizened face. No gentler creature, as a man, could well have been visioned, and Mr. Cunningham, who had evidently been expecting a return of the giant, looked a bit foolish.

"Did yo' all call me, Massa Swift?" asked the negro gently.

"No, Rad, we didn't call," said Tom, with a kind smile at the aged servant who often claimed, regarding the young inventor: "I done nussed him from a baby, dat's whut I done!"

"'Scuse me, Massa Tom," went on Eradicate. "But I thought I done heard a noise in here, an'——"

"We were just talking, Rad, that was all. We have about finished," and Tom looked significantly at the red-faced Briton. "I'll call you if I need you, Rad."

"Yes, sah," and Eradicate shuffled out.

"There is no use in further wasting your time or my own, Mr. Cunningham," proceeded Tom Swift, when the three again faced each other. "My mind is fully made up, and you see that my father agrees."

"I agree fully with my son," added aged Mr. Swift.

"Then I'll have to get somebody else to carry out this contract!" snapped Mr. Cunningham. "I'll go to some firm that knows how to take a big profit when it's offered."

"That's your privilege," replied Tom, smiling. "We don't want it."

There was something so final in his words that Mr. Cunningham knew better than to try other arguments. The last paper was thrust into the case, and the way in which the Englishman snapped the lock showed his anger. He caught up his hat, muttered a "good-day," and hurried out.

"Well, that's that," said Tom Swift, with something between a sigh of relief and regret.

"Tom, you did just right!" exclaimed his father. "I didn't want to interfere, but you gave him the right answer. We want nothing to do with his sort, even though we may have to close down the plant on account of lack of orders."

"We are running a bit short," Tom admitted. "And with all I spent on the talking pictures, with no prospect of any substantial revenue from them for some time, we may be financially up against it soon, Dad."

"Don't worry, Tom. We'll pull through, somehow. You can keep busy, can't you?"

"Oh, yes, I've got to finish my House on Wheels," and Tom fairly spoke of it in capital letters, so near to his heart was this newest invention.

"Ah, yes, Tom, your House on Wheels," and Mr. Swift chuckled a little. "I've been looking it over now and again. Seems as if you had a pretty good thing there."

"I hope it will work out," responded the young man.

"Looks as if you were fitting it up for a trip around the world," went on his father smiling. "Are you?"

"Not exactly, Dad."

"I might make another guess, Tom, my boy," and still the aged man was laughing.

"Well, there's no law that I know of, Dad, to stop you from making guesses," and Tom busied himself over several papers that seemed to need close attention.

"Well, then, Tom, I'll guess that you're going to use your new House on Wheels for a wedding journey. How about that?"

"Who says anything about a wedding trip?" cried Tom, his face almost as red as the Englishman's had been.

"Oh, no one has said anything, Tom," his father answered mildly. "But from the manner in which you and Mary Nestor have been going about of late, looking into furniture store windows and——"

"Oh, there's too much talk going on in this town!" exclaimed Tom, and his father laughed heartily at his son's evident discomfiture.

"Well, wedding trip or world tour, your new House on Wheels appears to be a clever bit of work," went on Mr. Swift. "When will it be finished?"

"Can't say, exactly. Though now that the new engine has arrived, as Koku informed me, I can rush things. I've been waiting for the machinery. That's why I'm glad, in a way, I didn't have to take on the Cunningham contracts."

"Valuable as they were," remarked Mr. Swift.

"Valuable as they were," agreed his son. "And now, if you'll excuse me, Dad, I'll go take a look at that new engine."

"I have some matters to attend to myself," said old Mr. Swift, who, though he had given up active participation in the plant some time before, still maintained a general supervision over certain matters. He left the private office just as Ned Newton, the young financial manager, entered in some haste. Nodding to Tom's father, Ned turned to the young inventor and asked:

"What's this I hear about you turning down Cunningham's work?"

"I don't know, Ned, what you heard, nor how, so I can't reply."

"I was just coming in through the yard when I saw Cunningham getting into an auto with a man who had a face like a rat's. He was a stranger to me; but I knew Cunningham, of course. Say, he was mad, that Englishman! I heard him muttering something about your having refused his contracts and, as nearly as I could make out, he was cussing you up hill and down dale and threatening not only to take his contracts to another firm but to get even with you as well."

"Yes he was angry when he left here," admitted Tom. "But that's all bosh about his going to get even. It was a plain business proposition. Cunningham is a good business man, whatever else he may be, and business men don't look for revenge just because one firm won't do their manufacturing for them."

"Maybe not. It might have been a lot of superheated atmosphere. But I can't understand, Tom, why you didn't take his work. There would have been a good profit in it, you told me, after the preliminary investigation."

"Yes, the profit was there."

"Well, then, what was wrong with such a handsome contract for the very kind of machinery that we are so well equipped to manufacture?"

"If you really want to know, Ned, I'll tell you."

"Of course I want to know."

"Well, then, it's my opinion that Basil Cunningham is a plain, unvarnished, first-water crook!"

CHAPTER II

THE NEW INVENTION

Ned Newton stood for several seconds intently gazing at his chum and business associate after Tom Swift's emphatic rejoinder. Then, feeling that as financial manager of the Swift plant he ought not too easily give up a chance for making money, Ned remarked:

"Well, Tom, I suppose you know your own business best, but you ought to have something to back up your opinion that Cunningham isn't straight."

"I've got enough to convince myself, Ned, though maybe not enough to make you see things the way I do. In fact, I haven't any documentary evidence, but I still maintain that Cunningham is a crook."

"In that case, of course we don't want anything to do with him," agreed Ned. "But what sort of evidence have you, Tom?"

"I may be mistaken," replied Tom, who was willing to give any man the benefit of a doubt; "but I have a very strong suspicion that the delicate machinery Cunningham wanted us to manufacture for him would infringe on the patents of certain English machines used for scientific and optical work."

"Infringement!" exclaimed Ned.

"That's what it would be if we undertook it, and if it were found out we would be liable to prosecution," stated Tom. "Even if we weren't found out, of course I wouldn't undertake such work."

"Of course," agreed Ned heartily. "But are you sure? You have been making some strong assertions against Cunningham."

"I don't believe I'll be called on to prove them in court, for this is just between us," said Tom. "But I looked over the preliminary sketches of the machinery this Englishman wanted us to make for him. At first I was inclined to go on with it. But the other day I saw a notice in an English publication concerning some new scientific machinery just completed and it was almost identical with the blue prints and specifications Cunningham showed me. If we turned out the machinery for him he'd set up a shop over here for making those instruments and it would get us in Dutch once it came out."

"That's right, Tom. I guess you acted wisely in turning him down. He's mad, mad as a wet hen, but let him splutter. That's what he was doing to the Queen's taste when he got in the auto with that rat-faced individual."

"Yes, let him splutter," agreed Tom. "He can't harm us."

However, later on, he was to revise that opinion of the Englishman.

"Of course it's too bad to lose all that good money," mused Ned. "On a hundred-thousand-dollar contract we could probably knock down twenty per cent. at least."

"Yes," agreed Tom, "it would have been picking up a nice bunch of cash. But I'm not going to make patent imitations under cover for anybody. I want nothing to do with fraudulent stuff. We can get enough good contracts, I think."

"Well," remarked Ned, with a shrug of his shoulders, "good contracts aren't going around these days begging some one to take them into their shop. But I dare say we shall pull through."

"Maybe I can get a lot of orders for my House on Wheels when I get it completed," chuckled Tom.

"Nothing doing!" declared Ned, with a laugh. "You'll make only one House on Wheels and I can see you and Mary rolling off in that to the music of——"

"Hey! Where do you get that stuff?" exploded Tom, making an ineffectual reach to punch his chum. "That's the second crack to-day. Dad made one and now you. Where do you get it?"

"Well, since you turned down the Cunningham contract," went on Ned somewhat hastily, producing some papers from his pocket, "suppose we go into this Blakely matter. It isn't such a big thing, but we want to keep the wheels turning."

"Sure," agreed Tom, and the two were soon deep in calculations.

To the old readers of these books Tom Swift needs no introduction. But those to whom this volume comes as their first venture, it may be necessary to say that Tom Swift was a brilliant young inventor who lived with his father in the town of Shopton on Lake Carlopa.

The initial volume, entitled "Tom Swift and His Motorcycle," related how Tom became possessed of a machine that was damaged when Mr. Wakefield Damon, its rider, tried to climb a tree.

That was the beginning of Tom's mechanical activities, for he bought the motorcycle cheap, repaired it, and had some wonderful adventures on it. The tree-climbing incident also served to start the friendship of Tom and Mr. Damon, a friendship that had lasted, though the eccentric man, who blessed everything from his fountain pen to his boots, was much older than Tom Swift.

After his experience with the motorcycle, the young inventor had many startling and dangerous experiences in aircraft, submarines, and in turning out, with the help of his father and with Ned Newton as financial adviser, many strange machines.

Tom's latest invention is told of in the volume just before this one you are now reading, entitled "Tom Swift and His Talking Pictures." He made a machine which brought the images and voices of public performers directly into the home. The making of this machine had taken considerable cash, and though Tom had sold certain rights to a syndicate, the money would not be coming in for some time.

"And that's one reason I was so anxious for this Cunningham contract to go through," remarked Ned, who was talking business matters over with Tom following the departure of the Englishman.

"We'll get other work to do," declared Tom. "To tell you the truth, I'm not over anxious to clutter the shop up with any other stuff until I get my House on Wheels well out of the way."

"Say, just what is this new invention, anyhow?" asked Ned. "I've been so busy I haven't paid much attention to it."

"Well, the name tells just what it is," said Tom. "Briefly, it is a glorified auto—a veritable house that one can not only live in but travel in."

"You mean a house with rooms and a bath and—and—everything?" asked Ned.

"That's it—a bath and everything. Of course, the rooms aren't large, and the beds are to be folded back against the wall when they aren't in use."

"What about eats?" asked Ned.

"There's to be a kitchen with an electric stove," replied Tom.

"Run a stove from a storage battery?" exclaimed Ned. "Say, it can't be done! You'd have to have such a big battery that it would be a job to cart it around."

"Not a storage battery," explained Tom. "My House on Wheels is to be operated like some of the new, big jitneys, by a gas-electric motor. There's a gasolene engine of twelve cylinders, and, by the way, it's just arrived from Detroit, so Koku told me. Well, that motor operates a dynamo which furnishes the current that drives the auto, operates the stove and other appliances."

"Then you don't take power directly from the gasolene engine?" asked Ned.

"Only in case of emergency; that is, if the electric motor goes on the fritz. By using my gasolene motor to generate the current to run the car I get a much smoother flow of power, and there are other advantages."

"Does the dingus look anything like a house?" asked Ned.

"I object to your calling it a 'dingus,'" laughed the young inventor. "But in outward appearance it is like a small house."

"With doors and windows?"

"Yes, and even window shutters. Aside from an entrance back of the driver's seat, there is only one door, however, and that is at the rear."

"How about a pair of steps?" asked Ned, thinking to stump his chum.

"I've provided for those, too. There are steps at the rear for easy access to the interior, as my catalogs will say. Only, to keep small boys from hitch-hiking on them, the steps fold up out of the way when the House on Wheels is moving."

"Then you're really going to tour in it?" asked Ned.

"Sure!"

"Going to be pretty heavy, isn't it?"

"Oh, around two tons, I guess."

"It's no flivver, at any rate. But won't it move like a canal boat?"

"Canal boat! Do you want to insult me?" cried Tom. "On good roads she'll do fifty or sixty miles an hour."

"Whew!" whistled Ned. "Guess I'd better go and take a look at this thing."

"Come on," invited Tom.

He was preparing to lead the way out of his private office to that part of the shop where he was constructing the new invention, when Mr. Jackson, the manager, entered with an air that caused Tom suddenly to ask:

"What's the matter?"

CHAPTER III

NED'S SUSPICIONS

"Have you given any orders about unpacking the new engine that just arrived from Detroit?" asked Mr. Jackson of Tom Swift.

"You mean the twelve-cylinder engine for my House on Wheels?" the young inventor inquired.

"That's the one."

"Why, no. Koku informed me only a little while ago that it had come. But I couldn't come out to look at it because that Cunningham chap was in the office. Why, is it being unpacked? And by whom?"

"It is, and by a couple of strange young men who say you just put them on the pay roll yesterday to help with your new invention. They went at the work as though they knew what they were about, but I thought I'd speak to you."

"I'm glad you did!" exclaimed Tom. "I've hired no new hands, young or old, for a long time. I wouldn't without consulting you."

"That's what I thought. But these fellows seemed to know what they were about, and I didn't like to tell them to lay off."

"There's something crooked here!" exclaimed Tom. "This must be looked into. Come on!" he called to Ned Newton.

As the three walked along a corridor that led to one of the main shops where Tom's latest achievement in a mechanical way was in process of construction, the young inventor closely questioned Mr. Jackson.

"Had they got the motor out of the packing case when you left them?" Tom was anxious to know.

"Not yet. It's a pretty big piece of machinery and won't be unpacked in a hurry."

"Then we may be in time!" Tom ejaculated.

"Time for what?" asked Ned.

"To stop any funny work."

"Whew!" whistled the financial manager. "As bad as that? Whom do you suspect?"

"You never can tell," was Tom's reply. "Ever since I've been in this business I've had to fight crooks and sharps. And I didn't like the way Cunningham acted after I turned down his proposition."

"He sure was mad," declared Ned. "But do you think he knew anything about your House on Wheels, and might try to put sand in the motor bearings or hire some one to do it?"

"You never can tell," said Tom again. "Though if it was Cunningham, it was pretty quick work."

"Crooks very often need to act quickly," observed Ned.

Tom hurried forward and was the first of the three to enter the shop. In one corner was a heavy case and opening it were two men, the only occupants of the place just then. At the sound of Tom's entrance they turned, straightened up and looked apprehensive. And well they might, for Ned cried:

"The rat-faced man, Tom! Look! The one who was with Cunningham!"

He pointed to one of the two whose countenance, especially in his appearance of fright, did resemble that of a rat. An instant later he and his companion dropped the tools they had been using and leaped from a near-by open window.

"Stop them!" yelled Tom. But the rascals were too quick, and when the young inventor and his friends reached the casement the two were running across the yard toward the main gate which was, just then, open to let in a truck.

"Stop those men!" yelled Tom, seeing several of his workman, as well as Eradicate and Koku, loitering in the yard.

Not stopping to ask questions, several hands gave chase. The old colored man joined in with a yell of:

"I'll get 'em fo' yo', Massa Tom!"

But his will was better than his deed, for his aged limbs refused to take him over the ground fast enough. As for Koku, the giant would only need to get within hand grasp of the rascals to put a stop to their flight. But, like most big men, Koku was slow in getting started, and the two plotters were beyond the gate before any of their pursuers were within catching distance.

Tom and Ned leaped out of the window also, but reached the gate only in time to see the two plotters disappearing down the road in an auto that, evidently, was in waiting.

"Come, on, Tom! Chase 'em!" cried Ned. "Get out your electric runabout and we'll overtake 'em!"

"Not a chance," Tom replied. "My runabout is having its batteries charged and all the other fast cars are away on the other side of the works. No, they've got us beat. I only hope they haven't damaged my new motor."

"I think they didn't have a chance to do that," said Ned encouragingly. "But who were they, Tom?"

Neither the young inventor nor any one else around the shop, including Mr. Jackson, knew. The two men, one of whom looked like a rat, had appeared at the main gate early that morning, it was learned on checking up. They presented an order signed, apparently, by Tom Swift, authorizing them to come in. It was a rule that any but the regular workmen must have such an order to gain entrance to the plant. But this order was forged.

So the two got in and falsely stating that they had come from the Detroit plant of the concern which had made Tom's new motor, they gained access to the shop where it had been left by a truck from the freight office.

Had it not been that Mr. Jackson saw the men at work and wondered enough about them to tell Tom, they might have carried out their plans, whatever they were. That the plans were based on an intent to work Tom Swift or his possessions some injury, could not be doubted.

A hasty survey, however, showed that the motor had not been taken from its case, so it was not damaged.

"What was the game, Tom?" asked Ned, when orders had been given to admit no more strangers to the plant on any pretext.

"Well, I'll say Cunningham, as a guess."

"You mean he put these men up to wrecking your motor after you turned him down?"

"That's the way it looks to me, Ned. Of course it may have been some of my other enemies. But since you recognized the rat-faced chap, why, it looks suspicious to me."

"But what would be Cunningham's object? He didn't want you to make him a House on Wheels, did he? Or sell him any stock in the enterprise of manufacturing them?"

"No, he didn't mention the matter. I didn't even know that he knew I had such a thing in mind, much less almost completed."

"Well, he found out in some way."

"Very likely. And when I refused to help him make machinery to turn out infringements on English patented apparatus, he turned nasty and decided to make me sorry."

"So it looks, Tom. Lucky you caught the plot in time."

"That's due to Mr. Jackson's foresight. It was a narrow escape. Half an hour later and that motor would be fit only for the scrap-heap. Look here!"

Tom held up a small bottle of a very powerful acid—one capable of eating into and corroding the hardest steel.

"I picked that up where one of the scoundrels dropped it," Tom said. "They evidently wanted to get at some of the valves on the cylinders. A few drops of this acid in each one and the walls would have been so scored that even reboring would not have made them fit to use again."

"A dirty trick!" exclaimed Ned. "I wish we could have caught them."

"So do I, for the sake of what may happen in the future."

Leaving Koku and Eradicate on guard over the new motor, Tom took Ned to where the chassis and body of the House on Wheels were being constructed. It was the first time Ned had seen the new invention and at a glimpse of it, standing in the middle of the shop where it was receiving its final coat of paint, the young manager exclaimed:

"Say, that's a peach!"

"Glad you like it," commented Tom.

The house stood up on a framework corresponding to the chassis on which it would later be mounted. Tom opened the back door and a pair of steps, hitherto concealed in a recess, unfolded, let down, and could be used for entering the little dwelling.

There were four rooms within, two containing folding cots that made comfortable beds. One room of those remaining was used as a kitchen. The other was a living room, though if needful the two bedchambers could also be utilized for this purpose, when the cots were folded away.

"And that's the electric stove, is it?" asked Ned, pointing to the apparatus.

"That's it. And here's the pantry, the ice box, and so on," added Tom, indicating the various conveniences.

"Pretty slick!" was the enthusiastic comment of Ned Newton.

"But where do you work the thing from?"

"The motor goes out there," and, going to the front of the house, Tom showed where the big machine was to be mounted under a regulation auto hood. "This little compartment will contain the driver's seat and the controls," he went on, showing a space divided by a partition from the sleeping quarters.

The kitchen was in the rear of the House on Wheels, and in front of that was the combined sitting and dining room, the sleeping quarters being forward.

"Putting the kitchen in the rear insures the odors being carried away as the machine moves along," explained Tom.

"Then you're going to cook as you travel?" asked Ned.

"Sure!" assented Tom.

"That is you are—or some one else," chuckled Ned.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that my suspicions are confirmed," went on Ned, with a laugh, and taking care to get beyond Tom's reach before making his next remark. He added: "I know where the first stop will be for this traveling House on Wheels!"

"Where?" asked Tom, unsuspiciously.

"Honeymoon Lane!" yelled Ned, making a leap to escape his chum.

CHAPTER IV

SURPRISING NEWS

After all, Tom Swift had sense enough to take good-naturedly the chaffing to which Ned Newton subjected him.

The young inventor could not but admit that his latest invention, coupled with the fact that he and Mary Nestor had been more than ordinarily chummy recently, would lead to the suspicion that there might soon be a closer relationship between them than heretofore.

Mary and Tom had know each other a long time. Once her family and Tom were marooned on Earthquake Island, and Tom had managed, under great difficulties, to rig up machinery and send a wireless message. Mr. Nestor had held a great opinion of the young man's ability and skill ever since.

"I'll Honeymoon Lane you if I get hold of you!" threatened Tom as he and Ned left the shop where the House on Wheels was nearing completion.

Various matters occupied the attention of the two young men for the remainder of the day. Ned, charged with keeping track of the finances of the company, was busy with negotiations looking to the securing of manufacturing contracts that would keep the plant running. He was a little disappointed that the Cunningham proposition had been turned down, but he could but agree with Tom that to take a contract about which there was any suspicion of wrongdoing would be poor policy.

As for Tom Swift, once he saw that the chassis and upper structure of his new House on Wheels was nearing completion, he arranged with Mr. Jackson to get the new motor on the block for a test. This took until nearly night, and then Tom had things in shape for a preliminary tryout of the machinery the next day.

"No need to ask where you're going, Tom," chuckled Ned when, after the evening meal, which, as on many former occasions, he shared with the Swift family, he observed the young inventor getting out the electric runabout, the batteries of which were now fully charged.

"It's none of your business where I'm going!" said Tom with a smile which took any possible sting from the words.

"Well, I'm on the same sort of errand," commented the financial manager. "Mind if I take the roadster and give Helen a little spin?"

"Consider yourself a top and spin away!" chuckled Tom, and a little later he was on his way to see Mary Nestor while Ned piloted the small but speedy car in the direction of his sweetheart's home.

"Well, Tom, what's the latest news?" asked Mary when she had greeted him and they were seated on the porch.

"Oh, nothing much." Tom decided not to tell her about the Cunningham matter or the discovery of the two men tampering with the motor. "The new House on Wheels is coming on pretty well, though."

"That's good. Am I to get a ride in it?"

"Of course!"

"Tell me about it," she suggested, and Tom launched into an enthusiastic description of the interior of the new van-like vehicle, telling of the rooms, the electric stove, the little pantry and ice box until Mary exclaimed in delight:

"I can hardly wait until it's finished!"

"Which won't be long," commented the young inventor. "If the motor tests out all right, and I think it will, all that remains to be done is to put it in place and see how the whole affair works—I mean whether I have designed it properly so that it will keep to the road at high speeds."

Then they talked of other matters until some uneasy movements on the part of Mrs. Nestor, in the house, warned the young man that the hour was getting late and that he had better leave.

"I'll see you to-morrow, Mary," said Tom, as he started down the drive to where he had left the runabout.

"Yes—I guess so," said Mary, and it was not until afterward that Tom noted and remembered the curious hesitancy in her voice. But now he was thinking of other matters.

It was when he was half way along the road that lay between Mary's house and his own home that, passing along a lonely stretch of highway at moderate speed, Tom saw, thrown across the road in front of him, in bold relief by the brilliant rays of the moon, a gesticulating shadow of a man.

The shadow was waving its arms as though in signal to the oncoming motorist to stop, and when Tom sensed this he began to be uneasy and was about to press the lever that would give him full speed ahead.

"I'm not going to be fooled by any trick!" he murmured. "There have been too many hold-ups of late along this road. And if it isn't a hold-up it may be another attempt by Cunningham to annoy me. Look out there!" he yelled as the signaling figure and its accompanying shadow took the middle of the road. "Out of my way or I'll run you down!"

"Bless my accident policy, don't do that!" cried a voice.

For Tom the reaction was so great that his hand slipped from the electric speed lever, unconsciously pulling it toward the stop notch, and the runabout began to slow down.

"Mr. Damon!" cried Tom. "Is that you?"

"That's my name," said the voice of the man and he and his shadow both stepped to one side as the electric car rolled up and came to a stop, with the application of brakes, opposite him. "Thanks for picking me up. I don't know you, and I'm surprised that you could recognize me in the darkness, but——"

"Oh, you know me, too!" chuckled Tom, and then the man cried:

"Bless my opera glasses! It's Tom Swift!"

"Of course!" agreed the owner of that name.

"Well, how in the world did you hear of my accident and come to get me?" asked Mr. Wakefield Damon, for he it was. "Bless my carburetor, but this is remarkable!"

"I didn't hear of any accident," said Tom, "and I'm sorry to learn that you have been in one. I just happened to come past this way. At first, I thought you were a highwayman. But when I heard you bless your accident policy I knew you."

"It's lucky I spoke promptly!" chuckled the eccentric man.

"What happened?" asked Tom, as he made room for his friend on the seat beside him. "Are you hurt?"

"Oh, no. But my auto stalled about two miles back and I couldn't get it going. There wasn't any garage near, and I hated to go to some strange house, rouse them and ask to use the telephone to have a towing car come out to get me. So I started to walk, thinking I might meet some kind-hearted motorist. I never dreamed you would come by."

"It was just chance," said Tom. "But what's the matter with your car, and where is it? Maybe I can fix it for you."

"No, it isn't worth while. I think the points need filing and that isn't easy to do in the dark. If you'll run me to your house I'll stay all night, provided you have room. My wife is away so she won't miss me. It will be time enough in the morning to send a garage man out to get the car."

"All right," assented Tom. Truth to tell, he was tired and did not relish working over a refractory auto at this hour of the night, or rather, morning, for it was now past twelve. "We'll be glad to put you up, Mr. Damon."

"And I'm glad it happened, Tom, for it will give me a chance to see this new House on Wheels of yours. The last time I was over you were just planning it," said Mr. Damon. "I expect, by now, it is making regular trips."

"Not quite so fast as that. But we're about ready for a tryout."

"Then I'm just in time, bless my tooth brush!" chuckled Mr. Damon.

Next morning, Mr. Damon, after a view of the House on Wheels, to which he gave enthusiastic praise, arranged with a garage worker to come and get him and take him to where his stalled car had been left. Tom busied himself over the motor block test and, to his delight, found that the new engine was even better than rated.

"Of course it needs to be broken in," he told Ned. "But that is only a matter of time. I'm going to rush things through now."

Orders were given for an extra shift of workmen to assemble the House on Wheels and put the motor in place. Aside from some refinements and equipment, the big, new car was almost ready for the road. To such good end did the men work that day, urged on and aided by Tom, that by night the motor was in place, connected to the drive shaft and the machine looked almost finished.

"You could almost run it out as it is now," said Ned.

"Not for a couple of days," replied Tom, with a shake of his head. "But at least it looks the part, so I think I'll telephone Mary and see if she can't come over and take a look."

He hurried to the telephone in his workroom and was soon in connection with the Nestor home, as Ned could tell by the talk. Mary was on the wire, and the financial manager heard Tom say:

"What's that, Mary? You're going away? Why—why——"

Then came a pause. Ned knew Mary was speaking, and what she said seemed to be surprising news for Tom Swift, judging by the look on his face.

CHAPTER V

WORK AND WORRY

Some matters of business routine called Ned Newton from the room while Tom was still telephoning, and when the financial manager returned he heard his chum say:

"Well, of course if it's all arranged there isn't anything more to be said, I suppose." A pause. Then: "Of course I'll come over to see you off. But—it's pretty sudden. What's that? Oh, yes, of course." Then the good-bye.

Tom hung up the receiver with leaden fingers, and there was a listlessness in his walk as he went back to where he had been working. Ned tried to assume an air as if he had heard nothing, but it was impossible to ignore the fact that Tom had received some unpleasant news. If he wanted to speak of it—all right. If he didn't——

But Tom blurted it out.

"Mary's going away!"

"Away?"

"Oh, not for good," and Tom laughed nervously at Ned's startled implication. "It's just on a visit to some relatives she had been promising to go and see for a long time. Matters are now arranged and she is going."

"Rather—er—sudden, isn't it?" asked Ned. For Tom had spoken of his call on Mary the night before and had then made no mention of an impending visit.

"Yes, very sudden. She didn't tell me until just now, when I asked her to come over and take a look at the House on Wheels. But she says she will be too busy packing. Very sudden!" and Tom's voice had a new quality in it.

"Any special reason for her rush?" asked Ned, who felt privileged now that his chum had given him the opening.

"Well, yes, in a way. The relatives to whom Mary is going on a visit are giving a house party for one member of the family who is soon to sail for Europe. Unless Mary starts to-morrow she won't see this forty-second cousin, or whatever she is, and it seems there are family reasons why she should."

"Then she's going soon?"

"Takes the train to-morrow morning."

"Going to be gone long?"

"She isn't sure how long. Hang it all! This upsets all my plans!" and Tom moodily paced the floor.

"Oh, well, it isn't forever! Cheer up!" consoled Ned. "She'll be coming back. My girl went away once."

"Yes, I know. But these people—they——"

Tom paused, significantly, it seemed.

"Well, what's wrong with them?" Ned wanted to know.

"Oh, nothing much, except they're fairly bursting with money."

"Well, that's a good thing, isn't it?"

"Not considering what money means and does nowadays. Mary's going out of her depth, so to speak and——"

"Say, look here!" exclaimed Ned. "You needn't worry about your girl. She's got a level head."

"Yes, I know. But when she gets among millionaires she's likely to lose that level."

"I don't believe so. Why, you're no poverty-stricken chap yourself, Tom, though I admit our bank account isn't as big as it will be when the dividends from the talking pictures will come in."

"I'm not one, two, six in money matters compared to the Winthrop family," complained Tom moodily. "They're filthy rich, and it isn't going to do Mary any good mixing up with that bunch."

"You mean she'll come back dissatisfied with the simple life of Shopton and vicinity?"

"That's what I fear."

"Oh, cheer up, disciple of gloom!" laughed Ned. "You'll find Mary just the same when she comes back as she is now. Is she eager to go?"

"That's just it!" complained Tom. "She seems very keen about it."