“Even better’n Texas water,” he told himself.
He straightened and was about to go back to his work when Hanson ran up and asked what he was doing. Chow told him.
“Well, let that be your last drink of mountain water in this place,” Hanson advised, concern in his voice.
“How come?” Chow asked. “Water’s water, ain’t it? Tastes mighty sweet an’
cool to me.”
The engineer explained that the water no doubt was filled with particles of radioactive material. If taken in quantity it would attack the blood cells and cause serious damage to the drinker’s health.
“And”Hanson smiled in conclusion“it would take those few remaining hairs off your head, Chow.”
Alarmed, the cook’s right hand flew up to his thinning hair.
“I remember that story Tom told us about water like that down hereit did funny things to the Injuns a long time ago. But say,” he added, looking around, “there ain’t no purty flowers like it said in the legend.”
“The stream was in some valley,” Hanson reminded him. “It was probably covered over long ago by a landslide.”
Chow nodded, then, detecting the whir of the helicopter’s blades, said, “Here come the boys.”
160 TOM SWIFT AND HIS FLYING LAB
As the midget ship eased to the ground, he and Hanson went to greet the fliers.
“I was beginning to wonder if you’d run into trouble,” Hanson said to them.
“Trouble! We sure did,” Bud grunted. And as the Skeeter was being snuggled back into the Flying Lab, he related their experience with the condor.
Then Tom told of their sighting the renewed smoke signals, and of being unable to discover who was sending them from among the piles of rocks below.
“But we’re going back at midnight and find out,” he said.
“I don’t like your idea,” Hanson said frankly. “If Mr. Swift or Roberts’ party sent up the smoke signals, why didn’t they show themselves when they saw your copter? Certainly your dad, Tom, would have recognized it.”
“They’re probably prisoners.”
“Inside the mountain?” Chow asked disbelievingly.
Hanson went on to say that he was sure the smoke had been sent up by the rebels as a deliberate lure to capture the young inventor and as many of his party as possible.
“But I suppose there’s no talking you boys out of going,” Hanson concluded.
“None,” they answered together.
After a meal and a much-needed rest they started digging. New spots were chosen, but Tom insisted that each remain within hailing distance of one another.
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Chow headed toward what seemed to be the only sector with any density of growth, a patch a little distance below the tableland. For some time only the thud and clang of picks against earth and rock broke the afternoon stillness.
Tom was startled when he heard Chow cry out:
“Hey, Tom! Come here! Help!”
Dropping his pick, Tom raced toward where the cook had been digging. He slipped and scrambled along the rocks, but finally with a sprint landed at the spot in less than a minute.
“Chow! Where are you?”
For a moment there was no sound. Then from a depression came a low groan. Tom hastened to it.
“Chow!”
“Oh-h-h, my haid!”
Quickly Tom knelt beside the cook’s pudgy figure, almost buried in the trench.
Chow was moaning in pain and there was a large lump on the side of his head. It was swelling rapidly.
“What happened?” Tom asked, helping the cook out of the trench.
For several seconds Chow was unable to talk. Between moans and groans he tottered to his feet and stood there, rubbing his head.
“I don’t rightly know, Tom. I was jest diggin’ along an’ doin’ all rightyou can see the place over therewhen I looked up, an’ brand my saddle, if I didn’t see two Injuns all covered with paint standin’ right there!”
“Indians!” Tom exclaimed. “Go on.”
“I was so surprised I couldn’t move. Then, be—
162 TOM SWIFT AND HIS FLYING LAB
fore I knew what was goin’ on, they up an’ grabs me an’ starts to wrestle me around. That was when I yelled.”
“What’d they want, anyway?” Tom asked. “Did you find out what they were after?”
“Whyme! They was tryin’ to drag me away with ‘em. But when I yelled, one of ‘em dropped me quick into the gully. Then he said somethin’ to the other an’ they ran off.”
“Come on. We’d better get back to the Flying Lab and put something on that head,” Tom said. “Looks to me as if an ice pack might be a good idea. That’s a nasty bump.”
As he put an arm under Chow’s shoulder and helped him along, Tom wondered if the unfriendly Indians might be part of the Verano group.
“They could be spies sent out to check on us,” he mused. “But why were they painted? The Indians in these mountains only put on war paint for ceremonials. Maybe they were masquerading as Indians to mislead us.”
The mystery puzzled Tom as he assisted the cook to the ship. Ten yards short of the open hatch they were startled by a distant boo-oom! The explosion rocked the mountain. Looking upward toward the sound, Tom saw what seemed to be the whole top of a cliff far above them breaking loose.
“What’s going on?” Chow asked. The explosion had snapped him out of his daze. “What’s that terrible racket?”
“I don’t know,” Tom replied, letting go of the jittery Texan to run back for a better view of the
AN AVALANCHE 163
mountainside. “Someone must have set off dynamite above us!”
Now, as gigantic convulsions rolled through the earth, there was another sounda deep rumbling.
“An avalanche!” Tom cried. “It’s heading right down here! If we don’t get away, it’ll bury us and the Flying Lab! Chow, get in quick and I’ll try to fly out of danger!”
Slamming the hatch shut after them, Tom leaped up the steps to the pilot’s seat. With a lightning movement he flipped on the switches and poured power into the jet lifters.
The landslide was almost upon the plane. Through the netting Tom could see huge pieces of rock crashing down, knocking loose other boulders and earth.
With ever-increasing speed the revolving destructive mass swept toward the Flying Lab.
Whoo-oo-oosh! The jet motors came to life and the Sky Queen rose above the thundering wave of debris. By seconds the destruction of the valuable plane and the death of its occupants had been averted!
The quick ascent had thrown the camouflage net off the big plane. It floated down and settled upon a pile of rock.
Now that Tom and Chow had recovered from the shock, they looked below them. To their relief they saw Hanson and Bud standing at a safe distance from the avalanche.
“Thank goodness, they’re safe!” Tom murmured as he banked the plane to come about.
164 TOM SWIFT AND HIS FLYING LAB
He waved to Hanson and Bud who gazed in open-mouthed astonishment at the sudden appearance in the air of the Flying Lab.
“They probably can’t figure out how we got out of the way in time,” Tom said with a chuckle.
Chow nodded. “It was right smart of me to get that bang on my haid when I did,” he said. “Hadn’t been for that, we’d ‘a’ still been diggin’, an’ the Flying Lab would be buried.”
“Sure, Chow. And now where am I going to land the Lab?”
Before he had a chance to look for a spot, Chow cried, “Here comes more of that avalanche!”
A secondary explosion had just taken place farther along the mountainside.
The two in the plane gazed in horror as the mighty avalanche of rock fragments picked up momentum.
“TomTom! It’s headin’ right for Bud an’ Hanson! They can’t escape!”
CHAPTER XXI
A HOSTILE WELCOME
THE AVALANCHE covered a wide areatoo wide, it seemed, for Bud and Hanson to escape.
“Won’t it ever stop?” Tom groaned as he lowered the Flying Lab.
“It’sit’s like the end of the world,” Chow muttered. “I never figgered there was this many stones in any one place on earth.”
Dirt and dust filled the air, preventing any clear view of the ground. When the fall of rocks had ended and the dust had cleared a bit, a feeling of hopelessness came over Tom and Chow. The spot where Bud and Hanson had been standing was completely covered with the mass of fallen rock.
Freshly exposed springs trickled through the fragments. Stumps of scrubby vegetation lay in grotesque heaps over the landscape.
“Do you think mebbe the boys got away?” Chow asked hesitantly.
165
166 TOM SWIFT AND HIS FLYING LAB
Tom maneuvered the Flying Lab over the scene. There was no sign of either Bud or Hanson. Chow patted his young friend’s shoulder and tried to find words that would prolong the hope that by some miracle their companions had survived.
It seemed impossible that Bud and Hanson could survive “Don’t give up yet, Tom. They mighta run an’ got out o’ the way. Might even be that they hid under some ole boulder that didn’t get moved.”