“I hope you’re right,” Tom muttered. “But I haven’t seen a living thing move down there since the slide stopped, Chow.”
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“Let’s land an’ look around!”
Tom agreed and was about to hunt for a landing space when his eyes wandered toward the mountainside above the spot where the explosions had occurred. He could see two men running. He grabbed the binoculars and handed them to Chow.
“Look up there, quick! Are those the men who tackled you?” he asked excitedly.
Chow gazed at the fleeing figures until they disappeared, then said, “I don’t think they was the Injuns.”
Tom began to wonder how many enemies there were in the immediate vicinity. But his greatest concern was for Bud and Hanson, so he chose a level area just beyond the edge of the landslide to come down in. It was narrow and unprotected from hostile eyes, but the flier had no alternative.
Gently he lowered the Sky Queen and set her down. Jumping to the ground, he led the way toward the place where they had last seen Bud and Hanson.
Slipping and sliding in the loose piles of rubble, they searched uncertainly over the sector in which their friends might be buried. At last Tom paused.
“Chow, we’re not making any headway. Let’s do this more systematically.
Suppose we stay about ten yards apart and search in a straight line across the ground. When we get to the end of the slide, we’ll turn around and come back across another strip.”
“A smart idea,” agreed Chow, whose head injury had been completely forgotten.
Together, they carefully climbed back and forth T68 TOM SWIFT AND HIS FLYING LAB
across the stretch of debris. They were on their fourth trip over the ruined tableland and had just began to despair of rescuing Bud and Hanson when Tom’s alert eyes spotted a gleam of metal.
“Chow! Come here!” he called, rushing to the spot. “I’ve just found something!”
His heart pounding, Tom tore at the dirt around it until he had uncovered a shovel.
“One of ours!” he exclaimed and tugged at it until the tool came out. The wooden shaft was broken a foot above the metal. “Bud or Hanson must have been working here!”
“Then s’pose we try a lil diggin’ of our own,” Chow suggested.
While Tom kicked at the dirt hopefully, Chow returned to the Flying Lab and procured shovels and a couple of crowbars to help move the heavier rocks.
Frantically they went to work and for half an hour fought and wrestled to clear at least a part of the debris away. But though they covered a wide area there was no sign of either of their missing friends.
Wiping the sweat from his drawn, tense face, Tom leaned on his shovel and glanced at his companion. “Maybe we’re searching in the wrong place, Chow.
After all, the landslide might have carried that shovel downhill and this isn’t the place where the boys were working at all.”
“Could be. Wanta try, say ten, fifteen yards up?”
“Yes. I can’t rest until I know something definite about Bud and Hanson.”
They moved up the slope and renewed their search. It took their combined efforts, using both
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crowbars, to dislodge several heavy rocks before they could penetrate the earth and smaller stones that were strewn about.
Almost exhausted, Tom called for time out, and they sat down, breathing heavily, against a huge boulder. Tom was casting about for another place to dig when Chow saw him freeze into a stare of disbelief.
“Tom! What now?”
Turning, he saw two crouched figures approaching from around a cliff. Tom’s blood ran cold, and he heard the breath go out of Chow in a horror-stricken gasp.
The oncoming men were Indians, their faces painted in garish colors. Each one held a drawn bow with arrows leveled at Tom and Chow.
“Tom, we’re done for!” Chow cried. “These are the varmints who almost got me before!”
There was nothing for Tom and Chow to do but remain where they were and raise their hands. Maybe, Tom thought, if they made no show of resistance, the Indians would not release the arrows. As he sensed Chow’s quivering frame beside him, he hissed:
“Keep still!”
“I’m keepin’ still,” Chow whispered. “It’s only my body that ain’t.”
Even in the danger of the moment, Tom grinned at his friend.
For almost a minute there was no move on the part of the Indians. Never had Tom seen two bigger men than these who stood rigid as statues.
170 TOM SWIFT AND HIS FLYING LAB
“They must be waiting for someone else,” Tom thought.
At last one of the Indians relaxed a little. Watching Tom and Chow out of his keen black eyes, he eased up on his bow and lowered the arrow. With a guttural murmur to his companion, he stepped around the prisoners, apparently inspecting them for knives, guns, or other weapons.
Still under the threat of the second savage’s drawn arrow, Tom and Chow did not dare make a counter-move. The other Indian circled them, finally stopping in front of the two. Now his companion lowered his weapon and moved forward.
Tom quickly decided to offer a gesture of peace. Slowly he moved his hands forward, palms outthrust.
“Friend!” he said.
The Indians merely stared at him, their faces impassive. Almost disdainfully they exchanged several grunted words. Then, carrying their bows with the arrows still strung and ready, they moved behind their captives. Tom and Chow felt the sharp tips of arrows against their backs.
“They want us to start walking,” Tom murmured to the cook. “And I guess we have no choice.”
“They sure mean business,” said Chow. “An” a Injun arrow ain’t nothin’ to monkey with.”
As they walked along, the Indians stayed so close behind them that any lagging produced an immediate jab with the point of an arrow. The direction Tom and Chow were to take was decided by a momentary pressure on one side of them or the other.
Across the slope of the mountain they moved.
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Chow tried a question or two in dialects he hoped the Indians might understand, but the only answer he received was a sharper jab than usual from the man behind him.
After a long walk they came to a slightly wooded area where four burros were tethered among the trees. While one Indian stood off with leveled bow and arrow, the other made Tom and Chow understand they were to climb upon two of the beasts.
As soon as they were mounted, the savage tied their hands behind them.
They would not be able even to use the rope halters on the burros’ heads!
“This is great,” Chow growled. “I’m balanced up here like a ole Humpty Dumpty. What happens if this here beast stumbles?”
“Burros don’t stumble, Chow,” Tom told him. “Unless you fall off yourself, that beast will carry you safely.”
By this time their captors had mounted, too, still holding their weapons in readiness. Grasping the lead ropes of the Americans’ burros, the Indians led the way among the scrubby trees and across a large clearing. They had almost reached the opposite edge when there was a tremendous roar behind them.
“What’s that?” Chow cried. “Another landslide?”
Tom’s face went ashen. “It’s the Flying Lab!” he cried. “They’ve got that, too!”
CHAPTER XXII
AN EMERGENCY INVENTION
“THOSE REBELS have outsmarted us!” Chow moaned.
To his surprise and Tom’s their Indian captors acted as if they did not know anything about this part of the plan. For the first time they stopped and looked about uncertainly.
“They’re still keeping those doggone arrows ready, though,” remarked Chow as he watched the savages, hoping for a chance to escape.
After a moment the Indians kicked their heels into the sides of their mounts, trying to hurry them along over the terrain. Their beasts did move somewhat faster, but the captives’ mounts dragged.
Suddenly the roar of the jet lifters grew louder, and presently the Sky Queen was directly overhead.
“There she goes!” Tom cried, almost in despair a& he saw his wonderful ship disappearing right before his eyes.
The very bottom seemed to have dropped out oi
172
AN EMERGENCY INVENTION 173
the world, so far as Tom Swift was concerned. His father, Bud, and Hanson were gone, and he and Chow were prisoners!
Suddenly the huge plane, banking, came back and stood directly overhead.
Then slowly it began to descend. The burros, completely upset by the roar, kicked and shied. Tom and Chow were sprawled on the ground.
“That fool pilot! What’s he tryin’ to do, crash here?” Chow yelled.
“He’s going to buzz us!” Tom shouted, trying to pick himself up but finding it difficult with his hands tied behind him.
The Indians were shouting too now, uttering strange cries and trying vainly to keep their shrilly heehawing burros under control in the turmoil. But with the Flying Lab whizzing down at them, they gave up. Abandoning all the burros, the Indians ran tor their lives. The animals, freed, took off in a mad scramble across the slope.