“Wow! We just made it!” Bud said.
Johnson’s clattering strides stopped. Squeaking sounds indicated that he was descending the ladder. Tom and Bud felt the plane shudder slightly as Johnson stepped onto the pontoon. They waited tensely, hoping that he would not open the compartment door.
Johnson immediately started the engines. The seaplane taxied away from the dock and skimmed across the water. In a few minutes it was air-borne.
The pilot flicked on the radio which crackled noisily. He tuned it a bit finer, then called Hein.
“Everything okay here, Marv. How about you?”
“Same here.” The answer was followed by a low chuckle. “Lucky we got away before that guy Swift showed up. He must have wised up Asa Pike, somehow.”
“Well, we’re rid of ‘em all now,” Hein remarked. “No need to pick up any more mail. And now that we have some sort of an idea of how Swift’s fuel kicker works, it won’t take Rotzog long to figure out how to build one.”
Inside the luggage compartment Bud gripped his friend’s arm. So these spies, working together, had
72 TOM SWIFT AND HIS ROCKET SHIP
stolen the secret! And their probable leader was someone named Rotzog!
The radio was switched off and the boys lay in darkness listening to the dull roar of the motors. Tom wriggled over on his side to see a tiny pencil of light entering their otherwise dark prison. A faulty rivet had apparently become dislodged.
He managed to work his way over to the wall, and by placing his face right against the metal plates, he could look out through the rivet hole to see an endless stretch of tall timber and a sprinkling of tiny lakes. A brilliant sun shimmered on the water’s surface. Tom guessed that they had ridden about a hundred miles inland.
Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152