Appleton, Victor – Tom Swift Jr 18 – And the Electronic Hydrolung

“What in the name of aquanautics do you think you’re doing?” Tom gasped.

“I’ll show you a real broncobustin’ act in the water,” Chow bragged.

Smiley glided off gently at first, Chow fanning the air with his hat and yipping like a rodeo star. He did, in fact, cling to his slippery perch with considerable skill.

But suddenly Smiley began bobbing and humping like an eel. Chow’s face froze in alarm. A moment later the porpoise dived and the cook let out a yell of terror, “He-e-elpI”

Roaring with laughter, Tom dived in and rescued him. “Guess he ain’t quite broke yet, pardner!”

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“Reckon not.”

Now that Tom had all his technical problems solved, he plunged eagerly into the job of fitting out his expedition to the South Atlantic to search for the lost Jupiter missile.

Besides the Sea Hound and the other diving seacopter which had already been rigged with antisonar and antidetection equipment, Tom or-SMILEY THE SEA COW 173

dered a large cargo jetmarine to be similarly equipped.

Then he drew up a list of supplies and under—

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water search gear needed for the missile hunt. Tom phoned orders to a dozen different departments. Food, space-plant pills, extra clothing, tools, including a midget atomic earth blaster, grappling hooks-nothing was overlooked.

“I’d better take along a Damonscope too,” Tom reflected. “Judging by those Navy reports, ordinary Geiger counters haven’t revealed anything.”

Tom’s Damonscope, one of his early inventions, was a photographic device which worked on fluorescent principles. It was amazingly sensitive to any form of radioactivity-and the missile, of course, would be “hot” from exposure to cosmic rays.