CHAPTER XBAD LUCK
The great leap of the excited giant carried him under and beyond the overhead rail from which the traveling crane hung. The wind of the rebounding crane seemed to sweep Koku and Tom aside. They escaped the swinging hooks and chains by a very close margin.
But all of the unobservant workmen were not so fortunate. Two of them were knocked senseless by the chain, one with a broken shoulder blade, the other with a cut on his head that bled profusely. Several others were knocked down.
Tom was up with a yell, wrenched himself from Koku’s grasp, and started down the shop with the speed of a deer.
“Who did that? Stop your engine! Throw off the power!” he yelled.
But already the man in charge of the power governing the crane had come to his senses. He had thrown over the lever and shut off the power. The swinging loops of heavy steel links were now at the far end of the shop.
The accident was, for a time, seemingly inexplicable. The crane traveling toward the shop door had been seemingly stuck. The controller had been thrown twice to start it. And when the fouled crane had started, it had rushed backward instead of forward. Only Koku’s sharp gaze had observed it, and his quick action had saved Tom Swift from disaster.
An ambulance was sent for to take the two more seriously injured men to the hospital. Meanwhile the general opinion in the erecting shop was that a deliberate attempt had been made against the young inventor’s life.
Koku glared at everybody who came anywhere near his master. He marched up and down within a stride or two of Tom, and flexed his big muscles and muttered threats in his own tongue. The half civilized creature, who was usually the mildest person imaginable, had now become a figure to strike terror to the bravest.
Before anything further was done to the keel of the flying boat Tom made an exhaustive examination of the traveling crane, the cables attached to it, and the steel rail from which its truck hung. He trusted the engineman, who was an old employee. And he could not think of any man or boy about the erecting shop that wished the company—or himself—ill.
“It’s a jinx, boss,” declared one of the oldermen. “Bad luck! And I have a feeling in my bones that it’s only the beginning.”
“Come, Carney!” commanded Tom Swift. “You take something to get rid of any such feeling. Don’t talk that way and let the other men hear you. Of course there is a perfectly reasonable explanation of the accident.”
“That doesn’t stop it from being bad luck just the same,” muttered the man.
A thorough scrutiny of the line of the crane’s travel finally resulted in a single explanation of the accident. Tom picked up a loop of steel cable—a piece perhaps two feet long when straightened—which showed marks of the wheels of the traveler.
“This loop must have been left hanging to the rail by some careless repair man and, after that last trip of the crane, it shifted and slid along the rail to that spot where the machinery fouled,” Tom declared.
“Now, somebody is at fault in this. It has cost the Swift Construction a great deal of money for employees’ compensation, as well as the wage loss for this breakdown. If I ever find out who the careless man is, I’ll fire him. Carelessness is the most dangerous thing in the world. Our lives are not safe when such a man is around. Now let’s see what more we can do about laying this keel.”
It did seem, however, as though the old machinist had somehow hit it right about the “jinx.” Bad luck seemed to accompany the assembling of the body of the flying boat. Little accidents happened daily. Men were hurt, tools were broken, delays occurred. Tom got into a touchy state that even Ned Newton recognized.
“You’d better knock off on this flying boat and get a change of action,” Ned advised. “Go somewhere with Mary and her mother. Take a rest.”
“You’d better take a rest yourself,” returned Tom sharply, but grinning. “I would fly all to pieces just now if I had to be idle. You know how it is with me, Ned. I have to work it off. And I can think or talk about nothing now but theWinged Arrow.”
“It looks to me,” said the pessimistic Ned, “that that is one arrow that will never be shot. I have been looking it over, and all it seems to be is a great pontoon—as clumsy as can be.”
“You are a cheerful beggar!” snapped Tom Swift. “What do you expect to see at this stage of the work, I’d like to know?”
“Well, two things I hate to see are the bills and the labor-cost account,” grumbled Ned. “You are going to strain the credit of this company before you get through, Tom.”
“It’s lucky dad and I held onto so much of the stock,” rejoined the young inventor, with asudden grin. “We are the only two with vision. You are terribly sordid, Ned.”
“I’m terribly practical,” grumbled his friend. “Money is one of the hardest things to get hold of and the slipperiest things to hold on to in the world. I wish I could impress these facts on your mind.”
“Say not so!” gibed Tom. “Them cruel words break me hear-r-r-t, Ned. Wait till you see theWinged Arrowtake to the air from Lake Carlopa——-”
“Wait till I do!” exclaimed Ned, and for once the friends were so far apart in their opinions that they almost quarreled.
Koku lurked about the shop day and night on the watch for somebody or something that tried to trouble his young master.
“Him evil one at work,” the giant declared to Rad Sampson.
“Lawsy-marcy!” grumbled Rad, rolling his eyes. “Yo’ suah has a close’t acquaintance wid Ol’ Satan, Koku. How’d yo’ git dat way?”
A fire started among some oil-soaked waste behind the stationary engine in the erecting shop. A power belt stripped unexpectedly and balled up the machinery for most of one day. Certain castings were discovered to have faults in them that would have endangered the success of the flying boat if the faults had not been seen in time.
Altogether a less determined fellow than Tom Swift would possibly have been tempted to abandon his plans—at least, for the time being. But the young inventor was utterly given up to the building of the flying boat, and nothing but personal disaster would have stopped him.
The work did go on apace, after all. Tom’s energy and ingenuity were sufficient for the accomplishment of a deal that might seem impossible to men much older than himself. As his plans developed for the flying boat, he worked harder and for longer hours. Mary declared that he even neglected her.
The young girl realized, however, that her father’s illness had delayed Tom’s beginning upon his new invention. Now he felt that he must work the harder to make up the lost time.
Mary and her mother were getting accustomed to the idea of Mr. Nestor’s absence. Besides receiving a cheerful letter written by the invalid before he sailed from New York with Mr. Damon for Denmark, they had received two wireless messages sent while the travelers were at sea.
Then followed a considerable wait before the letter arrived from Denmark describing the voyage and explaining how they were to reach Iceland the following month. Mr. Nestor was much more cheerful and was feeling better already. He said that Mr. Damon was blessing everything inthe universe because of their delays, but that they hoped to reach Iceland and the village of Rosestone while the weather was still comparatively mild.
Of course Tom Swift was interested in all that Mary was interested in. Nevertheless he had pretty well put out of his mind any anxiety for the invalid. He believed that Mr. Nestor was in very capable hands, for the eccentricities of Wakefield Damon did not keep him from being a loyal friend and a jolly traveling companion.
As Mr. Barton Swift said, Tom ate, slept, and livedflying boat! Nothing else in the world seemed just then of so much importance as the building of theWinged Arrow, which was the name Tom had selected for the seaplane.
“If the craft accomplished the speed Tom expects, she will be well named,” the elder Swift said in confidence to Ned Newton.
Secretly Ned was quite as proud of his chum’s ability and brains as was Tom’s father. But he felt it his duty to put brakes on whenever he saw a great amount of money being risked in an enterprise that might toe a fizzle in the end.
To Tom’s mind the weeks passed with astonishing celerity. Mary was looking for news from Iceland when the huge flying boat was removed in sections from the erecting shop and trundled down to the edge of Lake Carlopa on trucks.
There it was once more put together on the ways, every part tested for faults, the motors put aboard and connected with the propellers, and then, like any ship, she was launched into the water. It was a gala day in Shopton when the marvel was given her first bath. The works closed down and everybody connected with the Swift Construction Company was on hand to see the launching.
Mary Nestor broke the bottle of grape juice on the nose of theWinged Arrowas she struck the water and was splashed in return by the water as the plane “made a hole” in the lake.
It was a rough and windy day when this took place; but the boat merely rocked gently upon the surface after that first splash. It made a very brave appearance indeed.
“Mebbe the jinx is finished,” said Carney, the old workman, in confidence when the launching was over. “Anyway, we got the thing out of the shops without killing anybody. And that’s a good thing.”
Tom Swift was not thinking about Carney’s “jinx” on this day. He was much too deeply absorbed in the fact of the boat’s being in the water. Then, too, he had a small puzzle in his mind while the ceremony of launching was taking place.
In the crowd of spectators was a man whoseface he knew. The man watched proceedings with an exceedingly keen scrutiny. His interest in the huge flying boat was professional, Tom was sure. He began to have some uneasiness about the man, for, although he was sure he had seen him before, Tom Swift could not remember where he had seen him or what his name was.