Tom Swift and His Motor Cycle

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The two men, first looking through the hole in the shed to make sure
they were not observed, went out, carrying Tom, who was no light
load. Morse followed them, pushing the motor-cycle, and carrying
under one arm the bundle containing the valuable model, which he had
detached.

"I think this is the time we get ahead of Mr. Swift," murmured
Morse, pulling his black mustache, when he and his companions had
reached the car in the field. "We have just what we want now."

"Yes, but we had hard enough work getting it," observed Appleson.
"Only by luck we saw this lad come in here, or we would have had to
chase all over for him, and maybe then we would have missed him.
Hurry, Simpson--I mean Featherton. It's getting late, and we've got
lots to do."

The chauffeur sprang to his seat, Appleson taking his place beside
him. The motor-cycle was tied on behind the big touring car, and
with the unconscious form of Tom in the tonneau, beside Morse, who
stroked his mustache nervously, the auto started off. The storm had
passed, and the sun was shining brightly, but Tom could not see it.

CHAPTER XV.

A VAIN SEARCH

Several hours later Tom had a curious dream. He imagined he was
wandering about in the polar regions, and that it was very cold. He
was trying to reason with himself that he could not possibly be on
an expedition searching for the North Pole, still he felt such a
keen wind blowing over his scantily-covered body that he shivered.
He shivered so hard, in fact, that he shivered himself awake, and
when he tried to pierce the darkness that enveloped him he was
startled, for a moment, with the idea that perhaps, after all, he
had wandered off to some unknown country.

For it was quite dark and cold. He was in a daze, and there was a
curious smell about him--an odor that he tried to recall. Then, all
at once, it came to him what it was--chloroform. Once his father had
undergone an operation, and to deaden his pain chloroform had been
used.

"I've been chloroformed!" exclaimed the young inventor, and his
words sounded strange in his ears. "That's it. I've met with an
accident riding my motor-cycle. I must have hit my head, for it
hurts fearful. They picked me up, carried me to a hospital and have
operated on me. I wonder if they took off an arm or leg? I wonder
what hospital I'm in? Why is it so dark and cold?"

As he asked himself these questions his brain gradually cleared from
the haze caused by the cowardly blow, and from the chloroform that
had been administered by Featherton.

Tom's first act was to feel first of one arm, then the other. Having
satisfied himself that neither of these members were mutilated he
reached down to his legs.

"Why, they're all right, too," he murmured. "I wonder what they did
to me? That's certainly, chloroform I smell, and my head feels as if
some one had sat on it. I wonder--"

Quickly he put up his hands to his head. There appeared to be
nothing the matter with it, save that there was quite a lump on the
back, where the club had struck.

"I seem to be all here," went on Tom, much mystified. "But where am
I? That's the question. It's a funny hospital, so cold and dark--"

Just then his hands came in contact with the cold ground on which he
was lying.

"Why, I'm outdoors!" he exclaimed. Then in a flash it all came back
to him--how he had gone to wait under the church shed until the rain
was over.

"I fell asleep, and now it's night," the youth went on. "No wonder I
am sore and stiff. And that chloroform--" He could not account for
that, and he paused, puzzled once more. Then he struggled to a
sitting position. His head was strangely dizzy, but he persisted,
and got to his feet. He could see nothing, and groped around In the
dark, until he thought to strike a match. Fortunately he had a
number in his pocket. As the little flame flared up Tom started in
surprise.

"This isn't the church shed!" he exclaimed. "It's much smaller! I'm
in a different place! Great Scott! but what has happened to me?"

The match burned Tom's fingers and he dropped it. The darkness
closed in once more, but Tom was used to it by this time, and
looking ahead of him he could make out that the shed was an open
one, similar to the one where he had taken shelter. He could see the
sky studded with stars, and could feel the cold night wind blowing
in.

"My motor-cycle!" he exclaimed in alarm. "The model of dad's
invention--the papers!"

Our hero thrust his hand into his pocket. The papers were gone!
Hurriedly he lighted another match. It took but an instant to glance
rapidly about the small shed. His machine was not in sight!

Tom felt his heart sink. After all his precautions he had been
robbed. The precious model was gone, and it had been his proposition
to take it to Albany in this manner. What would his father say?

The lad lighted match after match, and made a rapid tour of the
shed. The motor-cycle was not to be seen. But what puzzled Tom more
than anything else was how he had been brought from the church shed
to the one where he had awakened from his stupor.

"Let me try to think," said the boy, speaking aloud, for it seemed
to help him. "The last I remember is seeing that automobile, with
those mysterious men in, approaching. Then it disappeared in the
rain. I thought I heard it again, but I couldn't see it. I was
sitting on the log, and--and--well, that's all I can remember. I
wonder if those men--"

The young inventor paused. Like a flash it came to him that the men
were responsible for his predicament. They had somehow made him
insensible, stolen his motor-cycle, the papers and the model, and
then brought him to this place, wherever it was. Tom was a shrewd
reasoner, and he soon evolved a theory which he afterward learned
was the correct one. He reasoned out almost every step in the crime
of which he was the victim, and at last came to the conclusion that
the men had stolen up behind the shed and attacked him.

"Now, the next question to settle," spoke Tom, "is to learn where I
am. How far did those scoundrels carry me, and what has become of my
motor-cycle?"

He walked toward the point of the shed where he could observe the
stars gleaming, and there he lighted some more matches, hoping he
might see his machine. By the gleam of the little flame he noted
that he was in a farmyard, and he was just puzzling his brain over
the question as to what city or town he might be near when he heard
a voice shouting:

"Here, what you lightin' them matches for? You want to set the place
afire? Who be you, anyhow--a tramp?"

It was unmistakably the voice of a farmer, and Tom could hear
footsteps approaching on the run.

"Who be you, anyhow?" the voice repeated. "I'll have the constable
after you in a jiffy if you're a tramp."

"I'm not a tramp," called Tom promptly. "I've met with an accident.
Where am I?"

"Humph! Mighty funny if you don't know where you are," commented the
farmer. "Jed, bring a lantern until I take a look at who this is."

"All right, pop," answered another voice, and a moment later Tom saw
a tall man standing in front of him.

"I'll give you a look at me without waiting for the lantern," said
Tom quickly, and he struck a match, holding it so that the gleam
fell upon his face.

"Salt mackerel! It's a young feller!" exclaimed the farmer. "Who be
you, anyhow, and what you doin' here?"

"That's just what I would like to know," said Tom, passing his hand
over his head, which was still paining him. "Am I near Albany?
That's where I started for this morning."

"Albany? You're a good way from Albany," replied the farmer. "You're
in the village of Dunkirk."

"How far is that from Centreford?"

"About seventy miles."

"As far as that?" cried Tom. "They must have carried me a good way
in their automobile."

"Was you in that automobile?" demanded the farmer.

"Which one?" asked Tom quickly.

"The one that stopped down the road just before supper. I see it,
but I didn't pay no attention to it. If I'd 'a' knowed you fell out,
though, I'd 'a' come to help you."

"I didn't fall out, Mr.--er--" Tom paused.

"Blackford is my name; Amos Blackford."

"Well, Mr. Blackford, I didn't fall out. I was drugged and brought
here."

"Drugged! Salt mackerel! But there's been a crime committed, then.
Jed, hurry up with that lantern an' git your deputy sheriff's badge
on. There's been druggin' an' all sorts of crimes committed. I've
caught one of the victims. Hurry up! My son's a deputy sheriff," he
added, by way of an explanation.

"Then I hope he can help me catch the scoundrels who robbed me,"
said Tom.

"Robbed you, did they? Hurry up, Jed. There's been a robbery! We'll
rouse the neighborhood an' search for the villains. Hurry up, Jed!"

"I'd rather find my motor-cycle, and a valuable model which was on
it, than locate those men," went on Tom. "They also took some papers
from me."

Then he told how he had started for Albany, adding his theory of how
he had been attacked and carried away in the auto. The latter part
of it was borne out by the testimony of Mr. Blackford.

"What I know about it," said the farmer, when his son Jed had
arrived on the scene with a lantern and his badge, "is that jest
about supper time I saw an automobile stop down the road a bit, It
was gittin' dusk, an' I saw some men git out. I didn't pay no
attention to them, 'cause I was busy about the milkin'. The next I
knowed I seen some one strikin' matches in my wagon shed, an' I come
out to see what it was."

"The men must have brought me all the way from the church shed near
Centreford to here," declared Tom. "Then they lifted me out and put
me in your shed. Maybe they left my motor-cycle also."

"I didn't see nothin' like that," said the farmer. "Is that what you
call one of them two-wheeled lickity-split things that a man sits on
the middle of an' goes like chain-lightning?"

"It is," said Tom. "I wish you'd help me look for it."

The farmer and his son agreed, and other lanterns having been
secured, a search was made. After about half an hour the motor-cycle
was discovered in some bushes at the side of the road, near where
the automobile had stopped. But the model was missing from it, and a
careful search near where the machine had been hidden did not reveal
it. Nor did as careful a hunt as they could make in the darkness
disclose any dues to the scoundrels who had drugged and robbed Tom.

CHAPTER XVI.

BACK HOME

"We've got to organize a regular searchin' party," declared Jed
Blackford, after he and his father, together with Tom and the
farmer's hired man, had searched up and down the road by the light
of lanterns. "We'll organize a posse an' have a regular hunt. This
is the worst crime that's been committed in this deestrict in many
years, an' I'm goin' to run the scoundrels to earth."

"Don't be talkin' nonsense, Jed," interrupted his father. "You won't
catch them fellers in a hundred years. They're miles an' miles away
from here by this time in their automobile. All you can do is to
notify the sheriff. I guess we'd better give this young man some
attention. Let's see, you said your name was Quick, didn't you?"

"No, but it's very similar," answered Tom with a smile. "It's
Swift."

"I knowed it was something had to do with speed," went on Mr.
Blackford. "Wa'al, now, s'pose you come in the house an' have a hot
cup of tea. You look sort of draggled out."

Tom was glad enough to avail himself of the kind invitation, and he
was soon in the comfortable kitchen, relating his story, with more
detail, to the farmer and his family. Mrs. Blackford applied some
home-made remedies to the lump on the youth's head, and it felt much
better.

"I'd like to take a look at my motor-cycle," he said, after his
second cup of tea. "I want to see if those men damaged it any. If
they have I'm going to have trouble getting back home to tell my
father of my bad luck. Poor dad! He will be very much worried when I
tell him the model and his patent papers have been stolen."

"It's too bad!" exclaimed Mrs. Blackford. "I wish I had hold of them
scoundrels!" and her usually gentle face bore a severe frown. "Of
course you can have your thing-a-ma-bob in to see if it's hurt, but
please don't start it in here. They make a terrible racket."

"No, I'll look it over in the woodshed," promised Tom. "If it's all
right I think I'll start back home at once."

"No, you can't do that," declared Mr. Blackford. "You're in no
condition to travel. You might fall off an' git hurt. It's nearly ten
o'clock now. You jest stay here all night, an' in the mornin', if you
feel all right, you can start off. I couldn't let you go to-night."

Indeed, Tom did not feel very much like undertaking the journey, for
the blow on his head had made him dazed, and the chloroform caused a
sick feeling. Mr. Blackford wheeled the motor-cycle into the
woodhouse, which opened from the kitchen, and there the youth went
over the machine. He was glad to find that it had sustained no
damage. In the meanwhile Jed had gone off to tell the startling news
to near-by farmers. Quite a throng, with lanterns, went up and down
the road, but all the evidence they could find were the marks of the
automobile wheels, which clues were not very satisfactory.

"But we'll catch them in the mornin'," declared the deputy sheriff.
"I'll know that automobile again if I see it. It was painted red."

"That's the color of a number of automobiles," said Tom with a
smile. "I'm afraid you'll have trouble identifying it by that means.
I am surprised, though, that they did not carry my motor-cycle away
with them. It is a valuable machine."

"They were afraid to," declared Jed. "It would look queer to see a
machine like that in an auto. Of course when they were going along
country roads in the evening it didn't much matter, but when they
headed for the city, as they probably did, they knew it would
attract suspicion to 'em. I know, for I've been a deputy sheriff
'most a year."

"I believe you're right," agreed Tom. "They didn't dare take the
motor-cycle with them, but they hid it, hoping I would not find it.
I'd rather have the model and the papers, though, than half a dozen
motor-cycles."

"Maybe the police will help you find them," said Mrs. Blackford.
"Jed, you must telephone to the police the first thing in the
morning. It's a shame the way criminals are allowed to go on. If
honest people did those things, they'd be arrested in a minute, but
it seems that scoundrels can do as they please."

"You wait; I'll catch 'em!" declared Jed confidently. "I'll organize
another posse in the mornin'."

"Well, I know one thing, and that is that the place for this young
man is in bed!" exclaimed motherly Mrs. Blackford, and she insisted
on Tom retiring. He was somewhat restless at first, and the thought
of the loss of the model and the papers preyed on his mind. Then,
utterly exhausted, he sank into a heavy slumber, and did not awaken
until the sun was shining in his window the next morning. A good
breakfast made him feel somewhat better, and he was more like the
resourceful Tom Swift of old when he went to get his motor-cycle in
shape for the ride back to Shopton.

"Well, I hope you find those criminals," said Mr. Blackford, as he
watched Tom oiling the machine. "If you're ever out this way again,
stop off and see us."

"Yes, do," urged Mrs. Blackford, who was getting ready to churn. Her
husband looked at the old-fashioned barrel and dasher arrangement,
which she was filling with cream.

"What's the matter with the new churn?" he asked in some surprise.

"It's broken," she replied. "It's always the way with those new-
fangled things. It works ever so much nicer than this old one,
though," she went on to Tom, "but it gets out of order easy."

"Let me look at it," suggested the young inventor. "I know something
about machinery."

The churn, which worked by a system of cogs and a handle, was
brought from the woodshed. Tom soon saw what the trouble was. One of
the cogs had become displaced. It did not take him five minutes,
with the tools he carried on his motor-cycle, to put it back, and
the churn was ready to use.

"Well, I declare!" exclaimed Mrs. Blackford. "You are handy at such
things!"

"Oh, it's just a knack," replied Tom modestly. "Now I'll put a plug
in there, and the cog wheel won't come loose again. The
manufacturers of it ought to have done that. I imagine lots of
people have this same trouble with these churns."

"Indeed they do," asserted Mrs. Blackford. "Sallie Armstrong has
one, and it got out of order the first week they had it. I'll let
her look at mine, and maybe her husband can fix it."

"I'd go and do it myself, but I want to get home," said Tom, and
then he showed her how, by inserting a small iron plug in a certain
place, there would be no danger of the cog coming loose again.

"That's certainly slick!" exclaimed Mr. Blackford. "Well, I wish you
good luck, Mr. Swift, and if I see those scoundrels around this
neighborhood again I'll make 'em wish they'd let you alone."

"That's what," added Jed, polishing his badge with his big, red
handkerchief.

Mrs. Blackford transferred the cream to the new churn which Tom had
fixed, and as he rode off down the highway on his motor-cycle, she
waved one hand to him, while with the other she operated the handle
of the apparatus.

"Now for a quick run to Shopton to tell dad the bad news," spoke Tom
to himself as he turned on full speed and dashed away. "My trip has
been a failure so far."

CHAPTER XVII.

MR. SWIFT IN DESPAIR

Tom was thinking of many things as his speedy machine carried him
mile after mile nearer home. By noon he was over half way on his
journey, and he stopped in a small village for his dinner.

"I think I'll make inquiries of the police here, to see if they
caught sight of those men," decided Tom as he left the restaurant.
"Though I am inclined to believe they kept on to Albany, or some
large city, where they have their headquarters. They will want to
make use of dad's model as soon as possible, though what they will
do with it I don't know." He tried to telephone to his father, but
could get no connection, as the wire was being repaired.

The police force of the place where Tom had stopped for lunch was
like the town itself--small and not of much consequence. The chief
constable, for he was not what one could call a chief of police, had
heard of the matter from the alarm sent out in all directions from
Dunkirk, where Mr. Blackford lived.

"You don't mean to tell me you're the young man who was chloroformed
and robbed!" exclaimed the constable, looking at Tom as if he
doubted his word.

"I'm the young man," declared our hero. "Have you seen anything of
the thieves?"

"Not a thing, though I've instructed all my men to keep a sharp
lookout for a red automobile, with three scoundrels in it. My men
are to make an arrest on sight."

"How many men have you?"

"Two," was the rather surprising answer; "but one has to work on a
farm daytimes, so I ain't really got but one in what you might call
active service."

Tom restrained a desire to laugh. At any rate, the aged constable
meant well.

"One of my men seen a red automobile, a little while before you come
in my office," went on the official, "but it wasn't the one wanted,
'cause a young woman was running it all alone. It struck me as
rather curious that a woman would trust herself all alone in one of
them things; wouldn't it you?"

"Oh, no, women and young ladies often operate them," said Tom.

"I should think you'd find one handier than the two-wheeled
apparatus you have out there," went on the constable, indicating the
motor-cycle, which Tom had stood up against a tree.

"I may have one some day," replied the young inventor. "But I guess
I'll be moving on now. Here's my address, in case you hear anything
of those men, but I don't imagine you will."

"Me either. Fellows as slick as them are won't come back this way
and run the chance of being arrested by my men. I have two on duty
nights," he went on proudly, "besides myself, so you see we're
pretty well protected."

Tom thanked him for the trouble he had taken, and was soon on his
way again. He swept on along the quiet country roads anxious for the
time when he could consult with his father over what would be the
best course to take.

When Tom was about a mile away from his house he saw in the road
ahead of him a rickety old wagon, and a second glance at it told him
the outfit belonged to Eradicate Sampson, for the animal drawing the
vehicle was none other than the mule, Boomerang.

"But what in the world is Rad up to?" mused Tom, for the colored man
was out of the wagon and was going up and down in the grass at the
side of the highway in a curious fashion. "I guess he's lost
something," decided Tom.

When he got nearer he saw what Eradicate was doing. The colored man
was pushing a lawn-mower slowly to and fro in the tall, rank grass
that grew beside the thoroughfare, and at the sound of Tom's
motor-cycle the negro looked up. There was such a woe-begone
expression on his face that Tom at once stopped his machine and got
off.

"What's the matter, Rad?" Tom asked.

"Mattah, Mistah Swift? Why, dere's a pow'ful lot de mattah, an'
dat's de truff. I'se been swindled, dat's what I has."

"Swindled? How?"

"Well, it's dis-a-way. Yo' see dis yeah lawn-moah?"

"Yes; it doesn't seem to work," and Tom glanced critically at it. As
Eradicate pushed it slowly to and fro, the blades did not revolve,
and the wheels slipped along on the grass.

"No, sah, it doan't work, an' dat's how I've been swindled, Mistah
Swift. Yo' see, I done traded mah ole grindstone off for dis yeah
lawn-moah, an' I got stuck."

"What, that old grindstone that was broken in two, and that you
fastened together with concrete?" asked Tom, for he had seen the
outfit with which Eradicate, in spare times between cleaning and
whitewashing, had gone about the country, sharpening knives and
scissors. "You don't mean that old, broken one?"

"Dat's what I mean, Mistah Swift. Why, it was all right. I mended it
so dat de break wouldn't show, an' it would sharpen things if yo'
run it slow. But dis yeah lawn-moah won't wuk slow ner fast."

"I guess it was an even exchange, then," went on Tom. "You didn't
get bitten any worse than the other fellow did."

"Yo' doan't s'pose yo' kin fix dis yeah moah so's I kin use it, does
yo', Mistah Swift?" asked Eradicate, not bothering to go into the
ethics of the matter. "I reckon now with summah comin' on I kin make
mo' with a lawn-moah than I kin with a grindstone--dat is, ef I kin
git it to wuk. I jest got it a while ago an' decided to try it, but
it won't cut no grass."

"I haven't much time," said Tom, "for I'm anxious to get home, but
I'll take a look at it."

Tom leaned his motor-cycle against the fence. He could no more pass
a bit of broken machinery, which he thought he could mend, than some
men and boys can pass by a baseball game without stopping to watch
it, no matter how pressed they are for time. It was Tom's hobby, and
he delighted in nothing so much as tinkering with machines, from
lawn-mowers to steam engines.

Tom took hold of the handle, which Eradicate gladly relinquished to
him, and his trained touch told him at once what was the trouble.

"Some one has had the wheels off and put them on wrong, Rad," he
said. "The ratchet and pawl are reversed. This mower would work
backwards, if that were possible."

"Am dat so, Mistah Swift?"

"That's it. All I have to do is to take off the wheels and reverse
the pawl."

"I--I didn't know mah lawn-moah was named Paul," said the colored
man. "Is it writ on it anywhere?"

"No, it's not the kind of Paul you mean," said Tom with a laugh.
"It's spelled differently. A pawl is a sort of catch that fits into
a ratchet wheel and pushes it around, or it may be used as a catch
to prevent the backward motion of a windlass or the wheel on a
derrick. I'll have it fixed in a jiffy for you."

Tom worked rapidly. With a monkey-wrench he removed the two big
wheels of the lawn-mower and reversed the pawl in the cogs. In five
minutes he had replaced the wheels, and the machine, except for
needed sharpening, did good work.

"There you are, Rad!" exclaimed Tom at length.

"Yo' suah am a wonder at inventin'!" cried the colored man
gratefully. "I'll cut yo' grass all summah fo' yo' to pay fo' this,
Mistah Swift."

"Oh, that's too much. I didn't do a great deal, Rad."

"Well, yo' saved me from bein' swindled, Mistah Swift, an' I suah
does 'preciate dat."

"How about the fellow you traded the cracked grindstone to, Rad?"

"Oh, well, ef he done run it slow it won't fly apart, an' he'll do
dat, anyhow, fo' he suah am a lazy coon. I guess we am about even
there, Mistah Swift."

"All right," spoke Tom with a laugh. "Sharpen it up, Rad, and start
in to cut grass. It will soon be summer," and Tom, leaping upon his
motor-cycle, was off like a shot.

He found his father in his library, reading a book on scientific
matters. Mr. Swift looked up in surprise at seeing his son.

"What! Back so soon?" he asked. "You did make a flying trip. Did you
give the model and papers to Mr. Crawford?"

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