CHAPTER XXII

A MESSAGE OF HOPE

“THERE’S the fire all right!” shouted Tom Swift to Ned Newton, who was riding in the cockpit of the _Wasp_ behind him as they circled over the mountain.

“Burning fast!” remarked Ned. “It’s a big blaze.”

“It hasn’t reached the hotel yet,” went on Tom. “If the wind holds this way it may not.”

Ned looked down with appraising eyes. He wanted to keep Tom’s spirits up, for he knew much would depend on the young inventor if he was to save his wife, his father, and others imperiled at the hotel surrounded by fire, and yet Tom must know the full extent of the danger.

“The wind holding one way won’t do much good when the fire is all around the hotel—as it is,” Ned remarked.

“That’s so,” agreed Tom. “This is awful!”

They had made a quick trip from Shopton in the speedy little airplane, leaving Lawrence Jardine, frantic and half crazed with anxiety, to await their return.

It was now close to noon, and in the broad light of day great clouds of smoke billowing over the mountain on which the hotel was situated could be seen. With the smoke were long flashes of fire.

“Better head up a bit, Tom!” called Ned to Tom, as they started down when almost over the hotel. “Here comes a lot of smoke.”

The wind was blowing a great cloud of hot, white, acrid vapor toward the _Wasp_, and Tom shifted the controls which speedily sent the fast craft up above into a clearer atmosphere. There a broader view could be had of the great forest fire. Its proportions amazed Tom and his chum.

“The whole place will go!” cried Ned.

“Looks so,” agreed Tom. “But we’ve got to do something to save them—save my family and the others!”

“There’s the hotel!” cried Ned, as another shift of the wind dispersed the hovering clouds of smoke and revealed the big hostelry plainly.

With a sudden movement of the stick, Tom Swift sent his airplane down until he and Ned could make out men, women, and children circling about the buildings. It was as though they sought a way through the ever narrowing ring of fire.

“Take control, Ned!” Tom suddenly called, for the _Wasp_ was fitted for dual management.

“What are you going to do?” Ned asked.

“Write a note and drop it down there for Mary!” Tom replied. “Some one will pick it up and give it to her.”

“A note?” Ned questioned, as he grasped the levers.

“Yes. I must warn her and the others not to try to get down the mountain. They’ll only run into the fire which is all around them.”

“But they’ve got to get away!” cried Ned. “The fire is sweeping up toward the hotel!”

“Yes, I know. But they can’t be saved that way.”

“How can they be saved?”

“Only by the big dirigible, Ned. We’ll go back and get it and fly it here. I can be up here with it in a few hours. I want to keep Mary and the others in or around the hotel until then. It is their only chance. If they try to go down the mountain, it means death!”

“And a horrible death!” murmured Ned.

Tom quickly wrote the note. He weighted it with a spare bolt and fastened it to his handkerchief by the four corners so that, in effect, he had a small parachute. Then, watching his chance, while Ned directed the _Wasp_ over the ball field and while the crowd of fear-stricken guests below watched, Tom Swift dropped his message of hope.

“We will save you if it can be done,” Tom had written to his wife. “Do not try to get through the forest. The fire is everywhere.”

He saw the note with its handkerchief parachute land on the ball field and several run to pick it up. Tom could not distinguish his wife, his father, or the Nestors, but he had no doubt that they were there, as Mary and Mr. Swift must have recognized the _Wasp_. It was painted in distinctive colors and bore the Swift trademark on the underside of its wings.

“That’s all we can do now,” Tom remarked, as he again took charge.

“What’s next?” Ned wanted to know.

“Back to Shopton to get the big dirigible!” said Tom. “It’s the only way to save them.”

“If you try to land her down there, in that circle of fire, she’ll explode her gas!” exclaimed Ned.

“I’m not going to land,” Tom said.

“How else can you make any rescues?”

“I have a plan,” was all Tom said, and he pointed the nose of the _Wasp_ toward Shopton. Never before had the machine been sent through the air so fast.

As Tom Swift and Ned Newton flew away from the mountain of fire, they could see, down below them, hundreds of forest rangers and their crews and neighborhood men fighting desperately to stem the tide of the flames or to block them from eating their way up to the summit where the hotel was perched.

Trenches were being dug in the earth, and the soil was being spread over the carpet of leaves and pine needles in which the fire ate its way along the ground to break out in a dozen new spots.

Hundreds of men, with flails made from burlap bags dipped into water brought from a distance, were beating out spots of flame here and there. Above all hovered that choking pall of smoke.

“Wonder how that fire started?” murmured Tom.

“Some careless camper, probably,” was Ned’s opinion.

“There must have been a hundred campers to make the fire spread so rapidly and in so big a circle,” said Tom. “No, it was some other cause than a camper.” As yet he and Ned had not heard the story of the oil tank driver.

They made a quick landing in the yard near the shop where Tom had his office and not far from the hangar of the big dirigible.

“Well, have you seen them? Are they safe?” cried Lawrence Jardine, as he rushed frantically out of Tom’s office where he had been impatiently awaiting the return of the _Wasp_.

“I have seen them,” gasped Tom Swift. “But they are far from safe! They are in great danger!” He rapidly told what he and Ned had observed.

“They must be saved!” cried Mr. Jardine. “Use the big dirigible, Mr. Swift. Save my wife and children and I will do anything in the world for you—anything!” He held out his hands appealingly.

“I will do my best,” said Tom. “I want to save my own family as well as yours. I also want to save the other people.”

“How can you do it?”

“By using the big dirigible. It is the only way. It may cost us the airship and our lives, even to make the attempt above that awful forest of fire, but it is the only way.”

“I’m with you! Tell me what to do!” cried Mr. Jardine.

“We must work fast,” Tom said. “Luckily, the ship is ready to take the air, but I must rig up a device for getting the people on board. I shall not be able to descend to the ground. I’ll need a crew. I must call for volunteers among my men. Those who go in the _Silver Cloud_ to the forest of fire may never come back. Each man risks his life. I will ask no man to go—they must volunteer!”

The alarm signal was sounded, bringing the men from the distant shops, and when they were assembled in the big yard Tom rapidly told them the circumstances and spoke of the great danger.

“Will some of you go with me to the rescue?” he asked.

There was a moment of hesitation. Then, from the outer edge of the crowd of workmen, a voice cried:

“Count me in.”

A little man—a dwarf—wriggled through the press and stood before Tom Swift.

“Chock!” cried the young inventor.

“At your service!” said the dwarf, with his grotesque smile. “Oh, I know I acted like a fool, Mr. Swift,” he hastened to say as he saw objection on Tom’s face. “But I did nothing wrong to you or yours, and I can prove it. Let me make amends by being the first to volunteer. I’m not afraid!”

Tom hesitated, but in that instant out stepped Koku from where he towered above the other men.

“Little man um go—big man um go!” cried the giant. “I be volteer too! Giant and dwarf both go!” He stood beside Chock, the contrast being grotesque and almost laughable in spite of the tragic situation. Then there broke out a cheer from the workmen and voices here and there cried:

“I’ll go!”

“Count on me!”

“Don’t leave me out!”

“We’re all with you, Mr. Swift!”

In a few minutes a volunteer crew had been selected and Tom began to issue his orders.

“Are you really going to take that dwarf?” asked Ned.

“Of course,” Tom answered. “Perhaps I have done him an injustice, or it may have all been Martin Jardine’s fault. But I’ll take Chock. He saved the day by volunteering first. He started the others. Now I’ve got to get the cage ready.”

“Cage? What cage?”

“A big metal cage that can be lowered from the dirigible by a chain and windlass to save those at the hotel. It is the only way!”