CHAPTER XXIII

THE METAL CAGE

THERE was so much to do and in such a rush, that for two hours Ned Newton had no chance to talk further with Tom Swift about the desirability of taking along the dwarf Chock. When at last, after the metal cage was being hurried to completion, Ned made the inquiry, Tom said:

“That dwarf with his small frame and immense strength may be of great service to us. In a way, he may be as good as Koku.”

“But can you trust him?” asked Ned.

“That I’ll find out right away,” said Tom. “I’ve got a few seconds now to catch my breath, and we’ll settle the question. Whether or not he tried to play tricks on me, in conjunction with Martin Jardine, I have a kindly feeling toward the dwarf, for he appeared in the nick of time and started the volunteers.”

“Yes,” agreed Ned. “I wonder why he appeared as he did—in the nick of time? Can Martin Jardine be hanging around?”

“We’ll find out if we can,” Tom said, and sent Eradicate to tell Mr. Jackson to have Chock appear in the private office.

The dwarf came, sweaty and dirty, for he seemed to have been laboring like a Trojan.

“Chock,” began Tom abruptly, “while I’m glad to admit you did me a service by volunteering, I needn’t tell you that your conduct up to now has been very suspicious, and more than once I think you have been trying to gain access to the works here.”

“You’re right, Mr. Swift, I have been doing some crooked work. Rather, I tried to do it for Martin Jardine. But I’m through with him for good and all now. I’m working for you, and I’ll work faithfully to save your wife and father and others in the burning hotel.”

“Let us hope it isn’t burning yet,” said Tom.

“What about that forest fire?” cried Ned. “Did you have anything to do with it, Chock?”

“Of course I didn’t! What do you think I am—a fiend or a madman? What makes you ask such a question as that?”

“Because of something Pietro Notine told me,” said Tom.

“Pietro Notine?”

“Yes. Did you once work for that marionette showman?”

“I did, yes; and I’m sorry to say I made a fool of myself. I got drunk when I was playing engagements in theaters and afterward working in his show. But that’s the worst I did—getting drunk—and I’m off that now forever. I’ve taken a solemn pledge.”

“What about setting fire to his marionettes?” asked Tom sternly.

“I never did it intentionally. I was drunk and went to sleep with a cigarette in my mouth—very wicked and foolish. It started a fire; but I woke up when I felt myself scorched, and helped put the fire out. Then I ran away. I wouldn’t for the world have done it intentionally. But those marionettes got on my nerves.”

“What do you mean?” asked Ned.

“Well, there was one dwarf marionette and I always thought he was meant to poke fun at me. I know now he wasn’t, but I was drinking and I imagined all sorts of foolish things. That marionette dwarf made me drink harder, and then came the fire and I skipped out. After that I went to work for Mr. Jardine, though I didn’t stop drinking right away. But I’m through now.”

“What was the game you and Martin Jardine tried to play? Was it to damage my dirigible?” asked Tom.

“No,” the dwarf answered. “But Martin Jardine is queer, and when he found out his brother had called a halt on the big airship, he wanted me to slip in and take away certain parts without which he thought it could not run. He thought he could force his brother to a compromise by hampering you. But it didn’t work.”

“No,” said Tom. “Such a trick would never work with me. Then you and this Martin Jardine visited the plant one night?”

“Yes, and we had trouble in getting away,” Chock said. “It was after that I decided to go straight, and I quit Jardine. But I never set any forest fire and I never would have done anything to damage your dirigible more than temporarily. But I’ll be true to you now! I’ll risk my life to help save your folks and in that way I’ll make up for what I’ve done. I hope you’ll tell Mr. Notine I didn’t mean to start that fire in his show.”

“I’ll tell him,” promised Tom.

He and Ned were both impressed with the sincerity of the dwarf, and after a consultation with Lawrence Jardine, who bore out some of what Chock had said regarding the irresponsibility of Martin, it was decided to let the little man accompany them.

“But you must have no further quarrels with Koku!” warned Tom.

“I won’t,” the dwarf promised. “He can make all the fun of me he wants to and I’ll never say a word.”

But Koku was too busy even to notice the little man, for there was much need of the giant’s strength. Great beams of steel that would have needed a small derrick to put in place in building the cage were lifted around more quickly by Koku, and in this way the work was hastened. Chock, too, was able to use his powerful muscles in narrow quarters where other men found it impossible to gain access. So the two extremes of human life, the dwarf and the giant, labored together on the steel cage that Tom hoped to use in saving those at the fire-encircled hotel.

Between the hours of rushing work Tom was in communication with the forest rangers’ headquarters by telephone. Everything possible was being done to check the fire, but the forests were so dry from lack of rain that the conflagration was steadily sweeping upward.

“It looks as if the hotel is doomed,” was the message Tom had over the long distance wire. He tried again and again to get in touch with the hotel itself over the wire, but as Mrs. Jardine had said, the copper circuit was cut or burned.

“Did you think Chock set that fire?” asked Ned of his chum, when Tom, directing a gang of men who were getting the dirigible ready, stopped for a moment.

“Oh, at first the thought entered my mind; but he couldn’t have got here so soon after setting it except by airplane, and I don’t believe he came that way.”

“I wonder if the fire was set, and who did it?” mused Ned.

“That we may never find out,” answered Tom.

“Do you think it could have been Martin Jardine?”

“No. He wouldn’t be crazy enough for that—to put in danger his brother’s wife and children. It’s queer, though, why he hasn’t shown up here lately.”

At last, later in the afternoon, the metal cage was finished. A chain from the top went around a drum driven by an electric motor aboard the _Silver Cloud_. By this means, through a trapdoor in the bottom of the dirigible, the cage could be lowered to the ground and pulled up again into the interior of the big airship.

“It’s a small cage to save a whole hotel full of people,” said Tom. “But it’s as large as we dared make it.”

“How much chain have you?” Ned asked.

“About two hundred feet. I daren’t go any closer than that to the ground if there is fire near,” Tom said. “Well, I think we are ready to leave,” he added, as he hurried about the dirigible, making sure that everything was in shape.

At last, with the metal cage in place, the _Silver Cloud,_ manned by the brave volunteers, including Lawrence Jardine, the giant, and the dwarf, left the ground and was headed for the burning mountain. It was one of the hardest things Tom Swift ever did to refuse Eradicate permission to go. But with the desperate work ahead, it was no place for the aged Negro.

“Yo’ cain’t save yo’ pa wifout me, Massa Tom, an’ yo’ knows it!” wailed Eradicate, as the ship sailed without him. But it had to be.

With her motors running at top speed, the big dirigible was pointed toward Mt. Camon and in about two hours a rolling cloud of murky haze told the young navigator and his volunteer crew that they were again near the burning forest.

“Now to save them if we can!” cried Tom, as he flew through the smoke over the forest of flames.

“You’re flying too high,” said Ned. “Your chain is only two hundred feet.”

“I know!” Tom exclaimed. “We’ve got to go lower. It’s flirting with death, but it must be done!”