Chapter XIV. Out of the Clouds - Page 2

Isn't there light enough at a blaze, anyhow?"

"No," answered the young inventor, as he made his usual skillful landing. "You know all the big city fire departments have searchlights now for night work and where there is thick smoke. It may be that some day, in fighting a sky-scraper blaze from the clouds at night, I'll have need of more illumination than comes from the flames themselves."

"Well, you ought to know. You've made a study of it," said Mr. Damon, as he and Ned alighted with Tom, the latter receiving congratulations from a number of his friends, including members of the Shopton fire department who were present to witness the test.

"Mighty clever piece of work, Tom Swift!" declared a deputy chief. "Of course we won't have much use for any such apparatus here in Shopton, as we haven't any big buildings. But in New York, Chicago, Pittsburgh and other cities--why, it will be just what they need, to my way of thinking."

"And he needn't go so far from home," said Mr. Damon. "There is one tall building over in Newmarket--the Landmark. I happen to own a little stock in the corporation that put that up, along with other buildings, and I'm going to have them adopt Tom Swift's aerial fire-fighting apparatus."

"Thank you. But you don't need to go to that trouble," asserted Tom. "My idea isn't to have every sky-scraper equipped with an airship extinguisher."

"No? What then?" asked Mr. Damon.

"Well, I think there ought to be one, or perhaps two, in a big city like New York," Tom answered. "Perhaps one outfit would be enough, for it isn't likely that there would be two big fires in the tall building section at the same time, and an airship could easily cover the distance between two widely separated blazes. But if I can perfect this machine so it will be available for fires out of the reach of apparatus on the ground, I'll be satisfied."

"You'll do it, Tom, don't worry about that!" declared the deputy chief. "I never saw a slicker piece of work than this!"

And that was the verdict of all who had witnessed the performance.

With the successful completion of this exacting test and the knowledge that he had perfected the major part of his aerial fire-extinguisher--the chemical combination--Tom Swift was now able to devote his attention to the "frills" as Ned called them. That is, he could work out a scheme for attaching a searchlight to his airship and make better arrangements for a one-man control in releasing the chemical containers into the heart of a big blaze.

Tom Swift owned several airships, and he finally selected one of not too great size, but very powerful, that would hold three and, if necessary, four persons. This was rebuilt to enable a considerable quantity of the