Chapter XXIII. The Lost Mine - Page 2

circle. This is a straight wind, but the path of it seems to be as sharply marked as a trail through the forest. I guess we're here all right. Does this location look familiar to you?" he asked of the Russian brothers.

"I can't say that it does," answered Ivan. "But then it was winter when we were here."

"And, another thing," put in Peter. "That wind zone is quite wide. The mine may be in the middle, or near the other edge."

"That's so," agreed Tom. "We'll soon see what we can do. Come on, Ned, let's get the air glider out and put her together. She'll have a test as is a test, now."

I shall not describe the tedious work of re-assembling Tom Swift's latest invention in the air craft line--his glider. Sufficient to say that it was taken out from where it had been stored in separate pieces on board the Falcon, and put together on the plain that marked the beginning of the wind zone.

It was a curious fact that twenty feet away from the path of the wind scarcely a breeze could be felt, while to advance a little way into it meant that one would at once be almost carried off his feet.

Tom tested the speed of it one day with a special anemometer, and found that only a few hundred feet inside the zone the wind blew nearly one hundred miles an hour.

"What is it like inside, I wonder?" asked Ned.

"It must be terrific," was his chum's opinion.

"Dare you risk it, Tom?"

"Of course. The harder it blows the better the glider works. In fact I can't make much speed in a hundred-mile wind for with us all on board the craft will be heavy, and you must remember that I depend on the wind alone to give me motion."

"What do you think causes the wind to blow so peculiarly here Tom?" went on Ned.

"Oh, it must be caused by high mountain ranges on either side, or the effects of heat and cold, the air being evaporated over a certain area because of great heat, say a volcano, or something like that; though I don't know that they have volcanoes here. That creates a vacuum, and other air rushes in to fill the vacant space. That's all wind is, anyhow, air rushing in to fill a vacuum, or low pressure zone, for you remember that nature abhors a vacuum."

It took nearly a week to assemble the Vulture, as Tom had named his latest craft, from the fact that it could hover in the air motionless, like that great bird. At last it was completed and then, weights being taken aboard to steady it, all was ready for the test. Tom would have liked to have taken all his passengers in the glider, for it would work better then, but the three Russians were timid, though they promised to get aboard after the trial.

The test came off early one morning, Tom, Ned and Mr. Damon being the only ones aboard. Bags of sand represented the