Chapter I. A Sky Ride - Page 2

but I think I'll go back to the old system. Nothing to do with flying at all, except to tell how high up one is."

"That's just what I don't care to know, Tom," said Mary Nestor, with a smile. "If I could imagine I was sailing along only about ten feet in the air I wouldn't mind so much."

"Flying at that height would be the worst sort of danger. You leave it to me, Mary. I won't take you up above the clouds on this sky ride; though, later, I'm sure you'll want to try that. This is only a little flight. You've been promising long enough to take a trip with me, and now I believe you're trying to back out."

"No, really I'm not, Tom! Only, at the last minute, the machine looks so small and frail, and the sky is so--big--"

She glanced up and seemed to shiver just a trifle.

"Don't be thinking of those things, Mary!" laughed Tom Swift. "Trot along and get ready. The motor never worked better, and we may break a few speed records this morning. No traffic cops to stop us, either, as there might be if we were in an auto."

"There you go, Mary !" exclaimed Tom, as if struck with a new thought. "You've ridden in an auto with me many a time, and you never were a bit afraid, though we were in more danger than we'll be this morning."

"Danger, Tom, in an auto? How?"

"Why, danger of a wheel collapsing as we were going full speed; or the steering knuckle breaking and sending us into a tree; danger of running into a stone wall or a ditch; danger of some one running into us, or of us running into some one else. There isn't one of these dangers on a sky ride."

"No," said Mary slowly. "But there's the danger of falling."

"One against twenty. That's the safety margin. And, if we do fall, it will be like landing in a feather bed! There, don't wait any longer. Go and get ready."

Mary sighed, and then, seeming to summon her nerve to her aid, she smiled brightly, waved her hand to Tom, and hastened toward his home, where Mrs. Baggert the matronly housekeeper, was waiting to help the girl attire herself in a flying-suit of leather.

Mary Nestor, who had a very warm place in the heart of Tom Swift, had, as he stated, some time since promised to take a trip in the air with the young inventor. But she had kept putting it off, for one reason or another, until Tom began to despair of ever getting her to accompany him. To-day, however, when she had called to inquire about his father, who had been slightly ill, Tom had, after the social visit, insisted on the promise being kept.

He had his mechanic get out one of the safest, though a speedy, double machine, and, with Mary to watch, Tom had taken a trial flight, just to show her how easy it was. It was not the first time she had seen him take to the air, but