Chapter XVII. Silent Sam

Slowly the dawn broke through the mists of darkness, and made the earth light. The sun came straggling in through cracks in the shutters in the home of Mr. Nestor, the gradually increasing gleam paling the electric lights, in the glare of which Tom Swift, Mary, and her aunt sat, waiting for some word of the missing man. But none came.

"What shall we do now?" asked Mary, as she looked at Tom.

"Oh, there's lots to do," he said, trying to make his voice sound cheerful. "We'll be busy all day. I sent word to have one of my touring cars ready to hurry to any part of the country the moment we should get word from your father."

"And do you think we shall get word, Tom?" the girl went on wistfully.

"Of course we shall!" he cried. "Word may come in at any time. Now get ready, eat a good breakfast, and then you can go with me as soon as we hear anything definite. Come, we'll have breakfast!"

"I can't eat a thing!" protested Mary.

"Oh, yes you can," said her aunt, who was a cheerful sort of person. "I'll see about getting something for you and Mr. Swift, and see that your mother is all right."

She left the room to give orders to the servant about the meal, and returned to say that Mrs. Nestor was sleeping quietly. She had been given a sedative. Mary managed to eat a little, and she gave Tom the address of several friends who were called up in the vain hope that, somehow, Mr. Nestor might have gone to see them.

"Tom, what do you really think has happened?" asked Mary again, as they sat facing one another in the library, during a respite from the telephone.

Tom Swift repeated, to the girl his theory of what had happened with an assumption of confidence he did not altogether feel.

His prediction of a speedy end to the suspense did not come true that day, nor for many days. No news was heard of Mr. Nestor. After the first day, when there was no information and when no reports came of any one of his description having been hurt in an automobile accident or having been taken to any hospital, the police started an energetic search.

The authorities in all near-by cities were notified, and all thought of keeping from the public what had happened was given over. Tom's story, of how he and Mr. Damon had heard the cry for help on the lonely meadow, was printed in the papers, though the young inventor did not say that he had been out trying his new aeroplane. That was a detail not needed in the finding of Mr. Nestor.

But Mary's father was not found. The mystery regarding his disappearance deepened, and there was no trace of him after he had left Tom's house that eventful evening. Persons living along the roads he might have taken in riding his bicycle were questioned, but they had seen nothing of him, nor were they aware of any accident.