Chapter 5. Colliding With A Tower

"She seems to work," observed Tom, looking from where he was stationed near some electrical switches, toward Mr. Sharp.

"Of course she does," replied the aeronaut. "I knew it would, but I wasn't so sure that it would scoot along in this fashion. We're making pretty good speed, but we'll do better when the motor gets to running smoother."

"How high up are we?" asked Tom.

The balloonist glanced at several gauges near the steering wheel.

"A little short of three thousand feet," he answered. "Do you want to go higher?"

"No-no-I-I guess not," was Tom's answer. He halted over the works, and his breath came in gasps.

"Don't get alarmed," called Mr. Sharp quickly, noting that his companion was in distress because of the high altitude. "That always happens to persons who go into a thin air for the first time; just as if you had climbed a high mountain. Breathe as slowly as you can, and swallow frequently. That will relieve the pressure on your ear drums. I'll send the ship lower."

Tom did as he was advised, and the aeronaut, deflecting the rudder, sent the Red Cloud on a downward slant. Tom at once felt relieved, both because the action of swallowing equalized the pressure on the ear drums, and because the airship was soon in a more dense atmosphere, more like that of the earth.

"How are you now?" asked the man of the lad, as the craft was again on an even keel.

"All right," replied Tom, briskly. "I didn't know what ailed me at first."

"I was troubled the same way when I first went up in a balloon," commented Mr. Sharp. "We'll run along for a few miles, at an elevation of about five hundred feet, and then we'll go to within a hundred feet of the earth, and see how the Red Cloud behaves under different conditions. Take a look below and see what you think of it."

Tom looked low, through one of several plate glass windows in the floor of the car. He gave a gasp of astonishment.

"Why! We're right over Lake Carlopa!" he gasped.

"Of course," admitted Mr. Sharp with a laugh. "And I'm glad to say that we're better off than when I was last in the air over this same body of water," and he could scarcely repress a shudder as he thought of his perilous position in the blazing balloon, as related in detail in "Tom Swift and His Motor-Boat."

The lake was spread out below the navigators of the air like some mirror of silver in a setting of green fields. Tom could see a winding river, that flowed into the lake, and he noted towns, villages, and even distant cities, interspersed here and there with broad farms or patches of woodlands, like a bird's-eye view of a stretch of country.

"This is great!" he exclaimed, with