CHAPTER I

AN APPEAL FOR AID


Tom Swift stepped from the door of the machine shop, where he was at
work making some adjustments to the motor of his airship, and
glanced down the road. He saw a cloud of dust, which effectually
concealed whatever was causing it.

"Some one must be in a hurry this morning," the lad remarked, "Looks
like a motor speeding along. MY! but we certainly do need rain," he
added, as he looked up toward the sky. "It's very dusty. Well, I may
as well get back to work. I'll take the airship out for a flight
this afternoon, if the wind dies down a bit."

The young inventor, for Tom Swift himself had built the airship, as
well as several other crafts for swift locomotion, turned to re-
enter the shop.

Something about the approaching cloud of dust, however, held his
attention. He glanced more intently at it.

"If it's an automobile coming along," he murmured, "it's moving very
slowly, to make so much fuss. And I never saw a motor-cycle that
would kick up as much sand, and not speed along more. It ought to be
here by now. I wonder what it can be?"