Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle | Page 6

rifle, and an airship, what couldn't a fellow do over in the
dark continent! I've a good notion to go there! I wonder if Ned would
go with me? Mr. Damon certainly would. Elephant shooting in Africa!
In an airship! I could finish my new sky craft in short order if I wanted
to. I've a good notion to do it!"

CHAPTER II
TRYING THE NEW GUN

While Tom Swift is thus absorbed in thinking about a chance to hunt
elephants, we will take the opportunity to tell you a little more about
him, and then go on with the story.
Many of you already know the young inventor, but those who do not
may be interested it hearing that he is a young American lad, full of grit
and ginger, who lives with his aged father in the town of Shopton, in
New York State. Our hero was first introduced to the public in the book,
"Tom Swift and His Motorcycle."
In that volume it was related how Tom bought a motor-cycle from a Mr.
Wakefield Damon, of Waterford. Mr. Damon was an eccentric
individual, who was continually blessing himself, some one else, or
something belonging to him. His motor-cycle tried to climb a tree with
him, and that was why he sold it to Tom. The two thus became
acquainted, and their friendship grew from year to year.
After many adventures on his motor-cycle Tom got a motor-boat, and
had some exciting times in that. One of the things he and his father and
his chum, Ned Newton, did, was to rescue, from a burning balloon that
had fallen into Lake Carlopa, an aeronaut named John Sharp. Later
Tom and Mr. Sharp built an airship called the Red Cloud, and with Mr.
Damon and some others had a series of remarkable fights.
In the Red Cloud they got on the track of some bank robbers, and
captured them, thus foiling the plans of Andy Foger, a town bully, and
one of Tom's enemies, and putting to confusion the plot of Mr. Foger,
Andy's father.
After many adventures in the air Tom and his friends, in a submarine
boat, invented by Mr. Swift, went under the ocean for sunken treasure
and secured a large part of it.
It was not long after this that Tom conceived the idea of a powerful
electric car, which proved, to be the speediest of the road, and in it he
won a great race, and saved from ruin a bank in which his father and
Mr. Damon were interested.

The sixth book of the series, entitled "Tom Swift and His Wireless
Message," tells how, in testing a new electric airship, which a friend of
Mr. Damon's had invented, Tom, the inventor and Mr. Damon were
lost on an island in the middle of the ocean. There they found some
castaways, among whom were Mr. and Mrs. Nestor, parents of Mary
Nestor of Shopton, a girl of whom Tom was quite fond.
Tom Swift, after his arrival home, went on an expedition among a gang
of men known as the "Diamond Makers" who were hidden in the
Rocky Mountains. He was accompanied by Mr. Barcoe Jenks, one of
the castaways of Earthquake Island. They found the diamond makers,
and had some surprising adventures, barely escaping with their lives.
This did not daunt Tom, however, and he once more started off on an
expedition in his airship the Red Cloud to Alaska, amid the caves of ice.
He was searching for a valley of gold, and though he and his friends
found it, they came to grief. The Fogers, father and son, tried to steal
the gold from them, and, failing in that, incited the Eskimos against our
friends. There was a battle, but the forces of nature were even more to
be dreaded than the terrible savages.
The ice cave, in which the Red Cloud was stored, collapsed, crushing
the gallant craft, and burying it out of sight forever under thousand of
tons of the frozen bergs.
After a desperate journey Tom and his friends reached civilization, with
a large supply of gold. Tom regretted very much the destruction of the
airship, but he at once set to work on another--a monoplane this time,
instead of a combined aeroplane and dirigible balloon. This new craft
he called the Humming Bird and it was a "sky racer" of terrific speed.
In it, as we have said, Tom brought a specialist to operate on his father,
when, because of a broken railroad bridge, the physician could not
otherwise have gotten to Shopton. He and Tom traveled through the air
at the rate of over one hundred miles an hour. Later, Tom took part in a
big race for a ten-thousand-dollar prize, and won, defeating Andy
Foger, and