"Yes," Tom answered. "There will be time enough to go on with the airship end of it after I get the right combination of chemicals. And by having a metal container with the stuff in dropped from this frame work, I can station myself as near the burning pit as I can get and watch what happens."
"It's a good idea," decided Ned. "I wonder you didn't try that before."
"Mr. Baxter suggested it," replied Tom. "That helpful idea more than pays me for what I have done for him. So now, if you're ready, I'd like to have you watch with me and make some notes, one of us on one side of the pit, and one on the other. There are always two sides to a fire, the leeward and the windward, and I want to see how my chemicals act in both positions."
"I'm with you," said Ned. "Who's going to drop the stuff—Koku?"
"No, he is a bit too heavy for the framework, which I had put up in a hurry. I'd have Rad do it, but he's out of the game."
"Poor old Rad!" murmured Ned. "Do you think he'll ever get better, Tom?"
"I don't know," sighed the young inventor. "All I can do is to hope. He is very patient, and Koku is devoted to him. All their little bickerings and squabbles seem to have been forgotten."
Tom called some of his workmen, some of them to start the blaze of inflammable material in the pit, while one climbed up to the top of the tower of scantlings and made his way out on the extended arm, where there was a little platform for him to stand until it was time to drop the chemicals.
"Light her up!" cried Tom Swift, and a match was thrown in among the oiled wood. In an instant a fierce blaze shot up, as hot, in proportion, as would come from any burning building.
For the second time Tom was about to make a test on a fairly large scale of his experimental extinguisher mixture.