However, help was at hand. A number of motor boats were out on the lake, their occupants watching the trial flight of the new airline express. When it was known that an accident had happened, these craft speeded to the rescue. As soon as the boats drew near the men in the plane and those in the car climbed outside and thence were taken off in the boats.
“Looks as if it was going to be a total loss, Tom,” said Mr. Damon gloomily, as the craft settled lower and lower in the water.
“It’s bad enough,” Tom admitted, ruefully shaking his head, as the boat that had taken him off circled about the Falcon, as Tom had christened his first machine. “But even if she sinks to the bottom I believe I can raise her. The lake isn’t very deep here.”
However, it was not quite as bad as that. The Falcon was only partly submerged, and there she lay, water-bound, in the lake. Her actions decided Tom to install more air-tight compartments and make the car lighter, which would insure its floating higher in case of another water drop.
“Well, there’s nothing more we can do now,” decided the young inventor. “If you’ll take me ashore, please,” he said to his rescuer, “I’ll make arrangements for getting the Falcon out.”
He gave orders to this effect as soon as he reached his shop, and when Mr. Swift, with a dubious shake of his head said:
“I’m afraid this is a failure, Tom! It’s too much for you.” The young inventor with a determined air answered:
“I’ve never given up anything yet, and I’m not going to begin now! I see where I made some mistakes and I’m going to correct them.”
And when the plane and the car were raised and brought to shore—being found to have suffered little damage—Tom started his reconstruction work with more vim than before.
However, the accident, while it was not a serious one from a mechanical standpoint, had a bad effect on Ned’s campaign to raise funds for putting the airline express into actual service. True as it is that nothing succeeds like success, nothing is more dampening to a money campaign than failure. Capital seems very timid in the face of failure, and deaf ears were turned to Ned’s urgent appeal to the public to buy stock. For while Tom was working on the mechanical end, Ned looked after the business interests.