"Yes, she did all that I could have hoped for," said Tom. "Now for the next test."
"Bless my collar button! is there another?"
"Just down into a trench and out again." Tom said. "This is comparatively simple. It's only what she'll have to do every day in Flanders."
The tank waddled on. A duck's sidewise walk is about the only kind of motion that can be compared to it. The going was easier now, for it was across a big field, and Tom told his friends that at the other end was a deep, steep and rocky ravine in which he had decided to give the tank another test.
"We'll imagine that ravine is a trench," he said, "and that we've got to get on the other side of it. Of course, we won't be under fire, as the tanks will be at the front, but aside from that the test will be just as severe."
A little later Tank A brought her occupants to the edge of the "trench."
"Now, little girl," cried Tom exultingly, patting the rough steel side of his tank, "show them what you can do!"
"Bless my plum pudding!" cried Mr. Damon, "are you really going down there, Tom Swift?"
"I am," answered the young inventor. "It won't be dangerous. We'll crawl down and crawl out. Hold fast!"
He steered the machine straight for the edge of the ravine, and as the nose slipped over and the broad steel belts bit into the earth the tank tilted downward at a sickening angle.