Page:Tom Swift Among the Diamond Makers.djvu/54

44 off his power. The little craft dipped toward the ground, but the lad threw up the forward planes, and caught a current of air that sent him skimming along horizontally.

As he got nearer to the ground, he saw the figure of a lad riding a bicycle along the country highway. Something about the figure struck Tom as being familiar, and he recognized the cyclist a moment later.

"It's Andy Foger!" said Tom, in a whisper. "I wondered where he had been keeping himself since he damaged the Butterfly. Evidently he doesn't dare venture back to Shopton. Well, here's where I give him a scare."

Tom's monoplane was making no more noise, now, than a soaring bird. He was gliding swiftly toward the earth, and, with the plan in his mind of administering some sort of punishment to the bully, he aimed the machine directly at him.

Nearer and nearer shot the monoplane, as quietly as a sheet of paper might fall. Andy pedaled on, never looking up nor behind him, A moment later, as Tom threw up his head-planes, to make his landing more easy, and just as he swooped down at one side of the cyclist, our hero let out a most alarming yell, right into Andy's ear.