Page:Tom Swift and His Air Glider.djvu/16

6 I'm ready to let her. So you needn't worry about getting hurt."

"All right if you say so. Now what do you want me to do, Tom?"

"Go over the wire guys and stays for the first thing. There's going to be lots of vibration, with the re-built motor, and I want everything tight."

"Aye, aye, sir!" answered Ned with a laugh. had finished the wires. [sic]

Then he set at his task, tightening the small nuts, and screwing up the turn-buckles, while Tom busied himself over the motor. There was some small trouble with the carburetor that needed eliminating before it would feed properly.

"How about the tires?" asked Ned, when he had finished the wires.

"You might pump them up. There, the motor is all right. I'm going to try it now, while you attend to the tires."

Ned had pumped up one of the rubber circlets of the small bicycle wheels on which the aeroplane rested, and was beginning on the second, when a noise like a battery of machine guns going off next to his ear startled him so that he jumped, tripped over a stone and went down, the air pump thumping him in the back.

"What in the world happened, Tom?" he yelled,