Page:Tom Swift and His Airship.djvu/160

 CHAPTER XVII

"WANTED—FOR ROBBERY!"

and gasping for breath, feeling as it they could not stand the intense heat more than a moment longer, the young inventor and his companions looked at each other. Death seemed ready to reach out and grasp them. The mass of heated air was so powerful that it swung and tossed the Red Cloud about as if it were a wisp of paper.

"We must do something!" cried Mr. Damon, beginning to take off his collar and vest. "I'm choking!"

"Lie down in the bottom of the car," suggested Mr. Sharp. "The smoke won't trouble you so much there."

The eccentric man, too startled, now, to use any of his "blessing" expressions, did so.

"Can't you start the motor?" asked Tom frantically, as he stuck to his post, with his hand on the steering wheel, the elevation lever jammed back as far as it would go. Rh