Page:Tom Swift and His Great Searchlight.djvu/75

Rh call to breakfast, and he leaped from bed crying out:

"Yes, Mrs. Baggert, I'm coming!"

A moment later he realized what it was.

"The burglar alarm!" he cried. "Koku are you there? Someone is trying to get into the chicken coop!" for a glance at the automatic indicator, in connection with the alarm, had shown Tom that the henhouse, and not his shop, had been the object of attack.

"I here!" cried Koku. "I got him!"

A series of startled cries bore eloquent testimony to this.

"I'm coming!" cried Tom. And then he saw a wonderful sight. The whole garden, his shop, the henhouse and all the surrounding territory was lighted up with a radiance almost like daylight. The beams of illumination came from the searchlight Tom had fixed outside his window, but never before had the lantern given such a glow.

"That's wonderful!" cried Tom, as he ran to examine it. "What has happened? I never had such a powerful beam before. There must be something that I have stumbled on by accident. Say, that is a light all right! Why it goes for miles and miles, and I never projected a beam as far as this before."