Page:Tom Swift and His Photo Telephone.djvu/105

Rh but a careful search revealed little. The men, half a dozen or more, had come evidently well prepared for the taking away of Tom Swift's airship, and they had done so.

Entrance had been effected by forcing a small side door. True, the burglar alarm had given notice of the presence of the men, but Tom and Ned had not acted quite quickly enough. Koku had been at the hangar almost as soon as the men themselves, but he had watched and waited orders, instead of going in at once, and this had given the intruders time to wheel out the craft and start the motor.

"Why didn't you jump right in on them when you saw what they were up to, Koku?" asked Tom.

"Me wait for master. Me think master want to see who men were. Me go in—they run."

"Well, of course that's so, in a way," admitted Tom. "They probably would have run, but they'd have run without my airship instead of with it, if they hadn't had time to get it outside the hangar. However, there's no use in crying over lost biplanes. The next thing is how to get her back. Did you know any of the men, Koku?"

"No, master."

"Then we haven't any clue that way. They