of a
cessation of the subdued hum.

"Is it--does it mean danger?" she asked.

"Not necessarily so," Tom replied. "It means we have to make a forced
landing, that's all. Sit tight! We're going down rather faster than
usual, Mary, but we'll come out of it all right!"'

CHAPTER VIII

STRANGE TALK

There was a rapid and sudden drop. Mary, sitting beside Tom Swift in
the speedy aeroplane, watched with fascinated eyes as he quickly
juggled with levers and tried different valve wheels. The girl, through
her goggles, had a vision of a landscape shooting past with the speed
of light. She glimpsed a brook, and, almost instantly, they had skimmed
over it.

A jar, a nerve-racking tilt to one side, the creaking of wood and the
rattle of metal, a careening, and then the machine came to a stop, not
exactly on a level keel, but at least right side up, in the midst of a
wide field.

Tom shut off the gas, cut his spark, and, raising his goggles, looked
down at Mary at his side.

"Scared?" he asked, smiling.

"I was," she frankly admitted. "Is anything broken, Tom?"

"I hope not," answered the young inventor. "At least if it is, the
damage is on the under part. Nothing visible up here. But let me help
you out. Looks as if we'd have to run for it."

"Run?" repeated Mary, while proving that she did not exactly need help,
for she was getting out of her seat unaided. "Why? Is it going to catch
fire?"

"No. But it's going to rain soon--and hard, too, if I'm any judge," Tom
said. "I don't believe I'll take a chance trying to get the machine
going again. We'll make for that farmhouse and stay there until after
the storm. Looks as if we could get shelter there, and perhaps a bit to
eat. I'm beginning to feel hungry."

"It is going to rain!" decided Mary, as Tom helped her down over the
side of the fusilage. "It's good we are so near shelter."

Tom did not answer. He was making a hasty but accurate observation of
the state of his aeroplane. The landing wheels had stood the shock
well, and nothing appeared to be broken.

"We came down rather harder than I wanted to," remarked Tom, as he
crawled out after his inspection of the machine. "Though I've made
worse forced landings than that."

"What caused it?" asked Mary, glancing up at the clouds, which were
getting blacker and blacker, and from which, now and then, vivid
flashes of lightning came while low mutterings of thunder rolled nearer
and nearer. "Something seemed