Gang made a successful attempt to steal some valuable inventions
from the Swift house. Tom started to trace them, and incidentally
he raced and beat Andy Foger, a rich bully. On their way down the
lake, after the robbery, Tom, his father and Ned Newton, Tom's
chum, saw a man hanging from the trapeze of a blazing balloon
over Lake Carlopa. The balloonist was Mr. John Sharp and he was
rescued by Tom in a thrilling fashion. In his motor-boat, Tom had
much pleasure, not the least of which was taking out a young lady
named Miss Mary Nestor, whose acquaintance he had made after
stopping her runaway horse, which his bicycle had frightened.
Tom's association with Miss Nestor soon ripened into something
deeper than mere friendship.

It developed that Mr Sharp, whom Tom had saved from the burning
balloon, was an aeronaut of note, and had once planned to build
an airship. After his recovery from his thrilling experience, he
mentioned the matter to Mr. Swift and his son, with whom he took
up his residence. This fitted right in with Tom's ideas, and soon
father, son and the balloonist were constructing the Red Cloud,
as they named their airship. It was finally completed, as related
in "Tom Swift and His Airship," made a successful trial trip, and
won a prize. It was planned to make a longer journey, and Tom,
Mr. Sharp and Mr. Damon agreed to go together. Mr. Damon was an
odd individual, who was continuously blessing some part of his
anatomy, his clothing or some inanimate object but, for all that,
he was a fine man.

The night before Tom and his friends started off in their
airship, the Shopton Bank vault was blown open and seventy-five
thousand dollars was taken. Tom and his friends did not know of