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
this, but, no sooner had the young inventor, Mr. Sharp and Mr.
Damon sailed away, than the police arrived at Mr. Swift's house
to arrest them. They were charged with the robbery, and with
having sailed away with the booty.
It appeared that Andy Foger said he had seen Tom hanging around
the bank the night of the robbery, with a bag of burglar tools in
his possession. Search was immediately begun for the airship, the
occupants of which were, meanwhile, speeding on.
Tom and his two friends had trouble. They were nearly burned up
in a forest fire, and were fired upon by a crowd of people with
rifles, who, reading of the bank robbery and the reward offered
for the capture of the thieves, hoped to bring down the airship.
The fact that they were fired upon caused Tom and the two
aeronauts to descend to make an investigation, and for the first
time they learned of the bank theft. How they got track of the
real robbers, took the sheriff with them in the airship, and
raided the gang will be found set down at length in the book.
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