. Then, as he
turned, he saw a great condor sweeping down out of the air, the wind
fairly whistling through the big, outstretched wings.

"Jove!" ejaculated Tom. "Can the bird be going to attack the woman?"

But this was not the object of the condor. It was aiming to strike,
with its fierce talons, at a point some paces distant from where the
woman stood, and in the intervals between her screams Tom heard her
cry, in her native tongue:

"My baby! My baby! The beast-bird will carry off my baby!"

Then Tom understood. The woman herb-gatherer had brought her infant
with her on her quest, and had laid it down on a bed of soft grass
while she worked. And it was this infant, wrapped as Tom afterward saw
in a piece of deer-skin, at which the condor was aiming.

"Master shoot!" cried Koku, pointing to the down-sweeping bird.

"You bet I'll shoot!" cried Tom.

Throwing his electric rifle to his shoulder, Tom pressed the switch
trigger. The unseen but powerful force shot straight at the condor.

The outstretched wings fell limp, the great body seemed to shrivel up,
and, with a crash, the bird fell into the underbrush, breaking the
twigs and branches with its weight. The electric rifle, a full account
of which was given in the volume entitled "Tom Swift and His Electric
Rifle," had done its work well.

With a scream, in which was mingled a cry of thanks, the woman threw
herself on the sleeping child. The condor had fallen dead not three
paces from it.

Tom Swift had shot just in time.

Chapter XVIII

The Indian Strike

Snatching up in her arms the now awakened child, the woman gazed for a
moment into its face, which she covered with kisses. Then the
herb-gatherer looked over to the dead, limp body of the great condor,
and from thence to Tom.

In another moment the woman had rushed forward, and knelt at the feet
of the young inventor. Holding the baby in one arm, in her other hand
the woman seized Toms and kissed it fervently, at the same time pouring
forth a torrent of impassioned language, of which Tom could only make
out a word now and then. But he gathered that the woman was thanking
him for having saved the child.

"Oh, that's all right," Tom said, rather embarrassed by the
hand-kissing. "It was an easy shot."

An Indian came bursting through the bushes, evidently the woman's
husband by the manner in which she greeted him, and Tom recognized the
newcomer as one of the tunnel workers. There was so