about a chance to hunt
elephants, we will take the opportunity to tell you a little more
about him, and then go on with the story.

Many of you already know the young inventor, but those who do not
may be interested it hearing that he is a young American lad, full
of grit and ginger, who lives with his aged father in the town of
Shopton, in New York State. Our hero was first introduced to the
public in the book, "Tom Swift and His Motorcycle."

In that volume it was related how Tom bought a motor-cycle from a
Mr. Wakefield Damon, of Waterford. Mr. Damon was an eccentric
individual, who was continually blessing himself, some one else, or
something belonging to him. His motor-cycle tried to climb a tree
with him, and that was why he sold it to Tom. The two thus became
acquainted, and their friendship grew from year to year.

After many adventures on his motor-cycle Tom got a motor-boat, and
had some exciting times in that. One of the things he and his father
and his chum, Ned Newton, did, was to rescue, from a burning balloon
that had fallen into Lake Carlopa, an aeronaut named John Sharp.
Later Tom and Mr. Sharp built an airship called the Red Cloud, and
with Mr. Damon and some others had a series of remarkable fights.

In the Red Cloud they got on the track of some bank robbers, and
captured them, thus foiling the plans of Andy Foger, a town bully,
and one of Tom's enemies, and putting to confusion the plot of Mr.
Foger, Andy's father.

After many adventures in the air Tom and his friends, in a submarine
boat, invented by Mr. Swift, went under the ocean for sunken
treasure and secured a large part of it.

It was not long after this that Tom conceived the idea of a powerful
electric car, which proved, to be the speediest of the road, and in
it he won a great race, and saved from ruin a bank in which his
father and Mr. Damon were interested.

The sixth book of the series, entitled "Tom Swift and His Wireless
Message," tells how, in testing a new electric airship, which a
friend of Mr. Damon's had invented, Tom, the inventor and Mr. Damon
were lost on an island in the middle of the ocean. There they found
some castaways, among whom were Mr. and Mrs. Nestor, parents of Mary
Nestor of Shopton, a girl of whom Tom was quite fond.

Tom Swift, after his arrival home, went on an expedition among a
gang of men known as the "Diamond Makers" who were hidden in the
Rocky Mountains. He was accompanied by Mr. Barcoe Jenks, on