“Yais, sah, Massa Tom!  I’se comin’!” the darky cried, as he finished piling up, at a safe distance from the fire, a number of cans of carbide.

“How’d you happen to see the red shed ablaze?” Tom asked.

“Why, it was jest dish yeah way, Massa Tom,” began the colored man.  “I had jest been feedin’ mah mule, Boomerang.  He were pow’ful hungry, Boomerang were, an’, when I give him some oats, wif a carrot sliced up in ’em—­no, hole on—­did I gib him a carrot t’day, or was it yist’day?—­I done fo’got.  No, it were yist’day I done gib him de carrot, I ’member now, ’case—­”

“Oh, never mind the carrot, or Boomerang, either, Rad!” broke in Tom, “I’m asking you about the fire.”

“An’ I’se tellin’ yo’, Massa Tom,” declared Eradicate, with a rather reproachful look at his master.  “But I wanted t’ do it right an’ proper.  I were comin’ from Boomerang’s stable, an’ I see suffin’ red spoutin’ up at one corner ob de red shed.  I knowed it were fire right away, an’ I yelled.”

“Yes, I heard you yell,” Tom said.  “But what I wanted to know is, did you see anyone near the red shed at the time?”

“No, Massa Tom, I done didn’t.”

“I wonder if Mr. Damon did?  I must ask him,” went on the young inventor.  “Come, on, Ned, we’ll go up to the house.  Everything is all right here, I think.  Whew!  But that was some excitement.  And I didn’t show you my aerial warship after all!  Nor have you settled that recoil problem for me.”

“Time enough, I guess,” responded Ned.  “You sure did have a lucky escape, Tom.”

“That’s right.  Well, Koku, what is it?” for the giant had approached, holding out something in his hand.

“Koku found this in red shed,” went on the giant, holding out a round, blackened object.  “Maybe him powder; go bang-bang!”

“Oh, you think it’s something explosive, eh?” asked Tom, as he took the object from the giant.

“Koku no think much,” was the answer.  “Him look funny.”

Tom did not speak for a moment.  Then he cried: 

“Look funny!  I should say it did!  See here, Ned, if this isn’t suspicious I’ll eat my hat!” and Tom beckoned excitedly to his chum, who had walked on a little in advance.

CHAPTER V A QUEER STRANGER

What Tom Swift held in his hand looked like a small cannon ball, but it could not have been solid or the young aviator would not so easily have held it out at arm’s length for his friend Ned Newton to look at.

“This puts a different face on it, Ned,” Tom went on, as he turned the object over.

“Is that likely to go off?” the bank clerk asked, as he came to a halt a little distance from his friend.

“Go off?  No, it’s done all the damage it could, I guess.”

“Damage?  It looks to me as though it had suffered the most damage itself.  What is it, one of your models?  Looks like a bomb to me.”