Tom Swift and His Electric Locomotive; Or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails

TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVE

Chapter I

A Tempting Offer

"An electric locomotive that can make two miles a minute over a

properly ballasted roadbed might not be an impossibility," said Mr.

Barton Swift ruminatively. "It is one of those things that are coming,"

and he flashed his son, Tom Swift, a knowing smile. It had been a

topic of conversation between them before the visitor from the West had

been seated before the library fire and had sampled one of the elder

Swift's good cigars.

"It is not only a future possibility," said the latter gentleman,

shrugging his shoulders. "As far as the Hendrickton and Pas Alos

Railroad Company goes, a two mile a minute gait--not alone on a level

track but through the Pas Alos Range--is an immediate necessity. It's

got to be done now, or our stock will be selling on the curb for about

two cents a share."

"You do not mean just that, do you, Mr. Bartholomew?" asked Tom Swift

earnestly, and staring at the big-little man before the fire.

Mr. Richard Bartholomew was just that--a "big-little man." In the

railroad world, both in construction and management, he had made an

enviable name for himself.

He had actually built up the Hendrickton and Pas Alos from a

narrow-gauge, "jerkwater" road into a part of a great cross-continent

system that tapped a wonderfully rich territory on both sides of the

Pas Alos Range.

For some years the H. & P. A. had a monopoly of that territory. Now,

as Mr. Bartholomew intimated, it was threatened with such rivalry from

another railroad and other capitalists, that the H. & P. A. was being

looked upon in the financial market as a shaky investment.

But Tom Swift repeated:

"You do not mean just that, do you, Mr. Bartholomew?"

Mr. Bartholomew, who was a little man physically, rolled around in his

chair to face the young fellow more directly. His own eyes sparkled in

the firelight. His olive face was flushed.

"That is much nearer the truth, young man," he said, somewhat harshly

because of his suppressed emotion, "than I want people at large to

suspect. As I have told your father, I came here to put all my cards on

the table; but I expect the Swift Construction Company to take anything

I may say as said in confidence."

"We quite understand that, Mr. Bartholomew," said the elder Swift,

softly. "You can speak freely. Whether we do business or not, these

walls are soundproof, and Tom and I can forget, or remember, as we

wish. Of course if we take up any work for you, we must confide to a

certain extent in our close associates and trusted mechanics."

"Humph!" grunted the visitor, turning restlessly again in his chair.

Then he said: "I agree as the necessity of that last statement; but I

can only hope that these walls are soundproof."

"What's that?" demanded Tom, rather sharply. He was a bright looking

young fellow with an alert air and a rather humorous smile. His father

was a semi-invalid; but Tom possessed all the mental vigor and muscular

energy that a young man should have. He had not neglected his Athletic

development while he made the best use of his mental powers.

"Believe me," said the visitor, quite as harshly as before, "I begin to

doubt the solidity of all walls. I know that I have been watched, and

spied upon, and that eavesdroppers have played hob with our affairs.

"Of late, there has been little planned in the directors' room of the

H. & P. A. that has not seeped out and aided the enemy in foreseeing

our moves."

"The enemy?" repeated Mr. Swift, with mild surprise.

"That's it exactly! The enemy!" replied Mr. Bartholomew shortly. "The

H. & P. A. has got the fight of its life on its hands. We had a hard

enough time fighting nature and the elements when we laid the first

iron for the road a score of years ago. Now I am facing a fight that

must grow fiercer and fiercer as time goes on until either the H. & P.

A. smashes the opposition, or the enemy smashes it."

"What enemy is this you speak of?" asked Tom, much interested.

"The proposed Hendrickton & Western. A new road, backed by new capital,

and to be officered and built by new men in the construction and

railroad game.

"Montagne Lewis--you've heard of him, I presume--is at the head of the

crowd that have bought the little old Hendrickton & Western, lock,

stock and barrel.

"They have franchises for extending the road. In the old days the

legislatures granted blanket franchises that allowed any group of

moneyed men to engage in any kind of business as side issues to

railroading. Montagne Lewis and his crowd have got a 'plenty-big'

franchise.

"They have begun laying iron. It parallels, to a certain extent, our

own line. Their surveyors were smarter than the men who laid out the H.

& P. A. I admit it. Besides, the country out there is developed more

than it was a score of years ago when I took hold.

"All this enters into the fight between Montagne Lewis and me. But

there is something deeper," said the little man, with almost a snarl,

as he thrashed about again in his chair. "I beat Montagne Lewis at one

big game years ago. He is a man who never forgets--and who never

hesitates to play dirty politics if he has to, to bring about his own

ends.

"I know that I have been watched. I know that I was followed on this

trip East. He has private detectives on my track continually. And

worse. All the gunmen of the old and wilder West are not dead. There's

a fellow named Andy O'Malley--well, never mind him. The game at present

is to keep anybody in Lewis's employ from getting wise to why I came to

see you."

"What you say is interesting," Mr. Swift here broke in quietly. "But I

have already been puzzled by what you first said. Just why have you

come to us--to Tom and me--in reference to your railroad difficulties?"

"And this suggestion you have made," added Tom, "about a possible

electric locomotive of a faster type than has, ever yet been put on the

rails?"

"That is it, exactly," replied Bartholomew, sitting suddenly upright in

his chair. "We want faster electric motor power than has ever yet been

invented. We have got to have it, or the H. & P. A. might as well be

scrapped and the whole territory out there handed over to Montagne

Lewis and his H. & W. That is the sum total of the matter, gentlemen.

If the Swift Construction Company cannot help us, my railroad is going

to be junk in about three years from this beautiful evening."

His emphasis could not fail to impress both the elder and the younger

Swift. They looked at each other, and the interest displayed upon the

father's countenance was reflected upon the features of the son.

If there was anything Tom Swift liked it was a good fight. The clash of

diverse interests was the breath of life to the young fellow. And for

some years now, always connected in some way with the development of

his inventive genius, he had been entangled in battles both of wits and

physical powers. Here was the suggestion of something that would entail

a struggle of both brain and brawn.

"Sounds good," muttered Tom, gazing at the railroad magnate with

considerable admiration.

"Let us hear all about it," Mr. Swift said to Bartholomew. "Whether we

can help you or not, we're interested."

"All right," replied the visitor again. "Whether I was followed East,

and here to Shopton, or not doesn't much matter. I will put my

proposition up to you, and then I'll ask, if you don't want to go into

it, that you keep the business absolutely secret. I have got to put

something over on Montagne Lewis and his crowd, or throw up the sponge.

That's that!"

"Go ahead, Mr. Bartholomew," observed Tom's father, encouragingly.

"To begin with, four hundred miles of our road is already electrified.

We have big power stations and supply heat and light and power to

several of the small cities tapped by the H. & P. A. It is a paying

proposition as it stands. But it is only paying because we carry the

freight traffic--all the freight traffic--of that region.

"If the H. & W. breaks in on our monopoly of that, we shall soon be so

cut down that our invested capital will not earn two per cent.--No, by

glory! not one-and-a-half per cent.--and our stock will be dished. But

I have worked out a scheme, Gentlemen, by which we can counter-balance

any dig Lewis can give us in the ribs.

"If we can extend our electrified line into and through the Pas Alos

Range our freight traffic can be handled so cheaply and so effectively

that nothing the Hendrickton & Western can do for years to come will

hurt us. Get that?"

"I get your statement, Mr. Bartholomew," said Mr. Swift. "But it is

merely a statement as yet."

"Sure. Now I will give you the particulars. We are using the Jandel

locomotives on our electrified stretch of road. You know that patent?"

"I know something about it, Mr. Bartholomew," said the younger

inventor. "I have felt some interest in the electric locomotive, though

I have done nothing practical in the matter. But I know the Jandel

patent."

"It is about the best there is--and the most recent; but it does not

fill the bill. Not for the H. & P. A., anyway," said Mr. Bartholomew,

shortly.

"What does it lack?" asked Mr. Swift.

"Speed. It's got the power for heavy hauls. It could handle the freight

through the Pas Alos Range. But it would slow up our traffic so that

the shippers would at once turn to the Hendrickton & Western. You

understand that their rails do not begin to engage the grades that our

engineers thought necessary when the old H. & P. A. was built."

"I get that," said Tom briskly. "You have come here, then, to interest

us in the development of a faster but quite as powerful type of

electric locomotive as the Jandel."

"Stated to the line!" exclaimed Mr. Bartholomew, smiting the arm of his

chair with his clenched fist. "That is it, young man. You get me

exactly. And now I will go on to put my proposition to you."

"Do so, Mr. Bartholomew," murmured the old inventor, quite as much

interested as his son.

"I want you to make a study of electric motive power as applied to

track locomotives, with the idea of utilizing our power plants and

others like them, and even with the possibility in mind of the

continued use of the Jandel locomotives on our more level stretches of

road.

"But I want your investigation to result in the building of locomotives

that will make a speed of two miles a minute, or as near that as

possible, on level rails, and be powerful enough to snake our heavy

freight trains through the hills and over the steep grades so rapidly

that even two engines, a pusher and a hauler, cannot beat the electric

power."

"Some job, that, I'll say," murmured Tom Swift.

"Exactly. Some job. And it is the only thing that will save the H. & P.

A.," said Mr. Bartholomew decidedly. "I put it up to you Swifts. I have

heard of some of your marvelous inventions. Here is something that is

already invented. But it needs development."

"I see," said Mr. Swift, and nodded.

"It interests me," admitted Tom. "As I say, I have given some thought

to the electric locomotive."

"This is the age of speed," said Mr. Bartholomew earnestly. "Rapidity

in handling freight and kindred things will be the salvation, and the

only salvation, of many railroads. Tapping a rich territory is not

enough. The road that can offer the quickest and cheapest service is

the road that is going to keep out of a receivership. Believe me, I

know!"

"You should," said Mr. Swift mildly. "Your experience should have

taught you a great deal about the railroad business."

"It has. But that knowledge is worth just nothing at all without swift

power and cheap traffic. Those are the problems today. Now, I am going

to take a chance. If it doesn't work, my road is dished in any case. So

I feel that the desperate chance is the only chance."

"What is that?" asked Tom Swift, sitting forward in his chair. "I, for

one, feel so much interested that I will do anything in reason to find

the answer to your traffic problem."

"That's the boy!" ejaculated Richard Bartholomew. "I will give it to

you in a few words. If you will experiment with the electric locomotive

idea, to develop speed and power over and above the Jandel patent, and

will give me the first call on the use of any patents you may contrive,

I will put up twenty-five thousand dollars in cash which shall be yours

whether I can make use of a thing you invent or not."

"Any time limit in this agreement, Mr. Bartholomew?" asked Tom, making

a few notes on a scratch pad before him on the library table.

"What do you say to three months?"

"Make it six, if you can," Tom said with continued briskness. "It

interests me. I'll do my best. And I want you to get your money's

worth."

"All right. Make it six," said Mr. Bartholomew. "But the quicker you

dig something up, the better for me. Now, that is the first part of my

proposition."

"All right, sir. And the second?"

"If you succeed in showing me that you can build and operate an

electric locomotive that will speed two miles a minute on a level track

and will get a heavy drag over the mountain grades, as I said, as

surely as two engines of the coal-burning or oil-burning type, I will

pay you a hundred thousand dollars bonus, besides buying all the

engines you can build of this new type for the first two years. I've

got to have first call; but the hundred thousand will be yours free and

clear, and the price of the locomotives you build can be adjusted by

any court of agreement that you may suggest."

Tom Swift's face glowed. He realized that this offer was not only

generous, but that it made it worth his while dropping everything else

he had in hand and devoting his entire time and thought for even six

months to the proposition of developing the electric locomotive.

He looked at his father and nodded. Mr. Swift said, calmly:

"We take you on that offer, Mr. Bartholomew. Tom has the facts on

paper, and we will hand it to Mr. Newton, our financial manager, in the

morning. If you will remain in town for twenty-four hours, the contract

can be signed."

"Suits me," declared. Richard Bartholomew, rising quickly from his

chair. "I confess I hoped you would take me up quite as promptly as you

have. I want to get back West again.

"We will see you in the office of the company at two o'clock tomorrow,"

said Tom Swift confidently.

"Better than good! And now, if that trailer that I am pretty sure

Montagne Lewis sent after me does not get wise to the subject of our

talk, it may be a slick job we have done and will do. I admit I am

rather afraid of the enemy. You Swifts must keep your plans in utter

darkness."

After a little talk on more ordinary affairs, Mr. Bartholomew took his

departure. It was getting late in the evening, and Tom Swift had an

engagement. While old Rad, their colored servant, was helping him on

with his coat preparatory to Tom's leaving the house, his father called

from the library:

"Got those notes in a safe place, Tom?"

"Safest in the world, Dad," his son replied. But he did not go into

details. Tom considered the "safest place in the world" just then was

his own wallet, which was tucked into an inside pocket of his vest "I'm

going to see Mary Nestor, Father," said Tom, as he went to the front

door and opened it.

He halted a moment with the knob of the door in his hand. The porch was

deep in shadows, but he thought he had seen something move there.

"That you, Koku?" asked Tom in an ordinary voice. Sometimes his

gigantic servant wandered about the house at night. He was a strange

person, and he had a good many thoughts in his savage brain that even

his young master did not understand.

There was no reply to Tom's question, so he walked down the steps and

out at the gate. It was not a long distance to the Nestor house, and

the air was brisk and keen, in spite of the fact that threatening

clouds masked the stars.

Two blocks from the house he came to a high wall which separated the

street from the grounds of an old dwelling. Tom suddenly noticed that

the usual street lights on this block had been extinguished--blown out

by the wind, perhaps.

Involuntarily he quickened his steps. He reached the archway in the

wall. Here was the gate dividing the private grounds from the street.

As he strode into the shadow of this place a voice suddenly halted Tom

Swift.

"Hands up! Put 'em up and don't be slow about it!" A bulky figure

loomed in the dark. Tom saw the highwayman's club poised threateningly

over his head.

Chapter II

Trouble Starts

The fact that he was stopped by a footpad smote Tom Swift's mind as not

a particularly surprising adventure. He had heard that several of that

gentry had been plying their trade about the outskirts of the town. To

a degree he was prepared for this sudden event.

Then there flashed into Tom's mind the thought of what Mr. Richard

Bartholomew had said regarding the spy he believed had followed him

from the West. Could it be possible that some hired thug sent by

Montagne Lewis and his crooked crowd of financiers considered that Tom

Swift had obtained information from the president of the H. & P. A.

that might do his employers signal service?

Tom Swift had fallen in with many adventures--and some quite thrilling

ones--since, as a youth, he was first introduced to the reader in the

initial volume of this series, entitled "Tom Swift and His Motor

Cycle." His first experiences as an inventor, coached by his father,

who had spent his life in the experimental laboratory and workshop, was

made possible by his purchase from Mr. Wakefield Damon, now one of his

closest friends, of a broken-down motor cycle.

Through a series of inventions, some of them of a marvelous kind, Tom

Swift, aided by his father, had forged ahead, building motor boats,

airships, submarines, monoplanes, motion picture cameras, searchlights,

cannons, photo-telephones, war tanks. Of late, as related in "Tom Swift

Among the Fire Fighters," he had engaged in the invention of an

explosive bomb carrying flame-quenching chemicals that would, in time,

revolutionize fire-fighting in tall buildings.

The matter that Mr. Richard Bartholomew, the railroad magnate, had

brought to Tom's and his father's attention had deeply interested the

young inventor. Thought of the electric locomotive, the development of

which the railroad president stated was the only salvation of the

finances of the H. & P. A., had so held Tom's attention as he walked

along the street that being stopped in this sudden way was even more

startling than such an incident might ordinarily have been.

Tom was a muscular young fellow; but a club held over one's head by a

burly thug would have shaken the courage of anybody. Dark as it was

under the archway the young fellow saw that the bulk of the man was

much greater than his own.

"That's right, sonny," said the stranger, in a sneering tone. "You got

just the right idea. When I say 'Stick 'em up' I mean it. Never take a

chance. Ah--ah!"

The fellow ripped open Tom's overcoat, almost tearing the buttons off.

Another masterful jerk and his victim's jacket was likewise parted

widely. He did not lower the club for an instant. He thrust his left

hand into the V-shaped parting of the young fellow's vest.

It was then that Tom was convinced of what the fellow was after. He

remembered the notes he had made regarding the contract that was to be

signed on the morrow between the Swift Construction Company and

President Richard Bartholomew of the H. & P. A. Railroad. He

remembered, too, the figure he thought he had seen in the dark porch of

the house as he so recently left it.

Mr. Bartholomew had considered it very possible that he was being spied

upon. This was one of the spies--a Westerner, as his speech betrayed.

But Tom was suddenly less fearful than he had been when first attacked.

It did not seem possible to him that Mr. Bartholomew's enemies would

allow their henchman to go too far to obtain information of the

railroad president's intentions. This fellow was merely attempting to

frighten him.

A sense of relief came to Tom Swift's assistance. He opened his lips to

speak and could the thug have seen his face more clearly in the dark he

would have been aware of the fact that the young inventor smiled.

The fellow's groping hand entered between Tom's vest and his shirt. The

coarse fingers seized upon Tom's wallet. Nobody likes to be robbed, no

matter whether the loss is great or small. There was not much money in

the wallet, nor anything that could be turned into money by a thief.

These facts enabled Tom, perhaps, to bear his loss with some fortitude.

The highwayman drew forth the wallet and thrust it into his own coat

pocket. He made no attempt to take anything else from the young

inventor.

"Now, beat it!" commanded the fellow. "Don't look back and don't run or

holler. Just keep moving--in the way you were headed before. Vamoose."

More than ever was Tom assured that the man was from the West. His

speech savored of Mexican phrases and slang terms used mainly by

Western citizens. And his abrupt and masterly manner and speech aided

in this supposition. Tom Swift stayed not to utter a word. It was true

he was not so frightened as he had at first been. But he was quite sure

that this man was no person to contend with under present conditions.

He strode away along the sidewalk toward the far corner of the wall

that surrounded this estate. Shopton had not many of such important

dwellings as this behind the wall. Its residential section was made up

for the most part of mechanics' homes and such plain but substantial

houses as his father's.

Prospering as the Swifts had during the last few years, neither Tom nor

his father had thought their plain old house too poor or humble for a

continued residence. Tom was glad to make money, but the inventions he

had made it by were vastly more important to his mind than what he

might obtain by any lavish expenditure of his growing fortune.

This matter of the electric locomotive that had been brought to his

attention by the Western railroad magnate had instantly interested the

young inventor. The possibility of there being a clash of interests in

the matter, and the point Mr. Bartholomew made of his enemies seeking

to thwart his hope of keeping the H. & P. A. upon a solid financial

footing, were phases of the affair that likewise concerned the young

fellow's thought.

Now he was sure that Mr. Bartholomew was right. The enemies of the H. &

P. A. were determined to know all that the railroad president was

planning to do. They would naturally suspect that his trip East to

visit the Swift Construction Company was no idle jaunt.

Tom had turned so many fortunate and important problems of invention

into certainties that the name of the Swift Construction Company was

broadly known, not alone throughout the United States but in several

foreign countries. Montagne Lewis, whom Tom knew to be both a powerful

and an unscrupulous financier, might be sure that Mr. Bartholomew's

visit to Shopton and to the young inventor and his father was of such

importance that he would do well through his henchmen to learn the

particulars of the interview.

Tom remembered Mr. Bartholomew's mention of a name like Andy O'Malley.

This was probably the man who had done all that he could, and that

promptly, to set about the discovery of Mr. Bartholomew's reason for

visiting the Swifts.

Without doubt the man had slunk about the Swift house and had peered

into one of the library windows while the interview was proceeding. He

had observed Tom making notes on the scratch pad and judged correctly

that those notes dealt with the subject under discussion between the

visitor from the West and the Swifts.

He had likewise seen Tom thrust the paper into his wallet and the

wallet into his inside vest pocket. Instead of dogging Mr.

Bartholomew's footsteps after that gentleman left the Swift house, the

man had waited for the appearance of Tom. When he was sure that the

young fellow was preparing to walk out, and the direction he was to

stroll, the thug had run ahead and ensconced himself in the archway on

this dark block.

All these things were plain enough. The notes Tom had taken regarding

the offer Mr. Bartholomew had made for the development of the electric

locomotive might, under some circumstances, be very important. At

least, the highwayman evidently thought them such. But Tom had another

thought about that.

One thing the young inventor was convinced about, as he strode briskly

away from the scene of the hold-up: There was going to be trouble. It

had already begun.

Chapter III

Tom Swift's Friends

Tom was still walking swiftly when he arrived in sight of Mary Nestor's

home. He was so filled with excitement both because of the hold-up and

the new scheme that Mr. Richard Bartholomew had brought to him from the

West, that he could keep neither to himself. He just had to tell Mary!

Mary Nestor was a very pretty girl, and Tom thought she was just about

right in every particular. Although he had been about a good deal for a

young fellow and had seen girls everywhere, none of them came up to

Mary. None of them held Tom's interest for a minute but this girl whom

he had been around with for years and whom he had always confided in.

As for the girl herself, she considered Tom Swift the very nicest young

man she had ever seen. He was her beau-ideal of what a young man should

be. And she entered enthusiastically into the plans for everything that

Tom Swift was interested in.

Mary was excited by the story Tom told her in the Nestor sitting room.

The idea of the electric locomotive she saw, of course, was something

that might add to Tom's laurels as an inventor. But the other phase of

the evening's adventure--"Tom, dear!" she murmured with no little

disturbance of mind. "That man who stopped you! He is a thief, and a

dangerous man! I hate to think of your going home alone."

"He's got what he was after," chuckled Tom. "Is it likely he will

bother me again?"

"And you do not seem much worried about it," she cried, in wonder.

"Not much, I confess, Mary," said Tom, and grinned.

"But if, as you suppose, that man was working for Mr. Bartholomew's

enemies--"

"I am convinced that he was, for he did not rob me of my watch and

chain or loose money. And he could have done so easily. I don't mind

about the old wallet. There was only five dollars in it."

"But those notes you said you took of Mr. Bartholomew's offer?"

"Oh, yes," chuckled Tom again. "Those notes. Well, I may as well

explain to you, Mary, and not try to puzzle you any longer. But that

highwayman is sure going to be puzzled a long, long time."

"What do you mean, Tom?"

"Those notes were jotted down in my own brand of shorthand. Such

stenographic notes would scarcely be readable by anybody else. Ho, ho!

When that bold, bad hold-up gent turns the notes over to Montagne

Lewis, or whoever his principal is, there will be a sweet time."

"Oh, Tom! isn't that fun?" cried Mary, likewise much amused.

"I can remember everything we said there in the library," Tom

continued. "I'll see Ned tonight on my way home from here, and he will

draw a contract the first thing in the morning."

"You are a smart fellow, Tom!" said Mary, her laughter trilling sweetly.

"Many thanks, Ma'am! Hope I prove your compliment true. This

two-mile-a-minute stunt--"

"It seems wonderful," breathed Mary.

"It sure will be wonderful if we can build a locomotive that will do

such fancy lacework as that," observed Tom eagerly. "It will be a great

stunt!"

"A wonderful invention, Tom."

"More wonderful than Mr. Bartholomew knows," agreed the young fellow.

"An electric locomotive with both great speed and great hauling power

is what more than one inventor has been aiming at for two or three

decades. Ever since Edison and Westinghouse began their experiments, in

truth."

"Is the locomotive they are using out there a very marvelous machine?"

asked the girl, with added interest.

"No more marvelous than the big electric motors that drag the trains

into New York City, for instance, through the tunnels. Steam engines

cannot be used in those tunnels for obvious, as well as legal, reasons.

They are all wonderful machines, using third-rail power.

"But that Jandel patent that Mr. Bartholomew is using out there on the

H. & P. A. is probably the highest type of such motors. It is up to us

to beat that. Fortunately I got a pass into the Jandel shops a few

months ago and I studied at first hand the machine Mr. Bartholomew is

using."

"Isn't that great!" cried Mary.

"Well, it helps some. I at least know in a general way the 'how' of the

construction of the Jandel locomotive. It is simple enough. Too simple

by far, I should say, to get both speed and power. We'll see," and he

nodded his head thoughtfully.

Tom did not stay long with the girl, for it was already late in the

evening when he had arrived at her house. As he got up to depart Mary's

anxiety for his safety revived.

"I wish you would take care now, Tom. Those men may hound you."

"What for?" chuckled the young inventor. "They have the notes they

wanted."

"But that very thing--the fact that you fooled them--will make them

more angry. Take care."

"I have a means of looking out for myself, after all," said Tom

quietly, seeing that he must relieve her mind. "I let that fellow get

away with my wallet; but I won't let him hurt me. Don't fear."

She had opened the door. The lamplight fell across porch and steps, and

in a broad white band even to the gate and sidewalk. There was a

motor-car slowing down right before the open gate.

"Who's this?" queried Tom, puzzled.

A sharp voice suddenly was raised in an exclamatory explosion.

"Bless my breakshoes! is that Tom Swift? Just the chap I was looking

for. Bless my mileage-book! this saves me time and money."

"Why, it's Mr. Wakefield Damon," Mary cried, with something like relief

in her tones. "You can ride home in his car, Tom."

"All right, Mary. Don't be afraid for me," replied Tom Swift, and ran

down the walk to the waiting car.

"Bless my vest buttons! Tom Swift, my heart swells when I see you--"

"And is like to burst off the said vest buttons?" chuckled the young

fellow, stepping in beside his eccentric friend who blessed everything

inanimate in his florid speech.

"I am delighted to catch you--although, of course," and Tom knew the

gentleman's eyes twinkled, "I could have no idea that you were over

here at Mary's, Tom."

"Of course not," rejoined the young inventor calmly. "Seeing that I

only come to see her just as often as I get a chance."

"Bless my memory tablets! is that the fact?" chuckled Mr. Damon.

"Anyway, I wanted to see you so particularly that I drove over in my

car tonight--"

"Wait a minute," said Tom, hastily. "Is this important?"

"I think so, Tom."

"Let me get something else off of my mind first, then, Mr. Damon," Tom

Swift said quickly. "Drive around by Ned's house, will you, please? Ned

Newton's. After I speak a minute with him I will be at your service.

"Surely, Tom; surely," agreed the gentleman.

The automobile had been running slowly. Mr. Damon knew the streets of

Shopton very well, and he headed around the next corner. As the car

turned, a figure bounded out of the shadow near the house line. Two

long strides, and the man was on the running board of the car upon the

side where Tom Swift sat. Again an ugly club was raised above the young

fellow's head.

"You're the smart guy!" croaked the coarse voice Tom had heard before.

"Think you can bamboozle me, do you? Up with 'em!"

"Bless my spark-plug!" gasped Mr. Wakefield Damon.

Either from nervousness or intention, he jerked the steering wheel so

that the car made a sudden leap away from the curb. The figure of the

stranger swayed.

Instantly Tom Swift struck the man's arm up higher and from under his

own coat appeared something that bulked like a pistol in his right

hand. He had intimated to Mary Nestor that he carried something with

which to defend himself from highwaymen if he chose to. This invention,

his ammonia gun, now came into play.

"Bless my failing eyesight!" exclaimed Mr. Damon, as he shot the

motor-car ahead again in a straight line.

The man who had accosted Tom so fiercely fell off the running board and

rolled into the gutter, screaming and choking from the fumes from Tom's

gun.

"Drive on!" commanded the young inventor. "If he keeps bellowing like

that the police will pick him up. I guess he will let us alone

here-after."

"Bless my short hairs and long ones!" chuckled Mr. Damon. "You are the

coolest young fellow, Tom, that I ever saw. That man must have been a

highwayman. And it is of some of those gentry that I drove over to

Shopton this evening to talk to you about."

Chapter IV

Much to Think About

Although it was now nearing ten o'clock on this eventful evening, Tom

knew that he would find Ned Newton at home. When Mr. Damon's car

stopped before the house there was a light in Ned's room and the front

door opened almost as soon as Tom rang. Mr. Damon left the car and

entered with the young inventor at his invitation.

"What's up?" was Ned's greeting, looking at the two curiously as he

ushered them in. "I see this isn't entirely a social call," and he

laughed as he shook the older man's hand.

"Bless my particular star!" exclaimed the latter excitedly. "Of all the

thrilling adventures that anybody ever got into, it is this Tom Swift

who cooks them up! Why, Newton! do you know that we have been held up

by a highwayman within two blocks of this very house?"

"And that of course was Tom's fault?" suggested Ned, still smiling.

"It wouldn't have happened if he had not been with me," said Mr. Damon.

"I am curious," said Ned, as they seated themselves. "Who was the

footpad? What drew his attention to you two? Tell me about it."

"Bless my suspender buckles!" exclaimed Mr. Damon. "You tell him, Tom.

I don't understand it myself, yet."

"I think I can explain. But whatever I tell you both, you must hold in

secret. Father and I have been entrusted with some private information

tonight and I am going to take you, Ned, and Mr. Damon, into the

business in a confidential way."

"Let's have it," begged Newton. "Anything to do with the works?"

"It is," answered Tom gravely. "We are going to take up a proposition

that promises big things for the Swift Construction Company."

"A big thing financially?"

"I'll say so. And it looks as though we were mixing into a conspiracy

that may breed trouble in more ways than one."

Tom went on to sketch briefly the situation of the Hendrickton & Pas

Alos Railroad as brought to the attention of the Swifts by the

railroad's president. First of all his two listeners were deeply

interested in the proposition Mr. Richard Bartholomew had made the

inventors. Ned Newton jotted down briefly the agreement to be

incorporated in the contract to be drawn and signed, by the Swift

Construction Company and the president of the H. & P. A. road.

"This looks like a big thing for the company, Tom," the young manager

said with enthusiasm, while Mr. Damon listened to it all with mouth and

eyes open.

"Bless my watch-charm!" murmured the latter. "An electric locomotive

that can travel two miles a minute? Whew!"

"Sounds like a big order, Tom," added Ned, seriously.

"It is a big order. I am not at all sure it can be done," agreed Tom,

thoughtfully. "But under the terms Mr. Bartholomew offers it is worth

trying, don't you think?"

"That twenty-five thousand dollars is as good as yours anyway,"

declared his chum with finality. "I'll see there is no loophole in the

contract and the money must be placed in escrow so that there can be no

possibility of our losing that. The promise of a hundred thousand

dollars must be made binding as well."

"I know you will look out for those details, Ned," Tom said with a wave

of his hand.

"That is what I am here for," agreed the financial manager. "Now, what

else? I fancy the building of such a locomotive looks feasible to you

and your father or you would not go into it."

"But two miles a minute!" murmured Mr. Damon again. "Bless my prize

pumpkins!"

"The idea of speed enters into it, yes," said Tom thoughtfully. "In

fact electric motor power has always been based on speed, and on

cheapness of moving all kinds of traffic.

"Look here!" he exclaimed earnestly, "what do you suppose the first

people to dabble in electrically driven vehicles were aiming at? The

motor-car? The motor boat? Trolley cars? All those single motor sort of

things? Not much they weren't!"

"Bless my glove buttons!" exclaimed Mr. Damon, dragging off his

gauntlets as he spoke. "I don't get you at all, Tom! What do you mean?"

"I mean to say that the first experiments in the use of electricity as

a motive power were along the electrification of the steam locomotive.

Everybody realized that if a motor could be built powerful enough and

speedy enough to drag a heavy freight or passenger train over the

ordinary railroad right of way, the cost of railroad operation would be

enormously decreased.

"Coal costs money--heaps of money now. Oil costs even more. But even

with a third-rail patent, a locomotive successfully built to do the

work of the great Moguls and mountain climbers of the last two decades,

and electrically driven, will make a great difference on the credit

side of any railroad's books."

"Right-o!" exclaimed Ned. "I can see that."

"That was the object of the first experiments in electric motive

power," repeated Tom. "And it continues to be the big problem in

electricity. The Jandel locomotive is undoubtedly the last word so far

as the construction of an electric locomotive is concerned. But it

falls down in speed and power. I thought so myself when I saw that

locomotive and looked over the results of its work. And this Mr.

Bartholomew has assured father and me this evening that it is a fact.

"It has a record of a mile a minute on a level or easy grade; but it

can't show goods when climbing a real hill. It slows up both freight

and passenger traffic on the Hendrickton & Pas Alos road. That range of

hills is too much for it.

"So the Swift Construction Company is going to step in," concluded the

young inventor eagerly. "I believe we can do it. I've the nucleus of

an idea in my head. I never had a problem put up to me, Ned and Mr.

Damon, that interested me more. So why shouldn't I go at it? Besides, I

have dad to advise me."

"That's right," agreed Ned. "Why shouldn't you? And with such a

contract as you have been offered--"

"Bless my bootsoles!" ejaculated Mr. Damon, getting up and tramping

about the room in his excitement. "I thought the trolley cars that run

between Shopton and Waterfield were about the fastest things on rails."

"Not much. The trolley car is a narrow and prescribed manner of using

electricity for motive power. The motor runs but one car--or one and a

trailer, at most," said Tom. "As I have pointed out, the problem is to

build a machine that will transmit power enough to draw the enormous

weight of a loaded freight train, and that over steep grades.

"A motor for each car is a costly matter. That is why trolley car

companies, no matter how many passengers their cars carry, are so often

on the verge of financial disaster. The margin of profit is too narrow.

"But if you can get a locomotive built that will drag a hundred cars!

Ah! how does that sound?" demanded Tom. "See the difference?"

"Bless my volts and amperes!" exclaimed Mr. Damon. "I should say I do!

Why, Tom, you make the problem as plain as plain can be."

"In theory," supplemented Ned Newton, although he meant to suggest no

doubt of his chum's ability to solve almost any problem.

"You've hit it," said Tom promptly. "I only have a theory so far

regarding such a locomotive. But to the inventor the theory always must

come first. You understand that, Ned?"

"I not only appreciate that fact," said his chum warmly; "but I believe

that you are the fellow to show something definite along the line of an

improved electric locomotive. But, whether you can reach the high mark

set by the president of that railroad--"

"Two miles a minute!" breathed Mr. Damon in agreement. "Bless my

wind-gauge! It doesn't seem possible!"

Tom Swift shrugged his shoulders. "It is the impossible that inventors

have to overcome. If we experimenters believed in the impossible little

would be done in this world, to advance mechanical science at least.

Every invention was impossible until the chap who put it through built

his first working model."

"That's understood, old boy," said Ned, already busily scratching off

the form of the contract he proposed to show the company's legal

advisers early in the morning.

When he had read over the notes he had made Tom O.K.'d them. "That is

about as I had the items set down myself on the sheet that fellow stole

from me."

"Wait!" exclaimed Ned, as Tom arose from his chair. "Do you know what

strikes me after your telling me about your second hold-up?"

"What's that?" asked his chum.

"Are you sure that was the same fellow who stole your wallet?"

"Quite sure."

"Then his second attack on you proves that he got wise to the fact that

your notes were in shorthand. He had a chance to study them while you

visited with Mary Nestor."

"Like enough."

"I wonder if it doesn't prove that the fellow has somebody in cahoots

with him right here in Shopton?" ruminated Ned.

"Bless my spare tire!" ejaculated Mr. Damon, who had already started

for the door but now turned back.

"That's an idea, Ned," agreed Tom Swift. "It would seem that he had

consulted with some superior," said the young manager of the Swift

Construction Company. "This hold-up man may be from the West; but

perhaps he did not follow Bartholomew alone."

"I'd like to know who the other fellow is," said Tom thoughtfully. "I

would know the man who attacked me, both by his bulk and his voice.

"Me, too," put in Mr. Damon. "Bless my indicator! I'd know the

scoundrel if I met him again."

"The thing to do," said Ned Newton confidently, "is to identify the man

who robbed you tonight as soon as possible and then, if he hangs around

Shopton, to mark well anybody he associates with."

"Perhaps they will not bother me any more," said Tom, rather carelessly.

"And perhaps they will," grumbled Mr. Damon. "Bless my self-starter!

they may try something mean again this very night. Come on, Tom. I want

to run you home. And on the way, I tell you, I've got something to put

up to you myself. It may not promise a small fortune like this electric

locomotive business; but bless my barbed wire fence! my trouble has

more than a little to do with footpads, too."

He led the way out of the house and to the motor car again. In a minute

he had started his engine, and Tom, jumping in beside him, was borne

away toward his own home.

Chapter V

Barbed Wire Entanglements

"This gets us to your particular trouble, Mr. Damon," Tom Swift said,

while the motor car was rolling along. "You intimated that you had

something to consult me about."

"Bless my windshield! I should say I had," exclaimed the eccentric

gentleman, swinging around a corner at rather a fast clip.

"And has it to do with highwaymen?" asked Tom, much amused.

"Some of the same gentry, Tom," declared Mr. Damon. "I haven't any

peace of my life, I really haven't!"

"Who is troubling you, sir?"

"Why, what nonsense that is, to ask that!" ejaculated the gentleman.

"If I knew who they were I wouldn't ask odds of anybody. I'd go after

them. As it is, I've left my servant with a gun loaded with rock-salt

watching for them now."

"Burglars?" exclaimed Tom, with real interest.

"Chicken-house burglars! That's the kind of burglars they are," growled

Mr. Damon. "Two or three times they have tried to get my prize buff

Orpingtons. Last night they got me out of bed twice fooling around the

chicken house and yard. Other neighbors have lost their hens already. I

don't mean to lose mine. Want you to help me, Tom."

"Is that all that is worrying you, Mr. Damon?" laughed the young fellow.

"Bless my radiator! isn't that enough?"

"I know you set your clock by those buff Orpingtons," agreed Tom.

"That's right. That ten-months cockerel, Blue Ribbon Junior, never

fails to crow at three-thirty-three to the minute. Bless my combs and

spurs; a wonderful bird!"

"But let's see how I can help you regarding the chicken thieves," Tom

said, as they sighted the lights of the Swift house beyond the long

stockade fence that surrounded the Construction Company's premises.

"You know I have a barbed wire entanglement around the whole yard and

hen-house. I don't take any more chances than I can help. Those prize

buff Orpingtons are a great temptation to chicken lovers--both blond

and brunette," and in spite of his anxiety, Mr. Damon could chuckle at

his own joke. "Even your old Eradicate's friend fell for chickens, you

know."

"And Rad promptly cured him of the disease," laughed Tom.

"And I'm trying to cure these others. I've charged my shotgun with

rock-salt--as he did. My servant has orders to shoot anybody who

tampers with my chicken house tonight.

"But bless my shirt!" exclaimed Mr. Damon, "I'll never be able to sleep

comfortably until I know that no thief can get at my buff Orpingtons. I

want you to fix it so I can sleep in peace, Tom."

He slowed to a stop in front of the Swift's door. Tom stared at his

eccentric friend questioningly.

"Bless my gaiters!" ejaculated Mr. Damon, "don't you see what I want?

And your head already full of this electrified locomotive you are going

to build?"

"Hush!" murmured Tom, with his hand upon his companion's arm. "But

what do you want me to do?"

"I want you to fix it so that I can turn a current of electricity into

that barbed wire chicken fence at night that will shock any thief that

touches the wires. Not kill 'em--though they ought to be killed!"

declared the eccentric man. "But shock 'em aplenty. Can't you do it for

me, Tom Swift?"

"Of course it can be done," said the young fellow. "You use electricity

in your house. There is a feed cable in the street. We will have to

change your lighting switch for another. Fix it with the Electric

Supply Company. It will cost you more--"

"Bless my pocketbook! I don't care how much it costs. It will be ample

satisfaction to see just one low-down chicken thief squirming on those

wires."

Tom laughed again. He meant to help his friend; but he did not propose

to rig the wires so that anybody, even a chicken thief, would be

seriously injured by the electric current passing through the strands.

"I'll come down to Waterfield tomorrow in the electric runabout and fix

things up for you. Get a permit from the Electric Supply Company early

in the morning. Tell them I will rig the thing myself. They can send

their inspector afterward."

"That's fine, Tom! What--Ugh! what's this? Another footpad?"

Out of the darkness beside the fence a bulky figure started. For a

moment Tom thought it was the same man who had attacked him twice. Then

the very size of this new assailant proved that suspicion to be

unfounded.

"Koku!" exclaimed Tom. "What's the matter with you, Koku?"

The huge and only half-tamed giant gained the side of the car in

seemingly a single stride. In the dark they could not see his face, but

his voice distinctly showed excitement.

"Master come good. 'Cause there be enemy. Koku find--Koku kill!"

"Bless my magnifying glass!" ejaculated Mr. Damon. "That fellow is the

most bloodthirsty individual that I ever saw."

"All in his bringing up," chuckled Tom who knew, as the saying is, that

Koku's bark was a deal worse than his bite. "Killing and maiming his

enemies used to be Koku's principal job. But he has his orders now. He

doesn't kill anybody without consulting me first."

"Bless my buttons!" murmured Mr. Damon. "That is certainly a good thing

too. What's the matter with him now?"

That is exactly what Tom himself wanted to know. He had dropped a hand

upon the arm of the giant as he stood beside the car.

"Who is the enemy, Koku?" he asked.

"Not know, Master. See him footmarks. Follow him footmarks. Not find.

When do find--kill!"

"That is, after first obtaining my permission," said Tom dryly.

"It is so," agreed the imperturbable Koku. "See! Show Master footmarks.

Him look in at window. See! Koku have got the wonder lamp."

He flashed the electric torch in his hand. He left the car and strode

into the yard. Tom followed him, and Mr. Damon's curiosity brought him

along.

The giant pointed the ray of the flashlight at the ground below the

porch. Several footprints--the marks of boots at least number twelve in

size--were imbedded in the soil. Koku went around the house to the

other side, following repeated marks of the same boots.

"How came you to find them, Koku?" asked Tom softly.

"Me look. All around stockade," and he waved a generous gesture with

his free hand including the fence about the works. "Enemy may come.

Anytime he come. Now he come."

"Bless my slippery shoes!" exclaimed Mr. Damon, who had hard work to

keep up both physically and mentally with the giant. "What does he

mean?"

"Koku has always had it in his head," explained Tom, "that we built

that fence about the works to keep out enemies. And, to tell the truth,

we did! But all that is over--"

"Is it?" asked Mr. Damon pointedly. "Enemy here," added Koku, flashing

the lamplight upon the footprints on the ground.

"Those bootmarks," added Mr. Damon, "are doubtless those of that fellow

who jumped upon the running board of the car."

"Humph! And who robbed me of my wallet," added Tom musingly. "Well, it

might be. And, if so, Koku is right. The enemy has come."

"Me kill!" exclaimed the giant, stretching himself to his full height.

"We'll consider the killing later," said Tom, who well knew his

influence with this big fellow. "You are forbidden to kill anybody, or

chase anybody away from here, until I have a talk with them. Enemy or

not--understand?"

"Me understand," said Koku in his deep voice. "Master say--me do."

"Just the same," Tom said, aside to Mr. Damon, "there has been somebody

around here. I guess Mr. Bartholomew was right. He is being spied upon.

And now that we Swifts are going to try to do something for him, we are

likely to be spied upon too."

"Bless my statue of Nathan Hale!" murmured the eccentric gentleman. "I

believe you. And you've been already attacked twice by some thug! You

are positively in danger, Tom."

"I don't know about that. Save that the fellow who robbed me was sore

because I fooled him. Naturally he might like to get square about those

shorthand notes. He knows no more now about Mr. Bartholomew's business

with us than he did before he held me up."

"That is a fact," agreed Mr. Damon.

"And that brings me to another warning, Mr. Damon," added Tom

earnestly, as his friend climbed into the motor car again. "Keep all

that has happened, and all that I told you and Ned about the H. & P. A.

railroad, to yourself."

"Surely! Surely!"

"If Mr. Bartholomew's rivals continue to keep their spies hanging

around the works here, we'll handle them properly. Trust Koku for

that," and Tom chuckled.

"And don't forget my barbed wire entanglements," put in Mr. Damon,

starting his engine. "I want to fix those chicken thieves.''

"All right. I'll be over tomorrow," promised Tom Swift.

Then he stood a minute on the curb and looked after the disappearing

lights of Mr. Damon's car. The latter's problem dovetailed, after all,

into this discovery of possible marauders lurking about the Swift

premises. Koku had made no mistake in bringing his attention to the

matter of the footprints. Tom had seen somebody dodging into the

darkness outside the house when he had come out on his way to visit

Mary Nestor.

"And sure as taxes," muttered Tom, as he finally turned toward the

front door again, "the fellow who twice attacked me this evening wore

the boots the prints of which Koku found.

"Those fellows, whoever they are, whether Montagne Lewis and his

associates, or not, have bitten off several mouthfuls that they may be

unable to chew. Anyhow, before they get through they may learn

something about the Swifts that they never knew before."

Chapter VI

The Contract Signed

Tom Swift went to bed that night without the least fear that the man

who had twice attacked him in the streets of Shopton would be able to

trouble him unless he went abroad again. Koku was on guard.

The giant whom Tom had brought home from one of his distant wanderings

was wholly devoted to his master. Koku never had, and he never would,

become entirely civilized.

He was naturally a born tracker of men. For generations his people had

lived amid the alarms of threat and attack. He could not be made to

understand how so many "tribes," as he called them, of civilized men

could live in anything like harmony.

That somebody should prowl about the Swift house at night with a desire

to rob his young master or injure him, did not surprise Koku in the

least. He accepted the fact of the marauder's presence as quite the

expected thing.

But the man who had robbed Tom and later tried to repay him for playing

what appeared to be a practical joke on the robber, did not trouble the

Swift premises with his presence before morning. Koku, thrusting

Eradicate Sampson aside and striding to his bedroom to report this

fact, was what awoke Tom at eight o'clock.

"Hey! What you want, tromping in here for, man?" demanded old Rad

angrily. "An' totin' that spear, too. Where you t'ink yo' is? In de

jungle again? Go 'way, chile!"

Both Rad and Koku were rapidly outliving the sudden friendship of Rad's

sick days, when it was thought he might be blind for life, and were

dropping back into their old ways of bickering and rivalry for Tom's

attention.

"I report to the Master," declared the giant, in his deep voice.

"You tell me, I tell him," Rad said pompously. "No need yo' 'sturbing

Massa Tom at dis hour."

"Koku go in!" declared the giant sternly.

"Jes' stay out dere on de stair an' res' yo'self," said Rad.

Koku lost his temper with old Rad. There was a feud between them,

although deep in their hearts they really were fond of each other. But

the two were jealous of each other's services to young Tom Swift.

Suddenly Tom heard the old negro utter a frightened squeal. The door

which had been only ajar, burst inward and banged against the door-stop

with a mighty smash.

Rad went through the big bedroom like a chocolate-colored streak,

entered Tom's bathroom, and the next moment there was the sound of

crashing glass as Eradicate Sampson went through the lower sash of the

window, headfirst, out upon the roof of the porch!

"What do you mean by this?" shouted Tom, sitting up in bed.

Koku paused in the doorway, bulking almost to the top of the door. His

right arm was drawn back, displaying his mighty biceps, and he poised a

ten foot spear with a copper head that he had seized from a nest of

such implements which was a decoration of the lower hall.

Had the giant ever flung that spear at poor Rad's back, half the length

of the staff might have passed through his body. Little wonder that

the colored man, having roused the giant's rage to such a pitch, had

given small consideration to the order of his going, but had gone at

once!

"You want to scare Rad out of half a year's growth?" Tom pursued

sternly, slipping out of bed and reaching for his robe and slippers.

"And he's broken that window to smithereens."

"Koku come make report, Master," said the giant.

"You go put that spear back where you found it and come up properly,"

commanded the young fellow, with difficulty hiding his amusement. "Go

on now!"

He shuffled into the bathroom while the giant disappeared. He peered

out of the broken window. It was a wonder Rad had not carried the sash

with him! The broken glass was scattered all about the roof of the

porch and the old colored man lay groaning there.

"What did you do this for, Eradicate?" demanded Tom. "You act worse

than a ten-year-old boy."

"I's done killed, Massa Tom!" groaned Rad with confidence. "I's blood

from haid to foot!"

There was a scratch on his bald crown from which a few drops of blood

flowed. But with all his terror, Eradicate had put both arms over his

head when he made his dive through the window, and he really was very

little injured.

"Come in here," repeated Tom. "Fix something over this broken window so

that I can take my bath. And then go and put something on that scratch.

Don't you know better yet, than to cross Koku when he is excited?"

"Dat crazy ol' cannibal!" spat out Rad viciously. "I'll fix him yet.

I'll pizen his rations, dat's what I'll do."

"You wouldn't be so bad as that, Rad!"

"Well, mebbe not," said the colored man, crawling in through the

bathroom window. "It would take too much pizen, anyway, to kill that

giant. Take as much as dey has to give an el'phant to kill it. Anyways,

I's bound to fix him proper some time, yet."

These quarrels between Eradicate and Koku were intermittent. They

almost always arose, too, because of the desire of the two servants to

wait upon Tom or his father. They were very jealous of each other, and

their clashes afforded Tom and his friends a good deal of amusement.

While the young inventor was in his bath the giant strode back into the

bedroom, out of which Rad had scurried by another door, and proceeded

to report the result of his night watch about the premises.

He had not much to tell. In fact, after Tom had gone into the house

Koku had seen nobody lurking about at all. The fact remained that,

earlier in the evening, somebody had made a close surveillance of the

Swift house, but the mysterious marauder had not come back.

"All right, Koku. Keep your eyes open. I expect that enemy may return

sometime. Too bad," he added to himself, "that I didn't get a better

look at him."

"Koku know him next time," declared the giant.

"Why! you didn't even see him this time," cried Tom.

"See him boots. See marks him boots make. Know him boots. Waugh!"

"'Waugh!' yourself," returned Tom, shaking his head. "You are

altogether too sure, Koku. You couldn't tell a man from his bootprints

in the mud."

"Koku know," said the giant, just as confidently. "Wait. Him

catch--see--show Master."

"Don't you go to grabbing every stranger who comes around the house or

the works for a spy, and make me trouble. Remember now."

Koku nodded gravely and went away. When he met Rad suddenly in the hall

with Mr. Swift's breakfast tray, the giant said "boo!" and almost cost

the old colored man the loss of the tray.

"Dat big el'phant ought to be livin' in a barn," declared Rad. "Look

at dat spear he come near runnin' me t'rough wid! If he had, yo' could

ha' driv a tipcart full o' rubbish in after it. Lawsy me!"

But an hour later when Tom and his father started for the offices of

the Swift Construction Company down the street, Rad and Koku were

sitting before an enormous breakfast in the back kitchen and chatting

together as companionably as ever.

The old inventor and his son arrived at the offices of the Swift

Construction Company not long ahead of Mr. Richard Bartholomew. Tom had

merely found time to read over the contract that had been jointly

prepared by Ned Newton and the firm's legal advisers, before the

railroad man came.

"No getting out of the provisions of that paper, Tom," Ned had

whispered, when he saw Mr. Bartholomew coming into the outer office.

"Is this your man?"

"Yes."

"A sharp looking little fellow," commented Ned. "But even if he were

bent on tricking us, this contract would hold him. He is solvent and so

is his road--as yet. If it has a bad name in the market that is more

because of slander by the Montagne Lewis crowd than from any real

cause. I've found that out this morning."

"Faithful Nero!" chuckled Tom. "Aren't going to let the Swifts get

done, are you?"

"Not if I can help it," declared Ned Newton emphatically.

A clerk brought Mr. Bartholomew into the private office and he was

introduced to Newton. If he considered the financial manager of the

Swift Construction Company very young for his responsible position,

after he had read the contract he felt considerable respect for Ned

Newton.

"You've got me here, young man, hard and fast," Mr. Bartholomew said.

"If I was inclined to want to wriggle out, I see no chance of it. But I

don't. You have set forth here exactly my meaning and intent. I want

your best efforts in this matter, Mr. Swift, and if you give them to me

I'll foot the bill as agreed."

"You've got me interested, I confess," said Tom. "By the way, were your

friends following you when you came here this morning?"

"My friends?" repeated Mr. Bartholomew, for a moment puzzled.

"The spy that you mentioned," said Tom, smiling.

"That Andy O'Malley?" exclaimed Bartholomew. "Haven't spotted him

today."

"He spotted me last night," said Tom grimly, and proceeded to relate

what had happened.

"You fooled 'em that time, young man!" exclaimed the railroad

president, with satisfaction. "I am convinced that Montagne Lewis is

behind it. Look out for these fellows when you get to work, Mr. Swift.

They will stop at nothing. I tell you that the fight is on between the

Hendrickton & Pas Alos and the Hendrickton & Western. I have either got

to break them or they will break me."

"You seem very sure that there is a conspiracy against you, Mr.

Bartholomew," said the senior Swift reflectively.

"I am sure," was the reply. "And I am likewise sure that this scheme of

electrification of my road through the Pas Alos Range is the only

salvation for my railroad."

"I should call it a big contract," Ned Newton said, thoughtfully.

"You have said it! But it is not a visionary scheme I have in mind. You

must know--you Swifts--how successful such an electrification through

the Rockies has been made by the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway."

"I've looked that up," confessed Tom, with enthusiasm. "That was a

great piece of work."

"It is. It is. But I hope for even a greater outcome of your

experiments, Mr. Swift. Of course, I do not expect to compete with that

great road. They had millions to spend, and they spent them. Those

Baldwin-Westinghouse locomotives the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul

built in nineteen hundred and nineteen are wonderful machines. They

have got forty-two freight locomotives, fifteen passenger locomotives

and four switchers of that new type.

"The Jandel patent that my road uses is, in some degree, the equal of

those Baldwin-Westinghouse locomotives. At least, our machines equal

the C., M. & St. P. on our level road. They can reach a mile-a-minute

gait. But when it comes to speed and pull on steep grades--Ah! that is

where they fail."

"You will have to get power in the hills for your stations," suggested

Tom, thoughtfully.

"I know that. I know where the power is coming from. I gathered those

waterfalls in years ago. Lewis and his crowd can't shut me off from

them. But I have got to have a speedier and more powerful type of

electric locomotive than has ever yet been built to protect the

Hendrickton & Pas Alos Railroad from any rivalry.

"I am looking to you Swifts to give me that. I am risking this

twenty-five thousand dollars upon your succeeding. And I am offering

you the hundred thousand dollars bonus for the right to purchase the

first successful locomotives that can be built covered by your patents.

Is it plain?"

"It is eminently satisfactory," said Mr. Swift, quietly.

"I will do my very best," agreed Tom, warmly. "There isn't a thing the

matter with the agreement," declared Ned Newton, with confidence.

"Gentlemen, sign on the dotted line."

Five minutes later the twin contracts were in force. One went into the

safe of the Swift Construction Company. The other, Mr. Richard

Bartholomew bore away with him.

Chapter VII

The Man with Big Feet

The consultation in the private office of the Swift Construction

Company after the departure of Mr. Richard Bartholomew between the two

Swifts and Ned Newton had more to do with a vision of the future than

with mere present finances.

"I expect you know just about how you are going to work on this new

invention, Tom?" suggested the financial manager, and Tom's chum.

"Haven't the first idea," rejoined the young inventor, promptly.

"What do you mean?" ejaculated Ned. "You talked just now as though you

knew all about electric locomotives."

"I know a good deal about those that have been built, both under the

Jandel patent and those built for the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul in

the great Philadelphia shops.

"But when you ask me if I know how I am going to improve on those

patents so as to make my locomotive twice as speedy and quite as

powerful as those other locomotives--well, I've got to tell you flat

that I have not as yet got the first idea."

"Humph!" grumbled Ned. "You say it coolly enough."

"No use getting all heated up about it," returned his friend. "I have

got to consider the situation first. I must look over the field of

electrical invention as applied to motive power. I must study things

out."

"I don't just see myself," Ned Newton remarked thoughtfully, "why there

should be such a great need for the electrification of locomotives,

anyway. Those great mountain-hogs that draw most of the mountain

railroad trains are very powerful, aren't they? And they are speedy."

"Locomotives that use coal or oil have been developed about as far as

they can be," said Mr. Swift, quietly. "A successful electric

locomotive has many advantages over the old-time engine."

"What are those advantages?" asked the business manager, quickly. "I

confess, I do not understand the matter, Mr. Swift."

"For instance," proceeded the old gentleman, "there is the coal

question alone. Coal is rising in price. It is bulky. Using electricity

as motive power for railroads will do away with fuel trains, tenders,

coal handling, water, and all that. Of course, Mr. Bartholomew will

generate his electricity from water power--the cheapest power on earth."

"Humph! I've got my answer right now," said Ned Newton. "If there is no

other good reason, this is sufficient."

"There are plenty of others," drawled Tom, smiling. "Good ones. For

instance, heat or cold has nothing to do with the even running of an

electric locomotive. It can bore right through a snowbank--a thing a

steam engine can't do. It runs at an even speed. Really, grade should

have nothing to do with its speed. There is a fault somewhere in the

construction of the Jandel machine or the H. & P. A. would have little

trouble with those locomotives on its grades.

"Then, all you have to do to start an electrified locomotive is to turn

a handswitch. No stoking or water-boiling. Does away with the fireboy.

One man runs it!"

"Why!" cried Ned, "I never stopped to think of all these things."

"No ashes to dump," went on Tom. "No flues to clean, no boilers to

inspect, and none to wear out. And they say that on the Chicago,

Milwaukee & St. Paul, at least, their freight locomotives handle twice

the load of a steam locomotive at a greatly reduced cost."

"Sounds fine. Don't wonder Mr. Bartholomew is eager to electrify his

entire tine."

"On the side of passenger traffic," continued Tom Swift, "the electric

locomotive is smokeless, noiseless, dirtless, and doesn't jerk the

coaches in either stopping or starting. And in addition, the electric

locomotive is much easier on track and roadbed than the old 'iron

horse' driven by steam generated either from coal or oil."

"It is a great field for your talents, Tom!" cried Ned, warmly.

"It is a big job," admitted Tom, and he said this with modesty. "I

don't know what I may be able to do--if anything. I would not feel

right in taking Mr. Bartholomew's twenty-five thousand dollars for

nothing."

"Quite right, my boy," said Mr. Swift, approvingly.

"Never mind that," said the financial manager, rather grimly. "It was

his own offer and his risk. That twenty-five thousand comes to our

account."

Tom laughed. "All business, Ned, aren't you? But there is more than

business for the Swift Construction Company in this. Our reputation for

fair dealing as well as for inventive powers is linked up with this

contract.

"I want to show the Jandel people--to say nothing of the bigger

firms--that the Swifts are to be reckoned with when it comes to

electric invention. Other roads will be electrifying their lines as

fast as it is proved that the electric-driven locomotive has the bulge

on the steam-driven.

"In the case of the Hendrickton & Pas Alos there are very steep grades

to overcome. Supposedly an electric motor-drive should achieve the same

speed on a hill as on the level. But there is the weight of the train

to be counted on.

"The H. & P. A. has a two per cent. grade in more than one place. Mr.

Bartholomew confessed as much to me last night. The electric-driven

locomotive of the powerful freight type, which the Jandel people built

for Mr. Bartholomew, can make about sixteen miles an hour on those

grades, although they can hit it up to thirty miles an hour on level

track.

"His passenger locomotives turn off a mile a minute and more, on the

level road; but they can not climb those steep grades at a much

livelier pace than the freight engines. That is why he is talking about

two-mile-a-minute locomotives. He must get a mighty speedy locomotive,

for both freight and passenger service, to keep ahead of Montagne

Lewis's rival road, the Hendrickton & Western."

"You don't suppose it can be done, do you?" demanded Ned. "The

two-mile-a-minute locomotive, I mean, Tom."

"That is the target I am to aim for," returned his friend, soberly. "At

any rate, I hope to improve on the type of locomotive Mr. Bartholomew

is now using, so that the hundred thousand dollars bonus will come our

way as well as this first twenty-five thousand."

"That wouldn't pay for one engine, would it?" cried Ned.

"Nor is it expected to. The bonus has nothing to do with payment for

any model, or patent, or anything of the kind. To tell you the truth,

Ned, I understand those big locomotives used by the Chicago, Milwaukee

& St. Paul cost them about one hundred and twelve thousand dollars

each."

"Whew! Some price, I'll tell the world!" murmured the youthful

financial manager of the Swift Construction Company.

When the conference was over, and Tom had been through the workshop to

overlook several little jobs that were in process of completion by his

trusted mechanics, it was lunch time. He left word that he would not be

back that day, for this new task he was to attack was not to be

approached with any haphazard thought.

Tom knew quite as well as his father knew that the idea of improving

the Jandel patent on electric locomotives was no small thing. The

Jandel people had claimed that their patent was the very last word in

electric motor-power. And Tom was quite willing to acknowledge that in

some ways this claim was true.

But in invention, especially in the field of electric invention, what

is the last word today may be ancient history tomorrow.

It was because this field is so broad and the possibility of

improvement in every branch of electrical science so exciting, that Tom

had accepted Mr. Bartholomew's challenge with such eagerness.

Tom went back to the house for lunch, and as he joined his father in

the dining room he remarked to Eradicate:

"I want the electric runabout brought around after lunch. I am going to

Waterfield. Tell Koku, will you, Rad?"

"Tell that crazy fellow?" demanded the old colored man heatedly. "Why

should I tell him, Massa Tom? Ain't I able to bring dat runabout out o'

de garbarge? Shore I is!"

"You can't do everything, Rad," said Tom, soberly. "That is humanly

impossible."

"But dat Koku can't do nothin' right. Dat's inhumanly possible, Massa

Tom."

"Give him a chance, Rad. I have to take Koku with me this afternoon.

You must give your attention to the house and to father."

"Huh! Umm!" grunted Eradicate.

Rad was jealous of anybody who waited on Tom besides himself.

Yet he was proud of responsibility, too. He teetered between the pride

of being in charge at home and accompanying his young master, and

finally replied:

"Well, in course, you ain't going to be gone long, Massa Tom. And yo'

father does like to get his nap undisturbed. And he'll want his pot o'

tea afterwards. So I'll let dat irresponsible Koku go wid yo'. But yo'

got to watch him, Massa Tom. Dat giant don't know what he's about half

de time."

As Koku was not within hearing to challenge that statement, things went

all right. When Tom came out of the house after eating, he found his

very fast car waiting for him, with the giant standing beside it at the

curb.

"Get in at the back, Koku," said Tom. "I am going to take you with me."

"Master is much wise," said Koku. "That man with big feet will not hurt

Master while Koku is with him."

To tell the truth Tom had quite forgotten the supposed spy that had

attacked him the night before. He needed Koku for a purpose other than

that of bodyguard. But he made no comment upon the giant's remark.

They stopped at one of the gates of the works, and Tom instructed Koku

to bring out and put into the car certain boxes and tools that he

wished to take with him. Then he drove on, taking the road to

Waterfield.

This way led through farmlands and patches of woods, a rough country in

part. A mile out of the limits of Shopton the road edged a deep valley,

the sidehill sparsely wooded.

Almost at once, and where there was not a dwelling in sight, they saw a

figure tramping in the road ahead, a big man, roughly dressed, and

wearing a broad-brimmed hat. Somehow, his appearance made Tom reduce

speed and he hesitated to pass the pedestrian.

The man did not hear the runabout at first; or, at least, he did not

look over his shoulder. He strode on heavily, but rapidly. Suddenly the

young inventor heard the giant behind him emit a hissing breath.

"Master!" whispered the giant.

"What's up now?" demanded Tom, but without glancing around.

"The big feet!" exclaimed Koku.

The giant's own feet were shod with difficulty in civilized footgear,

but compared with his other physical dimensions his feet did not seem

large. The man ahead wore coarse boots which actually looked too big

for him! Koku started up in the back of the car as the latter drew

nearer to the stranger.

The man looked back at last and Tom gained a clear view of his

features--roughly carved, dark as an Indian's, and holding a grim

expression in repose that of itself was far from breeding confidence.

In a moment, too, the expression changed into one of active emotion.

The man glared at the young inventor with unmistakable malevolence.

"Master!" hissed Koku again. "The big feet!" The fellow must have seen

Koku's face and understood the giant's expression. In a flash he turned

and leaped out of the roadway. The sidehill was steep and broken here,

but he went down the slope in great strides and with every appearance

of wishing to evade the two in the motor-car.

The giant's savage war cry followed the fugitive. Koku leaped from the

moving car. Tom yelled:

"Stop it, Koku! You don't know that that is the man."

"The big feet!" repeated the giant. "Master see the red mud dried on

Big Feet's boots? That mud from Master's garden."

Again Koku uttered his savage cry, and in strides twice the length of

those of the running man, started on the latter's trail.

Chapter VIII

An Enemy in the Dark

The situation offered suggestions of trouble that stung Tom to

immediate action. The impetuousness of his giant often resulted in

difficulties which the young inventor would have been glad to escape.

Now Koku was following just the wrong path. Tom Swift knew it.

"Koku, you madman!" he shouted after the huge native. "Come back here!

Hear me? Back!"

Koku hesitated. He shot a wondering look over his shoulder, but his

long legs continued to carry him down the slope after the dark-faced

stranger.

"Come back, I say!" shouted Tom again. "Have I got to come after you?

Koku! If you don't mind what you're told I'll send you back to your own

country and you'll have to eat snakes and lizards, as you used to. Come

here!"

Whether it was because of this threat of a change of diet, which Koku

now abhorred, or the fact that he had really become somewhat

disciplined and that he fairly worshiped Tom, the giant stopped. The

man with the big shoes disappeared behind a hedge of low trees.

"Get back up here!" ejaculated Tom sternly. "I'll never take you away

from the house with me again if you don't obey me."

"Master!" ejaculated the giant, slowly approaching. "That Big Feet--"

"I don't care if he made those footprints in the yard last night or

not. I don't want him touched. I didn't even want him to know that we

guessed he had been sneaking about the house. Understand?"

"Of a courseness," grumbled Koku. "Koku understand everything Master

say."

"Well, you don't act as though you did. Next time when I want any help

I may have to bring Rad with me."

"Oh, no, Master! Not that old man. He don't know how to help Master.

Koku do just what Master say."

"Like fun you do," said Tom, still apparently very angry with the

simple-minded giant. "Get back into the car and sit still, if you can,

until we get to Mr. Damon's house." Then to himself he added: "I don't

blame that fellow, whoever he is, for lighting out. I bet he's running

yet!"

He knew that Koku would say nothing regarding the incident. The giant

had wonderful powers of silence! He sometimes went days without

speaking even to Rad. And that was one of the sources of irritation

between the voluble colored man and the giant.

"'Tain't human," Rad often said, "for nobody to say nothin' as much as

dat Koku does. Why, lawsy me! if he was tongue-tied an' speechless, an'

a deaf an' dumb mute, he couldn't say nothin' more obstreperously dan

he does--no sir! 'Tain't human."

So Tom had not to warn the giant not to chatter about meeting the

stranger on the road to Waterfield. If that person with dried red mud

on his boots was the spy who had followed Mr. Richard Bartholomew East

and was engaged by Montagne Lewis to interfere with any attempt the

president of the H. & P. A. might make to pull his railroad out of the

financial quagmire into which it was rapidly sinking, Tom would have

preferred to have the spy not suspect that he had been identified after

his fiasco of the previous evening.

For if this Western looking fellow was Andy O'Malley, whose name had

been mentioned by the railroad man, he was the person who had robbed

Tom of his wallet and had afterward attempted reprisal upon the young

inventor because the robbery had resulted in no gain to the robber.

Of course, the fellow had been unable to read Tom's shorthand notes of

the agreement that he had discussed with Mr. Bartholomew. Just what the

nature of that agreement was, would be a matter of interest to the

spy's employer.

Having failed in this attempt to learn something which was not his

business, the spy might make other and more serious attempts to learn

the particulars of the agreement between the railroad president and the

Swifts. Tom was sorry that the fellow had now been forewarned that his

identity as the spy and footpad was known to Tom and his friends.

Koku had made a bad mess of it. But Tom determined to say nothing to

his father regarding the discovery he had made. He did not want to

worry Mr. Swift. He meant, however, to redouble precautions at the

Swift Construction Company against any stranger getting past the

stockade gates.

Arrived at Mr. Damon's home in Waterfield, Tom got quickly to work on

the little job he had come to do for his old friend. Of course, Tom

might have sent two of his mechanics from the works down here to

electrify the barbed wire entanglements that Mr. Damon had erected

around his chicken run. But the young inventor knew that his eccentric

friend would not consider the job done right unless Tom attended to it

personally.

"Bless my cracked corn and ground bone mixture!" ejaculated the chicken

fancier. "We'll show these night-prowlers what's what, I guess. One of

my neighbors was robbed last night. And I would have been if I hadn't

set a watch while I drove over to see you, Tom. Bless my spurs and

hackles! but these thieves are getting bold."

"We'll fix 'em," said Tom, cheerfully, while Koku brought the tools and

wire to the hen run. "After we link up your supply of the current with

this wire fence it will be an unhappy chicken burglar who interferes

with it."

"That was an unhappy fellow who got your charge of ammonia last

evening," whispered Mr. Damon. "Heard anything more of him?"

"I think I have seen him. But Koku spoiled everything by trying to eat

him up," and Tom laughingly related what had occurred on the way from

Shopton.

"Bless my boots!" said Mr. Damon. "You'd better see the police, Tom."

"What for?"

"Why, they ought to know about such a fellow lurking about Shopton. If

he followed that Western railroad president here--"

"We'll hope that he will follow Mr. Bartholomew away again," chuckled

Tom. "Mr. Bartholomew won't stay over today. When that chap finds he

has gone he probably will consider that there is no use in his

bothering me any further."

Whether Tom believed this statement or not, he was destined to realize

his mistake within a very short time. At least, the fact that he was

being spied upon and that the enemy meant him anything but good, seemed

proved beyond a doubt that very week.

Having done the little job for Mr. Damon, Tom allowed no other outside

matter to take up his attention. He shut himself into his private

experimental workshop and laboratory at the works each day. He did not

even come out for lunch, letting Rad bring him down some sandwiches and

a thermos bottle of cool milk.

"The young boss is milling over something new," the men said, and

grinned at each other. They were proud of Tom and faithful to his

interests.

Time was when there had been traitors in the works; but unfaithful

hands had been weeded out. There was not a man who drew a pay envelope

from the Swift Construction Company who would not have done his best to

save Tom and his father trouble. Such a thing as a strike, or labor

troubles of any kind, was not thought of there.

So Tom knew that whatever he did, or whatever plans he drew, in his

private room, he was safely guarded. Yet he always took a portfolio

home with him at night, for after dinner he frequently continued his

work of the day. Naturally during this first week he did not get far in

any problem connected with the proposed electric locomotive. There

were, however, rough drafts and certain schedules that had to do with

the matter jotted down.

It was almost twelve at night. Tom had sat up in his own room after his

father had retired, and after the household was still.

Eradicate was in bed and snoring under the roof, Tom knew. Just where

Koku was, it would have been hard to tell. Although a fine and

penetrating rain was falling, the giant might be roaming about the

waste land surrounding the stockade of the works. The elements had no

terrors for him.

Tom locked his portfolio and stepped into his bathroom to wash his

hands before retiring. Before he snapped on the electric light over the

basin he chanced to glance through the newly set windowpane which had

replaced the one Rad had shattered in escaping threatened impalement on

Koku's spear.

Although the clouds were thick and the rain was falling, there was a

certain humid radiance upon the roof of the porch under the bathroom

window. At least, the wet roof glistened so that any moving figure on

or beyond it was visible.

"What's that?" muttered Tom, and he sank down lower than the sill and

crept slowly to the window. He merely raised himself until his eyes

were on a level with the sill.

Coming up over the edge of the porch roof was a bulky figure. It was

so dimly outlined at first that Tom could scarcely be sure that it was

that of a man.

However, it was not possible that any creature but a man would be able

to mount the lattice supporting the honeysuckle vines and so creep out

upon the porch roof. Once making secure his footing, the enemy in the

dark approached directly the bathroom window at which Tom crouched.

Chapter IX

Where was Koku?

Tom reached up swiftly and pushed over the lever that locked the two

window sashes. In doing this he set his own patent burglar alarm. If

that lever was turned back again, or broken, the buzzers would be set

ringing all over the house, and in Koku's room over the garage.

He did not believe that the marauder on the roof of the porch could

have seen the flash of his shirt-sleeved arm. But he took no chance of

being observed from outside by rising to his feet.

On his hands and knees he crept away from the window, and out of the

bathroom. Once there, he stood up, grabbed the portfolio, and without

coat or vest and as he was, dashed out of the bedroom. He had been

positive that nobody but himself was astir in the big house, and he was

right.

He did not punch the light button when he entered the library. He knew

where to put his hand upon an electric torch in the table drawer, and

he gained possession of this.

Then he went to the safe and twirled the knob and watched the indicator

find the four numbers which were the "open sesame" to the burglar and

fire-proof door.

He flung the portfolio into the inner compartment, closed both doors,

and twirled the combination-knob. Then Tom tiptoed to the foot of the

front stairs to listen. He could hear no sound from above.

He did not want his father to be startled, if the enemy did break in;

and he knew that old Rad, awakened out of a sound sleep, would be worse

than useless at such a time.

After all, the giant, Koku, was his main dependence under these

circumstances. Tom crept to the outer door, opened it carefully, and

slipped out, letting the spring lock click behind him. For the first

time he realized that he was in his shirt and trousers and wore only

felt slippers on his feet.

But he was locked out now. He had no key. He must run the risk of the

fine rain and the chill of the night air.

He stepped off the end of the porch and ran around the house. It was

to the roof of the rear porch that the marauder had climbed. But peer

as he might from down in the yard, Tom could see no moving figure up

there near the bathroom window. It was pitch dark against the wall of

the house.

He turned to glance up at the window of the sleeping room over the

garage where Koku was supposed to spend the night. But Tom knew the

giant was seldom there during the dark hours. He was as much of a

night-prowler as a wildcat or an owl.

There was no light there in any case. But Koku did not use a light

much. He could see in the dark, like a wild animal. Tom did not want to

call him. If he must have Koku's help, he would have to climb the

stairs to his bedside. The giant always aroused as wide awake as at

noonday.

But while the young inventor hesitated a sudden, but muffled, snap--the

breaking of metal--sounded. Tom knew instantly the direction from which

the sound came.

Although he could see nothing up there at the bathroom window because

of the rain and the deep shadow, he knew that the snapping sound meant

the severing of the window lock that he had so recently closed. Some

instrument had been forced under the bottom of the lower sash and

pressure enough been brought to bear to break the thin steel lever.

On the heels of this sound came another. A muffled buzzing somewhere in

the house--again! again! And then, startlingly clear from the room over

the garage, the burglar alarm went off in Koku's chamber.

"It's all off now!" gasped Tom, and he ran to the foot of the

honeysuckle ladder up which he knew the enemy had climbed to get to the

roof of the porch. "If he comes down I'll have him!" muttered Tom,

staring up into the mist and gloom.

"Fo' de lawsy's sake! 'Tain't mawnin', is it?" Rad's sleepy voice was

heard to announce. "No, it's da'k as--" And the voice trailed off into

silence.

"Tom! Tom!" the young fellow heard his aroused father shouting.

Tom knew that his father was in no danger. In fact Mr. Swift's voice

did not even betray apprehension. It was to the garage Tom looked for

an explosion. But none came.

If Koku was up there the prolonged buzzing of the alarm did not awake

him. Therefore he could not be there. Tom realized that if the burglar

was to be taken the whole affair fell upon his shoulders.

"And I've got my hands full, if it is the fellow with the big feet that

we saw on the Waterfield Road the other day," muttered the young

inventor.

Nothing stirred on the porch roof. Moment after moment slipped by. Tom

began to grow more than amazed. He was worried. What would happen next?

His father had not cried out again. Stepping around to the end of the

roofed porch, Tom saw a light in Mr. Swift's room. Rad had evidently

gone to sleep again. It would take more than an intermittent buzzer to

rouse fully that colored man.

"When old Morpheus has a strangle hold on Rad, Gabriel's trump would

scarcely awaken him," Tom muttered.

What had become of the enemy? If it was an ordinary burglar he would

have feared the electric alarm instantly. The buzzers were still

working. But there was no sign of the man who had set them off at the

bathroom window.

Suddenly Tom heard a door slam. It was from the front of the house. Had

his father come downstairs to look around and see what the matter was?

The young fellow started around the house on a run. He heard heavy

bootsoles spurning the gravel of the path to the front gate. He arrived

at the far corner of the house in time to see a man dash through the

gateway and run down the street, disappearing finally into the

fast-driving rain.

"Fooled me! He went in and right through and down the stairs! Out the

front door!" gasped Tom. "Did he get anything? I wonder!"

He sprang up to the front porch and tried the door. It was locked

again, of course. Should he ring the bell and get Rad or his father

down to the door?

And then, of a sudden, the principal mystery of all this affair bit

into Tom Swift's mind. The burglar had made his escape. He could

relieve his father's anxiety later. It was his own puzzlement of mind

that he first wished to ease.

Where was Koku?

Even had the giant been circling the stockade around the shops he

surely must have come up to the home premises by this time. His keen

ears could not fail to hear the buzzers. They were still going and

would go until the switch was turned.

If the giant was in his room--Tom turned suddenly and started on a run

for the rear premises. He still carried the hand-lamp and it lit his

way into the garage door and up the narrow stairway. He shot the round

beam of the lamp into Koku's room.

He had been obliged to have an iron bedstead made to order for the

giant. It stood against one wall of the room. The buzzer was snarling

like a huge bumblebee above the head of the couch. Below it sprawled

the giant, eyes tightly closed and mouth slightly ajar. From the lips

of Koku were emitted sounds worthy of Rad Sampson in his deepest

slumbers!

"Asleep?" gasped Tom, stepping cat-like into the room.

And then he was suddenly aware of a sickish, heavy odor in the chamber.

The window had been closed. But it was something more than stale air

that Tom smelled.

A folded cloth lay on the floor beside the couch. The young fellow saw

at once that it had been originally placed over the giant's face, but

had slid off. And lucky for Koku that it had been dislodged!

"Chloroform!" muttered Tom. "He's drugged. It is no wonder he did not

hear the burglar alarm."

In any event, the incident made one deep impression on Tom's mind. The

spies who he believed were working for the Hendrickton & Western

Railroad and its owner, Montagne Lewis, were desperate men. Tom could

not believe that the fellow with the big feet was alone in Shopton and

was unaided in his attempts to find out what Tom was doing.

This attempt to burglarize the house betrayed the caliber of the enemy.

In chloroforming Koku he had taken the risk of murdering the giant.

Only the fact that the pad of saturated cloth had fallen off Koku's

face had, perhaps, saved the man from suffocation.

Tom did not tell the giant when he aroused what the matter with him

was. Koku was ill enough! He was wrenched by interior spasms that

seemed almost to tear his huge body to pieces.

"What done got into dat big lump o' bone an' grizzle?" demanded

Eradicate. "He looks like, he swallowed a volcano, and it just got to

wo'kin' right. My lawsy!"

"He is a sick man, all right," admitted Tom. "Looks like he wouldn't

try to stab me to deaf wid no spear no mo'," went on Rad, inclined to

approve of Koku's sufferings.

"If he died you'd be mighty sorry, old man," declared Tom, sternly.

"Sho' would. Be a mighty hard job to bury him," was the callous

response.

Just the same, the crotchety old colored man began to hop around in

lively fashion with hot water, and later with coffee and other

stimulants; and he nursed Koku all day as though he were a big baby.

Koku, who had never been ill before in his life, was inclined to lay

the trouble to an evil genius of some kind. Perhaps, in spite of his

half-civilized state, he was still a devil-worshiper. At any rate, he

had a vital respect for the forces of evil.

Naturally he considered this unknown and unexpected misery he suffered

the result of malignant influences of some kind. Tom did not want him

to suspect that the man with the big feet had any possible part in the

mystery. Had Koku suspected this, and had he got his hands on the spy,

the latter could never have been successfully used in that sort of work

again. In all probability he would have said that he had had enough.

Meanwhile Tom made a point of considering each step he took alone

thereafter with particular care. He had a bodyguard--usually the giant

after the latter had recovered--between the works and the house. He did

not bring home any more the schedules or drawings connected with the

electric locomotive that he proposed to have built and to test inside

the stockade of the Swift Construction Company.

He even put a private detective to work on the matter of finding a man

named Andy O'Malley who might be lurking around Shopton. He had a

pretty clear description of the fellow, for he had not only seen him

once, face to face by daylight, but Tom had written to the president of

the H. & P. A. and had got from that gentleman a clear picture in words

of the spy whom Mr. Bartholomew believed was working in the interests

of Montagne Lewis.

"If O'Malley appears in Shopton, look out. He is a bad character. He is

not only a notorious gunman, with several warrants out for him in these

parts, but he is a cruel and desperate man in any event. The minute you

mark him, have him arrested and telegraph me. We'll get him extradited

and put him through for ten years or more right in this county." The

private investigator, however, as the weeks went by, could not find any

man who filled O'Malley's description.

Meanwhile Tom Swift had got what he called "a lead" and was working day

and night upon the invention that he believed might make even the

Jandel people respectful, if not a bit envious.

First of all Tom had arranged to have built all around inside the

stockade a track of rails heavy enough to stand the wear and tear of

the heaviest locomotive built. Meanwhile the various parts of his

locomotive were being built in several shops, but would be shipped to

the Swift Construction Company and assembled in Tom's try-out shed.

Great secrecy was of course maintained. Aside from the fact that the

new invention had something to do with electric motive power, nobody

about the shops could say what the new industry portended. Save, of

course, the Swifts themselves, Ned Newton, and Mr. Damon, who was the

Swifts' closest friend and sometimes had furnished additional capital

for Tom's experiments.

There was a thing that Mr. Damon furnished Tom at this time that proved

in the end to be of much importance. Before Tom had seized upon this

idea of his eccentric friend, and had made proper use of it, something

happened that came near to wrecking utterly Tom's invention and

completely putting an end to Tom himself as an inventor.

Chapter X

A Strange Conversation

Mr. Wakefield Damon frequently came to the shops, for he was not alone

very friendly with the Swifts, but he was greatly interested in Tom's

new invention.

"If it goes as good as what you did for my chicken run," he declared,

chuckling, "bless my dampers! you'll beat all the electric locomotives

in the market."

"That is easy, perhaps," said Tom smiling. "There are not many in the

market at the present time. But I don't know what mine will be. This is

going to be some job."

"Bless my flues and clinkers!" cried Mr. Damon, "you are not losing

hope, Tom Swift? Look what you did for my chicken run. And believe me,

that entanglement will give a shock that makes a man stand right up and

shake."

"Have you tried it yourself?" asked Tom.

"No. But my servant did. I saw him through the window of my study doing

some kind of a shimmy with the shovel. Thought he'd gone crazy. Then I

saw what he had done. It was early in the morning and I hadn't turned

the current off, and he had put one hand against the wires. When he

dropped the shovel as I told him to, bless my plyers and nippers! he

was all right."

"The current would not seriously hurt him," said Tom. "I was careful

about that."

"It killed two tomcats," said Mr. Damon. "I certainly was glad of that,

for those two ash-barrel cats kept the whole neighborhood awake. Bless

my claws and whiskers! how those two cats did use to yell. But when one

tried to climb the wires and the other sprang on him, it was all over!

That is, all over but the burial party."

Mr. Damon was on the ground when the mechanical equipment and a part of

the electrical equipment of the new locomotive arrived and was set up

in the erection shed. The length of the machine was what first

impressed Ned Newton as well as Mr. Damon.

"Bless my yardstick!" exclaimed the eccentric man, "it's as long as a

gossip's tongue. What a monster it will be!"

"How long is it, Tom?" asked Ned Newton.

"When completed, and standing on its drivers and bogie truck and

trailer truck, from cow-catcher to rear bumper it will be a few inches

over ninety feet. And that is slightly longer than the biggest electric

locomotive so far built. But length does not so much enter into the

value of the machine. I would have it built more compactly if I could."

"What is the horsepower?" asked Mr. Damon.

"I figure on forty-four hundred horsepower. The power must be received

from a three thousand-volt direct-current trolley. There are twelve

driving-wheels, as you can see. Each pair of drivers will be driven by

a twin-motor geared to the axles through a system of flexible spring

drive. Remember, I have got to obtain both speed as well as power in

this locomotive, for it is being built to pull a passenger train--a

fast cross-continent express--to compete with the best passenger

equipment in the country."

"Bless my combination ticket!" murmured Mr. Damon. "You have picked out

some task, and no mistake, Tom Swift."

"He'll do it," cried Ned, with his usual optimism when Tom had once

started on any experimental work. "Of course he will. Just as she

stands there now, only half put together, I would be willing to bet a

farm that she is a better locomotive than the Jandel patent."

"Three cheers!" laughed Tom. "Ned is as enthusiastic as usual. But

believe me, friends, we are not going to turn out a better locomotive

than the Jandel without both thought and work."

His friends' enthusiasm was heartening, however. No doubt of that. He

never let them into his experiment room, any more than he allowed his

workmen in there. Aside from his own father, nobody really knew what

Tom Swift was doing behind that always-locked door.

The huge structure of the locomotive was set up on the driving wheels

and leading and trailing trucks by Tom's chief foreman and a picked

crew. Just such another locomotive had never been seen anywhere about

Shopton. Naturally the men at work on the monster began to speak of it

outside the works.

Not that they betrayed any secrets regarding the locomotive. In fact,

as yet none of them knew anything about what Tom intended to do with

the big machine. But the story soon circulated that Tom Swift, the

young inventor, was about to show all the previous builders of electric

locomotives how such machines should be built.

It was even whispered that Tom's objective was a two-mile-a-minute

locomotive. And when this was publicly known the information was not

long in seeping to the ears of certain men who had been keeping as

close a watch as they dared on the Swift Construction Company and the

activities of Tom himself.

Ned Newton went to the bank one Friday for money for the payroll of the

working and clerical force of the Swift Company. It was an errand he

never relegated to any employee.

Ned had once worked himself in the bank, and naturally he knew many of

its employees as well as the officials. With his back to the general

waiting room, he sat at the vice president's desk discussing some minor

matter. Only a railing divided the vice president's enclosure from the

long settee on which waiting customers of the bank were seated.

Ned knew that there were two men directly behind him, whispering

together; but he paid no attention to them until he heard this phrase:

"It's time to explode in just five hours; then good-night to that

invention, whatever it is."

This statement might mean almost anything--or nothing. Ordinarily Ned

Newton might not have paid any consideration to the words. But

"invention" was a term that he could not overlook. His mind then was

fixed upon Tom's invention almost as closely as the mind of the young

inventor himself.

Ned turned around slowly, as though idly, indeed, and tried to see the

faces of the two men behind him. One was a small, neatly dressed man of

professional appearance. He wore a Vandyke beard and eyeglasses. The

other's face Ned could not see; but as they both rose just then and

strolled toward the door of the bank he could observe that the fellow

was big and burly.

Ned wheeled to his friend, the vice president, and asked:

"Who are those men, Mr. Stanley? Do you know them?"

The pair were just going out through the revolving door. The vice

president craned his neck for a look at them.

"Don't know the small man, Ned. But the other is named O'Malley, I

believe. Somebody introduced him here and he gets a check cashed

occasionally. Not a customer of the bank."

At that moment the name "O'Malley" did not mean anything to Ned Newton.

But he bade his friend good-bye and went out after the two men. They

had disappeared.

Rad was in the electric runabout, waiting for him. The words spoken by

O'Malley (Ned thought it must have been he who spoke of the invention

because of his deep voice) continued to disturb Ned's thought.

"Rad," he said, as he got into the runabout, "did you ever hear the

name O'Malley?"

"Sure has," declared the colored man. "And it's a bad name and a bad

man owns it."

"Do you mean that?" exclaimed the financial manager of the Swift

Construction Company, with increasing apprehension. "Who is he?"

"Why, Mr. Newton, don't you 'member dat man?"

"Who is he?" repeated Ned.

"Dat Andy O'Malley is de one what tried to hold up Massa Tom dat time.

O'Malley is de man what's been spyin' on Massa Tom--"

"Great grief!" exclaimed Ned, breaking in with excitement. "I'll drive

as fast as I can, Rad. There is something wrong at the works, I do

believe!"

"What's wrong, Mr. Ned?" demanded Rad. "We just come from dere, and

everyt'ing was all right."

"I just heard something that O'Malley said. I want to get back in a

hurry. I believe that scoundrel is attempting to blow up Tom's

locomotive. We've got to get to the works just as quick as we can."

Chapter XI

Touch and Go

The mechanical equipment of the new locomotive was now complete and Tom

was establishing the electrical equipment as rapidly as possible. He

not only acted as overseer of this work, but in overalls and jumper he

was doing a good share of the work himself.

The weight of the electrical equipment when it was finally set up was

not far from two hundred thousand pounds. Altogether, when the oil,

sand, and water tanks were filled, the great machine would weigh two

hundred and eighty-five tons--a monster indeed!

"She is going to take a lot of current to run her," said Tom to his

father, who was standing by. "When I come to arrange with the Shopton

Electric Company for power, it's a question if they can give me all I

need. And I must have plenty of current to make sure that my motors

fill the bill."

"As your tests will be made in the daytime, the company should be able

to furnish the power you need," rejoined Mr. Swift. "At night, of

course, when they must furnish so much light as well as power, it might

be difficult for them to give you the proper current."

"Forty-four hundred horsepower is a big demand," went on Tom. "I've

got to have at least a three-thousand-volt direct-current to feed my

motors. I will soon have to take up the matter with the Electric

Company."

The heavy work of setting the electrical parts of the locomotive had

been finished the day previous, and the track-derrick was removed. Tom

was engaged in adjusting the more delicate parts of the equipment and

had merely stepped down from the cab to speak to Mr. Swift.

Now he climbed back into the interior of the great machine which, in a

general way, looked like a box car. An electric locomotive has not much

of the appearance of a steam engine. The machinery is all boxed in and

the entire floor of the locomotive is above even the drivers.

These six pairs of driving wheels were about seventy inches in

diameter, while the diameter of the leading and following truck-wheels

was but half that number of inches.

Mr. Swift had turned away from the locomotive when Tom put his head out

of the door again.

"Do you hear that, father?" he demanded in a puzzled tone.

"Hear what, Tom?" asked the old inventor, looking up.

"That ticking sound? I declare, I'd think it was one of those

death-watch beetles had got in here. Sounds like a big watch ticking. I

can't make it out."

"Where is it? What is it?" repeated Mr. Swift. "I hear nothing down

here on the floor of the shed."

"Well, it gets me," muttered Tom, and disappeared again. In a moment he

called out: "Say, you fellows! who left his bundle of overalls in here?

Better take 'em out to be manicured. Whose are these?"

Two or three of the mechanics working near looked up from their tasks.

Mr. Swift turned back to the door of the cab again.

"What is the matter now, Tom?" he asked, in added curiosity.

"That bundle, Dad."

Tom once more appeared and addressed the workmen: "Whose bundle of

dirty overalls is this in here? Come and take 'em away. They shouldn't

have been left here."

"Why, Mr. Tom," said the foreman who was near, "I didn't see any soiled

overalls in there when I left last evening. Any of you fellows," he

asked the group of hands, "know anything about any overalls?"

"The bundle is here all right. Pushed back against the third series

motors. Come up here, one of you fellows--"

Suddenly there was a noise at the end of the shed where the door to the

offices lay. Two figures burst through from the glass doors and charged

down the lanes between the lathes and cranes. Ned Newton led, Rad

Sampson, his face a mouse-gray with fear, followed.

"Massa Tom! Massa Tom!" shouted the colored man. "Look out fo' de bomb!

Look out fo' de bomb!"

The foreman sprang toward the high door of the locomotive where Tom

stood, staring out. The young inventor, quick as his mind usually

functioned, did not understand at all what Eradicate meant.

"There's something wrong in there, Mr. Tom!" shouted the foreman. "Come

down, sir, and let me get up there and see what it is."

But Mr. Barton Swift grasped the meaning of what was going on more

quickly than anybody else. Tom's father, Tom frequently said, had spent

so many years investigating chemical and mechanical mysteries that he

saw more clearly and more exactly into and through most problems than

other people.

His raised voice now cut through the rumble of machinery and all the

other noises of the shop. Even Rad Sampson's delirious cry was dwarfed

by Mr. Swift's sharp tone:

"Tom! The ticking of that watch! That means danger!"

The declaration seemed to rip away a curtain from Tom's thoughts.

Perhaps Rad's cry about "de bomb" aided the young inventor to

understand the peril that threatened.

The faint ticking sound that had begun to annoy him during the past few

minutes betrayed the nature of the threatening peril. Tom swung back

from the open doorway of the locomotive cab, reached in to the space

between the motors, and seized the bundle of overall stuff that he had

previously spied.

He knew instantly that the rapid ticking came from that bundle. It

could be nothing but a time bomb. He had heard of such things and,

indeed, had seen one before, an infernal machine which, set like an

alarm clock, would go off at a certain time. That indicated time might

be an hour hence, or might be within a few seconds! Ned Newton, almost

at the spot, shouted to Tom when the latter reappeared with the bundle

in his hands:

"Get down out of that, Tom Swift! Quick! For your life!"

But Tom was cool enough now. He saw his father's white, strained face

at one side and the young inventor could even smile at him. Behind the

foreman was set a barrel of water in which tools were cooled and

tempered.

"Stoop, McAvoy!" Tom shouted, and tossed the bundle from him.

Had the infernal machine exploded in midair Tom would not have been

surprised. But McAvoy dodged, Rad clapped his hands over his ears, and,

even Ned Newton halted like a bird-dog at point.

The bundle splashed into the barrel of water. It sank to the bottom.

There was no explosion. When a few seconds had passed the group of

excited men began to relax. The barrel was carried carefully to a

neighboring field.

"Fo' de lawsy sake!" gasped Rad, and got a full breath again.

"That was touch and go, sure enough," muttered Ned Newton.

"Those overalls sure went to the wash, Boss," declared the foreman.

"What was in 'em? And who put 'em in the cab up there?"

But Tom dropped down the ladder and went to his father. Their hands

sought each other and gripped, hard.

"Better not tell Mary about this," whispered Tom. "She's worried enough

as it is."

"Right, Tom," agreed the old inventor. "From this time on we cannot be

too careful. If there proves to be an infernal machine in that package

we may be sure that we are dealing with desperate men. We've got to

keep our eyes open."

"Wide open," added Ned.

"I'll say we have," said Tom.

Chapter XII

The Try-Out Day Arrives

It did not need Ned Newton's story of what he had overheard at the bank

to prove that an attempt had been made to blow to pieces Tom Swift's

electric locomotive before even it had been tested.

An examination of the water-soaked package in the open yard of the

shops of the Swift Construction Company, proved that there was enough

explosive in the bomb to blow the shed itself to pieces. But the

stopping of the clockwork attachment of course made the bomb harmless.

"The main thing to be explained," Tom said, when he and his father and

Ned discussed the particulars of the affair, "is not who did it, or

what it was done for. Those are comparatively easy questions to answer."

"Yes," agreed Ned. "O'Malley did it, or caused it to be done; and it

was an attempt to balk Mr. Bartholomew and the H, & P. A. rather than

a direct attack upon the Swift Construction Company."

"I am afraid, however," remarked Mr. Swift, "that Tom has aroused the

personal antagonism of this spy from the West. We must not overlook

that."

"I don't," replied the young inventor. "O'Malley has it in for me. No

doubt of that. But he could not be sure that I would be hurt by the

explosion he arranged for."

"True," said his father.

"The attempt was against my invention. And O'Malley was doubtless urged

to destroy the locomotive that I am building because my success will

aid Mr. Bartholomew and his railroad."

"Quite agreed," said Ned. "But--"

"But the important question," interrupted Tom, "is this: How did the

bomb get into the interior of the electric locomotive? That is the

first and most important problem. Its having been done once warns us

that it can be done again until our system of guarding the works is

changed."

"We have five watchmen on the job at night, and the gates are never

opened in the daytime to anybody for any purpose without a pass,"

declared Ned. "I don't see how that fellow got in here with the time

bomb."

"Exactly. It shows that there is a fault in our system somewhere," said

Tom grimly. "We cannot surround the place at night with an armed guard.

It would cost too much. Even Koku cannot be everywhere. And I have

reason to know that he was wandering about the stockade last night as

usual."

"The fellow was pretty sharp to slip by," Ned observed.

"The stockade is no mean barrier, especially with the rows of barbed

wire at the top," said Mr. Swift.

"Barbed wire! That's it!" exclaimed Tom. It was just here that Mr.

Damon's idea for guarding his prize buff Orpingtons came into play in

Tom's scheme of things. "Barbed wire doesn't seem to keep out spies,"

he added slowly. "But believe me, something else will!"

For Tom to think of a thing was to start action without delay.

Immediately he called a gang from the shops and set them to work

stringing copper wire along the top of the stockade.

He was sure that the man who had set the time bomb in place had got

into the enclosure over the fence. If he tried the same trick again he

was very apt to have the surprise of his life!

Each night when the shops closed and the watchmen went on duty, a

current of electricity was turned into those copper wires entwined with

the barbed wire entanglement at the top of the stockade that would

certainly double up any marauder who sought to get over the top.

However, no further attempt was made against Tom's peace of mind and

against his invention during the immediate weeks that followed. The

young inventor was so closely engaged in his work that he scarcely left

the house or the confines of the shops. Even Mary Nestor saw very

little of him.

But Mary realized fully that at such a time as this Tom must give all

his thought and energy to the task in hand. She was proud of Tom's

ability and took a deep interest in his inventions.

"I want to see the test when you try the locomotive, Tom," she told

him, when she came to the shops the first time to look at the monster

locomotive. "What a wonderful thing it is!"

"Its wonder is yet to be proved," rejoined the young inventor. "I

believe I've got the right idea; but nothing is sure as yet."

In addition to his mechanical contrivances inside the locomotive, Tom

had to arrange for an increased supply of electric power to drive the

huge machine around the track that was being built inside the stockade.

A regular station had to be built for receiving the electricity in a

100,000-volt alternating current and delivering it to the locomotive in

a 3,000-volt direct current. Therefore, this station had two functions

to perform--reducing the voltage and changing the current from

alternating to direct.

The reduction of the voltage was accomplished as follows: The

100,000-volt alternating current was received through an oil switch and

was conveyed to a high-tension current distributor made up of three

lines of copper tubing, thus forming the source of power for this

station.

From the current distributor the current was conducted through other

oil switches to the transformers--entering at 100,000 volts and

emerging at 2,300 volts. Then the current was conducted from the

transformers through switches to the motor-generator sets and became

the power employed to operate them.

The motor generator consisted of one alternating current motor driving

two direct current generators. The motor Tom established in his station

was of the 60-cycle synchronous type, which means that the current

changes sixty times each second.

There were two sets, each generating a 1,500 or 2,000 volt direct

current; and the two generators being permanently connected, delivered

a combined direct current of 3,000 volts--as high a direct voltage

current, Tom knew, as had ever been adopted for railroad work. The

current voltage for ordinary street railway work is 550 volts.

"I could run even this big machine," Tom explained to Ned Newton, "with

a much lighter current. But out there on the Hendrickton & Pas Alos

line the transforming stations deliver this high voltage to the

locomotives. I want to test mine under similar conditions."

"This is going to be an expensive test, Tom," said Ned, grumbling a

little. "The cost-sheets are running high."

"We are aiming at a big target," returned the inventor. "You've got to

bait with something bigger than sprats to catch a whale, Ned."

"Humph! Suppose you don't catch the whale after all?"

"Don't lose hope," returned Tom, calmly. "I am going after this whale

right, believe me! This is one of the biggest contracts--if not the

very biggest--we ever tackled."

"It looks as if the expense account would run the highest," admitted

the financial manager.

"All right. Maybe that is so. But I'll spend the last cent I've got to

perfect this patent. I am going to beat the Jandels if it is humanly

possible to do so."

"I can only hope you will, Tom. Why, this track and the overhead

trolley equipment is going to cost a small fortune. I had no idea when

you signed that contract with Mr. Bartholomew that so much money would

have to be spent in merely the experimental stage of the thing."

Ned Newton possessed traits of caution that could not be gainsaid. That

was one thing that made him such a successful financial manager for the

Swift Company. He watched expenditures as closely now as he had when

the business was upon a much more limited footing.

The rails laid along the inside of the stockade made a two-mile track,

as well ballasted as any regular railroad right of way. In addition the

overhead equipment was costly.

To eliminate any possibility of the trolley wire breaking, a strong

steel cable, called a catenary, was slung just above the trolley wire.

To this catenary the trolley wire was suspended by hangers at short

intervals.

These cables were strung from brackets so that a single row of poles

could be used, save at the curves, at which cross-span construction was

used. The trolley wire itself was of the 4/0 size, and was the largest

diameter copper wire ever employed for railroad purposes.

Several weeks had now passed since the great locomotive had been

assembled in the erection shed and the cab of the locomotive completed.

It really was a monster machine, and any stranger coming into the place

and seeing it for the first time must have marveled at the grim power

suggested by the mere bulk of the structure.

When the day of the first test arrived Tom allowed only his most

intimate friends to be present. Mary Nestor accompanied Mr. Swift into

the shops at the time appointed, and she was as excited over the

outcome of the test as Tom himself.

Ned Newton and the mechanical force of the shops knocked off work to

become spectators at the exhibition. The only other outsider was Mr.

Damon.

"Bless my alternating current!" cried the eccentric gentleman. "I

would not miss this for the world. If you tried to shut me out, Tom,

I'd climb over the stockade to get in."

"You'd better not," Tom told him, dryly. "If you tried that you'd get a

worse shock than any chicken thief will get that tries to steal your

buff Orpingtons."

Chapter XIII

Hopes and Fears

Tom climbed into the huge cab of the electric locomotive. In fact, the

cab was the most of it, for every part of the mechanism save the

drivers was covered by the eighty-odd foot structure. From the peak of

the pilot to the rear bumper the length was ninety feet and some inches.

As Tom slid the monster out upon the yard track the small crowd

cheered. At least, the locomotive had the power to move, and to the

unknowing ones, at least, that seemed a great and wonderful thing.

What they saw was apparently a box-car--like a mail coach, only with

more high windows--ten feet wide, its roof more than fourteen feet from

the rails, its locked pantagraph adding two feet more to its height.

Just what was in the cab--the water and oil tanks, the steam-heating

boiler to supply heat and hot water to the train the monster was to

draw, the motors and the many other mechanical contrivances--was hidden

from the spectators.

In fact, since completing the electrical equipment of the Hercules

0001, as Tom had named the locomotive, the young inventor had allowed

nobody inside the cab, any more than he allowed visitors inside his

private workshop. Even Mr. Swift did not know all the results of Tom's

experimental work. In a general way the older inventor knew the trend

of his son's attempts, but the details and the results of Tom's

experiments, the latter told to nobody.

But as the huge locomotive rolled into the yard and followed the more

or less circular track inside the yard fence, it was plain to all of

the onlookers that the motive-power was there all right! Just what

speed could be coaxed from the feed-cable overhead was another question.

Nor did Tom Swift try for much speed on this first test of the Hercules

0001. He went around the two-mile track several times before bringing

his machine to a stop near the crowd of onlookers. He came to the open

door of the cab.

"One thing is sure, Tom!" shouted Ned. "It do move!"

"Bless my slippery skates!" exclaimed Mr. Damon, "it slides right

along, Tom. You've done it, my boy--you've done it!"

"It looks good from where I stand, my son," said Mr. Barton Swift.

It was Mary who suspected that Tom was not wholly satisfied--as yet, at

least--with the test of the Hercules 0001. She cried:

"Tom! is it all right?"

"Nothing is ever all right--that is, not perfect--in this old world, I

guess, Mary," returned the young inventor. "But I am not discouraged.

As Ned says, the old contraption 'do move.' How fast she'll move is

another thing."

"What time did you make?" asked Mr. Swift.

"Not above fifteen miles an hour."

"Whew!" whistled Ned dolefully. "That is a long way from--"

Tom made an instant motion and Ned's careless lips were sealed. It was

not generally known among the men the speed which Tom hoped to obtain

with his new invention.

"It is a wide shoot at the target, that is true," Tom said, soberly.

"But remember I cannot test it for speed on this short and almost

circular track. Right at the start, however, I see that something about

the power-feed must be changed."

"What is that?" asked Mary, curiously.

"I have only had rigged here one trolley wire. There must be two

attached alternately to the catenary cable. Such a form of twin

conductor trolley will permit the collection of a heavy current through

the twin contact of the pantagraph with the two trolley wires, and

should assure a sparkless collection of the current at any speed. You

noticed that when I took the sharper curves there was an aerial

exhibition. I want to do away with the fireworks."

The fact that the Hercules 0001 was a going and apparently powerful

draught engine satisfied most of the onlookers that Tom Swift was on

the road to final and overwhelming success. The mechanics, indeed, saw

no reason why the locomotive could not be run right out of the yard on

the freight track and coupled to the first train going West. Of course,

the Hercules 0001 could not be delivered to the Hendrickton & Pas Alos

under its own power.

When the locomotive was run back into the shed and stood once more on

the erection track, Tom confessed to Mary and Ned, while Mr. Damon and

Mr. Swift were looking through the huge cab, that he was not at all

pleased with the action of the machine.

"I have the best equipment of any electric locomotive on the rails

today. I am sure of that," he said. "The Hercules Three-Oughts-One is

not as long as those electric locomotives of the C. M. &. St. P. But

that's all right. I have built mine more compactly and, properly

geared, it should have all the power of either the Baldwin-Westinghouse

or the Jandel locomotive."

"Then, Tom dear, what is wrong?" cried Mary.

"Speed. That is what troubles me. Have I got anything like the speed I

am aiming for?"

"Two miles a minute!" breathed Ned Newton. "Some speed, boy!"

"And must you have such great speed, Tom?" repeated Mary.

"That is in my contract. Not only that, but to be of much use to the H.

& P. A. this locomotive must have such speed--or mighty near it. Of

course, under ordinary conditions, two miles a minute for a locomotive

and train of heavy freights would burn up the track--maybe melt the

flanges and throw everything out of gear."

"Why try for it, then?" demanded Mary.

"It is the power suggested by the possession of such speed that we want

in the Hercules Three-Oughts-One. That two miles a minute is a fiction

of the imagination, cannot be claimed. It is possible. It is humanly

possible. It is coming."

"Then you must be the fellow to first accomplish it, Tom Swift," Ned

declared.

"Of course, if anybody can do it, you can, Tom," agreed the girl

complacently.

"Thanks--many, many thanks," laughed the young inventor. "I'd be able

to harness the sun and stars, and put a surcingle around the moon if I

came up to my friends' opinion of my ability.

"Nevertheless, two-miles-a-minute is my objective point, and I do not

believe it is visionary. Consider the motor-cycle. Ninety miles an hour

has long been possible with that, and some tests have shown a speed of

over a hundred and ten. That is not far from my mark.

"Some Mallet locomotives of the oil-burning type have achieved from

eighty-five to ninety-five miles an hour with a heavy load behind them.

They are very powerful machines. The Mogul mountain climbers are

powerful, too, although they are not built for speed.

"The electric Goliaths built for the C. M. & St. P., and the Jandels,

are both very speedy under certain conditions. The former has a maximum

speed of sixty-five miles and the Jandel slightly faster."

"But that is only half what that Mr. Bartholomew demands of your

invention, Tom!" Mary cried.

"That is a fact. I must reach twice sixty miles an hour, anyway, to

meet his demand and gain that hundred thousand bonus. But I have the

advantage of a knowledge of all that has been done before my time in

the matter of electrical locomotive construction."

"The world do move," repeated Ned. "You believe that you have the edge

on all the other inventors?"

"Along the line of this development--yes," said Tom. "I am taking up

the work where former experimenters ended theirs. Why shouldn't I find

the right combination to bring about a two-miles-a-minute drive?"

"Oh, Tom!" cried Mary, with clasped hands, "I hope you do."

"I hope I do, too," said Tom, grimly. "At least, if trying will bring

it, success is going to come my way."

Chapter XIV

Speed

More than four months had passed since the contract had been signed,

when Tom made his first yard-test of the Hercules 0001. For a month

nothing had been seen or heard of Andy O'Malley, whose identity as the

spy, set by Montagne Lewis to cripple Tom's attempt to help the

Hendrickton & Pas Alos Railroad, had been determined beyond any doubt.

The private inquiry agent that Tom had engaged to find O'Malley had

been unsuccessful in his work. The spy had disappeared from Shopton and

the vicinity. Nevertheless, the inventor did not for a moment overlook

the possibility that the enemy might again strike.

Every night the electric current was turned into the wires that capped

the stockade of the Swift Construction Company enclosure. Koku beat a

path around the enclosure at night, getting such short sleep as he

seemed to need in the forenoon.

"Dat crazy cannibal," grumbled Rad, "got it in his haid dat he's gwine

to he'p Massa Tom by walkin' out o' nights like he was dis here

Western, de great sprinter, Ma lawsy me! Koku ain't got brains enough

to fill up a hic'ry nut shell. Dat he ain't."

Nothing anybody else could do for Tom ever satisfied Rad. The colored

man fully believed that he was the only person really necessary for

Tom's success and peace of mind. In fact, Rad thought that even Ned

Newton's duties as financial manager of the firm were scarcely of as

much importance.

When he heard that Tom was going West, after a time, with the electric

locomotive, to try it out on the tracks of the H. & P. A., Rad was

quite sure that if he did not go along, the test would not come out

right.

"O' course yo'll need me, Massa Tom," he said, confidently. "Couldn't

git along widout me nohow. Yo' knows, sir, I allus has to go 'long wid

yo' to fix things."

"Don't you think father will need you here, Rad?" Tom asked the

faithful old fellow. "You're getting old--"

"Me gittin' old?" cried, the colored man. "Huh! Yo' don't know 'bout

dis here chile. I don't purpose ever to git old. I been gray-haided

since befo' yo' was born; but I ain't old yit!"

Mr. Damon chanced to be present at this conversation, and he was highly

amused, yet somewhat impressed, too, by the colored man's statement.

"Bless my own antiquity!" he exclaimed. "I agree with Rad, Tom. It's

us old fellows who know what to do when an emergency of any kind

arises. Experience teaches more than inspiration."

"Oh," said Tom, laughing, "I do not deny the value of old friends at

any stage of the game."

"Bless my roving nature! I am glad to hear you say that. For I tell you

right now, Tom, I want to be out there when you make your final test of

the locomotive."

"Do you mean that you will go West when I take out the Hercules

Three-Oughts-One?" cried Tom.

"It's just what I want to do. Bless my traveling bag, Tom! I mean to be

present at your final triumph."

"What will happen to your buff Orpingtons while you are gone?" asked

the young inventor, gravely.

"I have got my servant trained to look after those chickens," declared

Mr. Damon. "And this invention of yours is really more important than

even my buff Orpingtons."

"Just the same," remarked Tom to his eccentric friend, when Rad had

left the room. "I've got to fix it so that Eradicate stays at home with

father. He doesn't really know how old and broken he is--poor fellow."

"His heart is green, Tom. That's what is the matter with Rad."

"He is a loyal old fellow. But I shall take Koku with me, not Rad," and

the young inventor spoke decidedly. "And that is going to trouble poor

Rad a lot."

The prospect of going West, however, was not the main subject of Tom's

thoughts at this time. As the weeks passed and the end of the six

months of experiment came nearer, the inventor was more and more

troubled by the principal difficulty which had from the first

confronted him. Speed.

That was the mark he had set himself. A maximum speed of two miles a

minute on a level track for the Hercules 0001. With the speed already

attained by both steam and electric locomotives in the more recent

past, this was by no means an impossible attainment, as Tom quite well

knew.

But he became convinced that the conditions under which he labored made

it impossible for him to be positive of just how great a speed on a

straight, level track his invention would attain.

There was no electrified stretch of railroad near Shopton on which the

Hercules 0001 might be tested. The track inside the Swift Company's

enclosure did not offer the conditions the inventor needed. He felt

balked.

"I believe I have hit the right idea in my improvements on the Jandel

patents," he told Ned Newton when they were discussing the matter. "But

believing is one thing. Knowing is another!"

"Theoretically it works out all right, I suppose?" questioned Ned.

"Quite. I can prove on paper that I've got the speed. But that isn't

enough. You can see that."

"Impossible to be sure on the trackage already built here, Tom?"

"I haven't dared give her all she'll take," grumbled Tom. "If I did, I

fear she'd jump the rails and I'd have a wreck on my hands."

"And maybe kill yourself!" exclaimed Ned. "You want to have a care."

"Oh, that's all right! I've taken risks before. I don't want to risk

the safety of the locomotive, which is more important. That machine has

cost us a lot of money."

"I'll say so!" agreed Ned. "You'll have to wait till you can get the

locomotive out there on the H. & P. A. tracks before you get a fair

speed-test."

"And suppose instead of a triumph it is a fiasco?" Tom said,

doubtfully. "I tell you straight, Ned: I never was so uncertain about

the outcome of one of my inventions since I began dabbling with

motive-power."

"We could build several miles of straight track in the waste ground

behind the works," Ned said, thoughtfully.

"Not a chance! There is neither time nor money for such work. Besides,

I should have to rebuild my transforming station if I supplied longer

conduit wires with current."

"You don't really consider that you have failed, do you, Tom?" and

Ned's anxiety made his voice sound very woeful indeed.

"I tell you that my belief doesn't satisfy me. I hate to go West

without being sure--positive. I want to know! I have tried the

locomotive out in the yard half a dozen times. It runs like a fine

watch. There doesn't seem to be a thing the matter with it now. But

what speed can I attain?"

"I don't see but you'll have to risk it, Tom."

"I mean to give her one more test. I'll run her out tonight when there

is nobody about but the watchmen--and you, if you want to come. I'll

arrange with the Electric Company for all the current they can spare.

By ginger! I've got to take some risk."

"By the way, Tom," said his chum, "did it ever strike you as odd that

that private detective agency never got any trace of O'Malley?"

"Well, he's gone away. We needn't worry about him. Maybe the detective

wasn't very smart, at that."

"And yet he was here in town after you put the inquiry on foot. I saw

him in the bank. He came there occasionally. And either he, or somebody

he hired, placed that bomb in the locomotive."

"All those being facts, what of it?"

"Besides, there was that other fellow--the man with the Vandyke beard.

Might be a shyster lawyer, or something of the kind. He wasn't spotted,

either."

"To tell the truth, I didn't bother to give the Detective Agency the

description of that fellow, although you gave it to me," and Tom

laughed. "I must confess that I depend more upon my man-trap electric

wires to protect the invention than I do on the private inquiry agent."

"It's funny, just the same. If I had another job for a detective I

should not submit it to the Blatz Agency," grumbled Ned.

"I fancy Montagne Lewis and his crowd called off their Wild West

gunman," said Tom. "In any case, every attempt he made to bother us

turned out a fizzle. I am not, however, forgetting precautions, my boy."

Ned Newton realized that his chum had determined to make this night

test of the electric locomotive the pivotal trial of the whole affair.

He came back to the works after dinner and was let in by the office

watchman at about nine o'clock.

"Mr. Tom here yet?" he asked the man.

"Yes, Mr. Newton. The young boss didn't go home to supper, even. That

colored man brought something down for him, and he's in the shed yet."

"Rad is here, you mean?"

"Yes, sir. At least, he didn't go out this way, and we watchmen have

instructions to let nobody in or out by the yard gates at night."

"I'll say Tom is being careful," thought Ned, as he stepped out through

the runway toward the erection shed.

Before he reached the entrance to the huge shed, however, Ned chanced

to look down the enclosure. There were several arc lights burning, but

even these only furnished a dim illumination for the whole yard.

He supposed that four watchmen were tramping their several beats along

the inside of the stockade and close to the trolley-track. But when he

saw an instant gleam of light down there, close to the ground, Ned did

not believe that it was the flash of a torch in the hand of any sentry.

"Funny," he muttered. "That's outside the fence, or I'm much mistaken.

I wonder now--"

He turned from the door of the shed, left the runway, and began walking

toward the distant point at which he had seen the mysterious flash of

light.

Chapter XV

The Enemy Still Active

Ned was dressed in a dark business suit, so he was not likely to be

observed from a distance, for it was a starless night. Half way to the

end of the great yard he began to wonder if the light he had seen might

not have been an hallucination.

He doubted very much if anybody was creeping about outside the fence.

The boards were close together, with scarcely a crack half an inch wide

anywhere. A light out there--

It flashed again. He was positive of it this time, and of its locality

as well. It could be nobody who had any honest business about the Swift

Construction Company's premises. It was not Koku, for ordinarily the

giant would not use an electric torch.

Ned did not know where any of the watchmen were who were acting as

sentinels. In fact, as it appeared later, three of them had been called

off their beats by Tom himself to help in some necessary task inside

the shed. The young inventor was getting ready to run the huge

locomotive out upon the yard-track.

Remembering vividly the attempt which had been made some weeks before

to blow up the Hercules 0001, it was only natural that Ned should

suspect that the flash of light he had seen revealed the presence of

some ill-conditioned person lurking just beyond the fence.

A man might be crouching there prepared to hurl an explosive bomb over

the fence when the locomotive was brought around as far as that spot.

Or was the villain foolish enough to attempt to enter the enclosure by

surmounting the fence?

Ned, keeping close to the ground, crossed the rails in the fortunate

shadow of one of the posts. There he found a place where, with his back

to a pole-prop right at this curve in the trolley system, the shadow

enfolded him completely.

Had his movements been marked by the person outside the fence? Ned

waited several long and anxious minutes for some move from out there.

Then something rather unexpected occurred. For the past ten minutes he

had forgotten about the test of the Hercules 0001 which Tom had

promised.

With a blast of its siren the huge electric locomotive burst out of the

shed and thundered around the track. It smote Ned Newton's mind

suddenly that the inventor was going to "take a chance" on this evening

and try to get some speed out of the huge machine.

The electric headlight cast a broad cone of white and dazzling light

across the yard. It suddenly struck full upon the spot where Ned Newton

crouched; but the upright against which he leaned was broad enough to

hide him completely.

Looking up at the top of the stockade at that moment of illumination,

the young financial manager of the Swift Construction Company beheld a

crawling figure nearing the wire entanglements on the summit of the

fence.

The unknown man was climbing by means of a notched pole. Ned could not

see that he bore any bulky object in his hands; indeed, he needed both

of them to aid him to climb. But the man's right hand was reaching

upward, above his head.

The Hercules 0001 came roaring on. Its cone of light passed beyond

Ned's station. In a few seconds it reached the spot, and roared on. Ned

had not made a move. It seemed to him that he could not move or speak.

The onrush of the electric locomotive all but swept the young fellow

from his feet. It had come and gone in an instant!

"He's making more than fifteen or twenty miles an hour, all right,"

muttered Ned.

Then he flashed another glance up at the figure outside the fence. The

man's cap showed above the top of the boards. He seemed to be dragging

something up to him from below--something that hung and swung around

and around a few feet from the ground.

Ned was about to dart out of concealment and hail the fellow. He was

not armed, nor could he get out of the stockade near this point. He

feared what the marauder intended, and he felt that he must frighten

him away.

"Suppose that is a bomb and he means to fling it in front of Tom's

locomotive?" thought the anxious Ned.

He again saw the stranger's right hand reach up above his head. But he

had no bomb in his hand. Ned suddenly shrieked a word of warning! It

had come to him what the man was doing and what the result of his act

would be.

The wire-cutters bit on one of the copper wires. There followed a flash

of blue flame, and the man screamed. He dropped the thing swinging

below him and involuntarily grabbed at the wires with his left hand.

He was caught, then! The crackling intermittent shocks of electric

fluid passed through his body in fiery sequence. His limbs writhed. He

mouthed horribly, and croaking gasps came from between his wide open

jaws.

The Hercules 0001 had rounded the enclosure and was coming down upon

its second lap. The cone of white radiance from the headlight fell upon

the writhing body of the victim on the wires. The locomotive siren

emitted a blast that almost deafened Ned.

The monster ground to a stop. Tom swung himself half out of the cab

window beside the controller.

"Who's that?" he yelled. Then he saw Ned below him. "Who is that

fellow?"

"No friend of yours, Tom, I believe," returned his financial manager in

a shaking voice.

"Where's Rad? Rad!" Tom shouted at the top of his voice.

"I's comm', Massa Tom," rejoined the colored man.

"Never mind coming here! Get a move on, and get to the switchboard.

Turn the current out of the fence wires.

"Yis, sir, I'll go Massa Tom," declared the old man.

"Is he a spotter, Ned?" demanded the inventor.

"He's no friend. I am going out by the gate. He's got something there

that means harm, I believe. Do you think he's killed, Tom?"

"Only ought to be. Not enough current to kill him. But he's badly

burned and--and--well! I bet he won't care to fool around the works

again."

Ned dashed away to an entrance. A watchman came running, opened the

small gate, and followed Ned into the open.

Before they arrived at the vicinity of the accident Rad had got to the

switchboard. The electricity was shut out of the stockade wires.

Ned uttered another shout. He saw the writhing body of the shocked man

fall from the stockade. When he and the watchman got to the spot the

fellow lay upon his back, groaning and sobbing; but Ned saw at once

that he was more frightened than hurt.

"Well, you did it that time!" exclaimed the young financial manager.

"And I hope you got enough."

"You--you demons!" gasped the man. "I'll have the law on you--"

"Sure you will," cackled the watchman. "You had every right in the

world to try to cut those wires, of course, and get into the yard of

the works. Sure! The judge will believe you all right."

Ned was, meanwhile, staring closely at the fallen man. Tom had come

down from the locomotive and was close to the fence.

"Who is he?" demanded the inventor. "Not O'Malley?"

Ned stepped to the fence and whispered:

"It's the other fellow. The little chap with the Vandyke. He's dressed

like a tramp, but it's the same man."

"Is he badly hurt?" demanded Tom.

"His temper is, Boss," said the watchman callously. "And say! I know

this fellow. He works for the Blatz Detective Agency. I used to work

for those folks myself. His name is Myrick--Joe Myrick."

"Ned," said Tom sternly, "go to the office and call the police. I'll

make him tell why he was here. And I'll make the Blatz people explain,

too. Hullo! what's that?"

Ned had seized the rope he had seen in Myrick's hand, and from a patch

of weeds drew a two-gallon oil-can.

"What you got there, Ned?" repeated the young inventor.

"Whatever it is, I am going to be mighty easy with it. I think this

scoundrel was trying to get it over the fence and into the way of the

locomotive."

"You can't hang anything on me," said Myrick, suddenly. "I was just

climbing up to the top of the fence to get a squint at that contraption

you've built. You can't hang anything on me."

"He's evidently feeling better," said Tom, scornfully. "Nugent, don't

let him get away from you. Go call the police, Ned. And take care of

that can until we can find out what's in it."

Later, when the police had removed Joe Myrick and the mysterious can

had been deposited in a tub of water in the open lot until its contents

could be examined, Tom said to his chum:

"I was just working up some speed on the locomotive. The speedometer

indicated fifty-five when I saw that fellow sprawling up there on the

fence. I would not have dared go much faster in any case."

"Why, you weren't half trying, Tom!" cried the delighted Ned.

"She did slide around easy, didn't she? Fifty-five on an almost

circular track is a good showing. I am not so scared as I was, my boy."

"You think that on a straight track you might accomplish what you set

out to do?"

"It looks like it. At any rate, I shall risk a trial on the H. & P. A.

tracks. I'm going to take her West. Be ready on Monday, Ned, for I

shall want you with me," declared Tom Swift.

Chapter XVI

Off for the West

Of course, as Tom supposed they would, the Blatz Detective Agency

denied that Joe Myrick, their one-time operative, had been engaged

through their bureau either to spy upon the Swift Construction Company

or to injure Tom's invention of the electric locomotive.

Nevertheless, three points were indisputable: Myrick had been caught

spying; in his possession was a can of explosive which could be set off

by concussion; and it was a fact that to Myrick had been first

entrusted the matter of hunting for Andy O'Malley when Tom had put the

search for the Westerner up to the Blatz people.

"He played traitor both to you, Mr. Swift, and to our agency," declared

Blatz to Tom. "I wash my hands of him. I hope the police send him away

for life!"

"He'll go to prison all right," said Tom, confidently. "But the main

point is that one of your operatives fell down on a simple job. I

wanted that Andy O'Malley traced. He's out of the way, now, of course.

If you had put an honest man to work for me, O'Malley would be behind

the bars himself."

"Some doubt of that, Mr. Swift," grumbled Blatz.

"Why?"

"Where's your evidence that this O'Malley was connected with the

attempt to blow up your locomotive the first time? Mr. Newton's

testimony would need corroboration."

"Never mind that," rejoined the young inventor, with a smile. "I'd

have him for highway robbery. I recognized him. He robbed me of a

wallet. Guess we could put O'Malley away for awhile on that charge. And

by the time he got out again my job for that Western railroad would be

completed."

"Humph! Nothing personal in your going after the fellow, then?" queried

the head of the detective agency.

"No. But I frankly confess that I am afraid of O'Malley. He is

undoubtedly in the employ of men who will pay him well if he wrecks my

invention. But there really is no personal grudge between O'Malley and

me. At least, I feel no particular enmity against the fellow."

There was a pause.

"If you say so we will give you a couple of good men as bodyguards on

your trip West," suggested Blatz, licking his lips hungrily.

"As good men as Myrick?" retorted Tom, rather scornfully. "No, thank

you. Just make your bill out to the Swift Construction Company to date,

and a check will be sent you the first of the month. I will take my own

precautions hereafter."

And those precautions Tom considered sufficient. When the Hercules 0001

was towed out of the enclosure belonging to the Swift Construction

Company early on Monday morning, each door and window of the huge cab

was barred and locked. Inside the cab rode Koku, the giant.

Koku had his orders to allow nobody to enter the Hercules 0001 until

Tom or Ned Newton came to relieve him of his responsibility as guard.

The giant had a swinging cot to sleep on and sufficient food--of a

kind--to last him for a fortnight if necessary.

He was not armed, for Tom did not often trust him with weapons. The

young inventor, however, did not expect that any armed force would

attack the electric locomotive.

If Montagne Lewis desired to wreck the new invention which might mean

so much to Mr. Bartholomew and the H. & P. A., he surely would not

allow his hirelings to attack openly the locomotive while it was en

route.

On the other hand, Tom did not really believe that Andy O'Malley would

attempt any reprisal against him personally. Of course, the Western

desperado might feel himself abused by Tom, especially in the matter of

Tom's use of his ammonia pistol.

But that had happened months ago. O'Malley had undoubtedly been hired

by Mr. Bartholomew's enemies to obtain knowledge of the contract signed

between the young inventor and the railroad president; and later it was

certain that the spy had tried his best to wreck the electric

locomotive.

As for any personal assault so many weeks after O'Malley had clashed

with him Tom Swift did not expect it. With Ned in his company on this

journey to Hendrickton, the young inventor had good reason to consider

that he was perfectly safe.

Mary Nestor and Mr. Swift came to the station to see the two young men

off on Monday evening. Mary had heard about the second attempt made to

blow up the Hercules 0001 and she begged Tom to take every precaution

while he was in the West.

"You will be in the enemy's country out there, Tom dear," she warned

him. "You won't be careless?"

"I know I shall be mighty busy," he told her, laughing. "I'll let Ned

play watch-dog. And you know, his is a cautious soul, Mary."

"I've every confidence in Ned's faithfulness," the girl said, still

with anxious tone. "But those men who are trying to ruin Mr.

Bartholomew's road will stop at nothing. I must hear from you

frequently, Tom, or I shall worry myself ill."

"Don't lose your courage, Mary," rejoined the inventor, more gravely.

"I do not think they will attack me personally again. Remember that

Koku is on the job, as well as Ned. And Mr. Damon declares he will

follow us West very shortly," and again Tom chuckled.

"Even Mr. Damon may be a help to you, Tom," declared Mary, warmly. "At

least, he is completely devoted to you."

"So is Rad Sampson," said Tom, with a little grimace. "I certainly had

my hands full convincing him that father needed him here at home. At

that, Rad is pretty warm over the fact that I sent Koku on with the

locomotive. If anything should chance to happen to my invention,

Eradicate Sampson is going to shout 'I told you so!' all over the shop."

Mary dabbed her eyes a little with her handkerchief, and Tom patted her

shoulder.

"Don't worry, Mary," he said more cheerfully. "There won't a thing

happen to me out there at Hendrickton. I'll keep the wires hot with

telegrams. And I'll write to both you and father, and give you the full

particulars of how we get along. You'll keep your eye on father, Mary,

won't you?"

"You may be sure of that," said the girl. "I will not leave him

entirely to the care of Rad," and she tried hard to smile again. But

it was a difficult matter.

Such a parting as this is always hard to endure. Tom wrung his father's

hand and warned him to be careful of his health. The train came along

and the two young men boarded it with their personal luggage.

They had a flash of the two faces--that of Mr. Swift's and Mary's

blooming countenance--as the express started again, and then the

outlook from the Pullman coach showed them the fast-receding environs

of Shopton.

"We're on our way, my boy," said Tom to his chum.

"We certainly are," said Ned, thoughtfully. "I wonder what the outcome

of the trip will be? It may not be all plain sailing."

"Don't croak," rejoined the young inventor, with a grin.

"I don't see how you can appear so cheerful. Why! you don't even know

if that electric locomotive is safe. Something may have already

happened to it. The freight train might be wrecked. A dozen things

might happen."

"I am not crossing any bridges before I come to them," declared Tom.

"Besides, I propose to keep in touch with the Hercules Three-Oughts-One

in a certain way--Hullo! Here it is."

"Here what is?" demanded Ned.

The Pullman conductor at that moment came in through the forward

corridor. He had a telegram in his hand, and intoned loudly as he

approached:

"Mr. Swift! Mr. Thomas Swift! Telegram for Mr. Swift."

"That is for me, Conductor," said Tom briskly, offering his card.

"All right, Mr. Swift. Just got it at Shopton. Operator said you had

boarded my car. This is railroad business, you'll notice. Have you any

reply, sir?"

Tom ripped open the envelope and unfolded the telegram. He held it so

that Ned could read, too. It was signed: "N. G. Smith, Conductor,

Number 48."

"What's that?" exclaimed Ned, reading the message.

"'Locomotive and crazy man in it all right at Lingo,'" repeated Tom

aloud, and chuckled.

"No, Conductor, there is no answer."

"Good!" exclaimed Ned. "You arranged to get reports en route from the

conductors handling the Hercules Three-Oughts-One?"

"Surest thing you know," replied Tom. "And I guess, from the wording of

this message, that the crew of Forty-eight have already found out that

Koku is not an ordinary guard."

"He's a great boy," smiled Ned. "Glad he is on the job."

Chapter XVII

The Wreck of Forty-Eight

The two chums sought their berths that night in high fettle. Even Ned

sloughed off his mood of apprehension which he had worn on boarding the

train at Shopton.

For, true to the arrangement Tom had made with the railroad people,

another reassuring telegram was brought to him before bedtime. The

second conductor responsible for the management of the Western bound

freight to which the Hercules 0001 was attached, sent back a brief

statement of the safety of the electric locomotive.

Naturally the two chums would have passed the freight and got well

ahead of it before reaching Hendrickton. But Tom had business in

Chicago, and they stayed over in that city for twenty-four hours. The

freight train went around the city, of course. But the telegrams

continued to reach Tom promptly, even at the hotel where he and Ned

stopped in the city.

Occasionally the trainmen in charge of the freight mentioned Koku. His

eccentric behavior doubtless somewhat puzzled the railroaders.

"That's all right," chuckled Ned. "Let them think Koku is dangerous if

they want to. That O'Malley person believed he was!"

"I'll say so!" replied Tom. "The way he ran when Koku started after him

that time on the Waterfield Road seemed to prove that he didn't want to

mix with Koku."

"If he--or other spies--learns that Koku is with the Hercules

Three-Oughts-One, it ought to warn them away from the locomotive."

This was Ned's final speech before getting into his berth. He, as well

as Tom, slept quite as calmly on this first night out of Chicago as

they had before.

They knew exactly where the electric locomotive was. It was on the same

road as this train they were traveling in, and, although on a different

track, it was not many miles ahead. In fact, if the two trains kept to

schedule, the transcontinental passenger train would pass the freight

in question about five o'clock in the morning.

It lacked half an hour of that time when the Pullman train came

suddenly to a jolting stop. Both Tom and Ned were awakened with the

rest of the passengers in their coach.

Heads were poked out between curtains all along the aisle and a chorus

of more or less excited voices demanded:

"What's the matter?"

"Nothin's the matter wid dis train, gen'lemens an' ladies," came in the

porter's important voice. "Jest nothin' at all's happened. It's done

happened up ahead of us, das all."

"Well, what has happened ahead of us, George?" asked Ned.

"Jest another train, Boss, been splatterin' itself all ober de right of

way. We sort o' bein' held up, das all," replied the porter.

"That's good news--for us," said Ned, preparing to climb back into his

berth. But he halted where he was when he heard his chum ask:

"What train left the track, George?"

"A freight train, sah. Yes, sah. Number Forty-eight. She jumped de

rails, side-swiped de accommodation dat was holdin' us back, and has

jest done spread herself all over de right of way."

"My goodness!" gasped Ned.

"Hear that, Ned?" exclaimed Tom. "Scramble into your clothes, boy. The

Hercules Three-Oughts-One is hitched to Forty-eight."

"Suppose she's off the track?" murmured Ned.

"It's lucky if she isn't smashed to matchwood," groaned Tom, and almost

immediately left the Pullman coach on the run.

Ned was not far behind him. When they reached the cinder path beside

the freight train it was just sunrise. Long arms of rosy light reached

down the mountain side to linger on the tracks and what was strewed

across them. A glance assured the two young fellows from the East that

it was a bad smash indeed.

Several of the rear boxcars were slung athwart the passenger tracks.

The passenger train that had been ahead of the Pullman train on which

Tom and Ned rode, had been badly beaten in all along its side. Scarcely

a whole window was left on the inner side of the five cars. But those

cars were not derailed. It was merely some of the freight cars that

retarded the further progress of the transcontinental flyer. A derrick

car must be brought up to lift away the debris before the fast train

could move on.

Tom and Ned walked forward along the length of the wreck. Suddenly the

anxious young inventor seized Ned's arm.

"Glory be!" he ejaculated. "It's topside up, anyway."

"The Hercules Three-Oughts-One?" gasped Ned.

"That's what it is!"

Tom quickened his pace, and his financial manager followed close upon

his heels. The forward end of Forty-eight had not left the track and

the electric locomotive stood upright upon the rails, being near the

head end of the train.

"If this wreck was intentional, and aimed at your invention, Tom,"

whispered Ned Newton, "it did not result as the wreckers expected."

Tom scouted the idea suggested by his chum. And in a few moments they

learned from a railroad employee that a broken flange on a boxcar wheel

had caused the wreck.

"So that disposes of your suspicion, Ned," said Tom, approaching the

huge electric locomotive.

"Hey, gents!" exclaimed another railroad man, one of the crew of the

wrecked freight. "Better keep away from that locomotive."

"What's the matter with it?" Ned asked, curiously.

"Got some kind of an aborigine caged up in it. You put your hand on any

part of it and he's likely to jump out and bite your hand off, or

something. Believe me, he's some savage."

Both Tom and Ned burst into laughter. The former went forward to the

door of the cab and knocked in a peculiar way. It was a signal that the

giant recognized instantly.

"Master!" Koku cried from inside the cab. "Master! Him come in?"

"No, Koku," said Tom. "I'm not coming in. Are you all right?"

"Yes. Koku all right. Him come out?"

"No, no!" laughed Tom. "You are not at your journey's end yet, Koku.

Keep on the job a while longer."

"Sure. Koku stay here forever, if Master say so."

"Forever is a long word, Koku," said Tom, more seriously. "I'll tell

you when to open the door. I'll be at the end of the journey to meet

you."

"It all right if Master say so. But Koku no like to travel in box,"

grumbled the giant.

Tom turned from the electric locomotive to see Ned staring across the

tracks at a man who was talking to several of the train crew of the

side-swiped accommodation train. That train was about to be moved on

under its own power. None of the wreckage of the freight interfered

with the progress of the accommodation.

Tom stepped to Ned's side and touched his arm. "Who is he?" the

inventor asked.

The man who had attracted Ned's attention and now held Tom's interest

as well was a solid looking man with gray hair and a dyed mustache. He

was chewing on a long and black cigar, and he spoke to the train hands

with authority.

"Well, why can't you find him?" he wanted to know in a hoarse and

arrogant voice.

"Who is he?" asked Tom again in Ned's ear.

"I've seen him somewhere. Or else I've seen somebody that looks like

him. Maybe I've seen his picture. He's somebody of importance."

"He thinks he is," rejoined the young inventor, with some disdain.

In answer to something one of the railroad men said the important

looking individual uttered an oath and added:

"There's nobody been killed then? He's just missing? He was sitting in

the coach ahead of me. I saw him just before the wreck. You know

O'Malley yourself. Do you mean to say you haven't seen him, Conductor?"

"I assure you he disappeared like smoke, sir," said the passenger

conductor. "I haven't an idea what became of him."

"Humph! If you see him, send him to me," and the solid man stepped

heavily aboard the nearest coach and disappeared inside.

Tom and Ned stared at each other with wondering gaze. O'Malley! The

spy who had represented Montagne Lewis and the Hendrickton & Western

Railroad in the East.

"What do you know about that?" demanded Ned, wonderingly.

"Hold on!" exclaimed Tom. He sprang across the rails after the

conductor of the accommodation train that was just starting on. "Let

me ask you a question."

"Yes, sir?" replied the conductor

"Who was that man who just spoke to you?" "That man? Why, I thought

everybody out this way knew Montagne Lewis. That is his name, sir--and

a big man he is. Yes, sir," and the conductor, giving the watching

engineer of his train the "highball," caught the hand-rail of the car

and swung himself aboard as the train started.

Chapter XVIII

On the Hendrickton & Pas Alos

The transcontinental was delayed three hours by the strewn wreckage of

the rear of Number Forty-eight. When she went on the two young fellows

from Shopton gazed anxiously at the Hercules 0001, which stood between

two gondolas in the forward end of the freight train.

"Just by luck nothing happened to it," muttered Ned.

"Just luck," agreed Tom Swift. "It was a shock to me to learn that Andy

O'Malley was right there on the spot when the accident happened."

"And his employer, too," added Ned. "For we must admit that Mr.

Montagne Lewis is the man who sicked O'Malley on to you."

"True."

"And they were both in the accommodation that was sideswiped by the

derailed cars of Number Forty-eight."

"That, likewise is a fact," said Tom, nodding quickly.

"But what puzzles me, as it seemed to puzzle Lewis, more than anything

else, is what became of O'Malley?"

"I guess I can see through that knot-hole," Tom rejoined.

"Yes?"

"I bet O'Malley got a squint at me--or perhaps at you--as we walked up

the track from this coach, and he lit out in a hurry. There stood the

Three-Oughts-One, and there were we. He knew we would raise a hue and

cry if we saw him in the vicinity of my locomotive."

"I bet that's the truth, Tom."

"I know it. He didn't even have time to warn his employer. By the way,

Ned, what a brute that Montagne Lewis looks to be."

"I believe you! I remember having seen his photograph in a magazine.

Oh, he's some punkins, Tom."

"And just as wicked as they make 'em, I bet! Face just as pleasant as a

bulldog's!"

"You said it. I'm afraid of that man. I shall not have a moment's peace

until you have handed the Hercules Three-Oughts-One over to Mr.

Bartholomew and got his acceptance."

"If I do," murmured Tom.

"Of course you will, if that Lewis or his henchmen don't smash things

up. You are not afraid of the speed matter now, are you?" demanded Ned

confidently.

"I can be sure of nothing until after the tests," said Tom, shaking his

head. "Remember, Ned, that I have set out to accomplish what was never

done before--to drive a locomotive over the rails at two miles a

minute. It's a mighty big undertaking."

"Of course it will come out all right. If Koku is faithful----"

"That is the smallest 'if' in the category," Tom interposed, with a

laugh. "If I was as sure of all else as I am of Koku, we'd have plain

sailing before us."

Two days later Tom Swift and Ned Newton were ushered into the private

office of the president of the H. & P. A. at the Hendrickton terminal.

The two young fellows from the East had got in the night before, had

become established at the best hotel in the rapidly growing Western

municipality, and had seen something of the town itself during the

hours before midnight.

Now they were ready for business, and very important business, too.

Mr. Richard Bartholomew sat up in his desk chair and his keen eyes

suddenly sparkled when he saw his visitors and recognized them.

"I did not expect you so soon. Your locomotive arrived yesterday, Mr.

Swift. How are you, Mr. Newton?"

He motioned for them to take chairs. His secretary left the room. The

railroad magnate at once became confidential.

"Nothing happened on the way?" he asked, pointedly. "There was a

freight wreck, I understand?"

"And we chanced to be right at hand when that happened," said Tom.

"So was your friend, Mr. Lewis," remarked Ned Newton.

"You don't mean to say that Montagne Lewis--"

"Was there. And Andy O'Malley," put in Tom.

Then he detailed the incident, as far as he and Ned knew the details,

to Mr. Bartholomew, who listened with close attention.

"Well, it might merely have been a coincidence," murmured the railroad

president. "But, of course, we can't be sure. Anyhow, it is just as

well if your servant, Mr. Swift, keeps close watch still upon that

locomotive."

"He will," said Tom, nodding. "He is down there in the yard with the

Hercules Three-Oughts-One, and I mean to keep Koku right on the job."

"Good! Let's go down and look at her," Mr. Bartholomew said, eagerly.

But first Tom wanted to go into the theoretical particulars of his

invention. And he confessed that thus far his tests of the locomotive

had not been altogether satisfactory.

"I have got to have a clear track on a stretch of your own line here,

Mr. Bartholomew, and under certain conditions, before I can be sure as

to just how much speed I can get out of the machine."

"Speed is the essential point, Mr. Swift," said the railroad man,

seriously.

"That is what I have been telling Ned," Tom rejoined. "I believe my

improvements over the Jandel patents are worthy. I know I have a very

powerful locomotive. But that is not enough."

"We have got to shoot our trains through the Pas Alos Range faster than

trains were ever shot over the grades before, or we have failed," said

Mr. Bartholomew, with decision.

"But--" began Ned; but Tom put up an arresting hand and his financial

manager ceased speaking.

"I have not forgotten the details of our contract, Mr. Bartholomew," he

said, quietly. "Two-miles-a-minute is the target I have aimed for.

Whether I have hit it or not, well, time will show. I have got to try

the locomotive out on the tracks of the H. & P. A. in any case. The

Hercules Three-Oughts-One has been dragged a long distance, and has

been through at least one wreck. I want to see if she is all right

before I test her officially."

"I'll arrange that for you," said Mr. Bartholomew, briskly, putting

away his papers. "I will go with you, too, and take a look at the

marvel."

"And a marvel it is," grumbled Ned. "Don't let him fool you, Mr.

Bartholomew. Tom never does consider what he's done as being as great

as it really is."

"Everything must be proved," Tom said, cautiously. "If it was a

financial problem, Mr. Bartholomew, believe me it would be Ned who

displayed caution. But I have seldom built anything that could not--and

has not--later been improved."

"You do not consider your electric locomotive, then, a completed

invention?" asked Mr. Bartholomew, as the three walked down the yard.

"I have too much experience to say it is perfect," returned Tom. "I can

scarcely believe, even, that it is going to suit you, Mr. Bartholomew,

even if the speed test is as promising as I hope it may be."

"Humph!"

"But before I shall be willing to throw up the sponge and say that I

have failed, I shall monkey with the Hercules Three-Oughts-One quite a

little on your tracks."

"Your six months isn't up yet," said Mr. Bartholomew, more cheerfully.

"And it doesn't matter if it is. If you see any chance of making a

success of your invention, you are welcome to try it out on the tracks

of the H. & P. A. for another six months."

"All right," Tom said, smiling. "Now, there is the Hercules

Three-Oughts-One, Mr. Bartholomew. And there is Koku looking longingly

through the window."

In fact, the giant, the moment he saw Tom, ran to unbar and open the

door of the cab on that side.

"Master! If no let Koku out, Koku go amuck--crazy! No can breathe in

here! No can eat! No can sleep!"

"The poor fellow!" ejaculated Ned.

"What's the matter with him?" asked Mr. Bartholomew, curiously.

"Get out, if you want to, Koku. I'll stay by while you kick up your

heels."

No sooner had the inventor spoken than the giant leaped from the open

door of the locomotive and dashed away along the cinder path as though

he actually had to run away. Tom burst into a laugh, as he watched the

giant disappear beyond the strings of freight cars.

"What is the matter with him?" repeated the railroad president.

"He's got the cramp all right," laughed Tom Swift. "You don't

understand, Mr. Bartholomew, what it means to that big fellow to be

housed in for so many days, and unable to kick a free limb. I bet he

runs ten miles before he stops."

"The police will arrest him," said the railroad man.

It was then Ned's turn to chuckle. "I am sorry for your railroad police

if they tackle Koku right now," he said. "He'd lay out about a dozen

ordinary men without half trying. But, ordinarily, he is the most

mild-mannered fellow who ever lived."

"He will come back, if he is let alone, as harmless as a kitten," Tom

observed. "And when I am not with the Hercules Three-Oughts-One, and

while I continue making my tests, Koku will be on guard. You might tell

your police force, Mr. Bartholomew, to let him alone. Now come aboard

and let me show you what I have been trying to do."

They spent two hours inside the cab of the great locomotive. Mr.

Richard Bartholomew was possessed of no small degree of mechanical

education. He might not be a genius in mechanics as Tom Swift was, but

he could follow the latter's explanations regarding the improvements in

the electrical equipment of this new type of locomotive.

"I don't know what your speed tests will show, Mr. Swift," said the

railroad president, with added enthusiasm. "But if those parts will do

what you say they have already done, you've got the Jandels beat a

mile! I'm for you, strong. Yes, sir! like your friend, Newton, here, I

believe that you have hit the right track. You are going to triumph."

But Tom's triumph did not come at once. He knew more about the

uncertainties of mechanical contrivances than did either Mr.

Bartholomew or Ned Newton.

The very next day the Hercules 0001 was got out upon a section of the

electrified system of the Hendrickton & Pas Alos Railway, and the

pantagraphs of the huge locomotive for the first time came into

connection with the twin conductor trolleys which overhung the rails.

Ned accompanied Tom as assistant. Koku was allowed by the inventor to

roam about the hills as much as he pleased during the hours in which

his master was engaged with the Hercules 0001. Tom did not think any

harm would come to Koku, and he knew that the giant would enjoy

immensely a free foot in such a wild country. The two young fellows,

dressed in working suits of overall stuff, spent long hours in the cab

of the electric locomotive. Their try-outs had to be made for the most

part on sidetracks and freight switches, some miles outside

Hendrickton, where the invention would not be in the way of regular

traffic.

Speed on level tracks had been raised in one test to over ninety-five

miles an hour and Mr. Bartholomew cheered wildly from the cab of a huge

Mallet that paced Tom's locomotive on a parallel track. No steam

locomotive had ever made such fast time.

But Tom was after something bigger than this. He wanted to show the

president of the H. & P. A. that the Hercules 0001 could drag a load

over the Pas Alos Range at a pace never before gained by any

mountain-hog.

Therefore he coaxed the electric locomotive out into the hills, some

hundred or more miles from headquarters. He had to keep in touch with

the train dispatcher's office, of course; the new machine had often to

take a sidetrack. Nor was much of this hilly right-of-way electrified.

The Jandels locomotive had been found to be a failure on the sharp

grades; so the extension of the trolley system had been abandoned.

But there was one steep grade between Hammon and Cliff City that had

been completed. The current could be fed to the cables over this

stretch of track, and for a week Tom used this long and steep grade

just as much as he could, considering of course the demands of the

regular traffic.

The telegraph operator at Half Way (merely a name for a station, for

there was not a habitation in sight) thrust his long upper-length out

of the telegraph office window one afternoon and waved a "highball" to

the waiting electric locomotive on the sidetrack.

"Dispatcher says you can have Track Number Two West till the

four-thirteen, westbound, is due. I'll slip the operator at Cliff City

the news and he'll be on the lookout for you as well as me, Mr. Swift.

Go to it."

Every man on the system was interested, and most of them enthusiastic,

about Tom's invention. The latter knew that he could depend upon this

operator and his mate to watch out for the western-bound flyer that

would begin its climb of the grade at Hammon less than half an hour

hence.

The electric locomotive was coaxed out across the switch. Tom was

earnestly inspecting the more delicate parts of the mechanism while Ned

(and proud he was to do it) handled the levers. Once on the main line

he moved the controller forward. The machine began to pick up speed.

The drumming of the wheels over the rail joints became a single

note--an increasing roar of sound. The electric locomotive shot up the

grade. The arrow on the speedometer crept around the dial and Ned's eye

was more often fastened on that than it was on the glistening twin

rails which mounted the grade.

Black-green hemlock and spruce bordered the right of way on either

hand. Their shadows made the tunnel through the forest almost dark. But

Tom had not seen fit to turn on the headlight.

"How is she making out?" asked the inventor, coming to look over his

chum's shoulder.

"It's great, Tom!" breathed Ned Newton, his eyes glistening. "She eats

this grade up."

"And it's within a narrow fraction of a two per cent.," said the

inventor proudly. "She takes it without a jar--Hold on! What's that

ahead?"

The locomotive had traveled ten miles or more from Half Way. The

summit of the grade was not far ahead. But the forest shut out all view

of the station at Cliff City and the structures that stood near it.

Right across the steel ribbons on which the hercules 0001 ran, Tom had

seen something which brought the question to his lips. Ned Newton saw

it too, and he shouted aloud:

"Tree down! A log fallen, Tom!"

He did not lose completely his self-control. But he grabbed the levers

with less care than he should. He tried to yank two of them at once,

and, in doing so, he fouled the brakes!

He had shut off connection with the current. But the brake control was

jammed. The locomotive quickly came to a halt. Then, before Tom could

get to the open door, the wheels began spinning in reverse and the

great Hercules 0001 began the descent of the steep grade, utterly

unmanageable!

Chapter XIX

Peril, The Mother of Invention

Tom Swift's first thought was one of thankfulness. Thankfulness that he

did not have a drag of fifty or sixty steel gondolas or the like to add

their weight to the down-pull. The locomotive's own weight of

approximately two hundred and seventy tons was enough.

For when the inventor pushed Ned aside and tried to handle the

controllers properly, he found them unmanageable. There was not a

chance of freeing them and getting power on the brakes. The Hercules

0001 was backing down the mountain side with a speed that was

momentarily increasing, and without a chance of retarding it!

The young inventor at that moment of peril, knew no more what to do to

avert disaster than Ned Newton himself.

It flashed across his mind, however, that others beside themselves were

in peril because of this accident. The fast express from the East that

should pass Half Way at four-thirteen, might already be climbing the

hill from Hammon. Hammon, at the foot of the grade, was twenty-five

miles away. Nor was the track straight.

If the operator at Half Way did not see the runaway locomotive and

telephone the danger to the foot of the grade, when the Hercules 0001

came tearing down the track it might ram something in the Hammon yard,

if it did not actually collide with the approaching westbound express.

Such an emergency as this is likely either to numb the brains of those

entangled in the peril or excite them to increased activity. Ned Newton

was apparently stunned by the catastrophe. Tom's brain never worked

more clearly.

He seized the siren lever and set it at full, so that the blast called

up continuous echoes in the forest as the locomotive plunged down the

incline. He ran to the door again, on the side where Half Way station

lay, and hung out to signal the operator who had so recently given him

right of way on this stretch of mountain road.

"We're going to smash! We're going to smash!" groaned Ned Newton.

Tom read these words on his chum's lips, rather than heard them, for

the roar of the descending locomotive drowned every other sound. Tom

waved an encouraging hand, but did not reply audibly.

Meanwhile his brain was working as fast as ever it had. He had

instantly comprehended all the danger of the situation. But in addition

he appreciated the fact that such an accident as this might happen at

any time to this or any other locomotive he might build.

Automatic brakes were all right. If there had been a good drag of cars

behind the Hercules 0001, on which the compressed air brakes might have

been set, the present manifest peril might have been obliterated. The

brakes on the cars would have stopped the whole train.

But to halt this huge monster when alone, on the grade, was another

matter. Once the locomotive brake lever was jammed, as in this case,

there was no help for the huge machine. It had to ride to the foot of

the grade--if it did not chance to hit something on the way!

And with this realization of both the imminent peril and the need of

averting it, to Tom's active brain came the germ of an idea that he

determined to put into force, if he lived through this accident, on

each and every electric locomotive that he might in the future build.

This monster, flying faster and faster down the mountain side, was a

menace to everything in its track. There might be almost anything in

the way of rolling stock on the section between Half Way and Hammon at

the foot of the grade. If this thunderbolt of wood and steel collided

with any other train, with the force and weight gathered by its plunge

down the mountain, it would drive through such obstruction like a

projectile from Tom's own big cannon.

Tom realized this fact. He knew that whatever object the Hercules 0001

might strike, that object would be shattered and scattered all about

the right of way. What might happen to the runaway was another matter.

But the inventor believed that the electric locomotive would be less

injured than anything with which it came into collision.

At any rate, thought of the peril to himself and his invention had

secondary consideration in Tom Swift's mind. It was what the monster

which he could not control might do to other rolling stock of the H. &

P. A. that rasped the young fellow's mind.

The grade above Half Way had few curves. Tom soon caught the first

glimpse of the station. Would the operator hear the roar of the

descending runaway and understand what had happened?

He leaned far out from the open doorway and waved his cap madly. He

began to shout a warning, although he saw not a soul about the station

and knew very well that his voice was completely drowned by the voice

of the siren and the drumming of the great wheels.

Suddenly the tousled head of the operator popped out of his window. He

saw the coming locomotive, the drivers smoking!

To be a good railroad man one has to have his wits about him. To be a

good operator at a backwoods station one has to have two sets of

wits--one set to tell what to do in an emergency, the other to listen

and apprehend the voice of the sounder.

This Half Way man was good. He knew better than to try the telegraph

instrument. He grabbed the telephone receiver and jiggled the hook up

and down on the standard while the Hercules 0001 roared past the

station.

It did not need Tom's frantically waving cap to warn him what had

happened. And he remembered clearly the fact of the expected westbound

flyer.

"Hammon? Get me? This is Half Way. That derned electric hog has sprung

something and is coming down, lickity-split!

"Yes! Clear your yard! Where's Number Twenty-eight? Good! Side her, or

she'll be ditched. Get me?"

The voice at the other end of the wire exploded into indignant

vituperation. Then silence. The Half Way operator had done his

best--his all. He ran out upon the platform. The electric locomotive

had disappeared behind the woods, but the roar of its wheels and the

shrill voice of its siren echoed back along the line.

The sound faded into insignificance. The operator went back into his

hut and stayed close by the telephone instrument for the next ten

minutes to learn the worst.

If the operator's nerves were tense, what about those of Tom Swift and

his chum? Ned staggered to the door and clung to Tom's arm. He shrilled

into the latter's ear:

"Shall we jump?"

"I don't see any soft spots," returned Tom, grimly. "There aren't any

life nets along this line."

Ned Newton was frightened, and with good reason. But if his chum was

equally terrified he did not show it. He continued to lean from the

open door to peer down the grade as the Hercules 0001 drove on.

Around curve after curve they flew. It entered Ned's tortured mind that

if his chum had wanted speed, he was getting it now! He realized that

two miles a minute was a mere bagatelle to the pace now accomplished by

the runaway locomotive.

Chapter XX

The Result

As Ned Newton, fumbling at the controls when he saw the fallen tree

across the tracks, had jammed the brakes, the station master at Hammon,

at the bottom of this long grade on the Hendrickton & Pas Alos, had

stepped out to the blackboard in the barnlike waiting room and scrawled

with a bit of chalk:

"No. 28--Westbound--due 3:38 is 15 m. late."

The fact, thus given to the general public or to such of it as might be

interested, averted what would have been a terrible catastrophe.

The fast express was late. When the babbling voice of the Half Way

operator over the telephone warned Hammon of the coming of the runaway

electric locomotive, there was time to shift switches at the head of

the yard so that, when Number Twenty-eight came roaring in, she was

shunted on to a far track and flagged for a stop before she hit the

bumper.

Thirty seconds later, from the west, the Hercules 0001 roared down the

grade and shot into the cleared west track in a halo of smoke and dust.

Speed! No runaway had ever traveled faster and kept the rails. The

story of the incident was embalmed in railroad history, and no history

is so full of vivid incident as that of the rail.

When the first relay of excited railroad men reached the electric

locomotive after it had stopped on the long level, even Ned Newton had

pulled himself together and could look out upon the world with some

measure of calmness. Tom Swift was making certain notes and draughting

a curious little diagram upon a page of his notebook.

"What happened to you, Mr. Swift?" was the demand of the first arrival.

"Oh, my foot slipped," said the young inventor, and they got nothing

more out of him than that.

But to Ned, after the crowd had gone, the inventor said:

"Ned, my boy, they used to say that necessity was the mother of

invention. Therefore a loaf of bread was considered the maternal parent

of the locomotive. I've got one that will beat that."

"Whew!" gasped Ned. "How can you? I haven't got my breath back yet."

"It is peril that is the mother of invention," Tom went on, still

jotting down his notes. "Believe me! that jolt gave me a new idea--an

important idea. Suppose that operator at Half Way had been out back

somewhere, and had not seen or heard us flash by?"

"Well, suppose he had? What's the answer?" sighed Ned.

"Like enough we would have rammed something down here."

"And I hardly understand even now why we didn't do just that," muttered

his chum, with a shake of his head.

"Wake up, Ned! It's all over," laughed Tom. "While it was happening I

admit I was guessing just as hard as you were about the finish. But--"

"Your recovery is better," grumbled his friend. "I'm scared yet."

"And it might happen again--"

"No--not--ever!" exclaimed Ned. "I shall never touch those controllers

again. I'll drive your airscout, or your fastest automobile, or

anything like that. But me and this electric locomotive have parted

company for good. Yes, sir!"

"All right. It wasn't your fault. It might happen to any

motor-engineer. And the very fact that it can happen has given me my

idea. I tell you that danger is the mother of invention."

"As far as I am concerned, it can be father and grandparents into the

bargain," Ned declared, with a smile.

"Wake up!" cried his friend again. "I have got a dandy idea. I wouldn't

have missed that trip for anything."

"You are crazy," interrupted Ned. "Suppose we had bumped something?"

"But we didn't bump anything, except my brain tank. An idea bumped it,

I tell you. I am going to eliminate any such peril as that here-after."

"You mean you are going to make it impossible for this locomotive ever

to slide down such a hill again if the brakes won't work? Humph!

Meanwhile I will go out and make the nearest water-fall begin to run

upward."

"Don't scoff. I do not mean just what you mean."

"I bet you don't!"

"But although I cannot be sure that a locomotive will never again fall

downhill," said Tom patiently, "I'm going to fix it so that warning

need not be given by some operator along the line. The engineer must

be able to send warning of his accident, both up and down the road."

"Huh? How are you going to do that?" demanded Ned.

"Wireless telephone. I may make some improvements on the present

models; but it is practicable. It has been used on submarines and

cruisers, and lately its practicability has been proved in the forestry

service.

"Every one of these electric locomotives I turn out will be supplied

with wireless sets. The expense of making certain telegraph offices

along the line into receiving stations will be small. I am going to

take that up with Mr. Bartholomew at once. And I am going to fix these

brake controls so that nobody need ball them up again."

If, out of such a desperate adventure, Tom could bring to fruition

really worthwhile improvements in relation to his invention, Ned

acknowledged the value of the incident. Just the same, he had a

personal objection to having any part in a similar experience.

He was brave, but he could not forget danger. Tom seemed to throw the

effect of that terrible ride off his mind almost instantly. Ned dreamed

of it at night!

However, from that time things seemed to go with a rush. Mr.

Bartholomew approved of the young inventor's suggestion regarding the

use of the wireless telephone as a method of averting a certain quality

of danger in the use of the proposed monster locomotive. The railroad

man was convinced that Tom's ideas were finally to culminate in

success, and he was ready to spend money, much money, in pushing on the

work.

It was not long before a private test of the Hercules 0001 up the grade

from Hammon to Cliff City showed Mr. Bartholomew that the speed he had

required in his contract was attainable. With a drag fully as heavy as

any two locomotives had been able to get over the same sector, the new

locomotive alone marked a forty-five mile an hour pace.

This attainment was kept quiet; not even the train crew knew what the

monster had done when they reached the summit of the mountain. But Mr.

Bartholomew, who rode with Tom and Ned in the cab, had held his own

watch on the test and compared it every minute with the speedometer.

"I am satisfied that you are going to do more than I had really hoped,

Mr. Swift," the railroad president said at the end of the run. "Already

you could drive this locomotive at a two-mile-a-minute clip on level

rails, I am sure. Keep at it! Nobody will be more delighted than I

shall be if you pull down that hundred thousand dollars' bonus."

"That's a fine way to talk, sir," cried Ned, with enthusiasm.

"I mean every word of it, Mr. Newton. The money is his as soon as he

makes good."

Both Tom and his financial manager left the president's office in a

satisfied state of mind.

"Great news to send home, Tom," remarked Ned, when they were alone.

"Righto, Ned. My father will be glad to hear it."

"And what about Mary?" And Ned poked his chum in the ribs.

"I guess she'll be glad too," Tom replied, his face reddening.

That night Tom sent word to Mary and also a telegram, in code, to his

father, saying the prospects were now bright for a quick finish of the

task that had brought him West.

Chapter XXI

The Open Switch

Meanwhile the work of electrifying another division of the Hendrickton

& Pas Alos Railroad had been pushed to completion. As Mr. Bartholomew

had in the first place stated, the road controlled water rights in the

hills which would supply any number of electric power stations, and his

enemies could not shut his road off from these waterfalls.

Tom had not warned his faithful servant, the giant Koku, to watch out

for Andy O'Malley in particular; the inventor knew that the giant would

be as cautious about any stranger as could be wished. But personally

Tom was amazed that either O'Malley or some other henchman of the

president of the Hendrickton & Western did not make an attempt to

injure the electric locomotive.

"Perhaps Mr. Bartholomew's police are really of some good," said Ned

Newton, when his chum mentioned his surprise on this point. "Has Koku

seen nobody lurking about at night?"

"He certainly has not seen the man he calls 'Big Feet,'" chuckled Tom.

"If he had spotted O'Malley, there certainly would have been an

explosion."

"Tell you what," Ned said reflectively, "the longer Lewis keeps off

you, the more suspicious I should be."

"You think he is a bad citizen, do you?"

"And then some, as the boys say out here," replied Ned. "I wouldn't

trust that man any farther than I would a nest of hornets or a shedding

rattlesnake."

"I am inclined to believe, with you, Ned, that Lewis is hatching up

something and is keeping mighty whist about it. I sounded Mr.

Bartholomew on the idea and he, too, is puzzled."

"I guess he knows that hombre," grumbled Ned.

"Mr. Bartholomew admits that several roads have sent representatives to

make inquiries about my locomotive. They have got wind of it, and,

after all, most railroads work in unison. What means progress for one

is progress for all."

"That same rule does not seem to apply in the case of the H. & P. A.

and the H. & W.," remarked Ned.

"No. They are out and out rivals. And Lewis and his gang have done this

road dirt--no two ways about that. But when I am convinced that my

locomotive has got all the speed and power contracted for, Mr.

Bartholomew wants to invite a bunch of his brother railroaders to see

the tests--to ride in the Hercules Three-Oughts-One, in fact."

"How about it? You going to agree? Suppose they have some inventive

sharp along who will be able to steal some of your mechanical

contrivances--in his head, I mean," and Ned seemed quite suddenly

anxious.

"I had thought of that. But before the test I shall send my blueprints

to Washington. Our patent attorney there has already filed tentative

plans and applied for certain patents that I consider completed. Don't

fret. I'll make it impossible for anybody to steal our patents legally."

"Yes! But illegally?"

"That we cannot help in any case, and you know it," Tom said. "If some

road tries to build anything like the Hercules Three-Oughts-One for the

first two years without arranging with the Swift Construction Company,

you know that that railroad can be made to suffer in the courts, and

you are the boy, Ned, to put them over the jumps for it."

"Sure," grumbled his chum. "It's always up to me to save the day."

"Exactly," chuckled Tom. "And in your character of life saver, do look

out for anybody who looks suspicious hanging about the Hercules

Three-Oughts-One. I'll take care of rival inventors. You and Koku keep

your eyes peeled for the H. & W. spies. Especially for that Andy

O'Malley. I feel that he will again show up. Maybe by 'the pricking of

my thumb' as Macbeth's witch used to remark."

Every day save Sunday the electric locomotive had some kind of try-out.

On a level track Tom was sure of his monster invention's qualities; but

in the hills, at a distance from the Hendrickton terminal, it was

another matter.

The grades were steep; but the road was well ballasted. There was

plenty of power. He saw the Jandel locomotives hurry back and forth

with the local trains and realized that this rival invention was by no

means to be despised.

It was at about this time, too, that Mr. Damon appeared in Hendrickton.

Early one forenoon, when Tom and Ned were preparing to take the

Hercules 0001 out of the yard, and Koku was going to his lodgings to

get a little sleep, Tom's eccentric friend came across the tracks,

waving his cane at Tom.

"Bless my frogs and switch-targets!" he ejaculated, "I've walked a mile

from that station to get here. Where are you going with that big

contraption? How does it work? Does it make all the speed you want, Tom

Swift? Bless my rails and sleepers!'

"We're going about a hundred miles out on the road to a good, stiff

grade," Tom told him, having shaken hands in welcome. "If you want to,

get aboard."

"They haven't blown you up yet, or otherwise wrecked the locomotive,"

remarked Mr. Damon, grinning broadly. "I'll have to write right back to

your father--and to a certain young lady who shows a remarkable

interest in your welfare--that you are all right."

"They should already be sure of that," laughed Tom. "Ned and I have

kept the post-office department and the telegraph company very busy."

"They are waiting for my report," announced Mr. Damon, with confidence.

"And I am waiting for yours. Tell me, Tom: Is the locomotive a success?"

"It's going to be," declared the inventor, with decision.

"Bless my trolley wires!" cried Mr. Damon, "I am glad to hear that.

Then you will surely pull down the extra hundred thousand dollars?"

"I believe I shall fulfill every clause of the contract Mr. Bartholomew

and I signed," said Tom.

"Then it's more than a success!" cried his friend. "You have invented

another marvel, Tom Swift!"

"Marvel or not," rejoined Tom, "I believe that the Hercules

Three-Oughts-One will top anything so far built in the way of electric

locomotives."

"Hurrah!" cried Mr. Damon. "Bless my controller! But your father and

Mary Nestor will be glad to hear that!"

Mr. Damon was quite as much interested in this invention as he always

was in anything the young inventor worked upon. When he had once seen

the Hercules 0001 work on an up-grade he was doubly enthusiastic. To

his sanguine mind the locomotive was already completed. He could see no

possibility of failure.

Tom, however, had to prove to his own satisfaction the success of every

detail of his invention before he was willing to tell Mr. Bartholomew

that he was ready for a public test. Mr. Damon, nor even Ned, could

scarcely see the reason for Tom's caution.

Tom's favorite try-out grade was between Hammon and Cliff City. He

could obtain a right of way order from the train dispatcher on that

grade, sometimes of an hour's duration. He often snaked a load of

gondolas or cattle cars up the grade, relieving both the puller and

pusher steam locomotive. By this time the H. & P. A. system had

stopped using the Jandel machines on any grades. They had proved their

lack of power for such work.

"But the Hercules Three-Oughts-One shows at every test that it has the

kick," Mr. Damon cried.

In his enthusiasm he was out every day with Tom and Ned. And sometimes

Koku remained in the cab during the trial runs as well.

On one such occasion Tom had drawn a heavy train over the mountain,

taking it down the grade beyond Cliff City to Panboro in the farther

valley. This was over a newly built stretch of the electrified road.

The power station charged the trolley cables with an abundance of

current, and the Hercules 0001 made a splendid trip.

"Bless my cuff-links!" ejaculated Mr. Damon, his rosy face one beaming

smile. "You couldn't expect to do better than this. You save one

locomotive on the haul, and you beat the schedule ten minutes, so that

you had to lay by to get right of way into the yard here. Why linger

longer, Tom?"

"I agree with Mr. Damon," Ned said. "It seems to work perfectly. And

you have, I believe, established your required speed."

"Can't be too perfect," said the young inventor, smiling. "But I will

tell Mr. Bartholomew when we get back that he can set his time for the

big test whenever he pleases. I have already sent our patent attorney

in Washington the final blueprints. Now, if nothing happens--"

"Bless my stickpin!" exclaimed Mr. Damon, "What can happen now that the

locomotive is practically perfect?"

That question was answered in one way, and a most startling way, within

the hour. Tom got right of way back over the mountain and pushed the

electric locomotive up-grade at almost top speed. He drew no train on

this occasion, and the speed made by the Hercules 0001 was really

remarkable.

They topped the rise at Cliff City and got orders from the dispatcher

to proceed on the time of Number Eighty-seven, which chanced to be

late. With that release Tom might have made the entire distance of a

hundred and ten miles to Hendrickton had it not been for the

accident--the unexpected something that so often happens in the

railroad business.

Tom was a careful driver; the chatter of Ned and Mr. Damon did not take

the inventor's mind off his business for one instant. He was quite

alert at his window, looking ahead, as Koku was at the open doorway of

the cab.

Not a mile outside of Cliff City, and on this eastbound side of the

right of way, was a long siding and a shipping point for timber. It was

sometimes a busy point; but at this time of year there were no

lumbermen about and no activities in the adjacent forest.

The Hercules 0001 came spinning along from the Cliff City yards, and

Tom Swift gave scarcely a glance to the joint of the switch ahead. He

had been over it so many times of late, and knew that it was always

locked. The railroad did not even keep a man here at this season.

Suddenly Koku emitted a wild yell. He startled everybody else in the

cab, as he flung his huge body more than half out of the doorway and

prepared to jump--or so it seemed.

Ned shrieked a warning to the big fellow. Mr. Damon began to bless

everything in sight. But it was Tom, quite as excited as his friends,

who understood what Koku shouted:

"Big Feet! Big Feet! I see um Big Feet, Master!"

The next moment he threw himself from the rapidly moving locomotive. He

might have been killed easily enough. But fortunately he landed feet

first in the drift beside the rails, and remained upright as he slid

down into the ditch.

Tom, glancing ahead again, saw the flash of a man in a checked Mackinaw

running up through the open wood and away from the right of way. He

could not be sure of Andy O'Malley's figure at that distance; but he

could be pretty confident of Koku's identification.

And then, with a shock that gripped and almost paralyzed his mind, Tom

saw again the switch ahead of the pilot of the Hercules 0001. The

switch was open, and at the speed the electric locomotive had attained,

if she did not jump the rails, it seemed scarcely possible that she

could be stopped before hitting the bumper at the end of the siding!

Chapter XXII

A Desperate Chase

These moments were fraught with peril, and not alone peril to the huge

machine that Tom Swift had built, but peril to those who remained in

the cab of the electric locomotive, as her forward trucks struck the

open switch.

There was a mighty jerk that brought a shout from Ned Newton's lips and

a grunt from Mr. Damon. Tom clung to his swivel-seat, staring ahead.

The pilot of the electric locomotive shot over on the siding; the

forward trucks followed, then the great drivers. The whole locomotive

swerved into the siding, but for several breathless seconds Tom was not

at all sure that the monster would not jump the rails and head into the

ditch!

Meanwhile his gaze measured the speed of that flying figure in the

Mackinaw as it scuttled up the slope through the open grove of hard

wood and pine. He could not at first see Koku, but he knew the giant

was headed for the fugitive, whether the latter proved to be Andy

O'Malley or not.

Tom's gaze flashed to what lay ahead of the electric locomotive. As it

seemed to joggle back into balance, gain its uprightness, as it were,

the inventor saw the great, log-braced bumper between the two rails at

the end of the siding. With what force would the locomotive hit that

obstruction?

Until the trailers were over the switch Tom dared not give her the

brakes. To lock the brake shoes upon the wheels might easily throw the

locomotive off the rails. But the instant he felt the tail of the long

locomotive swerve off the switch he jabbed the compressed air lever and

the wild shriek of the brake shoes answered to his effort.

Then the bumper was but a few yards ahead. The electric locomotive was

bound to collide with it. And under the speed at which it had been

running, now scarcely reduced by half, the collision was apt to be a

tragic happening!

Weeks of effort might be ruined in that moment! If the crash was

serious, thousands of dollars might be lost! In truth, Tom Swift

apprehended the possibility of a disaster, the complete results of

which might put the test of his invention forward for weeks--perhaps

for months.

Nor could he do a thing to avert the disaster. He had reversed and set

the brakes immediately after the last wheel of the trailer was on the

siding. Nothing more could he do as the great electric locomotive bore

down upon the solid timber at the far end of this short track.

Those few seconds, as the locked wheels slid toward the end of the

siding, were about as hard to bear as any experience the young inventor

had ever gone through. It was not so much the peril of the accident, it

was the possibility of what might happen to the locomotive.

Within those few moments, however, Tom considered more than the safety

of his companions and himself, and more than the peril of wreck to his

locomotive. He considered the schedule of the trains on this division

of the Hendrickton & Pas Alos and remembered all those that might be

within this sector at this time.

If the locomotive smashed into the bumper with force enough to wreck

the structure, would some approaching train on the westbound track not

be endangered?

The thought was parent to Tom's act before the collision occurred. With

a single swift motion he reached for the signaling apparatus which he

had established in connection with his wireless telephone.

Just the moment before the head of the locomotive rammed that seemingly

immovable barrier at the end of the siding there flashed into the air

from Tom's annunciator the code word agreed upon announcing a wreck,

and the number of the sector on which the electric locomotive was then

running.

The next moment the crash occurred.

Tom had leaped up with a shout of warning. "Hang on!" was his cry. But

when the locomotive had struck and rebounded Ned, from far down the

aisle of the locomotive, wanted to know in a very peevish tone what he

should have hung on to?

"My elbows!" he groaned. "I've skinned 'em, and my back has got a twist

in it like the Irishman thought he had when he put on his overalls

hind-side to. What's happened?"

"Bless my radiolite!" growled Mr. Damon. "My watch crystal is broken

all to finders, if you want to know. Bless my shock-absorbers! you

won't do this locomotive a bit of good, Tom Swift, if you stop it so

abruptly."

"And that's the surest word you ever said," responded Tom, hurrying to

the door. "I don't know what's broken, but we're still on the rails.

The most immediate thing to learn, is the where-abouts of the fellow

who did this."

"Who opened the switch?" cried Ned.

"I believe it was Andy O'Malley. Come on, Ned! Koku is after him and I

don't want him to tear O'Malley apart before I get there."

"O'Malley has got powerful interests behind him, and it might go hard

with Koku if he injured the spy and some of these Westerners caught

him," suggested Mr. Damon.

"They ought to thank Koku for manhandling the fellow--if he does," said

Ned.

"As a matter of fact," replied Tom, "Koku will merely hold to the

fellow until we get there. But my giant's strength is enormous, and he

does not always know the strength of his grasp. He might hurt the

fellow. Come on," and Tom leaped from the doorway of the electric

locomotive.

Ned leaped down the ladder after his chum.

"Which way did they go?" he asked.

"Across the ditch and up the hill," said Tom. "Mr. Damon!" he called

back to that eccentric man, "will you please remain there and watch the

locomotive?"

"I certainly will. And I'm armed, too," shouted Mr. Damon. "Don't fear

for this locomotive, Tom. I am right on the job."

Tom waved his hand in reply, leaped the ditch, and started up through

the wood. Ned was close behind him, and the two young men ran as hard

as they could in the direction Tom had seen Andy O'Malley, followed by

the giant, running.

In places the earth was slippery with pine needles, and the ground was

elsewhere rough. Therefore the chums did not make much speed in running

after the giant and his quarry. But Tom was sure of the direction in

which the two had disappeared, and he and Ned kept doggedly on.

They went over the crest of the hill and lost sight of the siding and

the locomotive. Here was a sharp descent into a gulch, and some rods

away, in the bottom of this gully, the young fellows obtained their

first sight of Koku. He was still running with mighty strides and was

evidently within sight of the man he had set out after in such haste.

"Hey! Koku!" shouted Tom Swift.

The giant's hearing was of the keenest. He glanced back and raised his

arm in greeting. But he did not slacken his pace.

"He must see O'Malley, Tom," cried Ned Newton.

"I am sure he does. And I want to get there about as soon as Koku grabs

the fellow," panted Tom.

"He'll maul O'Malley unmercifully," said Ned.

"I don't want Koku to injure him," admitted Tom, and he increased his

own stride as he plunged down into the gully.

The young inventor distanced his chum within the next few moments. Tom

ran like a deer. He reached the bottom of the gully and kept on after

Koku's crashing footsteps. At every jump, too, he began to shout to the

giant:

"Koku! Hold him!"

The giant's voice boomed back through the heavy timber: "I catch him! I

hold him for Master! I break all um bones! Wait till Koku catch him!"

"Hold him, Koku!" yelled Tom again. "Be careful and don't hurt him till

I get there!"

He could not see what the giant was doing. The timber was thicker down

here. It might be that the giant would seize the man roughly. His zeal

in Tom's cause was great, and, of course, his strength was enormous.

Yet Tom did not want to call the giant off the trail. Andy O'Malley

must be captured at this time. He had done enough, too much, indeed, in

attempting the ruin of Tom's plans. Before the matter went any further

the young inventor was determined that Montagne Lewis' spy should be

put where he would be able to do no more harm.

But he did not want the man permanently injured. He knew now that Koku

was so wildly excited that he might set upon O'Malley as he would upon

an enemy in his own country.

"Koku! Stop! Wait for me!" Tom finally shouted.

Now the young inventor got no reply from the giant. Had the latter got

so far ahead that he no longer heard his master's command?

Tom pounded on, working his legs like pistons, putting every last ounce

of energy he possessed into his effort. This was indeed a desperate

chase.

Chapter XXIII

Mr. Damon at Bay

Mr. Wakefield Damon was a very odd and erratic gentleman, but he did

not lack courage. He was much more disturbed by the possible injury to

Tom Swift's invention by this collision with the bumper at the end of

the timber siding than he had been by his own danger at the time of the

accident.

He did not understand enough about the devices Tom had built in the

forward end of the locomotive cab to understand, by any casual

examination, if they were at all injured. But when he climbed down

beside the track he saw at once that the forward end of the locomotive

had received more than a little injury.

The pilot, or cow-catcher, looked more like an iron cobweb than it did

like anything else. The wheels of the forward trucks had not left the

track, but the impact of the heavy locomotive with the bumper had been

so great that the latter was torn from its foundations. A little more

and the electric locomotive would have shot off the end of the rails

into the ditch.

While Mr. Damon was examining the front of the locomotive, and Tom and

Ned remained absent, he suddenly observed a group of men hurrying out

of the forest on the other side of the H. & P. A. right of way. They

were not railroad men--at least, they were not dressed in uniform--but

they were drawn immediately to the locomotive.

The leader of the party was a squarely built man with a determined

countenance and a heavy mustache much blacker than his iron gray hair.

He was a bullying looking man, and he strode around the rear of the

locomotive and came forward just as though he was confident of boarding

the machine by right.

Mr. Damon, knowing himself in the wilderness and not liking the

appearance of this group of strangers, had retired at once to the cab,

and now stood in the doorway.

"Where's that young fool Swift?" growled the man with the dyed

mustache, looking up at Mr. Damon and laying one hand upon the rail

beside the ladder.

"Don't know any such person," declared Mr. Damon promptly.

"You don't know Tom Swift?" cried the man.

"Oh! That's another matter," said Mr. Damon coolly. "I don't know any

fool named Swift, either young or old. Bless my blinkers! I should say

not."

"Isn't he here?" demanded the man, gruffly.

"Tom Swift isn't here just now--no."

"I'm coming up," announced the stranger, and started to put his foot on

the first rung of the iron ladder.

"You're not," said Mr. Damon, promptly.

"What's that?" ejaculated the man.

"You only think you are coming up here. But you are not. Bless my

fortune telling cards!" ejaculated Mr. Damon, "I should say not."

At this point the black-mustached man began to splutter words and

threats so fast that nobody could quite understand him. Mr. Damon,

however, did not shrink in the least. He stood adamant in the doorway

of the cab.

Finding little relief in bad language, the enemy made another attempt

to climb up. For one thing, he was physically brave. He did not call on

his companions to go where he feared to.

"I'll show you!" he bawled, and scrambled up the rungs of the ladder.

Mr. Damon did show him. He drew from some pocket a black object with a

bulb and a long barrel. Somebody below on the cinder path shouted:

"Look out, boss he's got a gun!"

At that moment the marauder reached out to seize Mr. Damon's coat. Then

the object in Mr. Damon's hand spat a fine spray into the florid face

of the enemy!

"Whoo! Achoo! By gosh!" bawled the big man, and he fell back screaming

other ejaculations.

"Bless my face and eyes!" cried Mr. Damon. "What did I tell you? And

you other fellows want to notice it. Tom Swift isn't here just at this

precise moment; but he is guarding his locomotive just the same. He

invented this ammonia pistol, and I should say it was effectual. Do

you?"

The eccentric man was shrewd enough now to keep behind the jamb of the

cab door. For some of these fellows, he realized, might be armed with

more deadly weapons than his own.

"Hey, Mr. Lewis!" cried one big fellow, "d'you want we should get that

fellow for you?"

"I want to know how badly that blamed thing is smashed," replied the

big man with the dyed mustache savagely. "Where's O'Malley?"

"O'Malley's lit out, Boss, like I told you. That giant and them other

fellows is after him."

"Break into that cab! Oh! My eyes! I'll kill that old fool! Break a

way in there--What's that?"

In pain as he was, his other senses were alert. He was first to hear

the screeching whistle of the on-coming freight.

"Think they got wind of this so quick?" demanded Montagne Lewis, for it

was he. "Are they sending help from Cliff City?"

"It's a regular freight," returned one of his men.

"She's comm' a-whizzin'," added another. "Right down the eastbound

track. If the crew see us--"

"Wait!" commanded Lewis. "Isn't that switch open?"

"You bet it is, Boss."

"Let it be, then," cried the chief plotter. "Let 'em run into it. That

freight will smash up this electric locomotive more completely than we

could possibly do it. Stand away, men, and let her go!"

A sharp curve in the right of way hid the siding, as well as the open

switch into it, from the gaze of the engineer who held the throttle of

the coming freight. His locomotive drew a string of empties, eastbound,

and having had a heavy pull of it coming up the grade to Cliff City, as

soon as he had got the highball from the yardmaster there, he had "let

her out," and was now coming to the head of the down grade to Hammon at

high speed.

As it chanced, the wireless receiving station of Tom's new telephone

system was not yet completed at Cliff City. The news of the wreck of

the Hercules 0001 and her position had not been relayed to the master

of the Cliff City yards.

That employee of the H. & P. A. had taken a chance in letting the

string of empties through his block. He knew the electric locomotive

was somewhere ahead, but he thought it would be making its usual time

and would have already passed Half Way.

But the situation was serious. The freight was coming along at top

speed and the switch into the siding was still open. Montagne Lewis and

his crew of ruffians might well stand back and let what seemed sure to

happen, happen! The driving freight must do more harm to Tom Swift's

invention than they could have hoped to do with the sledges and bars

they had brought with them to the spot.

Mr. Wakefield Damon had shown his courage already. He would have been

glad to do more to save Tom's locomotive from further injury, but he

did not realize what was threatening. He did not hear the shriek of the

freight engine's whistle.

Chapter XXIV

Putting the Enemy to Flight

The pilot and headlight of the freight locomotive came around the turn

and the freight thundered on toward the switch. Seeing the group of men

standing by the stalled electric locomotive, and the locomotive itself

in the clear of the siding, the driver of the freight did not suppose

the switch was open. Nobody who was not a criminal would have stood by

idly in such an emergency and let the freight run into an open switch.

Therefore, for the first minute, the coming engineer did not observe

his danger. Lewis and his gang stared at the head of the freight and

did nothing. They had moved hastily back from the siding so as to be

clear of the wreckage. Mr. Damon was in the front of the cab of

Hercules 0001 and had no idea of the approaching menace.

But of a sudden a loud shout echoed through the wood. Tom Swift came

over the ridge and started toward his invention at top speed. From that

height he saw the freight train coming, he observed the men standing at

the siding, and he recognized Montagne Lewis, roughly as the railroad

magnate was dressed.

Instantly Tom realized what was about to happen--what would surely

occur--and he saw what must be done if the utter wreck of his

locomotive was to be averted. Yelling at the top of his voice, he

leaped down the slope.

"That's Swift!" shouted Lewis. "Stop him!" But the men he had hired to

do his wicked work fell back instead of trying to halt the young

inventor. It was not Tom's appearance that made them quail. Over the

ridge there appeared a second figure--and a more fearful or threatening

apparition none of them had ever before seen!

Koku came running with the limp body of Andy O'Malley slung over his

shoulder like a bag of meal. The fellows knew it was Andy from his

dress.

The giant came down the slope after Tom as though he wore the

seven-league boots. The fellows Lewis had hired to wreck the electric

locomotive shrank back from before both Tom and the giant.

"Get him!" yelled the half blinded Lewis again.

"Get your grandmother!" bawled one of the men suddenly. "Good-night!"

He turned tail and ran, disappearing almost instantly into the thicker

woods. And his mates, after a moment of wavering, sped after him. Lewis

was left alone, quite helpless because of the ammonia fumes.

As a matter of fact not all of O'Malley's predicament was due to Koku.

The rascal, exhausted by his run and half blind through fright and

rage, had stumbled, fallen, and struck his head on a root, which

rendered him unconscious.

This, of course, Lewis and his ruffians did not know. All the men of

the railroad president's gang saw was the gigantic Koku coming along in

great strides, bearing the unconscious O'Malley, who was a burly

fellow, as though he were a featherweight. No wonder they fled from

such a monster.

Tom had reached the switch, and he was several seconds ahead of the

freight locomotive. The engineer saw the open switch then; but he was

too late to stop his train.

Going into reverse, however, helped some. Tom seized the switch lever

and threw it over, locking it in place, just as the forward trucks

thundered upon the joint. The train swept by in safety, and the

engineer leaned from his cab window to wave a grateful hand at the

young inventor.

Neither the engineer nor the crew of the freight understood the meaning

of the scene at the timber siding. All they learned was that Tom Swift

had saved the freight from a possible wreck.

The young inventor turned sharply from the switch and motioned with his

hand to Koku.

"Throw that fellow into the cab, Koku," he commanded.

The giant did as he was told, just as Ned Newton came panting to the

spot.

"Did they do any harm, Tom?" he cried. Then he saw Montagne Lewis

standing by, and he seized his chum's arm. "Do you see what I see,

Tom?" he demanded, earnestly.

"I guess we both see the same snake," rejoined his chum. "And I mean to

scotch it."

"Montagne Lewis!" murmured Ned. "And we've got his chief tool."

Tom said nothing to his chum, but he approached Lewis with determined

mien.

"I can see something has happened to you, Mr. Lewis, and I can guess

what it is. The effect of that ammonia will blow away after a time. Ask

your friend, Andy O'Malley. He knows all about it, for he sampled it

back East, in Shopton."

"I'm going to get square for this, young man," growled the railroad

magnate. "You know who I am. And that fellow in the cab knew me, too.

How dared he shoot that stuff into my face and eyes?"

"I fancy it didn't take much daring on Mr. Damon's part," and Tom

actually chuckled. "A big crook isn't any more important in our eyes

than a little crook. We've got your henchman, O'Malley--"

"And you'd better let him go. I'm telling you," snarled Lewis. "I'll

ruin you in this country, Tom Swift. I've got influence--"

"You won't have much after this thing comes out. And believe me, I mean

to spread it abroad. I've got nothing to win or lose from you, Mr.

Lewis. As for O'Malley, I'll put him behind the bars for a good long

term."

"You'll do a lot--"

"More than you think," said Tom. "Koku!" The giant had pitched

O'Malley, who was still senseless, into the cab, and now was coming up

behind Lewis.

"Yes, Master," said the giant.

"Get him!"

"Yes, Master," said Koku, and to Lewis' startled amazement, the next

instant he was in the hands of the giant!

He screamed and threatened, and even kicked, to no avail. When he was

pitched into the electric locomotive he was held under the threat of

Mr. Damon's ammonia pistol until Tom and Ned and the giant entered and

the door was shut. Then Koku proceeded to tie both the prisoners by

wrist and ankle while the others examined the mechanism of the Hercules

0001.

The pantagraph had been torn off the trolley wires when the locomotive

had gone on the siding. But now Tom climbed to the roof of the

locomotive, and with Koku's aid managed to set the rear pantagraph at

such an angle that its wheels caught the trolley cables again, and once

more the current was pumped into the Hercules 0001.

Tom tried out the several parts of the mechanism and found that,

despite the jar of the collision, nothing was really injured.

"I built this thing to withstand hard usage," he declared with pride.

"The Swift Hercules Electric Locomotives will not be built for parlor

ornaments. She is going to run into Hendrickton under her own power, in

spite of a smashed cows catcher and target lights."

"Is nothing really injured, Tom?" asked Mr. Damon. "Bless my dinner

set! I thought everything had gone to smash when she hit that bumper."

"She will be as good as new in a week," declared Tom, with conviction.

This prophecy of the young inventor proved to be true. A week from that

day the public test of the electric locomotive on the Hendrickton & Pas

Alos Railroad was held. A picked delegation of railroad men was present

to observe and marvel, with Mr. Bartholomew; but Montagne Lewis, the

president of the H. & W., was not one of those who attended.

Of course, Lewis soon got out of jail on bail. But the accusation

against him was a serious one. His guilt would be proved by his own

employee, Andy O'Malley, who was in a hospital for the time being.

O'Malley had got enough. He had turned State's evidence and implicated

his employer. Influential and wealthy as Lewis was, he could not escape

trial with O'Malley when the time came.

"One thing sure, Lewis has got all he wants. He isn't likely to try any

more crooked work against the H. & P. A.," Mr. Bartholomew said. "I can

thank you for that, Tom Swift, as well as for your invention. You

have saved the day for my railroad."

"You can thank Koku," chuckled Tom. "If he hadn't spied and identified

'Big Feet,' we might not have caught O'Malley, and, through O'Malley,

implicated Montagne Lewis. You give Koku a new suit of clothes, Mr.

Bartholomew, and we will call it square. But be sure and have the

pattern of the goods loud enough."

This conversation took place while the party of guests was gathering to

board Mr. Bartholomew's private car, attached to the Hercules 0001. Mr.

Damon was one of the guests and so was Ned Newton. Tom took into the

cab a crew of H. & P. A. men who would hereafter drive the huge

locomotive and take care of her.

The semaphore signal dropped and the electric locomotive started as

quietly as a baby going to sleep! There was not a jar as the train

moved off the siding and over the switches to the main line.

The dispatcher had arranged a clear road for them. Tom knew that he had

a free track ahead of him--a level of ninety-odd miles to the Hammon

yards. As he passed the Hendrickton shops he touched the siren lever

for a moment, and the shrill voice of the Hercules 0001 bade the town

good-bye.

The next minute the visitors in the private car grabbed out their

split-second watches and began to murmur. The electric locomotive had

begun to travel!

Chapter XXV

Speed and Success

"What town is that?"

"Looks like a splotch of paint on a board fence, we went by so quick."

"I've lost count, Bartholomew. Where are we?"

Ned Newton listened to these comments from the visiting railroad men

with delight. In reply to a question of his neighbor, the grinning

financial manager of the Swift Construction Company paid:

"No, sir. That isn't a picket fence. It's the telegraph poles you see,

and they are no nearer together than on another railroad. But we're

going some."

"Bless my railroad stock!" shouted Mr. Damon, "I should say we were."

The electric locomotive and the private car were hurled toward the Pas

Alos Range at a speed that almost frightened some of the guests.

"Three-quarters of an hour!" gasped one man as they began to see the

outskirts of Hammon. "And ninety-six miles? Great Scott, Bartholomew!

that's over two miles a minute!"

"That is the speed we set out to get," Mr. Richard Bartholomew said,

with quite as much pride as though he had done it all himself.

But it had been his suggestion and his money that had accomplished this

wonder. Tom Swift was willing to give the railroad president his share

of the fame.

The train scarcely slackened speed at Hammon, for Tom got the signal

announcing a clear track ahead, and he bucked the grade with all the

power he could get from the feed wires. This hill, so well known to him

now, was surmounted at a slightly decreased speed; but it was a

wonderful display of power after all.

They went down the other side to Panboro and there linked up with an

eastbound freight that the Hercules 0001 snatched over the mountain to

Hammon at a pace slightly exceeding forty-five miles an hour--at least

twice the speed that any two oil-burning locomotives could attain. As

for the Jandels, they were not in the same class at all with Tom

Swift's locomotive!

"Bless my speedometer!" exclaimed Mr. Damon, when the train pulled down

and stopped again at the Hendrickton terminal. "This is the greatest

test of speed and power I ever heard of. Why, a coal burner or an oil

burner isn't in it with this Hercules locomotive! What do you say, Mr.

Bartholomew?"

"I'll say I am satisfied--completely and thoroughly satisfied, Mr.

Damon," said the president of the Hendrickton & Pas Alos Railroad

frankly. "Mr. Swift has fulfilled his contract in every particular."

An hour later the young inventor and his two friends were in conference

with Mr. Bartholomew over a new contract. The bonus of a hundred

thousand dollars would be paid at once to the Swift Construction

Company. But as the elder Swift's name would be needed on the new

contract for the building of other Hercules locomotives, Tom had an

idea.

"We won't send the papers East for father to sign," he said. "I want

him to see the locomotive in real action. And I know where he can

borrow a private car and come out here in comfort. Rad can come with

him."

"Bless my valentines!" ejaculated Mr. Damon, "I bet somebody else will

come too."

Mr. Damon must have been a prophet, for a fortnight later, when the

borrowed car got in to the Hendrickton terminal at the tail of the

transcontinental flyer, Tom Swift saw first of all Mary Nestor's rosy

face on the platform of the car.

"Tom! are you all right?" she cried, beaming down upon the young

inventor.

"No. Half of me is left," he said, grinning up at her. "You look great,

Mary!"

"Do you think so?" she cried, dimpling. "Well, if anybody should ask

you, Mr. Tom Swift, you look very good to me."

"Don't make me swell all up, Mary," he laughed. "How's father?"

"Splendid! And Rad--"

"Eradicate Sampson is sho' 'nough puffectly all right," broke in the

voice of the old colored man, eager to make himself heard and seen.

"Here I is, Massa Tom. What dat lizard doin' here? Ain't he a sight?"

The old man had caught sight of Koku in the wonderful new suit Mr.

Bartholomew had ordered made for the giant. A Navajo blanket had

nothing on that suit for a mixture of colors, and Koku strutted like a

turkey-gobbler.

"My lawsy!" gasped Rad again, "he's as purty as a sunset. Is dat de way

de tailors out here build a man up? Sure's yo live, Massa Tom, I needs

a new suit of clo'es myself."

And before he got away from Hendrickton, Rad Sampson sported a suit off

the same piece of goods as that of Koku's. Otherwise there might have

been a lasting feud between the giant and the Swift's ancient serving

man.

Mr. Barton Swift had stood the easy journey in the private car very

well. Before he would sign the contract that Mr. Bartholomew offered,

he wished to see for himself just how good his son's invention was.

They made another test from Hendrickton to Panboro, over the "official

route," as Ned called it. The time made by Hercules 0001 was even a

little better than before.

That the invention was well nigh perfect, and that it could do even

more than Mr. Bartholomew had hoped or Tom had claimed, was Mr. Swift's

conviction.

"Tom," he said to his son, "you have done a wonderful thing. Not only

have you completed a marvelous invention and gained thereby a lot of

money, and more in prospect, but you have aided in the world's progress

to no small degree.

"Speed in transportation is the big problem before the world of

commerce today. To move goods from point to point safely and cheaply,

as well as rapidly, is the great task of this age. We are entering the

Age of Speed. The railroads must solve the problem to compete with

motor-truck traffic and fast boats on the lakes and rivers of our land.

"You have, by your invention, shoved the clock of progress forward. I

am proud of you, my boy. I know now that, no matter what may happen to

me, you will make an enviable mark in the world of invention.

"You have done much before for the Government in time of stress. But

war engines of any kind are not worthy examples of inventive genius

beside such a thing as this.

"It is the inventions of peace, rather than those of war, that stand

for human progress."

Coming back over the mountain, Mary Nestor rode in the cab with Tom.

She sat on the swivel stool, in fact, and handled the controls for part

of the way. But she gave up the driver's place to Tom before they

reached the timber siding east of Cliff City.

"I cannot go by that place without a shudder," Mary said to the

inventor. "Ned and Mr. Damon told me all about that accident. Suppose

you had been killed, Tom!"

"I see I'll have to build an invention that will make that impossible,"

chuckled the young fellow.

"Make what impossible?"

"Some invention that will make it positively certain that no matter

what I do or where I go, nothing can harm me. Nothing else will suit

you, Mary, I plainly see."

"Well," returned the girl, smiling fondly at him. "I admit that would

satisfy me completely!"

This Isn't ALL!

Would you like to know what became of the good friends you have made in

this book?

Would you like to read other stories continuing their adventures and

experiences, or other books quite as entertaining by the same author?

On the reverse side of the wrapper which comes with this book, you will

find a wonderful list of stories which you can buy at the same store

where you got this book.

Don't throw away the Wrapper

Use it as a handy catalog of the books you want some day to have. But

in case you do mislay it, write to the Publishers for a complete

catalog.

THE TOM SWIFT SERIES

By VICTOR APPLETON

Uniform Style of Binding. Individual Colored Wrappers.

Every Volume Complete in Itself.

Every boy possesses some form of inventive genius. Tom Swift is a

bright, ingenious boy and his inventions and adventures make the most

interesting kind of reading.

TOM SWIFT AND HIS MOTOR CYCLE

TOM SWIFT AND HIS MOTOR BOAT

TOM SWIFT AND HIS AIRSHIP

TOM SWIFT AND HIS SUBMARINE BOAT

TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC RUNABOUT

TOM SWIFT AND HIS WIRELESS MESSAGE

TOM SWIFT AMONG THE DIAMOND MAKERS

TOM SWIFT IN THE CAVES OF ICE

TOM SWIFT AND HIS SKY RACER

TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC RIFLE

TOM SWIFT IN THE CITY OF GOLD

TOM SWIFT AND HIS AIR GLIDER

TOM SWIFT IN CAPTIVITY

TOM SWIFT AND HIS WIZARD CAMERA

TOM SWIFT AND HIS GREAT SEARCHLIGHT

TOM SWIFT AND HIS GIANT CANNON

TOM SWIFT AND HIS PHOTO TELEPHONE

TOM SWIFT AND HIS AERIAL WARSHIP

TOM SWIFT AND HIS BIG TUNNEL

TOM SWIFT IN THE LAND OF WONDERS

TOM SWIFT AND HIS WAR TANK

TOM SWIFT AND HIS AIR SCOUT

TOM SWIFT AND HIS UNDERSEA SEARCH

TOM SWIFT AMONG THE FIRE FIGHTERS

TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVE

TOM SWIFT AND HIS FLYING BOAT

TOM SWIFT AND HIS GREAT OIL GUSHER

TOM SWIFT AND HIS CHEST OF SECRETS

TOM SWIFT AND HIS AIRLINE EXPRESS

THE DON STURDY SERIES

By VICTOR APPLETON

Individual Colored Wrappers and Text illustrations by WALTER S. ROGERS

Every Volume Complete in Itself

In company with his uncles, one a mighty hunter and the other a noted

scientist, Don Sturdy travels far and wide, gaining much useful

knowledge and meeting many thrilling adventures.

DON STURDY ON THE DESERT OF MYSTERY;

Or, Autoing in the Land of the Caravans.

An engrossing tale of the Sahara Desert, of encounters with wild

animals and crafty Arabs.

DON STURDY WITH THE BIG SNAKE HUNTERS;

Or, Lost in the Jungles of the Amazon.

Don's uncle, the hunter, took an order for some of the biggest snakes

to be found in South America--to be delivered alive! The filling of

that order brought keen excitement to the boy.

DON STURDY IN THE TOMBS OF GOLD;

Or, The Old Egyptian's Great Secret.

A fascinating tale of exploration and adventure in the Valley of Kings

in Egypt. Once the whole party became lost in the maze of cavelike

tombs far underground.

DON STURDY ACROSS THE NORTH POLE;

Or, Cast Away in the Land of Ice.

Don and his uncles joined an expedition bound by air across the north

pole. A great polar blizzard nearly wrecks the airship.

DON STURDY IN THE LAND OF VOLCANOES;

Or, The Trail of the Ten Thousand Smokes.

An absorbing tale of adventures among the volcanoes of Alaska in a

territory but recently explored. A story that will make Don dearer to

his readers than ever.

THE RADIO BOYS SERIES (Trademark Registered)

By ALLEN CHAPMAN

Author of the "Railroad Series," Etc. Individual Colored Wrappers.

Illustrated. Every Volume Complete in Itself.

A new series for boys giving full details of radio work, both in

sending and receiving--telling how small and large amateur sets can be

made and operated, and how some boys got a lot of fun and adventure out

of what they did. Each volume from first to last is so thoroughly

fascinating, so strictly up-to-date and accurate, we feel sure all lads

will peruse them with great delight.

Each volume has a Foreword by Jack Binns, the well-known radio expert.

THE RADIO BOYS' FIRST WIRELESS;

Or, Winning the Ferberton Prize.

THE RADIO BOYS AT OCEAN POINT;

Or, The Messsage That Saved the Ship.

THE RADIO BOYS AT THE SENDING STATION;

Or, Making Good in the Wireless Room.

THE RADIO BOYS AT MOUNTAIN PASS;

Or, The Midnight Call for Assistance.

THE RADIO BOYS TRAILING A VOICE;

Or, Solving a Wireless Mystery.

THE RADIO BOYS WITH THE FOREST RANGERS;

Or, The Great Fire on Spruce Mountain.

THE RADIO BOYS WITH THE ICEBERG PATROL;

Or, Making Safe the Ocean Lanes.

RADIO BOYS WITH THE FLOOD FIGHTERS;

Or, Saving the City in the Valley.

THE RAILROAD SERIES

By ALLEN CHAPMAN

Author of the "Radio Boys," Etc.

Uniform Style of Binding. Illustrated.

Every Volume Complete in Itself.

In this line of books there is revealed the whole workings of a great

American railroad system. There are adventures in abundance--railroad

wrecks, dashes through forest fires, the pursuit of a "wildcat"

locomotive, the disappearance of a pay car with a large sum of money on

board--but there is much more than this--the intense rivalry among

railroads and railroad men, the working out of running schedules, the

getting through "on time" in spite of all obstacles, and the

manipulation of railroad securities by evil men who wish to rule or

ruin.

RALPH OF THE ROUND HOUSE;

Or, Bound to Become a Railroad Man.

RALPH IN THE SWITCH TOWER;

Or, Clearing the Track.

RALPH ON THE ENGINE;

Or, The Young Fireman of the Limited Mail.

RALPH ON THE OVERLAND EXPRESS;

Or, The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer.

RALPH, THE TRAIN DISPATCHER;

Or, the Mystery of the Pay Car.

RALPH ON THE ARMY TRAIN;

Or, The Young Railroader's Most Daring Exploit.

RALPH ON THE MIDNIGHT FLYER;

Or, The Wreck at Shadow Valley.

RALPH AND THE MISSING MAIL POUCH;

Or, The Stolen Government Bonds.

THE RIDDLE CLUB BOOKS By ALICE DALE HARDY

Individual Colored Wrappers. Attractively Illustrated. Every Volume

Complete in Itself.

Here is as ingenious a series of books for little folks as has ever

appeared since "Alice in Wonderland." The idea of the Riddle books is a

little group of children--three girls and three boys decide to form a

riddle club. Each book is full of the adventures and doings of these

six youngsters, but as an added attraction each book is filled with a

lot of the best riddles you ever heard.

THE RIDDLE CLUB AT HOME

An absorbing tale that all boys and girls will enjoy reading. How the

members of the club fixed up a clubroom in the Larue barn, and how

they, later on, helped solve a most mysterious happening, and how one

of the members won a valuable prize, is told in a manner to please

every young reader.

THE RIDDLE CLUB IN CAMP

The club members went into camp on the edge of a beautiful lake. Here

they had rousing good times swimming, boating and around the campfire.

They fell in with a mysterious old man known as The Hermit of Triangle

Island. Nobody knew his real name or where he came from until the

propounding of a riddle solved these perplexing questions.

THE RIDDLE CLUB THROUGH THE HOLIDAYS

This volume takes in a great number of winter sports, including skating

and sledding and the building of a huge snowman. It also gives the

particulars of how the club treasurer lost the dues entrusted to his

care and what the melting of the great snowman revealed.

THE RIDDLE CLUB AT SUNRISE BEACH

This volume tells how the club journeyed to the seashore and how they

not only kept up their riddles but likewise had good times on the sand

and on the water. Once they got lost in a fog and are marooned on an

island. Here they made a discovery that greatly pleased the folks at

home.

THE HONEY BUNCH BOOKS

By HELEN LOUISE THORNDYKE Individual Colored Wrappers and Text

Illustrations Drawn by

WALTER S. ROGERS

A new line of fascinating tales for little girls. Honey Bunch is a

dainty, thoughtful little girl, and to know her is to take her to your

heart at once.

HONEY BUNCH: JUST A LITTLE GIRL

Happy days at home, helping mamma and the washerlady. And Honey Bunch

helped the house painters too--or thought she did.

HONEY BUNCH: HER FIRST VISIT TO THE CITY

What wonderful sights Honey Bunch saw when she went to visit her

cousins in New York! And she got lost in a big hotel and wandered into

a men's convention!

HONEY BUNCH: HER FIRST DAYS ON THE FARM

Can you remember bow the farm looked the first time you visited it? How

big the cows and horses were, and what a roomy place to play in the

barn proved to be?

HONEY BUNCH: HER FIRST VISIT TO THE SEASHORE

Honey Bunch soon got used to the big waves and thought playing in the

sand great fun. And she visited a merry-go-round, and took part in a

seaside pageant.

HONEY BUNCH: HER FIRST LITTLE GARDEN

It was great sport to dig and to plant with one's own little garden

tools. But best of all was when Honey Bunch won a prize at the flower

show.

HONEY BUNCH: HER FIRST DAYS IN CAMP

It was a great adventure for Honey Bunch when she journeyed to Camp

Snapdragon. It was wonderful to watch the men erect the tent, and

wonderful to live in it and have good times on the shore and in the

water.

THE OUTDOOR GIRLS SERIES

By LAURA LEE HOPE

Author of the "Bobbsey Twins," "Bunny Brown" Series, Etc.

Uniform Style of Binding. Individual Colored Wrappers.

Every Volume Complete in Itself.

These tales take in the various adventures participated in by several

bright, up-to-date girls who love outdoor life.

THE OUTDOOR GIRLS OF DEEPDALE;

Or, Camping and Tramping for Fun and Health.

THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT RAINBOW LAKE;

Or, The Stirring Cruise of the Motor Boat Gem.

THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN A MOTOR CAR;

Or, The Haunted Mansion of Shadow Valley.

THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN A WINTER CAMP;

Or, Glorious Days on Skates and Ice Boats.

THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN FLORIDA;

Or, Wintering in the Sunny South.

THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT OCEAN VIEW;

Or, The Box That Was Found in the Sand.

THE OUTDOOR GIRLS ON PINE ISLAND;

Or, A Cave and What it Contained.

THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN ARMY SERVICE;

Or, Doing Their Bit for Uncle Sam.

THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT THE HOSTESS HOUSE;

Or, Doing Their Best For the Soldiers.

THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT BLUFF POINT;

Or, A Wreck and A Rescue.

THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AT WILD ROSE LODGE;

Or, The Hermit of Moonlight Falls.

THE OUTDOOR GIRLS IN THE SADDLE;

Or, The Girl Miner of Gold Run.

THE OUTDOOR GIRLS AROUND THE CAMPFIRE;

Or, The Old Maid of the Mountains.

THE OUTDOOR GIRLS ON CAPE COD;

Or, Sally Ann of Lighthouse Rock.