Victor Appleton.......................................................................................................................................1

Chapter I. A Tempting Offer...................................................................................................................1

Chapter II. Trouble Starts........................................................................................................................7

Chapter III. Tom Swift's Friends.............................................................................................................9

Chapter IV. Much to Think About .........................................................................................................12

Chapter V. Barbed Wire Entanglements ................................................................................................15

Chapter VI. The Contract Signed ...........................................................................................................19

Chapter VII. The Man with Big Feet .....................................................................................................23

Chapter VIII. An Enemy in the Dark .....................................................................................................27

Chapter IX. Where was Koku?..............................................................................................................30

Chapter X. A Strange Conversation .......................................................................................................34

Chapter XI. Touch and Go .....................................................................................................................37

Chapter XII. The TryOut Day Arrives................................................................................................39

Chapter XIII. Hopes and Fears..............................................................................................................42

Chapter XIV. Speed ...............................................................................................................................45

Chapter XV. The Enemy Still Active....................................................................................................48

Chapter XVI. Off for the West..............................................................................................................51

Chapter XVII. The Wreck of FortyEight .............................................................................................54

Chapter XVIII. On the Hendrickton Pas Alos.......................................................................................58

Chapter XIX. Peril, The Mother of Invention ........................................................................................63

Chapter XX. The Result .........................................................................................................................65

Chapter XXI. The Open Switch .............................................................................................................67

Chapter XXII. A Desperate Chase .........................................................................................................71

Chapter XXIII. Mr. Damon at Bay........................................................................................................74

Chapter XXIV. Putting the Enemy to Flight.........................................................................................76

Chapter XXV. Speed and Success .........................................................................................................79

"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 gaitnot alone on a level track but

through the Pas Alos Rangeis an immediate necessity. It's got to be done now, or our stock will be selling

"You do not mean just that, do you, Mr. Bartholomew?" asked Tom Swift earnestly, and staring at the

Mr. Richard Bartholomew was just thata "biglittle man." In the railroad world, both in construction and

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

Mr. Bartholomew, who was a little man physically, rolled around in his chair to face the young fellow more

"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

"Humph!" grunted the visitor, turning restlessly again in his chair. Then he said: "I agree as the necessity of

"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 semiinvalid; 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

"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

"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 proposed Hendrickton Western. A new road, backed by new capital, and to be officered and built by

"Montagne Lewisyou've heard of him, I presumeis at the head of the crowd that have bought the little

"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

"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

"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 forgetsand who never hesitates to play dirty politics if he has to, to bring

"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'Malleywell, never mind him. The game at present is to keep anybody in Lewis's employ

"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 usto Tom and mein reference to your railroad difficulties?"

"And this suggestion you have made," added Tom, "about a possible electric locomotive of a faster type than

"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

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

"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

"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 trafficall the freight trafficof 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 oneandahalf per cent.and our stock will be dished. But I

have worked out a scheme, Gentlemen, by which we can counterbalance any dig Lewis can give us in the

"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

"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

"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 isand the most recent; but it does not fill the bill. Not for the H. P. A., anyway,"

"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.

"I get that," said Tom briskly. "You have come here, then, to interest us in the development of a faster but

"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

"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

"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

"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.

"You should," said Mr. Swift mildly. "Your experience should have taught you a great deal about the railroad

"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

"What is that?" asked Tom Swift, sitting forward in his chair. "I, for one, feel so much interested that I will

"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 twentyfive 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

"Make it six, if you can," Tom said with continued briskness. "It interests me. I'll do my best. And I want you

"All right. Make it six," said Mr. Bartholomew. "But the quicker you dig something up, the better for me.

"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 coalburning or oilburning 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

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 mouths to the

"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

"Suits me," declared. Richard Bartholomew, rising quickly from his chair. "I confess I hoped you would take

"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

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:

"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

He halted a moment with the knob of the door in his hand. The porch was deep in shadows, but he thought he

"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

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

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 extinguishedblown out

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

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

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

Tom Swift had fallen in with many adventuresand some quite thrilling onessince, 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

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, phototelephones, 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,

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

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

"That's right, sonny," said the stranger, in a sneering tone. "You got just the right idea. When I say 'Stick 'em

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

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

Mr. Bartholomew had considered it very possible that he was being spied upon. This was one of the spiesa

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 holdup:

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 holdup 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

As for the girl herself, she considered Tom Swift the very nicest young man she had ever seen. He was her

beauideal of what a young man should be. And she entered enthusiastically into the plans for everything that

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?"

"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."

"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."

"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 holdup gent turns the notes over to Montagne Lewis,

"I can remember everything we said there in the library," Tom continued. "I'll see Ned tonight on my way

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

"It sure will be wonderful if we can build a locomotive that will do such fancy lacework as that," observed

"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

"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.

"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

"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

Tom did not stay long with the girl, for it was already late in the evening when he had arrived at her house.

"But that very thingthe fact that you fooled themwill 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 motorcar slowing down right before the open gate.

"Bless my breakshoes! is that Tom Swift? Just the chap I was looking for. Bless my mileagebook! this saves

"Why, it's Mr. Wakefield Damon," Mary cried, with something like relief in her tones. "You can ride home in

"All right, Mary. Don't be afraid for me," replied Tom Swift, and ran down the walk to the waiting car.

"And is like to burst off the said vest buttons?" chuckled the young fellow, stepping in beside his eccentric

"I am delighted to catch youalthough, of course," and Tom knew the gentleman's eyes twinkled, "I could

"Of course not," rejoined the young inventor calmly. "Seeing that I only come to see her just as often as I get

"Bless my memory tablets! is that the fact?" chuckled Mr. Damon. "Anyway, I wanted to see you so

"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.

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

"You're the smart guy!" croaked the coarse voice Tom had heard before. "Think you can bamboozle me, do

Either from nervousness or intention, he jerked the steering wheel so that the car made a sudden leap away

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 motorcar 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

"Drive on!" commanded the young inventor. "If he keeps bellowing like that the police will pick him up. I

"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

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

"What's up?" was Ned's greeting, looking at the two curiously as he ushered them in. "I see this isn't entirely

"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

"I am curious," said Ned, as they seated themselves. "Who was the footpad? What drew his attention to you

"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

"It is," answered Tom gravely. "We are going to take up a proposition that promises big things for the Swift

"I'll say so. And it looks as though we were mixing into a conspiracy that may breed trouble in more ways

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

"This looks like a big thing for the company, Tom," the young manager said with enthusiasm, while Mr.

"Bless my watchcharm!" murmured the latter. "An electric locomotive that can travel two miles a minute?

"It is a big order. I am not at all sure it can be done," agreed Tom, thoughtfully. "But under the terms Mr.

"That twentyfive 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 he 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

"The idea of speed enters into it, yes," said Tom thoughtfully. "In fact electric motor power has always been

"Look here!" he exclaimed earnestly, "what do you suppose the first people to dabble in electrically driven

vehicles were aiming at? The motorcar? The motor boat? Trolley cars? All those single motor sort of

"Bless my glove buttons!" exclaimed Mr. Damon, dragging off his gauntlets as he spoke. "I don't get you at

"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

"Coal costs moneyheaps of money now. Oil costs even more. But even with a thirdrail 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 rails road's books."

"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

"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

"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

"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

"Bless my volts and amperes!" exclaimed Mr. Damon. "I should say I do! Why, Tom, you make the problem

"In theory," supplemented Ned Newton, although he meant to suggest no doubt of his chum's ability to solve

"You've hit it," said Tom promptly. "I only have a theory so far regarding such a locomotive. But to the

"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

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

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

"Wait!" exclaimed Ned, as Tom arose from his chair. "Do you know what strikes me after your telling me

"Then his second attack on you proves that he got wise to the fact that your notes were in shorthand. He had a

"I wonder if it doesn't prove that the fellow has somebody in cahoots with him right here in Shopton?"

"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 holdup man may be from the West; but perhaps

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

"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."

"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

He led the way out of the house and to the motor car again. In a minute he had started his engine, and Tom,

"This gets us to your particular trouble, Mr. Damon," Tom Swift said, while the motor car was rolling along.

"Bless my windshield! I should say I had," exclaimed the eccentric gentleman, swinging around a corner at

"Some of the same gentry, Tom," declared Mr. Damon. "I haven't any peace of my life, I really haven't!"

"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 rocksalt watching

"Chickenhouse 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

"That's right. That tenmonths cockerel, Blue Ribbon Junior, never fails to crow at threethirtythree to the

"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 henhouse. I don't take any more

chances than I can help. Those prize huff Orpingtons are a great temptation to chicken loversboth blond

and brunette," and in spite of his anxiety, Mr. Damon could chuckle at his own joke. "Even your old

"And I'm trying to cure these others. I've charged my shotgun with rocksalt�as he did. My servant has

"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

"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 'emthough they ought to be killed!" declared the

"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.

"Bless my pocketbook! I don't care how much it costs. It will be ample satisfaction to see just one lowdown

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

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.

The huge and only halftamed giant gained the side of the car in seemingly a single stride. In the dark they

"Bless my magnifying glass!" ejaculated Mr. Damon. "That fellow is the most bloodthirsty individual that I

"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

"Bless my buttons!" murmured Mr. Damon. "That is certainly a good thing too. What's the matter with him

That is exactly what Tom himself wanted to know. He had dropped a hand upon the arm of the giant as he

"Not know, Master. See him footmarks. Follow him footmarks. Not find. When do findkill!"

"It is so," agreed the imperturbable Koku. "See! Show Master footmarks. Him look in at window. See! Koku

He flashed the electric torch in his hand. He left the car and strode into the yard. Tom followed him, and Mr.

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 sizewere imbedded in the soil. Koku went around the house to the other

"Me look. All around stockade," and he waved a generous gesture with his free hand including the fence

"Bless my slippery shoes!" exclaimed Mr. Damon, who had hard work to keep up both physically and

"Koku has always had it in his head," explained Tom, "that we built that fence about the works to keep out

"Is it?" asked Mr. Damon pointedly. "Enemy here," added Koku, flashing the lamplight upon the footprints

"Those bootmarks," added Mr. Damon, "are doubtless those of that fellow who jumped upon the running

"Humph! And who robbed me of my wallet," added Tom musingly. "Well, it might be. And, if so, Koku is

"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

"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

"Bless my statue of Nathan Hale!" murmured the eccentric gentleman. "I believe you. And you've been

"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

"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

"If Mr. Bartholomew's rivals continue to keep their spies hanging around the works here, we'll handle them

"And don't forget my barbed wire entanglements," put in Mr. Damon, starting his engine. "I want to fix those

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

"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

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

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

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

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

"Hey! What you want, tromping in here for, man?" demanded old Rad angrily. "An' totin' that spear, too.

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

"You tell me, I tell him," Rad said pompously. "No need yo' 'sturbing Massa Tom at dis hour."

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

Rad went through the big bedroom like a chocolatecolored 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

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

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

"You want to scare Rad out of half a year's growth?" Tom pursued sternly, slipping out of bed and reaching

"You go put that spear back where you found it and come up properly," commanded the young fellow, with

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

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

"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."

"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

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

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

"All right, Koku. Keep your eyes open. I expect that enemy may return sometime. Too bad," he added to

"'Waugh!' yourself," returned Tom, shaking his head. "You are altogether too sure, Koku. You couldn't tell a

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

"Don't you go to grabbing every stranger who comes around the house or the works for a spy, and make me

Koku nodded gravely and went away. When he met Rad suddenly in the hall with Mr. Swift's breakfast 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

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

"No getting out of the provisions of that paper, Tom," Ned had whispered, when he saw Mr. Bartholomew

"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 roadas 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?"

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

"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

"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

"You seem very sure that there is a conspiracy against you, Mr. Bartholomew," said the senior Swift

"I am sure," was the reply. "And I am likewise sure that this scheme of electrification of my road through the

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

successful such an electrification through the Rockies has been made by the Chicago, Milwaukee St. Paul

"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

BaldwinWestinghouse locomotives the Chicago, Milwaukee St. Paul built in nineteen hundred and nineteen

are wonderful machines. They have got fortytwo freight locomotives, fifteen passenger locomotives and

"The Jandel patent that my road uses is, in some degree, the equal of those BaldwinWestinghouse

locomotives. At least, our machines equal the C., M. St. P. on our level road. They can reach a

mileaminute gait. But when it comes to speed and pull on steep gradesAh! 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 twentyfive thousand dollars upon your

succeeding. And I am offering you the hundred thousand dollars bonus for the right to purchase the first

"I will do my very best," agreed Tom, warmly. "There isn't a thing the matter with the agreement," declared

Five minutes later the twin contracts were in force. One went into the safe of the Swift Construction

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

"I expect you know just about how you are going to work on this new invention, Tom?" suggested the

"What do you mean?" ejaculated Ned. "You talked just now as though you knew all about electric

"I know a good deal about those that have been built, both under the Jandel patent and those built for the

"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 locomotiveswell, I've got to tell you flat that I have

"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 mountainhogs that draw most of the mountain railroad

"Locomotives that use coal or oil have been developed about as far as they can be," said Mr. Swift, quietly.

"What are those advantages?" asked the business manager, quickly. "I confess, I do not understand the

"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

"Humph! I've got my answer right now," said Ned Newton. "If there is no other good reason, this is

"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 snowbanka 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

"Then, all you have to do to start an electrified locomotive is to turn a handswitch. No stoking or

"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

"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 big job," admitted Tom, and he said this with modesty. "I don't know what I may be able to doif

anything. I would not feel right in taking Mr. Bartholomew's twentyfive thousand dollars for nothing."

"Never mind that," said the financial manager, rather grimly. "It was his own offer and his risk. That

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

"I want to show the Jandel peopleto say nothing of the bigger firmsthat 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

"In the case of the Hendrickton Pas Alos there are very steep grades to overcome. Supposedly an electric

motordrive should achieve the same speed on a hill as on the level. But there is the weight of the train to be

"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 electricdriven 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

"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

twomileaminute 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 twomileaminute locomotive, I mean,

"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

"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

"Whew! Some price, I'll tell the world!" murmured the youthful financial manager of the Swift Construction

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 motorpower. 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

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

"I want the electric runabout brought around after lunch. I am going to Waterfield. Tell Koku, will you,

"Tell that crazy fellow?" demanded the old colored man heatedly. "Why should I tell him, Massa Tom? Ain't

"You can't do everything, Rad," said Tom, soberly. "That is humanly impossible."

"Give him a chance, Rad. I have to take Koku with me this afternoon. You must give your attention to the

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

"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

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.

"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

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 broadbrimmed hat. Somehow, his appearance made Tom reduce

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.

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 featuresroughly 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

"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

The giant's savage war cry followed the fugitive. Koku leaped from the moving car. Tom yelled:

"The big feet!" repeated the giant. "Master see the red mud dried on Big Feet's boots? That mud from

Again Koku uttered his savage cry, and in strides twice the length of those of the running man, started on the

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.

"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

"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

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

"Get back up here!" ejaculated Tom sternly. "I'll never take you away from the house with me again if you

"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?"

"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 simpleminded 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

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

"'Tain't human," Rad often said, "for nobody to say nothin' as much as dat Koku does. Why, lawsy me! if he

was tonguetied an' speechless, an' a deaf an' dumb mute, he couldn't say nothin' more obstreperously dan he

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

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

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

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

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

nightprowlers 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

"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

"I think I have seen him. But Koku spoiled everything by trying to eat him up," and Tom laughingly related

"Why, they ought to know about such a fellow lurking about Shopton. If he followed that Western railroad

"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

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

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

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

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

It was almost twelve at night. Tom had sat up in his own room after his father had retired, and after the

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

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

"What's that?" muttered Tom, and he sank down lower than the sill and crept slowly to the window. He

Coming up over the edge of the porch roof was a bulky figure. It was so dimly outlined at first that Tom

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

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

He did not believe that the marauder on the roof of the porch could have seen the flash of his shirtsleeved

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

He did not punch the light button when he entered the library. He knew where to put his hand upon an

Then he went to the safe and twirled the knob and watched the indicator find the four numbers which were

He flung the portfolio into the inner compartment, closed both doors, and twirled the combinationknob.

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

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

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

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

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

But while the young inventor hesitated a sudden, but muffled, snapthe breaking of metalsounded. Tom

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

On the heels of this sound came another. A muffled buzzing somewhere in the houseagain! 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

"Fo' de lawsy's sake! 'Tain't mawnin', is it?" Rad's sleepy voice was heard to announce. "No, it's da'k as"

Tom knew that his father was in no danger. In fact Mr. Swift's voice did not even betray apprehension. It was.

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

Nothing stirred on the porch roof. Moment after moment slipped by. Tom began to grow more than amazed.

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

"When old Morpheus has a strangle hold on Rad, Gabriel's trump would scarcely awaken him," Tom

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

Suddenly Tom heard a door slam. It was from the front of the house. Had his father come downstairs to look

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

"Fooled me! He went in and right through and down the stairs! Out the front door!" gasped Tom. "Did he get

He sprang up to the front porch and tried the door. It was locked again, of course. Should he ring the bell and

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

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

If the giant was in his roomTom turned suddenly and started on a run for the rear premises. He still carried

the handlamp and it lit his way into the garage door and up the narrow stairway. He shot the round beam of

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

And then he was suddenly aware of a sickish, heavy odor in the chamber. The window had been closed. But

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

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,

Tom did not tell the giant when he aroused what the matter with him was. Koku was ill enough! He was

"What done got into dat big lump o' bone an' grizzle?" demanded Eradicate. "He looks like, he swallowed a

"He is a sick man, all right," admitted Tom. "Looks like he wouldn't try to stab me to deaf wid no spear no

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 halfcivilized state, he was still a devil worshiper. At any rate, he had a vital respect

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 recoveredbetween 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

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

"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

Meanwhile Tom Swift had got what he called "a lead" and was working day and night upon the invention that

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

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

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

Mr. Wakefield Damon frequently came to the shops, for he was not alone very friendly with the Swifts, but

"If it goes as good as what you did for my chicken run," he declared, chuckling, "bless my dampers! you'll

"That is easy, perhaps," said Tom smiling. "There are not many in the market at the present time. But I don't

"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

"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

"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 ashbarrel 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

"Bless my yardstick!" exclaimed the eccentric man, it's as long as a gossip's tongue. What a monster it will

"When completed, and standing on its drivers and bogie truck and trailer truck, from cowcatcher 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

"I figure on fortyfour hundred horsepower. The power must be received from a three thousandvolt

directcurrent trolley. There are twelve drivingwheels, as you can see. Each pair of drivers will be driven by

a twinmotor 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 traina fast

crosscontinent expressto 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,

"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

"Three cheers!" laughed Tom. "Ned is as enthusiastic as usual. But believe me, friends, we are not going to

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

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

It was even whispered that Tom's objective was a twomilea 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

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

Ned knew that there were two men directly behind him, whispering together; but he paid no attention to them

"It's time to explode in just five hours; then goodnight to that invention, whatever it is."

This statement might mean almost anythingor nothing. Ordinarily Ned Newton might not have paid any

consideration to the words. But "invention" was a term that he could not over look. 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

The pair were just going out through the revolving door. The vice president craned his neck for a look at

"Don't know the small man, Ned. But the other is named O'Malley, I believe. Somebody introduced him here

At that moment the name "O'Malley" did not mean anything to Ned Newton. But he bade his friend

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

"Dat Andy O'Malley is de one what tried to hold up Massa Tom dat time. O'Malley is de man what's been

"Great grief!" exclaimed Ned, breaking in with excitement. "I'll drive as fast as I can, Rad. There is

"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."

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

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

"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

"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

"Fortyfour hundred horsepower is a big demand," went on Tom. "I've got to have at least a

threethousandvolt directcurrent to feed my motors. I will soon have to take up the matter with the Electric

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

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

These six pairs of driving wheels were about seventy inches in diameter, while the diameter of the leading

Mr. Swift had turned away from the locomotive when Tom put his head out of the door again.

"That ticking sound? I declare, I'd think it was one of those deathwatch beetles had got in here. Sounds like

"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

Tom once more appeared and addressed the workmen: "Whose bundle of dirty overalls is this in here? Come

"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

"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

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

The declaration seemed to rip away a curtain from Tom's thoughts. Perhaps Rad's cry about "de bomb" aided

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:

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

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 birddog 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

"Those overalls sure went to the wash, Boss," declared the foreman. "What was in 'em? And who put 'em in

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

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 watersoaked 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

"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

"I don't," replied the young inventor. "O'Malley has it in for me. No doubt of that. But he could not be sure

"The attempt was against my invention. And O'Malley was doubtless urged to destroy the locomotive that I

"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

"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

"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

For Tom to think of a thing was to start action without delay. Immediately he called a gang from the shops

He was sure that the man who had set the time bomb in place had got into the enclosure over the fence. If he

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

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

"Its wonder is yet to be proved," rejoined the young inventor. "I believe I've got the right idea; but nothing is

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 100,000volt alternating current and

delivering it to the locomotive in a 3,000volt direct current. Therefore, this station had two functions to

performreducing the voltage and changing the current from alternating to direct.

The reduction of the voltage was accomplished as follows: The 100,000volt alternating current was received

through an oil switch and was conveyed to a hightension current distributor made up of three lines of copper

From the current distributor the current was conducted through other oil switches to the

transformersentering at 100,000 volts and emerging at 2,300 volts. Then the current was conducted from

the transformers through switches to the motorgenerator sets and became the power employed to operate

The motor generator consisted of one alternating current motor driving two direct current generators. The

motor Tom established in his station was of the 60cycle synchronous type, which means that the current

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 voltsas high a direct voltage current,

Tom knew, as had ever been adopted for railroad work. The current voltage for ordinary street railway work

"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.

"This is going to be an expensive test, Tom," said Ned, grumbling a little. "The costsheets are running

"We are aiming at a big target," returned the inventor. "You've got to bait with something bigger than sprats

"Don't lose hope," returned Tom, calmly. "I am going after this whale right, believe me! This is one of the

"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

"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

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

The rails laid along the inside of the stockade made a twomile track, as well ballasted as any regular railroad

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 crossspan construction was used. The trolley wire itself was of the 4/0 size, and was the largest

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

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

Ned Newton and the mechanical force of the shops knocked off work to become spectators at the exhibition.

"Bless my alternating current!" cried the eccentric gentleman. "I would not miss this for the world. If you

"You'd better not," Tom told him, dryly. "If you tried that you'd get a worse shock than any chicken thief will

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 eightyodd foot structure. From the peak of the pilot to

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 boxcarlike a mail coach, only with more high windowsten 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 cabthe 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 contrivanceswas hidden from

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

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 motivepower was there all right! Just what speed could be

Nor did Tom Swift try for much speed on this first test of the Hercules 0001. He went around the twomile

track several times before bringing his machine to a stop near the crowd of onlookers. He came to the open

"Bless my slippery skates!" exclaimed Mr. Damon, "it slides right along, Tom. You've done it, my

It was Mary who suspected that Tom was not wholly satisfiedas yet, at leastwith the test of the Hercules

"Nothing is ever all rightthat 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

Tom made an instant motion and Ned's careless lips were sealed. It was not generally known among the men

"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 powerfeed

"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

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

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

"I have the best equipment of any electric locomotive on the rails today. I am sure of that," he said. "The

Hercules Three OughtsOne 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

"Speed. That is what troubles me. Have I got anything like the speed I am aiming for?"

"That is in my contract. Not only that, but to be of much use to the H. P. A. this locomotive must have such

speedor mighty near it. Of course, under ordinary conditions, two miles a minute for a locomotive and

train of heavy freights would burn up the trackmaybe melt the flanges and throw everything out of gear."

"It is the power suggested by the possession of such speed that we want in the Hercules ThreeOughtsOne.

That two miles a minute is a fiction of the imagination, cannot be claimed. It is possible. It is humanly

"Thanksmany, many thanks," laughed the young inventor. "I'd be able to harness the sun and stars, and put

"Nevertheless, twomilesaminute is my objective point, and I do not believe it is visionary. Consider the

motorcycle. Ninety miles an hour has long been possible with that, and some tests have shown a speed of

"Some Mallet locomotives of the oilburning type have achieved from eightyfive to ninetyfive miles an

hour with a heavy load behind them. They are very powerful machines. The Mogul mountain climbers are

"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 sixtyfive 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

"The world do move," repeated Ned. "You believe that you have the edge on all the other inventors?"

"Along the line of this developmentyes," 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 twomilesaminute drive?"

"I hope I do, too," said Tom, grimly. "At least, if trying will bring it, success is going to come my way."

More than four months had passed since the contract had been signed, when Tom made his first yardtest 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

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

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

"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

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'

"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

Mr. Damon chanced to be present at this conversation, and he was highly amused, yet somewhat impressed,

"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

"Do you mean that you will go West when I take out the Hercules ThreeOughtsOne?" 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

"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 ispoor fellow."

"He is a loyal old fellow. But I shall take Koku with me, not Rad," and the young inventor spoke decidedly.

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

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

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

"Quite. I can prove on paper that I've got the speed. But that isn't enough. You can see that."

"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

"Oh, that's all right! I've taken risks before. I don't want to risk the safety of the locomotive, which is more

"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

"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,

"Not a chance! There is neither time nor money for such work. Besides, I should have to rebuild my

"You don't really consider that you have failed, do you, Tom?" and Ned's anxiety made his voice sound very

"I tell you that my belief doesn't satisfy me. I hate to go West without being surepositive. 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

"I mean to give her one more test. I'll run her out tonight when there is nobody about but the watchmenand

you, if you want to come. I'll arrange with the Electric Company for all the current they can spare. By ginger!

"By the way, Tom," said his chum, "did it ever strike you as odd that that private detective agency never got

"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."

"Besides, there was that other fellowthe man with the Vandyke beard. Might be a shyster lawyer, or

"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 mantrap electric wires to

"It's funny, just the same. If I had another job for a detective I should not submit it to the Blatz Agency,"

"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

"Yes, Mr. Newton. The young boss didn't go home to supper, even. That colored man brought something

"Yes, sir. At least, he didn't go out this way, and we watchmen have instructions to let nobody in or out by

"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

"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

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

He doubted very much if anybody was creeping about outside the fence. The boards were close together, with

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

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 yardtrack.

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

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

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 poleprop right at this curve in the trolley system, the shadow

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

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

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

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

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

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

"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 belowsomething that hung and swung around

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

The wirecutters 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

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

The monster ground to a stop. Tom swung himself half out of the cab window beside the controller.

"No friend of yours, Tom, I believe," returned his financial manager in a shaking voice.

"Never mind coming here! Get a move on, and get to the switchboard. Turn the current out of the fence

"He's no friend. I am going out by the gate. He's got something there that means harm, I believe. Do you

"Only ought to be. Not enough current to kill him. But he's badly burned andandwell! I bet he won't

Ned dashed away to an entrance. A watchman came running, opened the small gate, and followed Ned into

Before they arrived at the vicinity of the accident Rad had got to the switchboard. The electricity was shut out

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

"Well, you did it that time!" exclaimed the young financial manager. "And I hope you got enough."

"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

"It's the other fellow. The little chap with the Vandyke. He's dressed like a tramp, but it's the same man."

"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 MyrickJoe 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

Ned had seized the rope he had seen in Myrick's hand, and from a patch of weeds drew a twogallon oilcan.

"Whatever it is, I am going to be mighty easy with it. I think this scoundrel was trying to get it over the fence

"You can't hang anything on me," said Myrick, suddenly. "I was just climbing up to the top of the fence to get

"He's evidently feeling better," said Tom, scornfully. "Nugent, don't let him get away from you. Go call the

Later, when the police had removed Joe Myrick and the mysterious can had been deposited in a tub of water

"I was just working up some speed on the locomotive. The speedometer indicated fiftyfive when I saw that

fellow sprawling up there on the fence. I would not have dared go much faster in any case."

"She did slide around easy, didn't she? Fiftyfive on an almost circular track is a good showing. I am not so

"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

Of course, as Tom supposed they would, the Blatz Detective Agency denied that Joe Myrick, their onetime

operative, had been engaged through their bureau either to spy upon the Swift Construction Company or to

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

"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

"Where's your evidence that this O'Malley was connected with the attempt to blow up your locomotive the

"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

"If you say so we will give you a couple of good men as bodyguards on your trip West," suggested Blatz,

"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

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

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 foodof a

He was not armed, for Tom did not often trust him with weapons. The young inventor, however, did not

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

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

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

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

"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 watchdog. And you know, his is a

"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

"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

"Even Mr. Damon may be a help to you, Tom," declared Mary, warmly. "At least, he is completely devoted

"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

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

"You may be sure of that," said the girl. "I will not leave him entirely to the care of Rad," and she tried hard

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 facesthat of Mr. Swift's and Mary's blooming countenanceas the express

started again, and then the outlook from the Pullman coach showed them the fast receding environs of

"We certainly are," said Ned, thoughtfully. "I wonder what the outcome of the trip will be? It may not be all

"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

"I am not crossing any bridges before I come to them," declared Tom. "Besides, I propose to keep in touch

The Pullman conductor at that moment came in through the forward corridor. He had a telegram in his hand,

"All right, Mr. Swift. Just got it at Shopton. Operator said you had boarded my car. This is railroad business,

Tom ripped open the envelope and unfolded the telegram. He held it so that Ned could read, too. It was

"'Locomotive and crazy man in it all right at Lingo,'" repeated Tom aloud, and chuckled.

"Good!" exclaimed Ned. "You arranged to get reports en route from the conductors handling the Hercules

"Surest thing you know," replied Tom. "And I guess, from the wording of this message, that the crew of

The two chums sought their berths that night in high fettle. Even Ned sloughed off his mood of apprehension

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 twentyfour hours. The freight train

went around the city, of course. But the telegrams continued to reach Tom promptly, even at the hotel where

Occasionally the trainmen in charge of the freight mentioned Koku. His eccentric behavior doubtless

"That's all right," chuckled Ned. "Let them think Koku is dangerous if they want to. That O'Malley person

"I'll say so!" replied Tom. "The way he ran when Koku started after him that time on the Waterfield Road

"If heor other spieslearns that Koku is with the Hercules ThreeOughtsOne, it ought to warn them

This was Ned's final speech before getting into his berth. He, as well as Tom, slept quite as calmly on this

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

It lacked half an hour of that time when the Pullman train came suddenly to a jolting stop. Both Tom and Ned

Heads were poked out between curtains all along the aisle and a chorus of more or less excited voices

"Nothin's the matter wid dis train, gen'lemens an' ladies," came in the porter's important voice. "Jest nothin' at

"Jest another train, Boss, been splatterin' itself all ober de right of way. We sort o' bein' held up, das all,"

"That's good newsfor us," said Ned, preparing to climb back into his berth. But he halted where he was

"A freight train, sah. Yes, sah. Number Fortyeight. She jumped de rails, sideswiped de accommodation dat

was holdin' us back, and has jest done spread herself all over de right of way."

"Hear that, Ned?" exclaimed Tom. "Scramble into your clothes, boy. The Hercules ThreeOughtsOne is

"It's lucky if she isn't smashed to matchwood," groaned Tom, and almost immediately left the Pullman coach

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

Tom and Ned walked forward along the length of the wreck. Suddenly the anxious young inventor seized

Tom quickened his pace, and his financial manager followed close upon his heels. The forward end of

Fortyeight had not left the track and the electric locomotive stood upright upon the rails, being near the head

"If this wreck was intentional, and aimed at your invention, Tom," whispered Ned Newton, "it did not result

Tom scouted the idea suggested by his chum. And in a few moments they learned from a railroad employee

"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

"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

Both Tom and Ned burst into laughter. The former went forward to the door of the cab and knocked in a

"No, no!" laughed Tom. "You are not at your journey's end yet, Koku. Keep on the job a while longer."

"Forever is a long word, Koku," said Tom, more seriously. "I'll tell you when to open the door. I'll be at the

"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 sideswiped 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.

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

"Well, why can't you find him?" he wanted to know in a hoarse and arrogant voice.

"I've seen him somewhere. Or else I've seen somebody that looks like him. Maybe I've seen his picture. He's

In answer to something one of the railroad men said the important looking individual uttered an oath and

"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

"Humph! If you see him, send him to me, and the solid man stepped heavily aboard the nearest coach and

Tom and Ned stared at each other with wondering gaze. O'Malley! The spy who had represented Montagne

"Hold on!" exclaimed Tom. He sprang across the rails after the conductor of the accommodation train that

"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, sirand a big man he is. Yes, sir," and the conductor, giving the

watching engineer of his train the "highball," caught the handrail of the car and swung himself aboard as the

The transcontinental was delayed three hours by the strewn wreckage of the rear of Number Fortyeight.

When she went on the two young fellows from Shopton gazed anxiously at the Hercules 0001, which stood

"Just luck," agreed Tom Swift. "It was a shock to me to learn that Andy O'Malley was right there on the spot

"And his employer, too," added Ned. "For we must admit that Mr. Montagne Lewis is the man who sicked

"And they were both in the accommodation that was sideswiped by the derailed cars of Number Fortyeight."

"But what puzzles me, as it seemed to puzzle Lewis, more than anything else, is what became of O'Malley?"

"I bet O'Malley got a squint at meor perhaps at youas we walked up the track from this coach, and he lit

out in a hurry. There stood the ThreeOughtsOne, and there were we. He knew we would raise a hue and

"I know it. He didn't even have time to warn his employer. By the way, Ned, what a brute that Montagne

"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

"Of course you will, if that Lewis or his henchmen don't smash things up. You are not afraid of the speed

"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 beforeto drive a locomotive over the rails at two miles a minute.

"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

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

Mr. Richard Bartholomew sat up in his desk chair and his keen eyes suddenly sparkled when he saw his

"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

"Nothing happened on the way?" he asked, pointedly. "There was a freight wreck, I understand?"

Then he detailed the incident, as far as he and Ned knew the details, to Mr. Bartholomew, who listened with

"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 ThreeOughtsOne, and I

But first Tom wanted to go into the theoretical particulars of his invention. And he confessed that thus far his

"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."

"That is what I have been telling Ned," Tom rejoined. "I believe my improvements over the Jandel patents are

"We have got to shoot our trains through the Pas Alos Range faster than trains were ever shot over the grades

"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. "Twomilesaminute

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 ThreeOughtsOne 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

"I'll arrange that for you," said Mr. Bartholomew, briskly, putting away his papers. "I will go with you, too,

"And a marvel it is," grumbled Ned. "Don't let him fool you, Mr. Bartholomew. Tom never does consider

"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 notand has

"You do not consider your electric locomotive, then, a completed invention?" asked Mr. Bartholomew, as the

"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."

"But before I shall be willing to throw up the sponge and say that I have failed, I shall monkey with the

"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.

"All right," Tom said, smiling. "Now, there is the Hercules ThreeOughtsOne, Mr. Bartholomew. And there

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!"

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

"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

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 mildmannered

"He will come back, if he is let alone, as harmless as a kitten," Tom observed. "And when I am not with the

Hercules ThreeOughtsOne, 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

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

"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

But Tom's triumph did not come at once. He knew more about the uncertainties of mechanical contrivances

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

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 tryouts 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 ninetyfive 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

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

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 rightofway 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

The telegraph operator at Half Way (merely a name for a station, for there was not a habitation in sight) thrust

his long upperlength out of the telegraph office window one afternoon and waved a "highball" to the waiting

"Dispatcher says you can have Track Number Two West till the fourthirteen, 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 westernbound flyer that

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

The drumming of the wheels over the rail joints became a single notean 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.

Blackgreen 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

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

He did not lose completely his selfcontrol. But he grabbed the levers with less care than he should. He tried

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

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 downpull. The locomotive's own weight of

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 hacking down the mountain side with a speed that was momentarily increasing, and without a chance of

The young inventor at that moment of peril, knew no more what to do to avert disaster than Ned Newton

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 fourthirteen, might already be climbing the hill from

Hammon. Hammon, at the foot of the grade, was twentyfive 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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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 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

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

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

Suddenly the tousled head of the operator popped out of his window. He saw the coming locomotive, the

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 witsone set to tell what to do in an emergency, the other to listen and

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

"Hammon? Get me? This is Half Way. That derned electric hog has sprung something and is coming down,

"Yes! Clear your yard! Where's Number Twentyeight? 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 besthis 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

If the operator's nerves were tense, what about those of Tom Swift and his chum? Ned staggered to the door

"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

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:

The fact, thus given to the general public or to such of it as might be interested, averted what would have

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 Twentyeight came roaring in, she was shunted on to a far track and flagged for a

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

"Oh, my foot slipped," said the young inventor, and they got nothing more out of him than that.

"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."

"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 ideaan important idea. Suppose that operator at Half Way had been out back somewhere,

"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

"Nonotever!" 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

"All right. It wasn't your fault. It might happen to any motor engineer. And the very fact that it can happen

"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

"But we didn't bump anything, except my brain tank. An idea bumped it, I tell you. I am going to eliminate

"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 waterfall begin to run upward."

"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

"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

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

He was brave, but he could not forget danger. Tom seemed to throw the effect of that terrible ride off his

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

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

"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 twomilea 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

"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.

That night Tom sent word to Mary and also a telegram, in code, to his father, saying the prospects were now

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

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

"Perhaps Mr. Bartholomew's police are really of some good," said Ned Newton, when his chum mentioned

"He certainly has not seen the man he calls 'Big Feet,'" chuckled Tom. "If he had spotted O'Malley, there

"Tell you what," Ned said reflectively, "the longer Lewis keeps off you, the more suspicious I should be."

"And then some, as the boys say out here," replied Ned. "I wouldn't trust that man any farther than I would a

"I am inclined to believe, with you, Ned, that Lewis is hatching up something and is keeping mighty whist

"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

"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 dirtno 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 teststo ride in the Hercules

"How about it? You going to agree? Suppose they have some inventive sharp along who will be able to steal

some of your mechanical contrivancesin 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

"That we cannot help in any case, and you know it," Tom said. "If some road tries to build anything like the

Hercules Three OughtsOne 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

"Exactly," chuckled Tom. "And in your character of life saver, do look out for anybody who looks suspicious

hanging about the Hercules ThreeOughtsOne. 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

Every day save Sunday the electric locomotive had some kind of tryout. 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

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

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 switchtargets!" 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?

"We're going about a hundred miles out on the road to a good, stiff grade," Tom told him, having shaken

"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 fatherand to a certain young lady who shows a remarkable

"They should already be sure of that," laughed Tom. "Ned and I have kept the postoffice department and the

"They are waiting for my report," announced Mr. Damon, with confidence. "And I am waiting for yours. Tell

"Bless my trolley wires!" cried Mr. Damon, "I am glad to hear that. Then you will surely pull down the extra

"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 ThreeOughtsOne will top anything so far built

"Hurrah!" cried Mr. Damon. "Bless my controller! But your father and Mary Nestor will be glad to hear

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 upgrade 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

Tom's favorite tryout 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

"But the Hercules ThreeOughtsOne 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

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 cufflinks!" 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

"I agree with Mr. Damon," Ned said. "It seems to work perfectly. And you have, I believe, established your

"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

"Bless my stickpin!" exclaimed Mr. Damon, "What can happen now that the locomotive is practically

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 upgrade at almost top speed. He drew no train on this

They topped the rise at Cliff City and got orders from the dispatcher to proceed on the time of Number

Eightyseven, 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 accidentthe unexpected something that so

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

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.

Suddenly Koku emitted a wild yell. He startled everybody else in the cab, as he flung his huge body more

Ned shrieked a warning to the big fellow. Mr. Damon began to bless everything in sight. But it was Tom,

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

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

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

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

There was a mighty jerk that brought a shout from Ned Newton's lips and a grunt from Mr. Damon. Tom

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

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

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, logbraced bumper between the two rails at the

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

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

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

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

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

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

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,

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

"My elbows!" he groaned. "I've skinned 'em, and my back has got a twist in it like the Irishman thought he

"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

"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 whereabouts of the fellow who did

"I believe it was Andy O'Malley. Come on, Ned! Koku is after him and I don't want him to tear O'Malley

"O'Malley has got powerful interests behind him, and it might go hard with Koku if he injured the spy and

"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

"Across the ditch and up the hill," said Tom. "Mr. Damon!" he called back to that eccentric man, "will you

"I certainly will. And I'm armed, too," shouted Mr. Damon. "Don't fear for this locomotive, Tom. I am right

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

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

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

The giant's hearing was of the keenest. He glanced back and raised his arm in greeting. But he did not slacken

"I am sure he does. And I want to get there about as soon as Koku grabs the fellow," panted Tom.

"I don't want Koku to injure him," admitted Tom, and he increased his own stride as he plunged down into

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

The giant's voice boomed back through the heavy timber: "I catch him! I hold him for Master! I break all um

"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

But he did not want the man permanently injured. He knew now that Koku was so wildly excited that he

Now the young inventor got no reply from the giant. Had the latter got so far ahead that he no longer heard

Tom pounded on, working his legs like pistons, putting every last ounce of energy he possessed into his

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

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 cowcatcher, 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

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 menat least, they were not dressed in uniformbut they were drawn immediately

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

"Where's that young fool Swift?" growled the man with the dyed mustache, looking up at Mr. Damon and

"Oh! That's another matter," said Mr. Damon coolly. "I don't know any fool named Swift, either young or

"I'm coming up," announced the stranger, and started to put his foot on the first rung of the iron ladder.

"You only think you are coming up here. But you are not. Bless my fortune telling cards!" ejaculated Mr.

At this point the blackmustached 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

Finding little relief in bad language, the enemy made another attempt to climb up. For one thing, he was

Mr. Damon did show him. He drew from some pocket a black object with a bulb and a long barrel.

At that moment the marauder reached out to seize Mr. Damon's coat. Then the object in Mr. Damon's hand

"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

The eccentric man was shrewd enough now to keep behind the jamb of the cab door. For some of these

"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

"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 thereWhat's that?"

In pain as he was, his other senses were alert. He was first to hear the screeching whistle of the oncoming

"Think they got wind of this so quick?" demanded Montagne Lewis, for it was he. "Are they sending help

"She's comm' awhizzin'," added another. "Right down the eastbound track. If the crew see us"

"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

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

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

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

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

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

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 happenwhat would surely occurand 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

"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 figureand 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

The giant came down the slope after Tom as though he wore the sevenleague boots. The fellows Lewis had

hired to wreck the electric locomotive shrank back from before both Tom and the giant.

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

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

Tom had reached the switch, and he was several seconds ahead of the freight locomotive. The engineer saw

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

Neither the engineer nor the crew of the freight understood the meaning of the scene at the timber siding. All

The young inventor turned sharply from the switch and motioned with his hand to Koku.

"Did they do any harm, Tom?" he cried. Then he saw Montagne Lewis standing by, and he seized his chum's

"I guess we both see the same snake," rejoined his chum. "And I mean to scotch it."

"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

"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

"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

"More than you think," said Tom. "Koku!" The giant had pitched O'Malley, who was still senseless, into the

"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 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

Tom tried out the several parts of the mechanism and found that, despite the jar of the collision, nothing was

"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

"Is nothing really injured, Tom?" asked Mr, Damon. "Bless my dinner set! I thought everything had gone to

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 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, Torn. Swift, as well as for your invention. You have

"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 hima level

of ninetyodd miles to the Hammon yards. As he passed the Hendrickton shops he touched the siren lever for

The next minute the visitors in the private car grabbed out their splitsecond watches and began to murmur.

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

The electric, locomotive and the private car were hurled toward the Pas Alos Range at a speed that almost

"Threequarters of an hour!" gasped one man as they began to see the outskirts of Hammon. "And ninetysix

"That is the speed we set out to get," Mr. Richard Bartholomew said, with quite as much pride as though he

But it had been his suggestion and his money that had accomplished this wonder. Tom Swift was willing to

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 fortyfive miles an hourat least

twice the speed that any two oilburning locomotives could attain. As for the Jandels, they were not in the

"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 satisfiedcompletely 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

"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

"Do you think so?" she cried, dimpling. "Well, if anybody should ask you, Mr. Tom Swift, you look very

"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

"My lawsy!" gasped Rad again, "he's as purty as a sunset. Is dat de way de tailors out here build a man up?

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

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

That the invention was well nigh perfect, and that it could do even more than Mr. Bartholomew had hoped or

"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

"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 motortruck traffic and fast boats on the lakes and

"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

"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

"I cannot go by that place without a shudder," Mary said to the inventor. "Ned and Mr. Damon told me all

"I see I'll have to build an invention that will make that impossible," chuckled the young fellow. "Make what

"Some invention that will make it positively certain that no matter what I do or where I go, nothing can harm

"Well," returned the girl, smiling fondly at him. "I admit that would satisfy me completely!"