Chapter IV
Much to Think About
Although it was now nearing ten o'clock on this eventful evening, Tomknew that he would find Ned Newton at home. When Mr. Damon's carstopped before the house there was a light in Ned's room and the frontdoor opened almost as soon as Tom rang. Mr. Damon left the car andentered with the young inventor at his invitation.
"What's up?" was Ned's greeting, looking at the two curiously as heushered them in. "I see this isn't entirely a social call," and helaughed as he shook the older man's hand.
"Bless my particular star!" exclaimed the latter excitedly. "Of all thethrilling adventures that anybody ever got into, it is this Tom Swiftwho cooks them up! Why, Newton! do you know that we have been held upby a highwayman within two blocks of this very house?"
"And that of course was Tom's fault?" suggested Ned, still smiling.
"It wouldn't have happened if he had not been with me," said Mr. Damon.
"I am curious," said Ned, as they seated themselves. "Who was thefootpad? What drew his attention to you two? Tell me about it."
"Bless my suspender buckles!" exclaimed Mr. Damon. "You tell him, Tom.I don't understand it myself, yet."
"I think I can explain. But whatever I tell you both, you must hold insecret. Father and I have been entrusted with some private informationtonight and I am going to take you, Ned, and Mr. Damon, into thebusiness in a confidential way."
"Let's have it," begged Newton. "Anything to do with the works?"
"It is," answered Tom gravely. "We are going to take up a propositionthat promises big things for the Swift Construction Company."
"A big thing financially?"
"I'll say so. And it looks as though we were mixing into a conspiracythat may breed trouble in more ways than one."
Tom went on to sketch briefly the situation of the Hendrickton & PasAlos Railroad as brought to the attention of the Swifts by therailroad's president. First of all his two listeners were deeplyinterested in the proposition Mr. Richard Bartholomew had made theinventors. Ned Newton jotted down briefly the agreement to beincorporated in the contract to be drawn and signed, by the SwiftConstruction Company and the president of the H. & P. A. road.
"This looks like a big thing for the company, Tom," the young managersaid with enthusiasm, while Mr. Damon listened to it all with mouth andeyes open.
"Bless my watch-charm!" murmured the latter. "An electric locomotivethat can travel two miles a minute? Whew!"
"Sounds like a big order, Tom," added Ned, seriously.
"It is a big order. I am not at all sure it can be done," agreed Tom,thoughtfully. "But under the terms Mr. Bartholomew offers it is worthtrying, don't you think?"
"That twenty-five thousand dollars is as good as yours anyway,"declared his chum with finality. "I'll see there is no loophole in thecontract and the money must be placed in escrow so that there can be nopossibility of our losing that. The promise of a hundred thousanddollars must be made binding as well."
"I know you will look out for those details, Ned," Tom said with a waveof his hand.
"That is what I am here for," agreed the financial manager. "Now, whatelse? I fancy the building of such a locomotive looks feasible to youand your father or you would not go into it."
"But two miles a minute!" murmured Mr. Damon again. "Bless my prizepumpkins!"
"The idea of speed enters into it, yes," said Tom thoughtfully. "Infact electric motor power has always been based on speed, and oncheapness of moving all kinds of traffic.
"Look here!" he exclaimed earnestly, "what do you suppose the firstpeople to dabble in electrically driven vehicles were aiming at? Themotor-car? The motor boat? Trolley cars? All those single motor sort ofthings? Not much they weren't!"
"Bless my glove buttons!" exclaimed Mr. Damon, dragging off hisgauntlets as he spoke. "I don't get you at all, Tom! What do you mean?"
"I mean to say that the first experiments in the use of electricity asa motive power were along the electrification of the steam locomotive.Everybody realized that if a motor could be built powerful enough andspeedy enough to drag a heavy freight or passenger train over theordinary railroad right of way, the cost of railroad operation would beenormously decreased.
"Coal costs money--heaps of money now. Oil costs even more. But evenwith a third-rail patent, a locomotive successfully built to do thework of the great Moguls and mountain climbers of the last two decades,and electrically driven, will make a great difference on the creditside of any railroad's books."
"Right-o!" exclaimed Ned. "I can see that."
"That was the object of the first experiments in electric motivepower," repeated Tom. "And it continues to be the big problem inelectricity. The Jandel locomotive is undoubtedly the last word so faras the construction of an electric locomotive is concerned. But itfalls down in speed and power. I thought so myself when I saw thatlocomotive and looked over the results of its work. And this Mr.Bartholomew has assured father and me this evening that it is a fact.
"It has a record of a mile a minute on a level or easy grade; but itcan't show goods when climbing a real hill. It slows up both freightand passenger traffic on the Hendrickton & Pas Alos road. That range ofhills is too much for it.
"So the Swift Construction Company is going to step in," concluded theyoung inventor eagerly. "I believe we can do it. I've the nucleus ofan 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, Ihave dad to advise me."
"That's right," agreed Ned. "Why shouldn't you? And with such acontract as you have been offered--"
"Bless my bootsoles!" ejaculated Mr. Damon, getting up and trampingabout the room in his excitement. "I thought the trolley cars that runbetween Shopton and Waterfield were about the fastest things on rails."
"Not much. The trolley car is a narrow and prescribed manner of usingelectricity for motive power. The motor runs but one car--or one and atrailer, at most," said Tom. "As I have pointed out, the problem is tobuild a machine that will transmit power enough to draw the enormousweight of a loaded freight train, and that over steep grades.
"A motor for each car is a costly matter. That is why trolley carcompanies, no matter how many passengers their cars carry, are so oftenon the verge of financial disaster. The margin of profit is too narrow.
"But if you can get a locomotive built that will drag a hundred cars!Ah! how does that sound?" demanded Tom. "See the difference?"
"Bless my volts and amperes!" exclaimed Mr. Damon. "I should say I do!Why, Tom, you make the problem as plain as plain can be."
"In theory," supplemented Ned Newton, although he meant to suggest nodoubt of his chum's ability to solve almost any problem.
"You've hit it," said Tom promptly. "I only have a theory so farregarding such a locomotive. But to the inventor the theory always mustcome first. You understand that, Ned?"
"I not only appreciate that fact," said his chum warmly; "but I believethat you are the fellow to show something definite along the line of animproved electric locomotive. But, whether you can reach the high markset by the president of that railroad--"
"Two miles a minute!" breathed Mr. Damon in agreement. "Bless mywind-gauge! It doesn't seem possible!"
Tom Swift shrugged his shoulders. "It is the impossible that inventorshave to overcome. If we experimenters believed in the impossible littlewould be done in this world, to advance mechanical science at least.Every invention was impossible until the chap who put it through builthis first working model."
"That's understood, old boy," said Ned, already busily scratching offthe form of the contract he proposed to show the company's legaladvisers early in the morning.
When he had read over the notes he had made Tom O.K.'d them. "That isabout as I had the items set down myself on the sheet that fellow stolefrom me."
"Wait!" exclaimed Ned, as Tom arose from his chair. "Do you know whatstrikes me after your telling me about your second hold-up?"
; "What's that?" asked his chum.
"Are you sure that was the same fellow who stole your wallet?"
"Quite sure."
"Then his second attack on you proves that he got wise to the fact thatyour notes were in shorthand. He had a chance to study them while youvisited with Mary Nestor."
"Like enough."
"I wonder if it doesn't prove that the fellow has somebody in cahootswith him right here in Shopton?" ruminated Ned.
"Bless my spare tire!" ejaculated Mr. Damon, who had already startedfor the door but now turned back.
"That's an idea, Ned," agreed Tom Swift. "It would seem that he hadconsulted with some superior," said the young manager of the SwiftConstruction Company. "This hold-up man may be from the West; butperhaps he did not follow Bartholomew alone."
"I'd like to know who the other fellow is," said Tom thoughtfully. "Iwould know the man who attacked me, both by his bulk and his voice.
"Me, too," put in Mr. Damon. "Bless my indicator! I'd know thescoundrel if I met him again."
"The thing to do," said Ned Newton confidently, "is to identify the manwho robbed you tonight as soon as possible and then, if he hangs aroundShopton, to mark well anybody he associates with."
"Perhaps they will not bother me any more," said Tom, rather carelessly.
"And perhaps they will," grumbled Mr. Damon. "Bless my self-starter!they may try something mean again this very night. Come on, Tom. I wantto run you home. And on the way, I tell you, I've got something to putup to you myself. It may not promise a small fortune like this electriclocomotive business; but bless my barbed wire fence! my trouble hasmore than a little to do with footpads, too."
He led the way out of the house and to the motor car again. In a minutehe had started his engine, and Tom, jumping in beside him, was borneaway toward his own home.