“The Jandel patent that my road uses is, in some degree, the equal of those Baldwin-Westinghouse locomotives. At least, our machines equal the C., M. & St. P. on our level road. They can reach a mile-a-minute gait. But when it comes to speed and pull on steep grades—Ah! that is where they fail.”
“You will have to get power in the hills for your stations,” suggested Tom, thoughtfully.
“I know that. I know where the power is coming from. I gathered those waterfalls in years ago. Lewis and his crowd can’t shut me off from them. But I have got to have a speedier and more powerful type of electric locomotive than has ever yet been built to protect the Hendrickton & Pas Alos Railroad from any rivalry.
“I am looking to you Swifts to give me that. I am risking this twenty-five thousand dollars upon your succeeding. And I am offering you the hundred thousand dollars bonus for the right to purchase the first successful locomotives that can be built covered by your patents. Is it plain?”
“It is eminently satisfactory,” said Mr. Swift, quietly.
“I will do my very best,” agreed Tom, warmly. “There isn’t a thing the matter with the agreement,” declared Ned Newton, with confidence. “Gentlemen, sign on the dotted line.”
Five minutes later the twin contracts were in force. One went into the safe of the Swift Construction Company. The other, Mr. Richard Bartholomew bore away with him.
CHAPTER VII
THE MAN WITH BIG FEET
The consultation in the private office of the Swift Construction Company after the departure of Mr. Richard Bartholomew between the two Swifts and Ned Newton had more to do with a vision of the future than with mere present finances.
“I expect you know just about how you are going to work on this new invention, Tom?” suggested the financial manager, and Tom’s chum.
“Haven’t the first idea,” rejoined the young inventor, promptly.
“What do you mean?” ejaculated Ned. “You talked just now as though you knew all about electric locomotives.”
“I know a good deal about those that have been built, both under the Jandel patent and those built for the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul in the great Philadelphia shops.
“But when you ask me if I know how I am going to improve on those patents so as to make my locomotive twice as speedy and quite as powerful as those other locomotives—well, I’ve got to tell you flat that I have not as yet got the first idea.”
“Humph!” grumbled Ned. “You say it coolly enough.”
“No use getting all heated up about it,” returned his friend. “I have got to consider the situation first. I must look over the field of electrical invention as applied to motive power. I must study things out.”
“I don’t just see myself,” Ned Newton remarked thoughtfully, “why there should be such a great need for the electrification of locomotives, anyway. Those great mountain-hogs that draw most of the mountain railroad trains are very powerful, aren’t they? And they are speedy.”
“Locomotives that use coal or oil have been developed about as far as they can be,” said Mr. Swift, quietly. “A successful electric locomotive has many advantages over the old-time engine.”
“What are those advantages?” asked the business manager, quickly. “I confess, I do not understand the matter, Mr. Swift.”
“For instance,” proceeded the old gentleman, “there is the coal question alone. Coal is rising in price. It is bulky. Using electricity as motive power for railroads will do away with fuel trains, tenders, coal handling, water, and all that. Of course, Mr. Bartholomew will generate his electricity from water power—the cheapest power on earth.”
“Humph! I’ve got my answer right now,” said Ned Newton. “If there is no other good reason, this is sufficient.”
“There are plenty of others,” drawled Tom, smiling. “Good ones. For instance, heat or cold has nothing to do with the even running of an electric locomotive. It can bore right through a snowbank—a thing a steam engine can’t do. It runs at an even speed. Really, grade should have nothing to do with its speed. There is a fault somewhere in the construction of the Jandel machine or the H. & P. A. would have little trouble with those locomotives on its grades.
“Then, all you have to do to start an electrified locomotive is to turn a handswitch. No stoking or water-boiling. Does away with the fireboy. One man runs it!”
“Why!” cried Ned, “I never stopped to think of all these things.”
“No ashes to dump,” went on Tom. “No flues to clean, no boilers to inspect, and none to wear out. And they say that on the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul, at least, their freight locomotives handle twice the load of a steam locomotive at a greatly reduced cost.”
“Sounds fine. Don’t wonder Mr. Bartholomew is eager to electrify his entire tine.”
“On the side of passenger traffic,” continued Tom Swift, “the electric locomotive is smokeless, noiseless, dirtless, and doesn’t jerk the coaches in either stopping or starting. And in addition, the electric locomotive is much easier on track and roadbed than the old ‘iron horse’ driven by steam generated either from coal or oil.”
“It is a great field for your talents, Tom!” cried Ned, warmly.
“It is a big job,” admitted Tom, and he said this with modesty. “I don’t know what I may be able to do—if anything. I would not feel right in taking Mr. Bartholomew’s twenty-five thousand dollars for nothing.”
“Quite right, my boy,” said Mr. Swift, approvingly.
“Never mind that,” said the financial manager, rather grimly. “It was his own offer and his risk. That twenty-five thousand comes to our account.”
Tom laughed. “All business, Ned, aren’t you? But there is more than business for the Swift Construction Company in this. Our reputation for fair dealing as well as for inventive powers is linked up with this contract.
“I want to show the Jandel people—to say nothing of the bigger firms—that the Swifts are to be reckoned with when it comes to electric invention. Other roads will be electrifying their lines as fast as it is proved that the electric-driven locomotive has the bulge on the steam-driven.
“In the case of the Hendrickton & Pas Alos there are very steep grades to overcome. Supposedly an electric motor-drive should achieve the same speed on a hill as on the level. But there is the weight of the train to be counted on.
“The H. & P. A. has a two per cent. grade in more than one place. Mr. Bartholomew confessed as much to me last night. The electric-driven locomotive of the powerful freight type, which the Jandel people built for Mr. Bartholomew, can make about sixteen miles an hour on those grades, although they can hit it up to thirty miles an hour on level track.
“His passenger locomotives turn off a mile a minute and more, on the level road; but they can not climb those steep grades at a much livelier pace than the freight engines. That is why he is talking about two-mile-a-minute locomotives. He must get a mighty speedy locomotive, for both freight and passenger service, to keep ahead of Montagne Lewis’s rival road, the Hendrickton & Western.”
“You don’t suppose it can be done, do you?” demanded Ned. “The two-mile-a-minute locomotive, I mean, Tom.”
“That is the target I am to aim for,” returned his friend, soberly. “At any rate, I hope to improve on the type of locomotive Mr. Bartholomew is now using, so that the hundred thousand dollars bonus will come our way as well as this first twenty-five thousand.”
“That wouldn’t pay for one engine, would it?” cried Ned.
“Nor is it expected to. The bonus has nothing to do with payment for any model, or patent, or anything of the kind. To tell you the truth, Ned, I understand those big locomotives used by the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul cost them about one hundred and twelve thousand dollars each.”
“Whew! Some price, I’ll tell the world!” murmured the youthful financial manager of the Swift Construction Company.
When the conference was over, and Tom had been through the workshop to overlook several l
ittle jobs that were in process of completion by his trusted mechanics, it was lunch time. He left word that he would not be back that day, for this new task he was to attack was not to be approached with any haphazard thought.
Tom knew quite as well as his father knew that the idea of improving the Jandel patent on electric locomotives was no small thing. The Jandel people had claimed that their patent was the very last word in electric motor-power. And Tom was quite willing to acknowledge that in some ways this claim was true.
But in invention, especially in the field of electric invention, what is the last word today may be ancient history tomorrow.
It was because this field is so broad and the possibility of improvement in every branch of electrical science so exciting, that Tom had accepted Mr. Bartholomew’s challenge with such eagerness.
Tom went back to the house for lunch, and as he joined his father in the dining room he remarked to Eradicate:
“I want the electric runabout brought around after lunch. I am going to Waterfield. Tell Koku, will you, Rad?”
“Tell that crazy fellow?” demanded the old colored man heatedly. “Why should I tell him, Massa Tom? Ain’t I able to bring dat runabout out o’ de garbarge? Shore I is!”
“You can’t do everything, Rad,” said Tom, soberly. “That is humanly impossible.”
“But dat Koku can’t do nothin’ right. Dat’s inhumanly possible, Massa Tom.”
“Give him a chance, Rad. I have to take Koku with me this afternoon. You must give your attention to the house and to father.”
“Huh! Umm!” grunted Eradicate.
Rad was jealous of anybody who waited on Tom besides himself. Yet he was proud of responsibility, too. He teetered between the pride of being in charge at home and accompanying his young master, and finally replied:
“Well, in course, you ain’t going to be gone long, Massa Tom. And yo’ father does like to get his nap undisturbed. And he’ll want his pot o’ tea afterwards. So I’ll let dat irresponsible Koku go wid yo’. But yo’ got to watch him, Massa Tom. Dat giant don’t know what he’s about half de time.”
As Koku was not within hearing to challenge that statement, things went all right. When Tom came out of the house after eating, he found his very fast car waiting for him, with the giant standing beside it at the curb.
“Get in at the back, Koku,” said Tom. “I am going to take you with me.”
“Master is much wise,” said Koku. “That man with big feet will not hurt Master while Koku is with him.”
To tell the truth Tom had quite forgotten the supposed spy that had attacked him the night before. He needed Koku for a purpose other than that of bodyguard. But he made no comment upon the giant’s remark.
They stopped at one of the gates of the works, and Tom instructed Koku to bring out and put into the car certain boxes and tools that he wished to take with him. Then he drove on, taking the road to Waterfield.
This way led through farmlands and patches of woods, a rough country in part. A mile out of the limits of Shopton the road edged a deep valley, the sidehill sparsely wooded.
Almost at once, and where there was not a dwelling in sight, they saw a figure tramping in the road ahead, a big man, roughly dressed, and wearing a broad-brimmed hat. Somehow, his appearance made Tom reduce speed and he hesitated to pass the pedestrian.
The man did not hear the runabout at first; or, at least, he did not look over his shoulder. He strode on heavily, but rapidly. Suddenly the young inventor heard the giant behind him emit a hissing breath.
“Master!” whispered the giant.
“What’s up now?” demanded Tom, but without glancing around.
“The big feet!” exclaimed Koku.
The giant’s own feet were shod with difficulty in civilized footgear, but compared with his other physical dimensions his feet did not seem large. The man ahead wore coarse boots which actually looked too big for him! Koku started up in the back of the car as the latter drew nearer to the stranger.
The man looked back at last and Tom gained a clear view of his features—roughly carved, dark as an Indian’s, and holding a grim expression in repose that of itself was far from breeding confidence. In a moment, too, the expression changed into one of active emotion. The man glared at the young inventor with unmistakable malevolence.
“Master!” hissed Koku again. “The big feet!” The fellow must have seen Koku’s face and understood the giant’s expression. In a flash he turned and leaped out of the roadway. The sidehill was steep and broken here, but he went down the slope in great strides and with every appearance of wishing to evade the two in the motor-car.
The giant’s savage war cry followed the fugitive. Koku leaped from the moving car. Tom yelled:
“Stop it, Koku! You don’t know that that is the man.”
“The big feet!” repeated the giant. “Master see the red mud dried on Big Feet’s boots? That mud from Master’s garden.”
Again Koku uttered his savage cry, and in strides twice the length of those of the running man, started on the latter’s trail.
CHAPTER VIII
AN ENEMY IN THE DARK
The situation offered suggestions of trouble that stung Tom to immediate action. The impetuousness of his giant often resulted in difficulties which the young inventor would have been glad to escape.
Now Koku was following just the wrong path. Tom Swift knew it.
“Koku, you madman!” he shouted after the huge native. “Come back here! Hear me? Back!”
Koku hesitated. He shot a wondering look over his shoulder, but his long legs continued to carry him down the slope after the dark-faced stranger.
“Come back, I say!” shouted Tom again. “Have I got to come after you? Koku! If you don’t mind what you’re told I’ll send you back to your own country and you’ll have to eat snakes and lizards, as you used to. Come here!”
Whether it was because of this threat of a change of diet, which Koku now abhorred, or the fact that he had really become somewhat disciplined and that he fairly worshiped Tom, the giant stopped. The man with the big shoes disappeared behind a hedge of low trees.
“Get back up here!” ejaculated Tom sternly. “I’ll never take you away from the house with me again if you don’t obey me.”
“Master!” ejaculated the giant, slowly approaching. “That Big Feet—”
“I don’t care if he made those footprints in the yard last night or not. I don’t want him touched. I didn’t even want him to know that we guessed he had been sneaking about the house. Understand?”
“Of a courseness,” grumbled Koku. “Koku understand everything Master say.”
“Well, you don’t act as though you did. Next time when I want any help I may have to bring Rad with me.”
“Oh, no, Master! Not that old man. He don’t know how to help Master. Koku do just what Master say.”
“Like fun you do,” said Tom, still apparently very angry with the simple-minded giant. “Get back into the car and sit still, if you can, until we get to Mr. Damon’s house.” Then to himself he added: “I don’t blame that fellow, whoever he is, for lighting out. I bet he’s running yet!”
He knew that Koku would say nothing regarding the incident. The giant had wonderful powers of silence! He sometimes went days without speaking even to Rad. And that was one of the sources of irritation between the voluble colored man and the giant.
“’Tain’t human,” Rad often said, “for nobody to say nothin’ as much as dat Koku does. Why, lawsy me! if he was tongue-tied an’ speechless, an’ a deaf an’ dumb mute, he couldn’t say nothin’ more obstreperously dan he does—no sir! ’Tain’t human.”
So Tom had not to warn the giant not to chatter about meeting the stranger on the road to Waterfield. If that person with dried red mud on his boots was the spy who had followed Mr. Richard Bartholomew East and was engaged by Montagne Lewis to interfere with any attempt the president of the H. & P. A. might make to pull his railroad out of the financial quagm
ire into which it was rapidly sinking, Tom would have preferred to have the spy not suspect that he had been identified after his fiasco of the previous evening.
For if this Western looking fellow was Andy O’Malley, whose name had been mentioned by the railroad man, he was the person who had robbed Tom of his wallet and had afterward attempted reprisal upon the young inventor because the robbery had resulted in no gain to the robber.
Of course, the fellow had been unable to read Tom’s shorthand notes of the agreement that he had discussed with Mr. Bartholomew. Just what the nature of that agreement was, would be a matter of interest to the spy’s employer.
Having failed in this attempt to learn something which was not his business, the spy might make other and more serious attempts to learn the particulars of the agreement between the railroad president and the Swifts. Tom was sorry that the fellow had now been forewarned that his identity as the spy and footpad was known to Tom and his friends.
Koku had made a bad mess of it. But Tom determined to say nothing to his father regarding the discovery he had made. He did not want to worry Mr. Swift. He meant, however, to redouble precautions at the Swift Construction Company against any stranger getting past the stockade gates.
Arrived at Mr. Damon’s home in Waterfield, Tom got quickly to work on the little job he had come to do for his old friend. Of course, Tom might have sent two of his mechanics from the works down here to electrify the barbed wire entanglements that Mr. Damon had erected around his chicken run. But the young inventor knew that his eccentric friend would not consider the job done right unless Tom attended to it personally.
“Bless my cracked corn and ground bone mixture!” ejaculated the chicken fancier. “We’ll show these night-prowlers what’s what, I guess. One of my neighbors was robbed last night. And I would have been if I hadn’t set a watch while I drove over to see you, Tom. Bless my spurs and hackles! but these thieves are getting bold.”
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