Chapter XIV
Speed
More than four months had passed since the contract had been signed,when Tom made his first yard-test of the Hercules 0001. For a monthnothing had been seen or heard of Andy O'Malley, whose identity as thespy, set by Montagne Lewis to cripple Tom's attempt to help theHendrickton & Pas Alos Railroad, had been determined beyond any doubt.
The private inquiry agent that Tom had engaged to find O'Malley hadbeen unsuccessful in his work. The spy had disappeared from Shopton andthe vicinity. Nevertheless, the inventor did not for a moment overlookthe possibility that the enemy might again strike.
Every night the electric current was turned into the wires that cappedthe stockade of the Swift Construction Company enclosure. Koku beat apath around the enclosure at night, getting such short sleep as heseemed to need in the forenoon.
"Dat crazy cannibal," grumbled Rad, "got it in his haid dat he's gwineto he'p Massa Tom by walkin' out o' nights like he was dis hereWestern, de great sprinter, Ma lawsy me! Koku ain't got brains enoughto fill up a hic'ry nut shell. Dat he ain't."
Nothing anybody else could do for Tom ever satisfied Rad. The coloredman fully believed that he was the only person really necessary forTom's success and peace of mind. In fact, Rad thought that even NedNewton's duties as financial manager of the firm were scarcely of asmuch importance.
When he heard that Tom was going West, after a time, with the electriclocomotive, to try it out on the tracks of the H. & P. A., Rad wasquite sure that if he did not go along, the test would not come outright.
"O' course yo'll need me, Massa Tom," he said, confidently. "Couldn'tgit along widout me nohow. Yo' knows, sir, I allus has to go 'long widyo' to fix things."
"Don't you think father will need you here, Rad?" Tom asked thefaithful old fellow. "You're getting old--"
"Me gittin' old?" cried, the colored man. "Huh! Yo' don't know 'boutdis here chile. I don't purpose ever to git old. I been gray-haidedsince befo' yo' was born; but I ain't old yit!"
Mr. Damon chanced to be present at this conversation, and he was highlyamused, yet somewhat impressed, too, by the colored man's statement.
"Bless my own antiquity!" he exclaimed. "I agree with Rad, Tom. It'sus old fellows who know what to do when an emergency of any kindarises. Experience teaches more than inspiration."
"Oh," said Tom, laughing, "I do not deny the value of old friends atany stage of the game."
"Bless my roving nature! I am glad to hear you say that. For I tell youright now, Tom, I want to be out there when you make your final test ofthe locomotive."
"Do you mean that you will go West when I take out the HerculesThree-Oughts-One?" cried Tom.
"It's just what I want to do. Bless my traveling bag, Tom! I mean to bepresent at your final triumph."
"What will happen to your buff Orpingtons while you are gone?" askedthe young inventor, gravely.
"I have got my servant trained to look after those chickens," declaredMr. Damon. "And this invention of yours is really more important thaneven my buff Orpingtons."
"Just the same," remarked Tom to his eccentric friend, when Rad hadleft the room. "I've got to fix it so that Eradicate stays at home withfather. He doesn't really know how old and broken he is--poor fellow."
"His heart is green, Tom. That's what is the matter with Rad."
"He is a loyal old fellow. But I shall take Koku with me, not Rad," andthe young inventor spoke decidedly. "And that is going to trouble poorRad a lot."
The prospect of going West, however, was not the main subject of Tom'sthoughts at this time. As the weeks passed and the end of the sixmonths of experiment came nearer, the inventor was more and moretroubled by the principal difficulty which had from the firstconfronted him. Speed.
That was the mark he had set himself. A maximum speed of two miles aminute on a level track for the Hercules 0001. With the speed alreadyattained by both steam and electric locomotives in the more recentpast, this was by no means an impossible attainment, as Tom quite wellknew.
But he became convinced that the conditions under which he labored madeit impossible for him to be positive of just how great a speed on astraight, level track his invention would attain.
There was no electrified stretch of railroad near Shopton on which theHercules 0001 might be tested. The track inside the Swift Company'senclosure did not offer the conditions the inventor needed. He feltbalked.
"I believe I have hit the right idea in my improvements on the Jandelpatents," he told Ned Newton when they were discussing the matter. "Butbelieving is one thing. Knowing is another!"
"Theoretically it works out all right, I suppose?" questioned Ned.
"Quite. I can prove on paper that I've got the speed. But that isn'tenough. You can see that."
"Impossible to be sure on the trackage already built here, Tom?"
"I haven't dared give her all she'll take," grumbled Tom. "If I did, Ifear she'd jump the rails and I'd have a wreck on my hands."
"And maybe kill yourself!" exclaimed Ned. "You want to have a care."
"Oh, that's all right! I've taken risks before. I don't want to riskthe safety of the locomotive, which is more important. That machine hascost us a lot of money."
"I'll say so!" agreed Ned. "You'll have to wait till you can get thelocomotive out there on the H. & P. A. tracks before you get a fairspeed-test."
"And suppose instead of a triumph it is a fiasco?" Tom said,doubtfully. "I tell you straight, Ned: I never was so uncertain aboutthe outcome of one of my inventions since I began dabbling withmotive-power."
"We could build several miles of straight track in the waste groundbehind the works," Ned said, thoughtfully.
"Not a chance! There is neither time nor money for such work. Besides,I should have to rebuild my transforming station if I supplied longerconduit wires with current."
"You don't really consider that you have failed, do you, Tom?" andNed's anxiety made his voice sound very woeful indeed.
"I tell you that my belief doesn't satisfy me. I hate to go Westwithout being sure--positive. I want to know! I have tried thelocomotive out in the yard half a dozen times. It runs like a finewatch. There doesn't seem to be a thing the matter with it now. Butwhat speed can I attain?"
"I don't see but you'll have to risk it, Tom."
"I mean to give her one more test. I'll run her out tonight when thereis nobody about but the watchmen--and you, if you want to come. I'llarrange with the Electric Company for all the current they can spare.By ginger! I've got to take some risk."
"By the way, Tom," said his chum, "did it ever strike you as odd thatthat private detective agency never got any trace of O'Malley?"
"Well, he's gone away. We needn't worry about him. Maybe the detectivewasn't very smart, at that."
"And yet he was here in town after you put the inquiry on foot. I sawhim in the bank. He came there occasionally. And either he, or somebodyhe hired, placed that bomb in the locomotive."
"All those being facts, what of it?"
"Besides, there was that other fellow--the man with the Vandyke beard.Might be a shyster lawyer, or something of the kind. He wasn't spotted,either."
"To tell the truth, I didn't bother to give the Detective Agency thedescription of that fellow, although you gave it to me," and Tomlaughed. "I must confess that I depend more upon my man-trap electricwires to protect the invention than I do on the private inquiry agent."
"It's funny, just the same. If I had another job for a detective Ishould not submit it to the Blatz Agency," grumbled Ned.
"I fancy Montagne Lewis and his crowd called off their Wild Westgunman," said Tom. "In any case, every attempt he made to bother usturned out a fizzle. I am not, however, forgetting precautions, my boy."
Ned Newton realized that his chum had determined to make this nighttest 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 officewatchman at about nine o'clock.
"Mr. T
om here yet?" he asked the man.
"Yes, Mr. Newton. The young boss didn't go home to supper, even. Thatcolored man brought something down for him, and he's in the shed yet."
"Rad is here, you mean?"
"Yes, sir. At least, he didn't go out this way, and we watchmen haveinstructions to let nobody in or out by the yard gates at night."
"I'll say Tom is being careful," thought Ned, as he stepped out throughthe runway toward the erection shed.
Before he reached the entrance to the huge shed, however, Ned chancedto look down the enclosure. There were several arc lights burning, buteven these only furnished a dim illumination for the whole yard.
He supposed that four watchmen were tramping their several beats alongthe inside of the stockade and close to the trolley-track. But when hesaw an instant gleam of light down there, close to the ground, Ned didnot believe that it was the flash of a torch in the hand of any sentry.
"Funny," he muttered. "That's outside the fence, or I'm much mistaken.I wonder now--"
He turned from the door of the shed, left the runway, and began walkingtoward the distant point at which he had seen the mysterious flash oflight.