Chapter XX
The Result
As Ned Newton, fumbling at the controls when he saw the fallen treeacross the tracks, had jammed the brakes, the station master at Hammon,at the bottom of this long grade on the Hendrickton & Pas Alos, hadstepped out to the blackboard in the barnlike waiting room and scrawledwith a bit of chalk:
"No. 28--Westbound--due 3:38 is 15 m. late."
The fact, thus given to the general public or to such of it as might beinterested, averted what would have been a terrible catastrophe.
The fast express was late. When the babbling voice of the Half Wayoperator over the telephone warned Hammon of the coming of the runawayelectric locomotive, there was time to shift switches at the head ofthe yard so that, when Number Twenty-eight came roaring in, she wasshunted on to a far track and flagged for a stop before she hit thebumper.
Thirty seconds later, from the west, the Hercules 0001 roared down thegrade 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. Thestory of the incident was embalmed in railroad history, and no historyis so full of vivid incident as that of the rail.
When the first relay of excited railroad men reached the electriclocomotive after it had stopped on the long level, even Ned Newton hadpulled himself together and could look out upon the world with somemeasure of calmness. Tom Swift was making certain notes and draughtinga curious little diagram upon a page of his notebook.
"What happened to you, Mr. Swift?" was the demand of the first arrival.
"Oh, my foot slipped," said the young inventor, and they got nothingmore out of him than that.
But to Ned, after the crowd had gone, the inventor said:
"Ned, my boy, they used to say that necessity was the mother ofinvention. Therefore a loaf of bread was considered the maternal parentof the locomotive. I've got one that will beat that."
"Whew!" gasped Ned. "How can you? I haven't got my breath back yet."
"It is peril that is the mother of invention," Tom went on, stilljotting down his notes. "Believe me! that jolt gave me a new idea--animportant idea. Suppose that operator at Half Way had been out backsomewhere, and had not seen or heard us flash by?"
"Well, suppose he had? What's the answer?" sighed Ned.
"Like enough we would have rammed something down here."
"And I hardly understand even now why we didn't do just that," mutteredhis chum, with a shake of his head.
"Wake up, Ned! It's all over," laughed Tom. "While it was happening Iadmit I was guessing just as hard as you were about the finish. But--"
"Your recovery is better," grumbled his friend. "I'm scared yet."
"And it might happen again--"
"No--not--ever!" exclaimed Ned. "I shall never touch those controllersagain. I'll drive your airscout, or your fastest automobile, oranything like that. But me and this electric locomotive have partedcompany for good. Yes, sir!"
"All right. It wasn't your fault. It might happen to anymotor-engineer. And the very fact that it can happen has given me myidea. I tell you that danger is the mother of invention."
"As far as I am concerned, it can be father and grandparents into thebargain," Ned declared, with a smile.
"Wake up!" cried his friend again. "I have got a dandy idea. I wouldn'thave missed that trip for anything."
"You are crazy," interrupted Ned. "Suppose we had bumped something?"
"But we didn't bump anything, except my brain tank. An idea bumped it,I tell you. I am going to eliminate any such peril as that here-after."
"You mean you are going to make it impossible for this locomotive everto slide down such a hill again if the brakes won't work? Humph!Meanwhile I will go out and make the nearest water-fall begin to runupward."
"Don't scoff. I do not mean just what you mean."
"I bet you don't!"
"But although I cannot be sure that a locomotive will never again falldownhill," said Tom patiently, "I'm going to fix it so that warningneed not be given by some operator along the line. The engineer mustbe able to send warning of his accident, both up and down the road."
"Huh? How are you going to do that?" demanded Ned.
"Wireless telephone. I may make some improvements on the presentmodels; but it is practicable. It has been used on submarines andcruisers, and lately its practicability has been proved in the forestryservice.
"Every one of these electric locomotives I turn out will be suppliedwith wireless sets. The expense of making certain telegraph officesalong the line into receiving stations will be small. I am going totake that up with Mr. Bartholomew at once. And I am going to fix thesebrake controls so that nobody need ball them up again."
If, out of such a desperate adventure, Tom could bring to fruitionreally worthwhile improvements in relation to his invention, Nedacknowledged the value of the incident. Just the same, he had apersonal objection to having any part in a similar experience.
He was brave, but he could not forget danger. Tom seemed to throw theeffect of that terrible ride off his mind almost instantly. Ned dreamedof it at night!
However, from that time things seemed to go with a rush. Mr.Bartholomew approved of the young inventor's suggestion regarding theuse of the wireless telephone as a method of averting a certain qualityof danger in the use of the proposed monster locomotive. The railroadman was convinced that Tom's ideas were finally to culminate insuccess, and he was ready to spend money, much money, in pushing on thework.
It was not long before a private test of the Hercules 0001 up the gradefrom Hammon to Cliff City showed Mr. Bartholomew that the speed he hadrequired in his contract was attainable. With a drag fully as heavy asany two locomotives had been able to get over the same sector, the newlocomotive alone marked a forty-five mile an hour pace.
This attainment was kept quiet; not even the train crew knew what themonster 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 ownwatch on the test and compared it every minute with the speedometer.
"I am satisfied that you are going to do more than I had really hoped,Mr. Swift," the railroad president said at the end of the run. "Alreadyyou could drive this locomotive at a two-mile-a-minute clip on levelrails, I am sure. Keep at it! Nobody will be more delighted than Ishall be if you pull down that hundred thousand dollars' bonus."
"That's a fine way to talk, sir," cried Ned, with enthusiasm.
"I mean every word of it, Mr. Newton. The money is his as soon as hemakes good."
Both Tom and his financial manager left the president's office in asatisfied state of mind.
"Great news to send home, Tom," remarked Ned, when they were alone.
"Righto, Ned. My father will be glad to hear it."
"And what about Mary?" And Ned poked his chum in the ribs.
"I guess she'll be glad too," Tom replied, his face reddening.
That night Tom sent word to Mary and also a telegram, in code, to hisfather, saying the prospects were now bright for a quick finish of thetask that had brought him West.