The Tom Swift Megapack

by Victor Appleton

  “I should say it was sudden!” cried the enthusiastic local chief. “It was the chemicals from this young man’s airship that did the trick!”

  “Oh, Tom, was it your new machine?” asked Mary.

  “Yes,” was the answer. “I was on my way to give a test tomorrow in Denton when I saw this fire. I didn’t know you were in it, though, Mary.”

  “Oh, but I’m glad you came,” she said. “It was just—awful!” and she clung to Tom’s arm, trembling.

  When Field and Melling, whose rash conduct had caused them to be severely but not fatally burned, had been taken to a hospital and the fire was declared to be practically out, Tom made arrangements to leave his airship in the city field all night.

  “And you and your friends can come to Uncle Jasper’s house,” said Mary.

  “Of course!” said Uncle Jasper himself, who had arrived on the scene, attracted to the fire by the news that his niece and Mr. Keith were in danger. “Lots of room! Come along! We’ll celebrate your rescue.”

  So the crew of the fire-fighting Lucifer went with Mary, while the firemen, after again thanking Tom most enthusiastically, kept on playing, as a precaution, their streams of water on the still hot building.

  Only the central portion of the structure, the stairs and elevator shafts, were burned away. The strong upward draft had kept the fire from spreading much to either side.

  “It certainly was a fierce blaze, and I’m glad my chemicals took such prompt effect,” said Tom. “I shall not fear any test after this.”

  It was the day following the night of excitement, and Tom and his friends, at the invitation of the fire department of Newmarket, were inspecting what was left of the Landmark Building—and there was considerable left—though access to the upper floors was to be had only by ladders, down which Mary and her uncle, Barton Keith, had been carried.

  “Here are my offices,” said Mr. Keith, who accompanied Tom, Ned, Mr. Damon and Mr. Baxter, as he ushered them into his suite of rooms.

  “Bless my fountain pen! nothing is burned here,” cried the eccentric man.

  “No, the flames just shot upward,” explained the fire chief, who was leading the party. “But I think those chemicals of yours would have been just as effective, Mr. Swift, if the fire had mushroomed out more.”

  “It was hot enough as it was,” answered Tom, with a grim laugh.

  “Bless my thermometer, too hot—too hot by far!” exclaimed Tom Swift’s eccentric friend, and to this Ned nodded an amused agreement.

  An exclamation from Mr. Baxter attracted the attention of all in Mr. Keith’s office. The chemist picked up from the floor a bundle of papers.

  “Here is a bundle of documents that some one has dropped, Mr. Keith,” he said. “I guess you forgot to put it in your safe. Why—why—no—they aren’t yours! They’re mine. Here are my missing dye formulae! The secret papers I’ve been searching for so long! The ones I thought Field and Melling had!” cried Mr. Baxter. “How—how did they get here?” and, wonderingly, he looked at the bundle of papers he had discovered in such a strange manner.

  CHAPTER XXV

  THE LIGHT OF DAY

  “What’s that? Your dye formulae here in my office?” cried Mr. Keith, for he had heard something of the chemist’s loss, though he did not directly associate Field and Melling with it.

  “That’s what this is! The very papers, containing all the rare secrets, for which I have been so at a loss!” cried the delighted old man. “Now I can give to the world the dyes for which it has long been waiting! Oh, Tom Swift, you did more than you knew when you put out this fire!” and he hugged the bundle of smoke-smelling papers to his breast.

  “But how did they get here?” asked the young inventor. “I know that Field and Melling had offices in this building. They were starting a new dye concern, and, though Mr. Baxter and I suspected them of having stolen his secret, we couldn’t prove it.”

  “But we can now!” cried Mr. Baxter. “Though I don’t know that I’ll bother even to accuse them, as long as I have back my previous papers. I see how it happened. They had the formulae in their office. They rushed out with the documents, and, when they found they couldn’t get past this floor, they went into Mr. Keith’s office. There, in their excitement, they dropped the papers, and you put the fire out just in time, Tom, or they’d have been burned beyond hope of saving. You have given me back something almost as valuable as life, Tom Swift!”

  “I’m glad I could render you that service,” said the young inventor. “And I had no idea, when I dropped the chemicals, that I was saving someone even more valuable than your secret formulae,” and they all knew he referred to Mary Nestor.

  An examination of the papers found on Mr. Keith’s office floor showed that not one of the dye secrets was missing. Thus Mr. Baxter came into possession of his own again, and when Field and Melling were sufficiently recovered they were charged with the theft of the papers. The charge was proved, and, in addition, other accusations were brought against them which insured their remainder in jail for a considerable period.

  As Mr. Baxter had suspected, Field and Melling had, indeed, robbed him of his dye formulae papers. They learned that he possessed them, and they invited him to a night conference with the purpose of robbing him. The fire in their factory was an accident, of which they took advantage to make it appear that the chemist lost his papers in the blaze. But they had taken them, and though they did not mean to leave poor Baxter to his fate, that would have been the result of their selfish action had not Tom and Ned come to the rescue. And it was of this “putting over” that Field and Melling had boasted, the time Tom overheard their talk at Meadow Inn.

  As Mr. Baxter guessed, the letter delivered to him at Tom’s place was one that the two scoundrels would have retained, as they had others like it, if they had seen it. But a new clerk forwarded it, and the evidence it contained helped to convict Field and Melling.

  As for the Landmark Building, while badly damaged, it would have been worse burned but for Tom’s prompt action. And though he was more than glad that he had been on hand, he rather regretted that he could not give the test for which he had set out.

  Eventually the building was made more nearly fire-proof and the fire-escapes were rebuilt, and Mr. Blake did not lose his money, as he had feared, though Barton Keith said it was more owing to Tom Swift’s good luck than to Mr. Blake’s management.

  But, as it developed, nothing could have been more opportune than Tom’s action, for word of his quenching a bigger blaze than he would have had to encounter in the official test reached the Denton fire department. As a result there was a conference, and, after only a nominal showing of his apparatus, it was adopted by a unanimous vote.

  But this occurred some time afterward, for, following his rescue of Mary Nestor and her uncle and the saving of the lives of Field and Melling, as well as others in the building, by his prompt smothering of the fire, Tom returned to Shopton.

  He and his companions went in the Lucifer, minus, now, the big load of chemicals, and on landing near the hangar Tom was surprised to see Koku the giant running toward him. The big man showed every symptom of great excitement as he cried:

  “Oh, Master Tom! He see the light ob day! he see the light ob day now! Oh, so glad! So glad!”

  “Who sees the light of day?” asked the young inventor.

  “Black Rad! Eradicate! Him eyes all better now! Pill man take off cloth. Rad—he see light ob day!”

  “Oh, I’m so glad! So thankful!” cried Tom. “How I’ve wished for this! Is it really true, Koku?”

  “Sure true! Pill man say Rad see K O now.” The giant, doubtless, meant “O K,” but Tom understood. And it was true, as he learned more directly a little later.

  When Tom entered the room where Rad had been kept in the dark ever since the explosion, the colored man looked at his master with seeing eyes, though the apartment was still but dimly lighted.

  “I’s all right ag’in now, Massa Tom!” cried Rad
. “See fine! I’s all ready to make more smellin’ stuff to put out fires!”

  “You won’t have to, Rad!” cried Tom joyfully. “My chemical extinguisher is completed, and you did your share in making it a success. But I never would have felt like claiming credit for it if you had been—had been left in the dark.”

  “No mo’ dark, Massa Tom!” said Eradicate. “I kin see now as good as eber, an’ yo’-all won’t hab to ’pend on dat lazy good-fo’-nuffin cocoanut!” and he chuckled as he looked at the giant.

  “Huh! Lazy!” retorted the big man. “I show you—black coon!”

  “By golly!” laughed Rad. “Him an’ me good friends now, Massa Tom. Neber I fuss wif Koku any mo’! He suah was good to me when I had to stay in de dark!”

  Of course it would be too much to hope that Koku and Eradicate never again quarreled, but for a long time their warm friendship was a thing at which to marvel, considering the past.

  “Well, I guess this settles it,” said Tom to Ned one day, after going over the day’s mail.

  “Settles what, Tom?”

  “My aerial fire-fighting apparatus. Here’s word from the National Fire Underwriters Association that they have adopted it, and there will be a big reduction of rates in all cities where it is a part of the fire department equipment. It’s been as great a success as Mr. Baxter’s new dye.”

  “Yes, and he has had wonderful success with that. But what are you going to do now, Tom? What new line of endeavor are you going to aim at?”

  Tom arose and reached for his hat.

  “I am now going,” he said, with a grin, “to see somebody on private business.”

  “You are going to see Mary Nestor!” broke out Ned.

  “I am,” said Tom.

  And he did.

  TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVE

  Or, TWO MILES A MINUTE ON THE RAILS

  CHAPTER I

  A TEMPTING OFFER

  “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 gait—not alone on a level track but through the Pas Alos Range—is an immediate necessity. It’s got to be done now, or our stock will be selling on the curb for about two cents a share.”

  “You do not mean just that, do you, Mr. Bartholomew?” asked Tom Swift earnestly, and staring at the big-little man before the fire.

  Mr. Richard Bartholomew was just that—a “big-little man.” In the railroad world, both in construction and management, he had made an enviable name for himself.

  He had actually built up the Hendrickton and Pas Alos from a narrow-gauge, “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 upon in the financial market as a shaky investment.

  But Tom Swift repeated:

  “You do not mean just that, do you, Mr. Bartholomew?”

  Mr. Bartholomew, who was a little man physically, rolled around in his chair to face the young fellow more directly. His own eyes sparkled in the firelight. His olive face was flushed.

  “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 mechanics.”

  “Humph!” grunted the visitor, turning restlessly again in his chair. Then he said: “I agree as the necessity of that last statement; but I can only hope that these walls are soundproof.”

  “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 semi-invalid; 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 use of his mental powers.

  “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 the enemy in foreseeing our moves.”

  “The enemy?” repeated Mr. Swift, with mild surprise.

  “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 H. & P. A. smashes the opposition, or the enemy smashes it.”

  “What enemy is this you speak of?” asked Tom, much interested.

  “The proposed Hendrickton & Western. A new road, backed by new capital, and to be officered and built by new men in the construction and railroad game.

  “Montagne Lewis—you’ve heard of him, I presume—is at the head of the crowd that have bought the little old Hendrickton & Western, lock, stock and barrel.

  “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 Lewis and his crowd have got a ‘plenty-big’ franchise.

  “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 a score of years ago when I took hold.

  “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 forgets—and who never hesitates to play dirty politics if he has to, to bring about his own ends.

  “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’Malley—well, never mind him. The game at present is to keep anybody in Lewis’s employ from getting wise to why I came to see you.”

  “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 us—to Tom and me—in reference to your railroad difficulties?”

  “And this suggestion you have made,” added Tom, “about a possible electric locomotive of a faster type than has, ever yet been put on the rails?”

  “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 Swif
t Construction Company cannot help us, my railroad is going to be junk in about three years from this beautiful evening.”

  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 of something that would entail a struggle of both brain and brawn.

  “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 the sponge. That’s that!”

  “Go ahead, Mr. Bartholomew,” observed Tom’s father, encouragingly.

  “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 traffic—all the freight traffic—of 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 one-and-a-half per cent.—and our stock will be dished. But I have worked out a scheme, Gentlemen, by which we can counter-balance any dig Lewis can give us in the ribs.

  “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 that?”