“I am not crossing any bridges before I come to them,” declared Tom. “Besides, I propose to keep in touch with the Hercules Three-Oughts-One in a certain way—Hullo! Here it is.”
“Here what is?” demanded Ned.
The Pullman conductor at that moment came in through the forward corridor. He had a telegram in his hand, and intoned loudly as he approached:
“Mr. Swift! Mr. Thomas Swift! Telegram for Mr. Swift.”
“That is for me, Conductor,” said Tom briskly, offering his card.
“All right, Mr. Swift. Just got it at Shopton. Operator said you had boarded my car. This is railroad business, you’ll notice. Have you any reply, sir?”
Tom ripped open the envelope and unfolded the telegram. He held it so that Ned could read, too. It was signed: “N. G. Smith, Conductor, Number 48.”
“What’s that?” exclaimed Ned, reading the message.
“‘Locomotive and crazy man in it all right at Lingo,’” repeated Tom aloud, and chuckled.
“No, Conductor, there is no answer.”
“Good!” exclaimed Ned. “You arranged to get reports en route from the conductors handling the Hercules Three-Oughts-One?”
“Surest thing you know,” replied Tom. “And I guess, from the wording of this message, that the crew of Forty-eight have already found out that Koku is not an ordinary guard.”
“He’s a great boy,” smiled Ned. “Glad he is on the job.”
CHAPTER XVII
THE WRECK OF FORTY-EIGHT
The two chums sought their berths that night in high fettle. Even Ned sloughed off his mood of apprehension which he had worn on boarding the train at Shopton.
For, true to the arrangement Tom had made with the railroad people, another reassuring telegram was brought to him before bedtime. The second conductor responsible for the management of the Western bound freight to which the Hercules 0001 was attached, sent back a brief statement of the safety of the electric locomotive.
Naturally the two chums would have passed the freight and got well ahead of it before reaching Hendrickton. But Tom had business in Chicago, and they stayed over in that city for twenty-four hours. The freight train went around the city, of course. But the telegrams continued to reach Tom promptly, even at the hotel where he and Ned stopped in the city.
Occasionally the trainmen in charge of the freight mentioned Koku. His eccentric behavior doubtless somewhat puzzled the railroaders.
“That’s all right,” chuckled Ned. “Let them think Koku is dangerous if they want to. That O’Malley person believed he was!”
“I’ll say so!” replied Tom. “The way he ran when Koku started after him that time on the Waterfield Road seemed to prove that he didn’t want to mix with Koku.”
“If he—or other spies—learns that Koku is with the Hercules Three-Oughts-One, it ought to warn them away from the locomotive.”
This was Ned’s final speech before getting into his berth. He, as well as Tom, slept quite as calmly on this first night out of Chicago as they had before.
They knew exactly where the electric locomotive was. It was on the same road as this train they were traveling in, and, although on a different track, it was not many miles ahead. In fact, if the two trains kept to schedule, the transcontinental passenger train would pass the freight in question about five o’clock in the morning.
It lacked half an hour of that time when the Pullman train came suddenly to a jolting stop. Both Tom and Ned were awakened with the rest of the passengers in their coach.
Heads were poked out between curtains all along the aisle and a chorus of more or less excited voices demanded:
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothin’s the matter wid dis train, gen’lemens an’ ladies,” came in the porter’s important voice. “Jest nothin’ at all’s happened. It’s done happened up ahead of us, das all.”
“Well, what has happened ahead of us, George?” asked Ned.
“Jest another train, Boss, been splatterin’ itself all ober de right of way. We sort o’ bein’ held up, das all,” replied the porter.
“That’s good news—for us,” said Ned, preparing to climb back into his berth. But he halted where he was when he heard his chum ask:
“What train left the track, George?”
“A freight train, sah. Yes, sah. Number Forty-eight. She jumped de rails, side-swiped de accommodation dat was holdin’ us back, and has jest done spread herself all over de right of way.”
“My goodness!” gasped Ned.
“Hear that, Ned?” exclaimed Tom. “Scramble into your clothes, boy. The Hercules Three-Oughts-One is hitched to Forty-eight.”
“Suppose she’s off the track?” murmured Ned.
“It’s lucky if she isn’t smashed to matchwood,” groaned Tom, and almost immediately left the Pullman coach on the run.
Ned was not far behind him. When they reached the cinder path beside the freight train it was just sunrise. Long arms of rosy light reached down the mountain side to linger on the tracks and what was strewed across them. A glance assured the two young fellows from the East that it was a bad smash indeed.
Several of the rear boxcars were slung athwart the passenger tracks. The passenger train that had been ahead of the Pullman train on which Tom and Ned rode, had been badly beaten in all along its side. Scarcely a whole window was left on the inner side of the five cars. But those cars were not derailed. It was merely some of the freight cars that retarded the further progress of the transcontinental flyer. A derrick car must be brought up to lift away the debris before the fast train could move on.
Tom and Ned walked forward along the length of the wreck. Suddenly the anxious young inventor seized Ned’s arm.
“Glory be!” he ejaculated. “It’s topside up, anyway.”
“The Hercules Three-Oughts-One?” gasped Ned.
“That’s what it is!”
Tom quickened his pace, and his financial manager followed close upon his heels. The forward end of Forty-eight had not left the track and the electric locomotive stood upright upon the rails, being near the head end of the train.
“If this wreck was intentional, and aimed at your invention, Tom,” whispered Ned Newton, “it did not result as the wreckers expected.”
Tom scouted the idea suggested by his chum. And in a few moments they learned from a railroad employee that a broken flange on a boxcar wheel had caused the wreck.
“So that disposes of your suspicion, Ned,” said Tom, approaching the huge electric locomotive.
“Hey, gents!” exclaimed another railroad man, one of the crew of the wrecked freight. “Better keep away from that locomotive.”
“What’s the matter with it?” Ned asked, curiously.
“Got some kind of an aborigine caged up in it. You put your hand on any part of it and he’s likely to jump out and bite your hand off, or something. Believe me, he’s some savage.”
Both Tom and Ned burst into laughter. The former went forward to the door of the cab and knocked in a peculiar way. It was a signal that the giant recognized instantly.
“Master!” Koku cried from inside the cab. “Master! Him come in?”
“No, Koku,” said Tom. “I’m not coming in. Are you all right?”
“Yes. Koku all right. Him come out?”
“No, no!” laughed Tom. “You are not at your journey’s end yet, Koku. Keep on the job a while longer.”
“Sure. Koku stay here forever, if Master say so.”
“Forever is a long word, Koku,” said Tom, more seriously. “I’ll tell you when to open the door. I’ll be at the end of the journey to meet you.”
“It all right if Master say so. But Koku no like to travel in box,” grumbled the giant.
Tom turned from the electric locomotive to see Ned staring across the tracks at a man who was talking to several of the train crew of the side-swiped accommodation train. That train was about to be moved on under its own power. None of the wreckage of the freight interfered with the progress
of the accommodation.
Tom stepped to Ned’s side and touched his arm. “Who is he?” the inventor asked.
The man who had attracted Ned’s attention and now held Tom’s interest as well was a solid looking man with gray hair and a dyed mustache. He was chewing on a long and black cigar, and he spoke to the train hands with authority.
“Well, why can’t you find him?” he wanted to know in a hoarse and arrogant voice.
“Who is he?” asked Tom again in Ned’s ear.
“I’ve seen him somewhere. Or else I’ve seen somebody that looks like him. Maybe I’ve seen his picture. He’s somebody of importance.”
“He thinks he is,” rejoined the young inventor, with some disdain.
In answer to something one of the railroad men said the important looking individual uttered an oath and added:
“There’s nobody been killed then? He’s just missing? He was sitting in the coach ahead of me. I saw him just before the wreck. You know O’Malley yourself. Do you mean to say you haven’t seen him, Conductor?”
“I assure you he disappeared like smoke, sir,” said the passenger conductor. “I haven’t an idea what became of him.”
“Humph! If you see him, send him to me,” and the solid man stepped heavily aboard the nearest coach and disappeared inside.
Tom and Ned stared at each other with wondering gaze. O’Malley! The spy who had represented Montagne Lewis and the Hendrickton & Western Railroad in the East.
“What do you know about that?” demanded Ned, wonderingly.
“Hold on!” exclaimed Tom. He sprang across the rails after the conductor of the accommodation train that was just starting on. “Let me ask you a question.”
“Yes, sir?” replied the conductor
“Who was that man who just spoke to you?” “That man? Why, I thought everybody out this way knew Montagne Lewis. That is his name, sir—and a big man he is. Yes, sir,” and the conductor, giving the watching engineer of his train the “highball,” caught the hand-rail of the car and swung himself aboard as the train started.
CHAPTER XVIII
ON THE HENDRICKTON & PAS ALOS
The transcontinental was delayed three hours by the strewn wreckage of the rear of Number Forty-eight. When she went on the two young fellows from Shopton gazed anxiously at the Hercules 0001, which stood between two gondolas in the forward end of the freight train.
“Just by luck nothing happened to it,” muttered Ned.
“Just luck,” agreed Tom Swift. “It was a shock to me to learn that Andy O’Malley was right there on the spot when the accident happened.”
“And his employer, too,” added Ned. “For we must admit that Mr. Montagne Lewis is the man who sicked O’Malley on to you.” “True.”
“And they were both in the accommodation that was sideswiped by the derailed cars of Number Forty-eight.”
“That, likewise is a fact,” said Tom, nodding quickly.
“But what puzzles me, as it seemed to puzzle Lewis, more than anything else, is what became of O’Malley?”
“I guess I can see through that knot-hole,” Tom rejoined.
“Yes?”
“I bet O’Malley got a squint at me—or perhaps at you—as we walked up the track from this coach, and he lit out in a hurry. There stood the Three-Oughts-One, and there were we. He knew we would raise a hue and cry if we saw him in the vicinity of my locomotive.”
“I bet that’s the truth, Tom.”
“I know it. He didn’t even have time to warn his employer. By the way, Ned, what a brute that Montagne Lewis looks to be.”
“I believe you! I remember having seen his photograph in a magazine. Oh, he’s some punkins, Tom.”
“And just as wicked as they make ’em, I bet! Face just as pleasant as a bulldog’s!”
“You said it. I’m afraid of that man. I shall not have a moment’s peace until you have handed the Hercules Three-Oughts-One over to Mr. Bartholomew and got his acceptance.”
“If I do,” murmured Tom.
“Of course you will, if that Lewis or his henchmen don’t smash things up. You are not afraid of the speed matter now, are you?” demanded Ned confidently.
“I can be sure of nothing until after the tests,” said Tom, shaking his head. “Remember, Ned, that I have set out to accomplish what was never done before—to drive a locomotive over the rails at two miles a minute. It’s a mighty big undertaking.”
“Of course it will come out all right. If Koku is faithful
“That is the smallest ‘if’ in the category,” Tom interposed, with a laugh. “If I was as sure of all else as I am of Koku, we’d have plain sailing before us.”
Two days later Tom Swift and Ned Newton were ushered into the private office of the president of the H. & P. A. at the Hendrickton terminal. The two young fellows from the East had got in the night before, had become established at the best hotel in the rapidly growing Western municipality, and had seen something of the town itself during the hours before midnight.
Now they were ready for business, and very important business, too.
Mr. Richard Bartholomew sat up in his desk chair and his keen eyes suddenly sparkled when he saw his visitors and recognized them.
“I did not expect you so soon. Your locomotive arrived yesterday, Mr. Swift. How are you, Mr. Newton?”
He motioned for them to take chairs. His secretary left the room. The railroad magnate at once became confidential.
“Nothing happened on the way?” he asked, pointedly. “There was a freight wreck, I understand?”
“And we chanced to be right at hand when that happened,” said Tom.
“So was your friend, Mr. Lewis,” remarked Ned Newton.
“You don’t mean to say that Montagne Lewis—”
“Was there. And Andy O’Malley,” put in Tom.
Then he detailed the incident, as far as he and Ned knew the details, to Mr. Bartholomew, who listened with close attention.
“Well, it might merely have been a coincidence,” murmured the railroad president. “But, of course, we can’t be sure. Anyhow, it is just as well if your servant, Mr. Swift, keeps close watch still upon that locomotive.”
“He will,” said Tom, nodding. “He is down there in the yard with the Hercules Three-Oughts-One, and I mean to keep Koku right on the job.”
“Good! Let’s go down and look at her,” Mr. Bartholomew said, eagerly.
But first Tom wanted to go into the theoretical particulars of his invention. And he confessed that thus far his tests of the locomotive had not been altogether satisfactory.
“I have got to have a clear track on a stretch of your own line here, Mr. Bartholomew, and under certain conditions, before I can be sure as to just how much speed I can get out of the machine.”
“Speed is the essential point, Mr. Swift,” said the railroad man, seriously.
“That is what I have been telling Ned,” Tom rejoined. “I believe my improvements over the Jandel patents are worthy. I know I have a very powerful locomotive. But that is not enough.”
“We have got to shoot our trains through the Pas Alos Range faster than trains were ever shot over the grades before, or we have failed,” said Mr. Bartholomew, with decision.
“But—” began Ned; but Tom put up an arresting hand and his financial manager ceased speaking.
“I have not forgotten the details of our contract, Mr. Bartholomew,” he said, quietly. “Two-miles-a-minute is the target I have aimed for. Whether I have hit it or not, well, time will show. I have got to try the locomotive out on the tracks of the H. & P. A. in any case. The Hercules Three-Oughts-One has been dragged a long distance, and has been through at least one wreck. I want to see if she is all right before I test her officially.”
“I’ll arrange that for you,” said Mr. Bartholomew, briskly, putting away his papers. “I will go with you, too, and take a look at the marvel.”
“And a marvel it is,” grumbled Ned. “Don’t let him fool you, Mr. Bar
tholomew. Tom never does consider what he’s done as being as great as it really is.”
“Everything must be proved,” Tom said, cautiously. “If it was a financial problem, Mr. Bartholomew, believe me it would be Ned who displayed caution. But I have seldom built anything that could not—and has not—later been improved.”
“You do not consider your electric locomotive, then, a completed invention?” asked Mr. Bartholomew, as the three walked down the yard.
“I have too much experience to say it is perfect,” returned Tom. “I can scarcely believe, even, that it is going to suit you, Mr. Bartholomew, even if the speed test is as promising as I hope it may be.”
“Humph!”
“But before I shall be willing to throw up the sponge and say that I have failed, I shall monkey with the Hercules Three-Oughts-One quite a little on your tracks.”
“Your six months isn’t up yet,” said Mr. Bartholomew, more cheerfully. “And it doesn’t matter if it is. If you see any chance of making a success of your invention, you are welcome to try it out on the tracks of the H. & P. A. for another six months.”
“All right,” Tom said, smiling. “Now, there is the Hercules Three-Oughts-One, Mr. Bartholomew. And there is Koku looking longingly through the window.”
In fact, the giant, the moment he saw Tom, ran to unbar and open the door of the cab on that side.
“Master! If no let Koku out, Koku go amuck—crazy! No can breathe in here! No can eat! No can sleep!”
“The poor fellow!” ejaculated Ned.
“What’s the matter with him?” asked Mr. Bartholomew, curiously.
“Get out, if you want to, Koku. I’ll stay by while you kick up your heels.”
No sooner had the inventor spoken than the giant leaped from the open door of the locomotive and dashed away along the cinder path as though he actually had to run away. Tom burst into a laugh, as he watched the giant disappear beyond the strings of freight cars.
“What is the matter with him?” repeated the railroad president.
“He’s got the cramp all right,” laughed Tom Swift. “You don’t understand, Mr. Bartholomew, what it means to that big fellow to be housed in for so many days, and unable to kick a free limb. I bet he runs ten miles before he stops.”
The Tom Swift Megapack Page 320
