Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive.
by Victor Appleton.
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 a.s.sociates 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 sc.r.a.pped 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 Swift 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?"
"I get your statement, Mr. Bartholomew," said Mr. Swift. "But it is merely a statement as yet."
"Sure. Now I will give you the particulars. We are using the Jandel locomotives on our electrified stretch of road. You know that patent?"
"I know something about it, Mr. Bartholomew," said the younger inventor. "I have felt some interest in the electric locomotive, though I have done nothing practical in the matter. But I know the Jandel patent."
"It is about the best there is--and the most recent; but it does not fill the bill. Not for the H. & P. A., anyway," said Mr. Bartholomew, shortly.
"What does it lack?" asked Mr. Swift.