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.
Bartholomew. 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!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed 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 police will arrest him," said the railroad man.
It was then Ned"s turn to chuckle. "I am sorry for your railroad police if they tackle Koku right now," he said. "He"d lay out about a dozen ordinary men without half trying. But, ordinarily, he is the most mild-mannered fellow who ever lived."
"He will come back, if he is let alone, as harmless as a kitten," Tom observed. "And when I am not with the Hercules Three-Oughts-One, and while I continue making my tests, Koku will be on guard. You might tell your police force, Mr. Bartholomew, to let him alone. Now come aboard and let me show you what I have been trying to do."
They spent two hours inside the cab of the great locomotive. Mr.
Richard Bartholomew was possessed of no small degree of mechanical education. He might not be a genius in mechanics as Tom Swift was, but he could follow the latter"s explanations regarding the improvements in the electrical equipment of this new type of locomotive.
"I don"t know what your speed tests will show, Mr. Swift," said the railroad president, with added enthusiasm. "But if those parts will do what you say they have already done, you"ve got the Jandels beat a mile! I"m for you, strong. Yes, sir! like your friend, Newton, here, I believe that you have hit the right track. You are going to triumph."
But Tom"s triumph did not come at once. He knew more about the uncertainties of mechanical contrivances than did either Mr.
Bartholomew or Ned Newton.
The very next day the Hercules 0001 was got out upon a section of the electrified system of the Hendrickton & Pas Alos Railway, and the pantagraphs of the huge locomotive for the first time came into connection with the twin conductor trolleys which overhung the rails.
Ned accompanied Tom as a.s.sistant. Koku was allowed by the inventor to roam about the hills as much as he pleased during the hours in which his master was engaged with the Hercules 0001. Tom did not think any harm would come to Koku, and he knew that the giant would enjoy immensely a free foot in such a wild country. The two young fellows, dressed in working suits of overall stuff, spent long hours in the cab of the electric locomotive. Their try-outs had to be made for the most part on sidetracks and freight switches, some miles outside Hendrickton, where the invention would not be in the way of regular traffic.
Speed on level tracks had been raised in one test to over ninety-five miles an hour and Mr. Bartholomew cheered wildly from the cab of a huge Mallet that paced Tom"s locomotive on a parallel track. No steam locomotive had ever made such fast time.
But Tom was after something bigger than this. He wanted to show the president of the H. & P. A. that the Hercules 0001 could drag a load over the Pas Alos Range at a pace never before gained by any mountain-hog.