Tom Swift and His Electric Locomotive | Page 8

it into his own coat
pocket. He made no attempt to take anything else from the young
inventor.
"Now, beat it!" commanded the fellow. "Don't look back and don't run
or holler. Just keep moving--in the way you were headed before.
Vamoose."
More than ever was Tom assured that the man was from the West. His
speech savored of Mexican phrases and slang terms used mainly by
Western citizens. And his abrupt and masterly manner and speech aided
in this supposition. Tom Swift stayed not to utter a word. It was true he
was not so frightened as he had at first been. But he was quite sure that
this man was no person to contend with under present conditions.

He strode away along the sidewalk toward the far corner of the wall
that surrounded this estate. Shopton had not many of such important
dwellings as this behind the wall. Its residential section was made up
for the most part of mechanics' homes and such plain but substantial
houses as his father's.
Prospering as the Swifts had during the last few years, neither Tom nor
his father had thought their plain old house too poor or humble for a
continued residence. Tom was glad to make money, but the inventions
he had made it by were vastly more important to his mind than what he
might obtain by any lavish expenditure of his growing fortune.
This matter of the electric locomotive that had been brought to his
attention by the Western railroad magnate had instantly interested the
young inventor. The possibility of there being a clash of interests in the
matter, and the point Mr. Bartholomew made of his enemies seeking to
thwart his hope of keeping the H. & P. A. upon a solid financial footing,
were phases of the affair that likewise concerned the young fellow's
thought.
Now he was sure that Mr. Bartholomew was right. The enemies of the
H. & P. A. were determined to know all that the railroad president was
planning to do. They would naturally suspect that his trip East to visit
the Swift Construction Company was no idle jaunt.
Tom had turned so many fortunate and important problems of invention
into certainties that the name of the Swift Construction Company was
broadly known, not alone throughout the United States but in several
foreign countries. Montagne Lewis, whom Tom knew to be both a
powerful and an unscrupulous financier, might be sure that Mr.
Bartholomew's visit to Shopton and to the young inventor and his
father was of such importance that he would do well through his
henchmen to learn the particulars of the interview.
Tom remembered Mr. Bartholomew's mention of a name like Andy
O'Malley. This was probably the man who had done all that he could,
and that promptly, to set about the discovery of Mr. Bartholomew's
reason for visiting the Swifts.

Without doubt the man had slunk about the Swift house and had peered
into one of the library windows while the interview was proceeding. He
had observed Tom making notes on the scratch pad and judged
correctly that those notes dealt with the subject under discussion
between the visitor from the West and the Swifts.
He had likewise seen Tom thrust the paper into his wallet and the
wallet into his inside vest pocket. Instead of dogging Mr.
Bartholomew's footsteps after that gentleman left the Swift house, the
man had waited for the appearance of Tom. When he was sure that the
young fellow was preparing to walk out, and the direction he was to
stroll, the thug had run ahead and ensconced himself in the archway on
this dark block.
All these things were plain enough. The notes Tom had taken regarding
the offer Mr. Bartholomew had made for the development of the
electric locomotive might, under some circumstances, be very
important. At least, the highwayman evidently thought them such. But
Tom had another thought about that.
One thing the young inventor was convinced about, as he strode briskly
away from the scene of the hold-up: There was going to be trouble. It
had already begun.
Chapter III
Tom Swift's Friends
Tom was still walking swiftly when he arrived in sight of Mary
Nestor's home. He was so filled with excitement both because of the
hold-up and the new scheme that Mr. Richard Bartholomew had
brought to him from the West, that he could keep neither to himself. He
just had to tell Mary!
Mary Nestor was a very pretty girl, and Tom thought she was just about
right in every particular. Although he had been about a good deal for a
young fellow and had seen girls everywhere, none of them came up to
Mary. None of them held Tom's interest for a minute but this girl whom

he had