DAMON AT BAT
XXIV PUTTING THE ENEMY TO FLIGHT
XXV SPEED AND SUCCESS
TOM SWIFT AND HIS ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVE
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.
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