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.

"Speed. It's got the power for heavy hauls. It could handle the freight
through the Pas Alos Range. But it would slow up our traffic so that
the shippers would at once turn to the Hendrickton & Western. You
understand that their rails do not begin to engage the grades that our
engineers thought necessary when the old H. & P. A. was built."

"I get that," said Tom briskly. "You have come here, then, to interest
us in the development of a faster but quite as powerful type of
electric locomotive as the Jandel."

"Stated to the line!" exclaimed Mr. Bartholomew, smiting the arm of his
chair with his clenched fist. "That is it, young man. You get me
exactly. And now I will go on to put my proposition to you."

"Do so, Mr. Bartholomew," murmured the old inventor, quite as much
interested as his son.

"I want you to make a study of electric motive power as applied to
track locomotives, with the idea of utilizing our power plants and
others like them, and even with the possibility in mind of the
continued use of the Jandel locomotives on our more level stretches of
road.

"But I want your investigation to result in the building of locomotives
that will make a speed of two miles a minute, or as near that as
possible, on level rails, and be powerful enough to snake our heavy
freight trains through the hills and over the steep grades so rapidly
that even two engines, a pusher and a hauler, cannot beat the electric
power."

"Some job, that, I'll say," murmured Tom Swift.

"Exactly. Some job. And it is the only thing that will save the H.