teen or twenty miles an hour, all right,"
muttered Ned.

Then he flashed another glance up at the figure outside the fence. The
man's cap showed above the top of the boards. He seemed to be dragging
something up to him from below--something that hung and swung around
and around a few feet from the ground.

Ned was about to dart out of concealment and hail the fellow. He was
not armed, nor could he get out of the stockade near this point. He
feared what the marauder intended, and he felt that he must frighten
him away.

"Suppose that is a bomb and he means to fling it in front of Tom's
locomotive?" thought the anxious Ned.

He again saw the stranger's right hand reach up above his head. But he
had no bomb in his hand. Ned suddenly shrieked a word of warning! It
had come to him what the man was doing and what the result of his act
would be.

The wire-cutters bit on one of the copper wires. There followed a flash
of blue flame, and the man screamed. He dropped the thing swinging
below him and involuntarily grabbed at the wires with his left hand.

He was caught, then! The crackling intermittent shocks of electric
fluid passed through his body in fiery sequence. His limbs writhed. He
mouthed horribly, and croaking gasps came from between his wide open
jaws.

The Hercules 0001 had rounded the enclosure and was coming down upon
its second lap. The cone of white radiance from the headlight fell upon
the writhing body of the victim on the wires. The locomotive siren
emitted a blast that almost deafened Ned.

The monster ground to a stop. Tom swung himself half out of the cab
window beside the controller.

"Who's that?" he yelled. Then he saw Ned below him. "Who is that
fellow?"

"No friend of yours, Tom, I believe," returned his financial manager in
a shaking voice.

"Where's Rad? Rad!" Tom shouted at the top of his voice.

"I's comm', Massa Tom," rejoined the colored man.

"Never mind coming here! Get a move on, and get to the switchboard.
Turn the current out of the fence wires.

"Yis, sir, I'll go Massa Tom," declared the old man.

"Is he a spotter, Ned?" demanded the inventor.

"He's no friend. I am going out by the gate. He's got something there
that means harm, I believe. Do you think he's killed, Tom?"

"Only ought to be. Not enough current to kill him. But he's badly
burned and--and--well! I bet he won't care to fool around the works
again."

Ned dashed away to an entrance. A watchman came ru