electric locomotive
that can travel two miles a minute? Whew!"

"Sounds like a big order, Tom," added Ned, seriously.

"It is a big order. I am not at all sure it can be done," agreed Tom,
thoughtfully. "But under the terms Mr. Bartholomew offers it is worth
trying, don't you think?"

"That twenty-five thousand dollars is as good as yours anyway,"
declared his chum with finality. "I'll see there is no loophole in the
contract and the money must be placed in escrow so that there can be no
possibility of our losing that. The promise of a hundred thousand
dollars must be made binding as well."

"I know you will look out for those details, Ned," Tom said with a wave
of his hand.

"That is what I am here for," agreed the financial manager. "Now, what
else? I fancy the building of such a locomotive looks feasible to you
and your father or you would not go into it."

"But two miles a minute!" murmured Mr. Damon again. "Bless my prize
pumpkins!"

"The idea of speed enters into it, yes," said Tom thoughtfully. "In
fact electric motor power has always been based on speed, and on
cheapness of moving all kinds of traffic.

"Look here!" he exclaimed earnestly, "what do you suppose the first
people to dabble in electrically driven vehicles were aiming at? The
motor-car? The motor boat? Trolley cars? All those single motor sort of
things? Not much they weren't!"

"Bless my glove buttons!" exclaimed Mr. Damon, dragging off his
gauntlets as he spoke. "I don't get you at all, Tom! What do you mean?"

"I mean to say that the first experiments in the use of electricity as
a motive power were along the electrification of the steam locomotive.
Everybody realized that if a motor could be built powerful enough and
speedy enough to drag a heavy freight or passenger train over the
ordinary railroad right of way, the cost of railroad operation would be
enormously decreased.

"Coal costs money--heaps of money now. Oil costs even more. But even
with a third-rail patent, a locomotive successfully built to do the
work of the great Moguls and mountain climbers of the last two decades,
and electrically driven, will make a great difference on the credit
side of any rails road's books."

"Right-o!" exclaimed Ned. "I can see that."

"That was the object of the first experiments in electric motive
power," repeated Tom. "And it continues to be the big problem in
electricity. The Jandel locomotive is undoubtedly the last word so far
as th