, thinking over what his father had said to him about the
letter he carried.

Mr. Barton Swift was a natural inventor. From a boy he had been
interested in things mechanical, and one of his first efforts had
been to arrange a system of pulleys, belts and gears so that the
windmill would operate the churn in the old farmhouse where he was
born. The fact that the mill went so fast that it broke the churn
all to pieces did not discourage him, and he at once set to work,
changing the gears. His father had to buy a new churn, but the young
inventor made his plan work on the second trial, and thereafter his
mother found butter-making easy.

From then on Barton Swift lived in a world of inventions. People
used to say he would never amount to anything, that inventors never
did, but Mr. Swift proved them all wrong by amassing a considerable
fortune out of his many patents. He grew up, married and had one
son, Tom. Mrs. Barton died when Tom was three years old, and since
then he had lived with his father and a succession of nurses and
housekeepers. The last woman to have charge of the household was a
Mrs. Baggert, a motherly widow, and she succeeded so well, and Tom
and his father formed such an attachment for her, that she was
regarded as a fixture, and had now been in charge ten years.

Mr. Swift and his son lived in a handsome house on the outskirts of
the village of Shopton, in New York State. The village was near a
large body of water, which I shall call Lake Carlopa, and there Tom
and his father used to spend many pleasant days boating, for Tom and
the inventor were better chums than many boys are, and they were
often seen together in a craft rowing about, or fishing. Of course
Tom had some boy friends, but he went with his father more often
than he did with them.

Though many of Mr. Swift's inventions paid him well, he was
constantly seeking to perfect others. To this end he had built near
his home several machine shops, with engines, lathes and apparatus
for various kinds of work. Tom, too, had the inventive fever in his
veins, and had planned some useful implements and small machines.

Along the pleasant country roads on a fine day in April rode Tom
Swift on his way to Mansburg to register the letter. As he descended
a little hill he saw, some distance away, but coming toward him, a
great cloud of dust.

"Somebody must be driving a herd of cattle along the road," thought
Tom. "I hope they don't get in my way, or,