im such a successful financial manager for the
Swift Company. He watched expenditures as closely now as he had when
the business was upon a much more limited footing.

The rails laid along the inside of the stockade made a two-mile track,
as well ballasted as any regular railroad right of way. In addition the
overhead equipment was costly.

To eliminate any possibility of the trolley wire breaking, a strong
steel cable, called a catenary, was slung just above the trolley wire.
To this catenary the trolley wire was suspended by hangers at short
intervals.

These cables were strung from brackets so that a single row of poles
could be used, save at the curves, at which cross-span construction was
used. The trolley wire itself was of the 4/0 size, and was the largest
diameter copper wire ever employed for railroad purposes.

Several weeks had now passed since the great locomotive had been
assembled in the erection shed and the cab of the locomotive completed.
It really was a monster machine, and any stranger coming into the place
and seeing it for the first time must have marveled at the grim power
suggested by the mere bulk of the structure.

When the day of the first test arrived Tom allowed only his most
intimate friends to be present. Mary Nestor accompanied Mr. Swift into
the shops at the time appointed, and she was as excited over the
outcome of the test as Tom himself.

Ned Newton and the mechanical force of the shops knocked off work to
become spectators at the exhibition. The only other outsider was Mr.
Damon.

"Bless my alternating current!" cried the eccentric gentleman. "I
would not miss this for the world. If you tried to shut me out, Tom,
I'd climb over the stockade to get in."

"You'd better not," Tom told him, dryly. "If you tried that you'd get a
worse shock than any chicken thief will get that tries to steal your
buff Orpingtons."

Chapter XIII

Hopes and Fears

Tom climbed into the huge cab of the electric locomotive. In fact, the
cab was the most of it, for every part of the mechanism save the
drivers was covered by the eighty-odd foot structure. From the peak of
the pilot to the rear bumper the length was ninety feet and some inches.

As Tom slid the monster out upon the yard track the small crowd
cheered. At least, the locomotive had the power to move, and to the
unknowing ones, at least, that seemed a great and wonderful thing.

What they saw was apparently a box-car--like