a mail coach, only with
more high windows--ten feet wide, its roof more than fourteen feet from
the rails, its locked pantagraph adding two feet more to its height.

Just what was in the cab--the water and oil tanks, the steam-heating
boiler to supply heat and hot water to the train the monster was to
draw, the motors and the many other mechanical contrivances--was hidden
from the spectators.

In fact, since completing the electrical equipment of the Hercules
0001, as Tom had named the locomotive, the young inventor had allowed
nobody inside the cab, any more than he allowed visitors inside his
private workshop. Even Mr. Swift did not know all the results of Tom's
experimental work. In a general way the older inventor knew the trend
of his son's attempts, but the details and the results of Tom's
experiments, the latter told to nobody.

But as the huge locomotive rolled into the yard and followed the more
or less circular track inside the yard fence, it was plain to all of
the onlookers that the motive-power was there all right! Just what
speed could be coaxed from the feed-cable overhead was another question.

Nor did Tom Swift try for much speed on this first test of the Hercules
0001. He went around the two-mile track several times before bringing
his machine to a stop near the crowd of onlookers. He came to the open
door of the cab.

"One thing is sure, Tom!" shouted Ned. "It do move!"

"Bless my slippery skates!" exclaimed Mr. Damon, "it slides right
along, Tom. You've done it, my boy--you've done it!"

"It looks good from where I stand, my son," said Mr. Barton Swift.

It was Mary who suspected that Tom was not wholly satisfied--as yet, at
least--with the test of the Hercules 0001. She cried:

"Tom! is it all right?"

"Nothing is ever all right--that is, not perfect--in this old world, I
guess, Mary," returned the young inventor. "But I am not discouraged.
As Ned says, the old contraption 'do move.' How fast she'll move is
another thing."

"What time did you make?" asked Mr. Swift.

"Not above fifteen miles an hour."

"Whew!" whistled Ned dolefully. "That is a long way from--"

Tom made an instant motion and Ned's careless lips were sealed. It was
not generally known among the men the speed which Tom hoped to obtain
with his new invention.

"It is a wide shoot at the target, that is true," Tom said, soberly.
"But remember I cannot test it for speed on this short and almost
circular track. Right