would have said that he had had enough.

Meanwhile Tom made a point of considering each step he took alone
thereafter with particular care. He had a bodyguard--usually the giant
after the latter had recovered--between the works and the house. He did
not bring home any more the schedules or drawings connected with the
electric locomotive that he proposed to have built and to test inside
the stockade of the Swift Construction Company.

He even put a private detective to work on the matter of finding a man
named Andy O'Malley who might be lurking around Shopton. He had a
pretty clear description of the fellow, for he had not only seen him
once, face to face by daylight, but Tom had written to the president of
the H. & P. A. and had got from that gentleman a clear picture in words
of the spy whom Mr. Bartholomew believed was working in the interests
of Montagne Lewis.

"If O'Malley appears in Shopton, look out. He is a bad character. He is
not only a notorious gunman, with several warrants out for him in these
parts, but he is a cruel and desperate man in any event. The minute you
mark him, have him arrested and telegraph me. We'll get him extradited
and put him through for ten years or more right in this county." The
private investigator, however, as the weeks went by, could not find any
man who filled O'Malley's description.

Meanwhile Tom Swift had got what he called "a lead" and was working day
and night upon the invention that he believed might make even the
Jandel people respectful, if not a bit envious.

First of all Tom had arranged to have built all around inside the
stockade a track of rails heavy enough to stand the wear and tear of
the heaviest locomotive built. Meanwhile the various parts of his
locomotive were being built in several shops, but would be shipped to
the Swift Construction Company and assembled in Tom's try-out shed.

Great secrecy was of course maintained. Aside from the fact that the
new invention had something to do with electric motive power, nobody
about the shops could say what the new industry portended. Save, of
course, the Swifts themselves, Ned Newton, and Mr. Damon, who was the
Swifts' closest friend and sometimes had furnished additional capital
for Tom's experiments.

There was a thing that Mr. Damon furnished Tom at this time that proved
in the end to be of much importance. Before Tom had seized upon this
idea of his eccentric friend, and had made proper use of it, something