ers that
operated machinery and apparatus in several small shops that surrounded
the Swift homestead; for Mr. Swift did most of his work at home.

As related in the first volume of this series, entitled "Tom Swift and
His Motor-Cycle," the lad had passed through some strenuous adventures.
A syndicate of rich men, disappointed in a turbine motor they had
acquired from a certain inventor, hired a gang of scoundrels to get
possession of a turbine Mr. Swift had invented. Just before they made
the attempt, however, Tom became possessed of a motor-cycle. It had
belonged to a wealthy man, Mr. Wakefield Damon, of Waterford, near Lake
Carlopa, which body of water adjoined the town of Shopton; but Mr.
Damon had two accidents with the machine, and sold it to Tom cheap. Tom
was riding his motorcycle to Albany, to deliver his father's model of
the turbine motor to a lawyer, in order to get a patent on it, when he
was attacked by the gang of bad men. These included Ferguson Appleson,
Anson Morse, Wilson Featherton, alias Simpson, Jake Burke, alias Happy
Harry, who sometimes masqueraded as a tramp, and Tod Boreck, alias
Murdock. These men knocked Tom unconscious, stole the valuable model
and some papers, and carried the youth away in their automobile.

Later the young inventor, following a clue given him by Eradicate
Sampson, an aged colored man, who, with his mule, Boomerang, went about
the country doing odd jobs, got on the trail of the thieves in a
deserted mansion in the woods at the upper end of the lake. Our hero,
with the aid of Mr. Damon, and some friends of the latter, raided the
old house, but the men escaped.

In the second book of the series, called "Tom Swift and His
Motor-Boat," there was related the doings of the lad, his father and
his chum, Ned Newton, on Lake Carlopa. Tom bought at auction, a
motor-boat the thieves had stolen and damaged, and, fixing it up, made
a speedy craft of it so speedy, in fact that it beat the racing-boat
Red Streak--owned by Andy Foger. But Tom did more than race in his
boat. He took his father on a tour for his health, and, during Mr.
Swift's absence from home, the gang of bad men stole some of the
inventor's machinery. Tom set out after them in his motor boat, but the
scoundrels even managed to steal that, hoping to get possession of a
peculiar and mysterious treasure in it, and Tom had considerable
trouble.

Among other things he did when he had his craft, was to aid a Miss Mary
Nes