e of my barn you've knocked to smithereens. If you don't
want to pay, I'll find a way to make you. And I'll hold you, or your
tank, as you call it, security for my damages! You can take your choice
about that."

"You can't hold us!" cried Tom. "Such things aren't done here!"

"Well, then, I'll hold your tank!" cried the farmer. "I guess it'll
sell for pretty nigh onto what you owe me, though what it's good for I
can't see. So you pay me three thousand dollars or leave your machine
here as security."

"That's the game!" whispered Ned. "There's some plot here. They want
to get possession of your tank, Tom, and they've seized on this chance
to do it."

"I believe you," agreed the young inventor. "Well, they'll find that
two can play at that game. Mr. Kanker," he went on, "it is out of the
question to claim your barn is worth three thousand dollars."

"Oh, is it?" sneered the farmer. "Well, I didn't ask you to come here
and make kindling wood of it! That was your doings, and you've had your
fun out of it. Now you can pay the piper, and I'm here to make you
pay!" And he brought the gun around in a menacing manner.

"He's right, in a way," said Ned to his chum. "We should have secured
his permission first. He's got us in a corner, and almost any jury of
farmers around here, after they heard the story of the smashed barn,
would give him heavy damages. It isn't so much that the barn is worth
that as it is his property rights that we've violated. A farmer's barn
is his castle, so to speak."

"I guess you're right," agreed Tom, with a rather rueful face. "But I'm
not going to hand him over three thousand dollars. In fact, I haven't
that much with me."

"Oh, well, I don't suppose he'd want it all in cash."

But, it appeared, that was just what the farmer wanted. He went over
all his arguments again, and it could not be denied that he had the law
on his side. As he rightly said, Tom could not expect to go about the
country, "smashing up barns and such like," without being willing to
pay.

"Well, what you going to do?" asked the farmer at last. "I can't stay
here all day. I've got work to do. I can't go around smashing barns. I
want three thousand dollars, or I'll hold your contraption for
security."

This last he announced with more conviction after he had had a talk
with one of the men in the automobile. And it was this consultation
that confirmed Tom and Ned in their belief that the whole thing was a
plot, growin