Tom Swift and His Electric Locomotive Part 26

They went over the crest of the hill and lost sight of the siding and the locomotive. Here was a sharp descent into a gulch, and some rods away, in the bottom of this gully, the young fellows obtained their first sight of Koku. He was still running with mighty strides and was evidently within sight of the man he had set out after in such haste.

"Hey! Koku!" shouted Tom Swift.

The giant's hearing was of the keenest. He glanced back and raised his arm in greeting. But he did not slacken his pace.

"He must see O'Malley, Tom," cried Ned Newton.

"I am sure he does. And I want to get there about as soon as Koku grabs the fellow," panted Tom.

"He'll maul O'Malley unmercifully," said Ned.

"I don't want Koku to injure him," admitted Tom, and he increased his own stride as he plunged down into the gully.

The young inventor distanced his chum within the next few moments. Tom ran like a deer. He reached the bottom of the gully and kept on after Koku's cras.h.i.+ng footsteps. At every jump, too, he began to shout to the giant:

"Koku! Hold him!"

The giant's voice boomed back through the heavy timber: "I catch him! I hold him for Master! I break all um bones! Wait till Koku catch him!"

"Hold him, Koku!" yelled Tom again. "Be careful and don't hurt him till I get there!"

He could not see what the giant was doing. The timber was thicker down here. It might be that the giant would seize the man roughly. His zeal in Tom's cause was great, and, of course, his strength was enormous.

Yet Tom did not want to call the giant off the trail. Andy O'Malley must be captured at this time. He had done enough, too much, indeed, in attempting the ruin of Tom's plans. Before the matter went any further the young inventor was determined that Montagne Lewis' spy should be put where he would be able to do no more harm.

But he did not want the man permanently injured. He knew now that Koku was so wildly excited that he might set upon O'Malley as he would upon an enemy in his own country.

"Koku! Stop! Wait for me!" Tom finally shouted.

Now the young inventor got no reply from the giant. Had the latter got so far ahead that he no longer heard his master's command?

Tom pounded on, working his legs like pistons, putting every last ounce of energy he possessed into his effort. This was indeed a desperate chase.

Chapter XXIII

Mr. Damon at Bay

Mr. Wakefield Damon was a very odd and erratic gentleman, but he did not lack courage. He was much more disturbed by the possible injury to Tom Swift's invention by this collision with the b.u.mper at the end of the timber siding than he had been by his own danger at the time of the accident.

He did not understand enough about the devices Tom had built in the forward end of the locomotive cab to understand, by any casual examination, if they were at all injured. But when he climbed down beside the track he saw at once that the forward end of the locomotive had received more than a little injury.

The pilot, or cow-catcher, looked more like an iron cobweb than it did like anything else. The wheels of the forward trucks had not left the track, but the impact of the heavy locomotive with the b.u.mper had been so great that the latter was torn from its foundations. A little more and the electric locomotive would have shot off the end of the rails into the ditch.

While Mr. Damon was examining the front of the locomotive, and Tom and Ned remained absent, he suddenly observed a group of men hurrying out of the forest on the other side of the H. & P. A. right of way. They were not railroad men--at least, they were not dressed in uniform--but they were drawn immediately to the locomotive.

The leader of the party was a squarely built man with a determined countenance and a heavy mustache much blacker than his iron gray hair.

He was a bullying looking man, and he strode around the rear of the locomotive and came forward just as though he was confident of boarding the machine by right.

Mr. Damon, knowing himself in the wilderness and not liking the appearance of this group of strangers, had retired at once to the cab, and now stood in the doorway.

"Where's that young fool Swift?" growled the man with the dyed mustache, looking up at Mr. Damon and laying one hand upon the rail beside the ladder.

"Don't know any such person," declared Mr. Damon promptly.

"You don't know Tom Swift?" cried the man.

"Oh! That's another matter," said Mr. Damon coolly. "I don't know any fool named Swift, either young or old. Bless my blinkers! I should say not."

"Isn't he here?" demanded the man, gruffly.

"Tom Swift isn't here just now--no."

"I'm coming up," announced the stranger, and started to put his foot on the first rung of the iron ladder.

"You're not," said Mr. Damon, promptly.

"What's that?" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the man.

"You only think you are coming up here. But you are not. Bless my fortune telling cards!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mr. Damon, "I should say not."

At this point the black-mustached man began to splutter words and threats so fast that n.o.body could quite understand him. Mr. Damon, however, did not shrink in the least. He stood adamant in the doorway of the cab.

Finding little relief in bad language, the enemy made another attempt to climb up. For one thing, he was physically brave. He did not call on his companions to go where he feared to.

"I'll show you!" he bawled, and scrambled up the rungs of the ladder.

Mr. Damon did show him. He drew from some pocket a black object with a bulb and a long barrel. Somebody below on the cinder path shouted:

"Look out, boss he's got a gun!"

At that moment the marauder reached out to seize Mr. Damon's coat. Then the object in Mr. Damon's hand spat a fine spray into the florid face of the enemy!

"Whoo! Achoo! By gos.h.!.+" bawled the big man, and he fell back screaming other e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns.

"Bless my face and eyes!" cried Mr. Damon. "What did I tell you? And you other fellows want to notice it. Tom Swift isn't here just at this precise moment; but he is guarding his locomotive just the same. He invented this ammonia pistol, and I should say it was effectual. Do you?"

The eccentric man was shrewd enough now to keep behind the jamb of the cab door. For some of these fellows, he realized, might be armed with more deadly weapons than his own.

"Hey, Mr. Lewis!" cried one big fellow, "d'you want we should get that fellow for you?"

"I want to know how badly that blamed thing is smashed," replied the big man with the dyed mustache savagely. "Where's O'Malley?"

"O'Malley's lit out, Boss, like I told you. That giant and them other fellows is after him."