Chapter II

Trouble Starts


The fact that he was stopped by a footpad smote Tom Swift's
mind as not a particularly surprising adventure. He had heard
that several of that gentry had been plying their trade about the
outskirts of the town. To a degree he was prepared for this
sudden event.

Then there flashed into Tom's mind the thought of what Mr.
Richard Bartholomew had said regarding the spy he believed had
followed him from the West. Could it be possible that some hired
thug sent by Montagne Lewis and his crooked crowd of financiers
considered that Tom Swift had obtained information from the
president of the H. & P. A. that might do his employers signal
service?

Tom Swift had fallen in with many adventures--and some quite
thrilling ones--since, as a youth, he was first introduced to the
reader in the initial volume of this series, entitled "Tom Swift
and His Motor Cycle." His first experiences as an inventor,
coached by his father, who had spent his life in the experimental
laboratory and workshop, was made possible by his purchase from
Mr. Wakefield Damon, now one of his closest friends, of a broken-
down motor cycle.

Through a series of inventions, some of them of a marvelous