These facts enabled Tom, perhaps, to bear his loss with some
fortitude. The highwayman drew forth the wallet and thrust it
into his own coat pocket. He made no attempt to take anything
else from the young inventor.

"Now, beat it!" commanded the fellow. "Don't look back and
don't run or holler. Just keep moving--in the way you were headed
before. Vamoose."

More than ever was Tom assured that the man was from the West.
His speech savored of Mexican phrases and slang terms used mainly
by Western citizens. And his abrupt and masterly manner and
speech aided in this supposition. Tom Swift stayed not to utter a
word. It was true he was not so frightened as he had at first
been. But he was quite sure that this man was no person to
contend with under present conditions.

He strode away along the sidewalk toward the far corner of the
wall that surrounded this estate. Shopton had not many of such
important dwellings as this behind the wall. Its residential
section was made up for the most part of mechanics' homes and
such plain but substantial houses as his father's.

Prospering as the Swifts had during the last few years, neither
Tom nor his father had thought their plain old house too poor or
humble for a continued residence. Tom was glad to make money, but
the inventions he had made it by were vastly more important to
his mind than what he might obtain by any lavish expenditure of
his growing fortune.