who laid out the H. & P. A. I admit it. Besides, the country out
there is developed more than it was a score of years ago when I
took hold.

"All this enters into the fight between Montagne Lewis and me.
But there is something deeper," said the little man, with almost
a snarl, as he thrashed about again in his chair. "I beat
Montagne Lewis at one big game years ago. He is a man who never
forgets--and who never hesitates to play dirty politics if he has
to, to bring about his own ends.

"I know that I have been watched. I know that I was followed on
this trip East. He has private detectives on my track
continually. And worse. All the gunmen of the old and wilder West
are not dead. There's a fellow named Andy O'Malley--well, never
mind him. The game at present is to keep anybody in Lewis's
employ from getting wise to why I came to see you."

"What you say is interesting," Mr. Swift here broke in quietly.
"But I have already been puzzled by what you first said. Just why
have you come to us--to Tom and me--in reference to your railroad
difficulties?"

"And this suggestion you have made," added Tom, "about a
possible electric locomotive of a faster type than has, ever yet
been put on the rails?"

"That is it, exactly," replied Bartholomew, sitting suddenly
upright in his chair. "We want faster electric motor power than
has ever yet been invented. We have got to have it, or the