he sold it to Tom for fifty dollars, though it had cost much more.

About the same time that Tom bought the motor-cycle a firm of
rascally lawyers, Smeak & Katch by name, had, in conjunction with
several men, made an attempt to get control of an invention of a
turbine motor perfected by Mr. Swift. The men, who were Ferguson
Appleson, Anson Morse, Wilson Featherton, alias Simpson, and Jake
Burke, alias Happy Harry, who sometimes disguised himself as a
tramp, tried several times to steal the model.

Their anxiety to get it was due to the fact that they had invested
a large sum in a turbine motor invented by another man, but their
motor would not work and they sought to steal Mr. Swift's. Tom
was sent to Albany on his motor-cycle to deliver the model and
some valuable papers to Mr. Crawford, of the law firm of Reid &
Crawford, of Washington, attorneys for Mr. Swift. Mr. Crawford
had an errand in Albany and had agreed to meet Tom there with the
model.

But, on the way, Tom was attacked by the gang of unscrupulous men
and the model was stolen. He was assaulted and carried far away
in an automobile. In an attempt to capture the gang in a deserted
mansion, in the woods on the shore of Lake Carlopa, Tom was aided
by Mr. Damon, of whom he had purchased the motor-cycle. The men
escaped, however, and nothing could be done to punish them.

Tom was thinking of the exciting scenes he had passed through
about a month previous as he spun along the road leading to
Lanton.