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 bumper 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 bumper 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?" ejaculated the man.
"You only think you are coming up here. But you are not. Bless my
fortune telling cards!" ejaculated Mr. Damon, "I should say not."
At this point the black-mustached man began to splutter words and
threats so fast that nobody 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 gosh!" bawled the big man, and he fell back screaming
other ejaculations.
"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."
"Break into that cab! Oh! My eyes! I'll kill that old fool! Break a
way in there--What's that?"
In pain as he was, his other senses were alert. He was first to hear
the screeching whistle of the on-coming freight.
"Think they got wind of this so quick?" demanded Montagne Lewis, for it
was he. "Are they sending help from Cliff City?"
"It's a regular freight," returned one of his men.
"She's comm' a-whizzin'," added another. "Right down the eastbound
track. If the crew see us--"
"Wait!" commanded Lewis. "Isn't that switch open?"
"You bet it is, Boss."
"Let it be, then," cried the chief plotter. "Let 'em run into it. That
freight will smash up this electric locomotive more completely than we
could possibly do it. Stand away, men, and let her go!"
A sharp curve in the right of way hid the siding, as well as the open
switch into it, from the gaze of the engineer who held the throttle of
the coming freight. His locomotive drew a string of empties, eastbound,
and having had a heavy pull of it coming up the grade to Cliff City, as
soon as he had got the highball from the yardmaster there, he had "let
her out," and was now coming to the head of the down grade to Hammon at
high speed.
As it chanced, the wireless receiving station of Tom's new telephone
system was not yet completed at Cliff City. The news of the wreck of
the Hercules 0001 and her position had not been relayed to the master
of the Cliff City yards.
That employee of the H. & P. A. had taken a chance in letting the
string of empties through his block. He knew the electric locomotive
was somewhere ahead, but he thought it would be making its usual time
and would have already passed Half Way.
But the situation was serious. The freight was coming along at top
speed and the switch into the siding was still open. Montagne Lewis and
his crew of ruffians might well stand back and let what seemed sure to
happen, happen! The driving freight must do more harm to Tom Swift's
invention than they could have hoped to do with the sledges and bars
they had brought with them to the spot.
Mr. Wakefield Damon had shown his courage already. He would have been
glad to do more to save Tom's locomotive from further injury, but he
did not realize what was threatening. He did not hear the shriek of the
freight engine's whistle.