Chapter XX. The Result

As Ned Newton, fumbling at the controls when he saw the fallen tree across the tracks, had jammed the brakes, the station master at Hammon, at the bottom of this long grade on the Hendrickton & Pas Alos, had stepped out to the blackboard in the barnlike waiting room and scrawled with a bit of chalk:

"No. 28--Westbound--due 3:38 is is 15 m. late."

The fact, thus given to the general public or to such of it as might be interested, averted what would have been a terrible catastrophe.

The fast express was late. When the babbling voice of the Half Way operator over the telephone warned Hammon of the coming of the runaway electric locomotive, there was time to shift switches at the head of the yard so that, when Number Twenty-eight came roaring in, she was shunted on to a far track and flagged for a stop before she hit the bumper.

Thirty seconds later, from the west, the Hercules 0001 roared down the grade and shot into the cleared west track in a halo of smoke and dust. Speed! No runaway had ever traveled faster and kept the rails. The story of the incident was embalmed in railroad history, and no history is so full of vivid incident as that of the rail.

When the first relay of excited railroad men reached the electric locomotive after it had stopped on the long level, even Ned Newton had pulled himself together and could look out upon the world with some measure of calmness. Tom Swift was making certain notes and draughting a curious little diagram upon a page of his notebook.

"What happened to you, Mr. Swift?" was the demand of the first arrival.

"Oh, my foot slipped," said the young inventor, and they got nothing more out of him than that.

But to Ned, after the crowd had gone, the inventor said:

"Ned, my boy, they used to say that necessity was the mother of invention. Therefore a loaf of bread was considered the maternal parent of the locomotive. I've got one that will beat that."

"Whew!" gasped Ned. "How can you? I haven't got my breath back yet."

"It is peril that is the mother of invention," Tom went on, still jotting down his notes. "Believe me! that jolt gave me a new idea--an important idea. Suppose that operator at Half Way had been out back somewhere, and had not seen or heard us flash by?"

"Well, suppose he had? What's the answer?" sighed Ned.

"Like enough we would have rammed something down here."

"And I hardly understand even now why we didn't do just that," muttered his chum, with a shake of his head.

"Wake up, Ned! It's all over," laughed Tom. "While it was happening I admit I was guessing just as hard as you were about the finish. But--"

"Your recovery is better," grumbled his friend. "I'm scared yet."