Tom Swift and His Electric Runabout Part 3

"Andy Foger!" exclaimed Tom. "I might have known. And Sam and Pete are with him. Well, if he wants to make me get off the road, he'll find that I've got as much right as he has!"

He kept on a straight course, wondering if the red-haired, and squint-eyed bully would dare try to damage the motor-cycle.

A little later Andy's car was beside Tom.

"Why don't you get out of the way," demanded Sam, who could usually be depended on to aid Andy in all his mean tricks.

"Because I'm ent.i.tled to half the road," retorted our hero.

"Humph! A slow-moving machine like yours hasn't any right on the road,"

sneered Andy, who had slowed down his car somewhat.

"I haven't, eh?" demanded Tom. "Well, if you'll get down out of that car for a few minutes I'll soon show you what my rights are!"

Now Andy, more than once, had come to personal encounters with Tom, much to the anguish of the bully. He did not relish another chastis.e.m.e.nt, but his mean spirit could not brook interference.

"Don't you want a race?" he inquired of Tom, in a sneering tone. "I'll give you a mile start, and beat you! I've got the fastest car built!"

"You have, eh?" asked Tom, while a grim look came over his face. "Maybe you'll think differently some day."

"Aw, he's afraid to race; come on," suggested Pete. "Don't bother with him, Andy."

"No, I guess it wouldn't be worth my while," was the reply of the bully, and he threw the second gear into place, and began to move away from the young inventor.

Tom was just as much pleased to be left alone, but he did not want Andy Foger to think that he could have matters all his own way. Tom's motor-cycle, since he had made some adjustments to it, was very swift.

In fact there were few autos that could beat it. He had never tried it against Andy's new car, and he was anxious to do so.

"I wonder if I would stand any chance, racing him?" thought the young inventor, as he saw the car slowly pulling away from him. "I think I'll wait until he gets some distance ahead, and then I'll see how near I can come to him. If I get anywhere near him I'm pretty sure I can pa.s.s him. I'll try it."

When Andy and his cronies looked back, Tom did not appear to be doing anything save moving along at moderate speed on his machine.

"You don't dare race!" Pete Bailey shouted to him.

"Wait," was what Tom whispered to himself.

Andy's car was now some distance ahead. The young inventor waited a little longer, and then turned more power into his machine. It leaped forward and began to "eat up the road," as Tom expressed it. He had seen Andy throw in the third gear, but knew that there was a fourth speed on the bully's car.

"I don't know whether I can beat him on that or not," thought the lad dubiously. "If I try, and fail, they'll laugh at me. But I don't think I'm going to fail."

Faster and faster he rode. He was rapidly overhauling Andy's car now, and, as they heard him approach, the three cronies turned around.

"He's going to race you, after all, Andy!" cried Sam.

"You mean he's going to try," sneered Andy. "I'll give him all the racing he wants!"

In another few seconds Tom was beside the auto, and would have pa.s.sed it, only Andy opened his throttle a little more. For a moment the auto jumped ahead, and then, as our hero turned on still more power, he easily held his own.

"Aw, you can never beat us!" yelled Pete.

"Of course not!" added Sam.

"I'll leave him behind in a second," prophesied Andy. "Wait until I throw in the other gear," he added to his cronies in a low voice. "He thinks he's going to beat me. I'll let him think so, and then I'll spurt ahead."

The two machines were now racing along side by side. Andy's car was going the limit on third gear, but he still had the fourth gear in reserve. Tom, too, still had a little margin of speed.

Suddenly Andy reached forward and yanked on a lever. There was a grinding of cogs as the fourth gear slipped into place, for Andy did not handle his car skillfully. The effect, however, was at once apparent. The automobile shot forward.

"Now where are you, Tom Swift?" cried Sam.

Tom said nothing. He merely s.h.i.+fted a lever, and got a better spark. He also turned on a little more gasolene and opened the m.u.f.fler. The quickness with which his motor-cycle shot forward almost threw him from the saddle, but he had a tight grip on the handle bars. He whizzed past the auto, but, as the latter gathered speed, it crept up to him, and, once more was on even terms. Much chagrined at seeing Tom hold pace with him, even for an instant, Andy shouted:

"Get over on your own side there! You're crowding me!"

"I am not!" yelled back Tom, above the explosions of his machine.

The two were now racing furiously, and Andy, with a savage look, tried to get more speed out of his car. In spite of all the bully did, Tom was gradually forging ahead. A little hill was now in view.

"Here's where I make him take my dust!" cried Andy, but, to his surprise Tom still kept ahead. The auto began to lose ground, for it was not made to take hills on high gear.

"Change to third gear quick!" cried Sam.

Andy tried to do it. There was a hesitancy on the part of his car. It seemed to balk. Tom, looking back, slowed up a trifle. He could afford to, as Andy was being beaten.

"Go on! Go on!" begged Pete. "You'll have to keep on fourth gear to beat him, Andy."

"That's what!" murmured the bully. Once more he s.h.i.+fted the gears.

There was a grinding, smas.h.i.+ng sound, and the car lost speed. Then it slowed up still more, and finally stopped. Then it began to back down hill.

"I've stripped those blamed gears!" exclaimed Andy ruefully.

"Can't you beat him?" asked Pete.

"I could have, easily, if my gears hadn't broken," declared the bully, but, as a matter of fact, he could not have done so. "I oughtn't to have changed, going up hill," he added, as he jammed on the brakes, to stop the car from sliding down the slope.

Tom saw and heard.

"I thought you were so anxious to race," he said, exultantly, as well he might. "I don't want to try a contest down hill, though, Andy," and he laughed at the red-haired lad, who was furious.

"Aw, go on!" was all the retort the squint-eyed one could think of to make.

"I am going on," replied our hero. "Just to show you that I can go down hill, watch me."

He turned his motor-cycle, and approached Andy's stalled car, for Tom was some distance in advance of it, up the slope by this time. As he approached the auto, containing the three disconcerted cronies, something bounded out of Tom's pocket. It was the bottle of stove blacking he had purchased for Mrs. Baggert. The bottle fell in the soft dirt in front of his forward wheel, and a curious thing happened.

Perhaps you have seen a bicycle or auto tire strike a stone at an angle, and throw it into the air with great force. That was what happened to the bottle. Tom's front wheel struck the cork, which fitted tightly, and, just as when you hit one end of the wooden "catty" and it bounds up, the bottle described a curve through the air, and flew straight toward Andy's car. It struck the bra.s.s frame of the wind s.h.i.+eld with a crash.

The bottle broke, and in an instant the black liquid was spattered all over Andy, Sam and Pete. It could not have been done more effectively if Tom had thrown it by hand. All over their clothes, their hands and faces, and the front of the car went the dreary black. Tom looked on, hardly able to believe what he saw.

"Wow! Wup! Ug! Blug! Mug!" spluttered Sam, who had some of the stuff in his mouth.