As he passed the load of fence posts the youth heard Eradicate remark in awestricken tones:
"Mah golly! He suttinly go laik de wind! An' t' t'ink dat I were hit by dat monstrousness machine, an' not hurted! Mah golly! T'ings am suttinly happenin'! G'lang, Boomerang!"
"This machine has more possibilities in it than I suspected," mused Tom. "But one thing I've got to change, and that is the gasolene and spark controls. I don't like them the way they are. I want a better leverage, just as Eradicate needed on his wagon. I'll fix them, too, when I get home."
He rode for several hours, until he thought it was about dinner time, and then, heading the machine toward home, he put on all the speed possible, soon arriving where his father was at work in the shop.
"Well, how goes it?" asked Mr. Swift with a smile as he looked at the flushed face of his son.
"Fine, dad! I scooted along in great shape. Had an adventure, too."
"You didn't meet any more of those men, did you? The men who are trying to get my invention?" asked Mr. Swift apprehensively.
"No, indeed, dad. I simply had a little run-in with a chap named Eradicate Andrew Jackson Abraham Lincoln Sampson, otherwise known as
