CHAPTER I.

THE POWER OF THE AIR.

"That's it, Jack. Let her out!"

"Suffering speed laws of Squantum, but she can travel!" exclaimed Dick Donovan, redheaded and voluble.

"I tell you, electricity is the thing. Beats gasoline a million ways," chimed in Tom Jesson. Tom sat beside his cousin, Jack Chadwick, on the driver's seat of a curious-looking automobile which was whizzing down the smooth, broad, green-bordered road that led to Nestorville, the small town outside Boston where the Boy Inventors made their home.

The car that Jack Chadwick was driving differed in a dozen respects from an ordinary automobile. There was no engine hood in front. Instead of a bonnet the car, which was low slung, long and painted black, had a sharp prow of triangular shape. Its body, in fact, might be roughly compared to the form of a double-ended whaleboat.

As it sped along outside the city limits, and immune from hampering speed laws, the car emitted no sound.

It moved silently, without the usual sharp staccato rattle of the exhaust. Behind it there was no evil-smelling trail of gasoline and oil smoke. The car glided as silently as a summer breeze on its wire-wheels, like those of a bicycle enlarged.

"I'll get a great story out of this," declared Dick Donovan, who, as readers of other volumes of this series know, was a reporter on a Boston paper. "That is, if you'll let me write it," he added, leaning forward over the front seat from the tonneau as he spoke.

"How about it, Jack?" asked Tom with an amused smile. "Shall we let Dick here get famous at our expense again?"

"I don't see why not," said Jack. "Everything about the Electric Monarch is patented. The new reciprocating device, and the self-feeding storage batteries are fully covered. If Dick wants to write a romance about it he can, provided he leaves our pictures out."

"Oh, I'll do that," Dick readily promised. "Are you making top speed now, Jack?"

"Nowhere near; I wouldn't dare to. I believe that the Monarch is capable of ninety miles an hour. I wish we had a place like Ormond Beach to try her out on."

"You can count me out on that," chuckled Dick. "This is fast enough for me."

The boys were trying out their latest invention, an electric car capable of making the speed of a gasoline-driven vehicle, and one which could be operated at a minimum of cost, almost a nominal expense, as compared with the high price of a vehicle run by an explosive engine.

It was the trial trip of the Electric Monarch, as they had decided to call it, and so far the performances of the machine had exceeded, instead of fallen below, their expectations. Dick, who had been invited to the "tryout," was full of questions as they sped silently, and with an absolute lack of vibration, along the road.

"How do you generate your electricity?" he asked eagerly.

"By a device geared to the rear axle," answered Tom. "It runs a sort of dynamo, though it would be difficult for you to understand it if I went into details. It's something like the ordinary generator and turns a constant stream of 'juice' into the storage batteries that, in turn, feed the engines."

"Yes, that's all plain enough," said the inquisitive Dick, "but how do you get your power for starting?"

"If there is not enough juice in the storage batteries for the purpose we resort to compressed air," was the reply from Tom, for Jack, with keen eyes on the unrolling ribbon of road, was too busy to have his attention distracted.

"And that?" Dick paused interrogatively.

"Is pumped into a pressure tank as we go along. See that gauge?" he pointed to one on the dashboard of the car in front of the driver's seat.

Dick nodded.

"Well, that's a pressure gauge. You see, we have sixty pounds of air in the tank now. That can generate enough electricity to start the car going. After that the process is automatic."

"Yes, you explained that. Suppose the tank should, through an accident, be empty, and you wanted to start?"

"We've provided for that"

"I expected so. Wabbling wheels of Wisconsin, you fellows are certainly wonders."

"Nothing very wonderful about it," disclaimed Tom. "Well, if we find the tank is empty we have a powerful, double-acting hand pump by which, without much effort, we can get up any pressure we need."

"And then you turn a valve?"

"Exactly, and the air-motor turns over the dynamo which starts generating electricity right away."

"Then, except for the first cost of the car, the expense of operating it is comparatively nothing?" asked Dick.

"Yes, you might say we get our power out of the air, and that's free—so far."

"And there's no limit, then, to what you can do or where you can go with the Electric Monarch?"

"None; that is, so long as the machinery holds out. We are independent of fuel and the lubricating system is so devised that the oiling is automatic and requires attending to only once a month. We could easily carry a year's supply of lubricant."

"Tall timbers of Taunton!" burst out Dick enthusiastically. "You've solved the problem of the poor man's car. All the owner of an Electric Monarch has to do is to pump a little pump-handle or press a little button and he's off without it costing him a cent. My story will sure make a big sensation!"

"Well, you want to tone down that part about its not costing a cent," chimed in Jack as they coasted down a hill. "The expense of the motor and the self-lubricating bearings and so on is pretty steep. But we hope in time to be able to cheapen the whole car."

They were shooting swiftly down the hill as he spoke. The next moment he looked ahead again as they shot round a curve. As they did so his hand sought a button and an ear-splitting screech arose from a powerful siren.

In the center of the road, quite oblivious to the oncoming automobile, was an odd figure, that of a small man in a rusty, baggy suit of black.

He had a hammer in his hand and was hitting some object in the roadway over which he was bending with a concentrated interest that made him quite unconscious of the onrushing car.

"Hi! Get out of the way!" yelled the boys.

But the man did not look up. Instead, he kept tapping away with his hammer at whatever it was that absorbed his attention so intently.