Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle

CHAPTER IV

BIG TUSKS WANTED

"Well, are you all ready for me?" asked the young inventor, as he took up his curious weapon, and followed Ned out into the yard. It was so dark that they had fairly to stumble along.

"Yes, we're ready," answered Ned. "And you'll be a good one, Tom, if you do this stunt. Now stand here," he went on, as he indicated a place as well as he could in the dark. "The box is somewhere in that direction," and he waved his hand vaguely. "I'm not going to tell you any more, and let's see you find it."

"Oh, I will, all right--or, rather, my electric rifle will," asserted Tom.

The inventor of the curious and terrible weapon took his position. Behind him stood Ned and Mr. Jackson, and just before Tom was ready to fire, his father came stalking through the darkness, calling to them.

"Are you there, Tom?"

"Yes Dad, is anything the matter?"

"No, but I thought I'd like to see what luck you have. Rad was saying you were going to have a test in the dark."

"I'm about ready for it," replied Tom. "I'm going to blow up a box that I can't see. You know how it's done, Dad, for you helped me in perfecting the luminous charge, but it's going to be something of a novelty to the others. Here we go, now!"

Tom raised his rifle, and aimed it in the dark. Ned Newton, straining his eyes to see, was sure the young inventor was pointing the gun at least twenty feet to one side of where the box was located, but he said nothing, for from experiences in the past, he realized that Tom knew what he was doing.

There was a little clicking sound, as the youth moved some gear wheel on his gun. Then there came a faint crackling noise, like some distant wireless apparatus beginning to flash a message through space.

Suddenly a little ball of purplish light shot through the darkness and sped forward like some miniature meteor. It shed a curious illuminating glow all about, and the ground, and the objects on it were brought into relief as by a lightning flash.

An instant later the light increased in intensity, and seemed to burst like some piece of aerial fireworks. There was a bright glare, in which Ned and the others could see the various buildings about the shed. They could see each other's faces, and they looked pale and ghastly in the queer glow. They could see the box, brought into bold relief, where Ned and the engineer had placed it.

Then, before the light had died away, they witnessed a curious sight. The heavy wooden box seemed to dissolve, to collapse and to crumple up like one of paper, and ere the last rays of the illuminating bullet faded, the watchers saw the splinters of wood fall back with a clatter in a little heap on the spot where the dry-goods case had been.

A silence followed, and the darkness was all the blacker by contrast with the intense light. At length Tom spoke, and he could not keep from his voice a note of triumph.

"Well, did I do it?" he asked.

"You sure did!" exclaimed Ned heartily.

"Fine!" cried Mr. Swift.

"Golly! I wouldn't gib much fo' de hide ob any burglar what comed around heah!" muttered Eradicate Sampson. "Dat box am knocked clean into nuffiness, Massa Tom."

"That's what I wanted to do," explained the lad. "And I guess this will end the test for tonight."

"But I don't exactly understand it," spoke Ned, as they all moved toward the Swift home, Eradicate going to the stable to see how his mule was. "Do you have two kinds of bullets, Tom, one for night and one for the daytime?"

"No," answered Tom, "there is only one kind of bullet, and, as I have said, that isn't a bullet at all. That is, you can't see it, or handle it, but you can feel it. Strictly speaking, it is a concentrated discharge of wireless electricity directed against a certain object. You can't see it any more than you can see a lightning bolt, though that is sometimes visible as a ball of fire. My electric rifle bullets are similar to a discharge of lightning, except that they are invisible."

"But we saw the one just now," objected Ned.

"No, you didn't see the bullet," said Tom.

"You saw the illuminating flash which I send out just before I fire, to reveal the object I am to hit. That is another part of my rifle and is only used at night."