Thereupon the two chums spent some time going into the mysteries of the new weapon. Mr. Swift and Mr. Jackson were also much interested, for, though they had seen the gun previously and had helped Tom perfect it, they had not yet tired of discussing its merits.
Ned stayed quite late that night, and promised to come over the next day, and watch Tom do some more shooting.
“I’ll show you how to use it, too,” promised the young inventor, and he was as good as his word, initiating Ned into the mysteries of the electric rifle, and showing him to store the charges of death-dealing electricity in the queer-looking stock.
For a week after that Tom and Ned practiced with the terrible gun, taking care not to have any more mishaps like the one that had marked the first night. They were both good shots with ordinary weapons and it was not long before they had equaled their record with the new instrument.
It was one warm afternoon, when Tom was out in the meadow at one side of his house, practicing with his rifle on some big boxes he had set up for targets, that he saw an elderly man standing close to the fence watching him. When Tom blew to pieces a particularly large packing-case, standing a long distance away from it, the stranger called to the youth.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, “but is that a dynamite gun you are using?”
“No, it’s an electric rifle,” was the answer.
“Would you mind telling me something about it?” went on the elderly man, and as Tom’s weapon was now fully protected by patents, the young inventor cordially invited the stranger to come nearer and see how it worked.
“That’s the greatest thing I ever saw!” exclaimed the man enthusiastically when Tom had blown up another box, and had told of the illumination for night firing. “The most wonderful weapon I ever heard of! What a gun it would be in my business.”
“What is your trade?” asked Tom curiously, for he had noted that the man, while aged, was rugged and hearty, and his skin was tanned a leathery brown, showing that he was much in the open air.