"My word! What for?" asked Ned.
"To doctor it up and dispose of it, I believe," Tom replied.
"But where do they get it? They don't manufacture those things here, do they?"
"Not yet. But I think they plan to," said the young inventor. "It was machinery for turning out such goods that Cunningham wanted me to make for him. But I saw his object—he wants to infringe on foreign patents. This stuff costs money, with the duty and royalty that has to be paid, and if Cunningham could bootleg it, so to speak, he'd get rich."
"But he seems to be making it," and Ned pointed to where men were hurriedly gathering up the scattered telescopes and other instruments.
"No, he didn't make that! He stole it!" exclaimed Tom.
"Stole it?"
"Either he or some of his gang," was Tom's answer. "You know some of those clippings you gave me about Dismal Mountain said that freight and through express trains were held up and several cases of high grade electrical, scientific and optical goods were taken."
"I remember," assented Ned. "I thought at the time that it was pretty queer stuff for train bandits to take."
"Well, that's some of the stuff, I believe," went on Tom. "Cunningham is evidently an expert in this line of goods and he knows how to handle and dispose of them better than any other stuff that might be stolen. I think he wanted me to make machinery to turn out tools like these so he could say, if he were caught, that this old castle was his manufacturing plant. But his greatest source of goods would be from robbing trains."