Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle | Page 8

him.
"Rad is nervous," remarked Tom. "He doesn't like this gun. Well, it
certainly does great execution."
"How does it work'" asked Ned, as he looked at the curious gun. The
electric weapon was not unlike an ordinary heavy rifle in appearance
save that the barrel was a little longer, and the stock larger in every way.
There were also a number of wheels, levers, gears and gages on the
stock.
"It works by electricity," explained Tom.
"That is, the force comes from a powerful current of stored electricity."
"Oh, then you have storage batteries in the stock?"

"Not exactly. There are no batteries, but the current is a sort of wireless
kind. It is stored in a cylinder, just as compressed air or gases are stored,
and can be released as I need it."
"And when it's all gone, what do you do?"
"Make more power by means of a small dynamo."
"And does it shoot lead bullets?"
"Not at all. There are no bullets used."
"Then how does it kill?"
"By means of a concentrated charge of electricity which is shot from
the barrel with great force. You can't see it, yet it is there. It's just as if
you concentrated a charge of electricity of five thousand volts into a
small globule the size of a bullet. That flies through space, strikes the
object aimed at and--well, we'll see what it does in a minute. Mr.
Jackson, just put that steel plate up in front of the scarecrow; will you?"
The engineer proceeded to put into place a section of steel armor- plate
before the stuffed figure.
"You don't mean to say you're going to shoot through that, do you?"
asked Ned in surprise.
"Surely. The electric bullets will pierce anything. They'll go through a
brick wall as easily as the x-rays do. That's one valuable feature of my
rifle. You don't have to see the object you aim at. In fact you can fire
through a house, and kill something on the other side."
"I should think that would be dangerous."
"It would be, only I can calculate exactly, by means of an automatic
arrangement, just how far the charge of electricity will go. It stops short
just at the limit of the range, and is not effective beyond that. Otherwise,
if I did not limit it and if I fired at the scarecrow, through the piece of
steel, and the bullet hit the figure, it would go on, passing through

whatever else was in the way, until its power was lost. I use the term
'bullet,' though as I said, it isn't properly one."
"By Jove, Tom, it certainly is a dangerous weapon!"
"Yes, the range-limit idea is a new one. That's what I've been working
on lately. There are other features of the gun which I'll explain later,
particularly the power it has to shoot out luminous bars of light. But
now we'll see what it will do to the image."
Tom took his place at the end of the range, and began to adjust some
valves and levers. In spite of the fact that the gun was larger than an
ordinary rifle, it was not as heavy as the United States Army weapon.
Tom aimed at the armor-plate, and, by means of an arrangement on the
rifle, he could tell exactly when he was pointing at the scarecrow, even
though he could not see it.
"Here she goes!" he suddenly exclaimed.
Ned watched his chum. The young inventor pressed a small button at
the side of the rifle barrel, about where the trigger should have been.
There was no sound, no smoke, no flame and not the slightest jar.
Yet as Ned watched he saw the steel plate move slightly. The next
instant the scarecrow figure seemed to fly all to pieces. There was a
shower of straw, rags and old clothes, which fell in a shapeless heap at
the end of the range.
"Say. I guess you did for that fellow, all right!" exclaimed Ned.
"It looks so," admitted Tom, with a note of pride in his voice. "Now
we'll try another test."
As he laid aside his rifle in order to help Mr. Jackson shift the steel
plate there was a series of yells outside the shed.
"What's that?" asked Tom, in some alarm.

"Sounds like some one calling," answered Ned.
"It is," agreed Mr. Jackson. "Perhaps Eradicate's mule has gotten loose.
I guess we'd better--"
He did not finish, for the shouts increased in volume, and Tom and Ned
could hear some one yelling:
"I'll have the law on you for this! I'll have you arrested, Tom Swift!
What do you mean by trying to kill me? Where are you? Don't try to
hide away, now. You were trying to shoot me, and