Part 22 (1/2)
He looked toward the collapsed barn, as if making a mental computation of its value, and then turned toward the farmer.
”I'm very sorry,” said Tom, ”if I have caused any trouble. I wanted to test my machine out on a wooden structure, and I picked your barn. I suppose I should have come to you first, but I did not want to waste time. I saw the barn was of practically no value.”
”No value!” broke in the farmer. ”Well, I'll show you, young man, that you can't play fast and loose with other people's property and not settle!”
”I'm perfectly willing to, Mr. Kanker. I could see that the barn was almost ready to fall, and I had already determined, before sending my tank through it, to pay the owner any reasonable sum. I am willing to do that now.”
”Well, of course if you're so ready to do that,” replied the farmer, and Ned thought he caught a glance pa.s.s between him and one of the men in the auto, ”if you're ready to do that, just hand over three thousand dollars, and we'll call it a day's work. It's really worth more, but I'll say three thousand for a quick settlement.”
”Why, this barn,” cried Ned, ”isn't worth half that! I know something about real estate values, for our bank makes loans on farms around here--”
”Your bank ain't made me no loans, young man!” snapped Mr. Kanker. ”I don't need none. My place is free and clear! And three thousand dollars is the price of my barn you've knocked to smithereens. If you don't want to pay, I'll find a way to make you. And I'll hold you, or your tank, as you call it, security for my damages! You can take your choice about that.”
”You can't hold us!” cried Tom. ”Such things aren't done here!”
”Well, then, I'll hold your tank!” cried the farmer. ”I guess it'll sell for pretty nigh onto what you owe me, though what it's good for I can't see. So you pay me three thousand dollars or leave your machine here as security.”
”That's the game!” whispered Ned. ”There's some plot here. They want to get possession of your tank, Tom, and they've seized on this chance to do it.”
”I believe you,” agreed the young inventor. ”Well, they'll find that two can play at that game. Mr. Kanker,” he went on, ”it is out of the question to claim your barn is worth three thousand dollars.”
”Oh, is it?” sneered the farmer. ”Well, I didn't ask you to come here and make kindling wood of it! That was your doings, and you've had your fun out of it. Now you can pay the piper, and I'm here to make you pay!” And he brought the gun around in a menacing manner.
”He's right, in a way,” said Ned to his chum. ”We should have secured his permission first. He's got us in a corner, and almost any jury of farmers around here, after they heard the story of the smashed barn, would give him heavy damages. It isn't so much that the barn is worth that as it is his property rights that we've violated. A farmer's barn is his castle, so to speak.”
”I guess you're right,” agreed Tom, with a rather rueful face. ”But I'm not going to hand him over three thousand dollars. In fact, I haven't that much with me.”
”Oh, well, I don't suppose he'd want it all in cash.”
But, it appeared, that was just what the farmer wanted. He went over all his arguments again, and it could not be denied that he had the law on his side. As he rightly said, Tom could not expect to go about the country, ”smas.h.i.+ng up barns and such like,” without being willing to pay.
”Well, what you going to do?” asked the farmer at last. ”I can't stay here all day. I've got work to do. I can't go around smas.h.i.+ng barns. I want three thousand dollars, or I'll hold your contraption for security.”
This last he announced with more conviction after he had had a talk with one of the men in the automobile. And it was this consultation that confirmed Tom and Ned in their belief that the whole thing was a plot, growing out of Tom's rather reckless destruction of the barn; a plot on the part of Blakeson and his gang. That they had so speedily taken advantage of this situation carelessly given them was only another evidence of how closely they were on Tom's trail.
”That man who ran out of the barn must have been the same one who was in the factory,” whispered Ned to his chum. ”He probably saw us coming this way and ran on ahead to have the farmer all primed in readiness.
Maybe he knew you had planned to ram the barn.”
”Maybe he did. I've had it in mind for some time, and spoken to some of my men about it.”
”More traitors in camp, then, I'm afraid, Tom. We'll have to do some more detective work. But let's get this thing settled. He only wants to hold your tank, and that will give the man, into whose hands he's playing, a chance to inspect her.”
”I believe you. But if I have to leave her here I'll leave some men on guard inside. It won't be any worse than being stalled in No Man's Land. In fact, it won't be so bad. But I'll do that rather than be gouged.”
”No, Tom, you won't. If you did leave some one on guard, there'd be too much chance of their getting the best of him. You must take your tank away with you.”
”But how can I? I can't put up three thousand dollars in cash, and he says he won't take a check for fear I'll stop payment. I see his game, but I don't see how to block it.”