"Your prices are too high
for such ramshackle barns as you have. Where's Tom Swift?"
he asked sharply.
"Huh! Do you mean that young whipper-snapper with his big
traction engine?" demanded Mr. Kanker.
"Look here!" blustered Mr. Damon, "Tom Swift is neither a
whipper-snapper nor is his machine a traction engine. It's a
war tank."
"That doesn't matter much to me," said the farmer, with a
grating laugh. "It looks like a traction engine, though it
smashes things up more'n any one I ever saw."
"That isn't the point," broke in Ned. "Where is my friend,
Tom Swift? That's what we want to know."
"Huh! What makes you think I can tell you?" demanded
Kanker.
"Didn't he come out here?" asked Mr. Damon.
"Not as I knows of," was the surly answer.
"Look here!" exclaimed Ned, and his tones were firm, with
no bluster nor bluff in them, "we came out here to find Tom
Swift, and were going to find him! We have reason to believe
he's here--at least, he started for here," he substituted,
as he wished to make no statement he could not prove. "Now
we don't claim we have any right to be on your property, and
we don't intend to stay here any longer than we can help.
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