“Musha, my God, an’ what do ye call it?”
Frank Reade looked up with a pleasant smile, as a brick-colored head was thrust into the half-open doorway of the wood-shed, where he was hard at work putting the several parts of his invention together.
“Call it!” said the sixteen-year-old genius, with a proud glance at his wonderful idea; “why, I call it a steam horse.”
“A harse, is it?”
“It is,” said Frank.
“Wid stale an’ iron legs, an’ a big copper belly on him?”
“You’re right.”
“An’ can he walk?”
“Yes, and run too.”

(Frank Reade and his Steam Horse)

“Arrah, it’s a jaynus ye are,” he said as he looked at Frank’s invention. “An’ do ye mane to tell me that you constructed that conthrivance all out of yer own head, me gossoon?”
“Oh, no,” grinned Frank. “I use quite a quantity of steel, iron and copper.”
“Oh, I didn’t mane that,” hastily said Patrick McSpalten. “I want to know if ye conthrived the masheen all alone?”
“You bet your bottom dollar I did,” said Frank. “I could make a metal casting of any animal and send it traveling with speed. This horse will probably travel at the rate of sixty miles an hour when under high pressure, and could keep going thirty-five or forty miles an hour for ten hours, with occasional ten minute stops to cool a hot joint.”
“Certainly,” said Frank, approaching the invention with a great deal of pardonable pride. “You can see very plainly that the machine is in every respect similar to a horse.”
“I moind that same.”
“Then I will begin with the information necessary to make you understand how the old thing works,” said Frank. “In the first place this copper belly is nothing more nor less than a well-tested, strongly-made boiler, occupying the greater part of the distance between the fore legs and hind ones; this gives room to the steam-chest proper and boiler, and they extend into the haunches. Understand?”
“Oh, yis, I can philosophize an’ so forth,” said McSpalten, sitting on a wooden bench and looking as wise as an owl.
“Then here, almost on the top of the horse’s haunches,” said Frank, “are the valves, by means of which I can at any time examine either the water or the steam, and regulate accordingly. Forward of this is the place where my fire burns, the door of the furnace being in the chest, as you can see. Flues running up through the animal’s head will allow the smoke to pass out of his ears, while similar pipes will carry the steam out of the horse’s nose.”
“Musha! musha! did yez iver hear the bate o’ that?” murmured Patrick.
“In the head,” continued Frank, “I have arranged a clock-work contrivance that will feed coils of magnesium wire as fast as it burns to the flame of a small lamp that is set between a polished reflector and the glass that forms each eye. I shall thus have a powerful light at night time, and on the level plains shall be able to see very clearly one mile ahead, if the night was just as black as a piece of coal.”
“Worra! worra!” gasped McSpalten. “Me head is turnin’ round. Go on, me gossoon.”
“Of course the power is applied by means of iron rods running down the hollow limbs, and having an upward, downward, and forward motion. By reversing steam I can make the horse back. Here, at the knees, I open these slides and rake out the cinders and ashes that fall from the fire in the horse’s chest. The animal’s hoofs are sharp shod, so there’s no danger of him slipping, either uphill or down.”
“An’ will ye be afther ridin’ on the back of that crayture?”
“Oh no,” smiled Frank, “I am making a wagon to ride in and carry my supplies for myself and the horse, and the animal will be harnessed to the truck, which will be constructed so as to stand the joltings of rapid travel. There, now, I guess you can understand the idea of the thing pretty well, can’t you?”