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Title: The Young Engineers in Colorado

Author: H. Irving Hancock

Release Date: June 25, 2004  [eBook #12734]

Language: English

Character set encoding: US-ASCII


***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YOUNG ENGINEERS IN COLORADO***


E-text prepared by Jim Ludwig



The Young Engineers in Colorado

or, At Railwood Building in Earnest

By  H. Irving Hancock







CONTENTS

CHAPTERS
    I. The Cub Engineers Reach Camp
   II. Bad Pete Becomes Worse
  III. The Day of Real Work Dawns
   IV. "Trying Out" the Gridley Boys
    V. Tom Doesn't Mind "Artillery"
   VI. The Bite from the Bush
  VII. What a Squaw Knew
 VIII. 'Gene Black, Trouble-Maker
   IX. "Doctored" Field Notes?
    X. Things Begin to go Down Hill
   XI. The Chief Totters from Command
  XII. From Cub to Acting Chief
 XIII. Black Turns Other Colors
  XIV. Bad Pete Mixes in Some
   XV. Black's Plot Opens With a Bang
  XVI. Shut Off from the World
 XVII. The Real Attack Begins
XVIII. When the Camp Grew Warm
  XIX. Sheriff Grease Drops Dave
   XX. Mr. Newnham Drops a Bomb
  XXI. The Trap at the Finish
 XXII. "Can Your Road Save Its Charter Now?"
XXIII. Black's Trump Card
 XXIV. Conclusion




CHAPTER I

THE CUB ENGINEERS REACH CAMP


"Look, Tom!  There is a real westerner!"  Harry Hazelton's eyes
sparkled, his whole manner was one of intense interest.

"Eh?" queried Tom Reade, turning around from his distant view
of a sharp, towering peak of the Rockies.

"There's the real thing in the way of a westerner," Harry Hazelton
insisted in a voice in which there was some awe.

"I don't believe he is," retorted Tom skeptically.

"You're going to say, I suppose, that the man is just some freak
escaped from the pages of a dime novel?" demanded Harry.

"No; he looks more like a hostler on a leave of absence from a
stranded Wild West show," Tom replied slowly.

There was plenty of time for them to inspect the stranger in question.
Tom and Harry were seated on a mountain springboard wagon drawn
by a pair of thin horses.  Their driver, a boy of about eighteen,
sat on a tiny make-believe seat almost over the traces.  This
youthful driver had been minding his own business so assiduously
during the past three hours that Harry had voted him a sullen
fellow.  This however, the driver was not.

"Where did that party ahead come from, driver?" murmured Tom,
leaning forward.  "Boston or Binghamton?"

"You mean the party ahead at the bend of the trail?" asked the
driver.

"Yes; he's the only stranger in sight."

"I guess he's a westerner, all right," answered the driver, after
a moment or two spent in thought.

"There!  You see?" crowed Harry Hazelton triumphantly.

"If that fellow's a westerner, driver," Tom persisted, "have you
any idea how many days he has been west?"

"He doesn't belong to this state," the youthful driver answered.
"I think he comes from Montana.  His name is Bad Pete."

"Pete?" mused Tom Reade aloud.  "That's short for Peter, I suppose;
not a very interesting or romantic name.  What's the hind-leg
of his name?"

"Meaning his surnames" drawled the driver.

"Yes; to be sure."

"I don't know that he has any surname, friend," the Colorado boy
rejoined.

"Why do they call him 'Bad'?" asked Harry, with a thrill of pleasurable
expectation.

As the driver was slow in finding an answer, Tom Reade, after
another look at the picturesque stranger, replied quizzically:

"I reckon they call him bad because he's counterfeit."

"There you go again," remonstrated Harry Hazelton.  "You'd better
be careful, or Bad Pete will hear you."

"I hope he doesn't," smiled Tom.  "I don't want to change Bad
Pete into Worse Pete."

There was little danger, however, that the picturesque-looking
stranger would hear them.  The axles and springs of the springboard
wagon were making noise enough to keep their voices from reaching
the ears of any human being more than a dozen feet away.

Bad Pete was still about two hundred and fifty feet ahead, nor
did he, as yet, give any sign whatever of having noted the vehicle.
Instead, he was leaning against a boulder at the turn in the
road.  In his left hand he held a hand-rolled cigarette from which
he took an occasional reflective puff as he looked straight ahead
of him as though he were enjoying the scenery.  The road---trail---ran
close along the edge of a sloping precipice.  Fully nine hundred
feet below ran a thin line of silver, or so it appeared.  In reality
it was what was left of the Snake River now, in July, nearly dried
out.

Over beyond the gulch, for a mile or more, extended a rather flat,
rock-strewn valley.  Beyond that were the mountains, two peaks
of which, even at this season, were white-capped with snow.  On
the trail, however, the full heat of summer prevailed.

"This grand, massive scenery makes a human being feel small, doesn't
it?" asked Tom.

Harry, however, had his eyes and all his thoughts turned toward
the man whom they were nearing.

"This---er---Bad Pete isn't an---er---that is, a road agent, is
he?" he asked apprehensively.

"He may be, for all I know," the driver answered.  "At present
he mostly hangs out around the S.B. & L. outfit."

"Why, that's our outfits---the one we're going to join, I mean,"
cried Hazelton.

"I hope Pete isn't the cook, then," remarked Tom fastidiously.
"He doesn't look as though he takes a very kindly interest in
soap."

"Sh-h-h!" begged Harry.  "I'll tell you, he'll hear you."

"See here," Tom went on, this time addressing the driver, "you've
told us that you don't know just where to find the S.B. & L. field
camp.  If Mr. Peter Bad hangs out with the camp then he ought
to be able to direct us."

"You can ask him, of course," nodded the Colorado boy.

Soon after the horses covered the distance needed to bring them
close to the bend.  Now the driver hauled in his team, and, blocking
the forward wheels with a fragment of rock, began to give his
attention to the harness.

Bad Pete had consented to glance their way at last.  He turned
his head indolently, emitting a mouthful of smoke.  As if by instinct
his right hand dropped to the butt of a revolver swinging in a
holster over his right hip.

"I hope he isn't bad tempered today!" shivered Harry under his
breath.

"I beg your pardon, sir," galled Tom, "but can you tell us-----"

"Who are ye looking at?" demanded Bad Pete, scowling.

"At a polished man of the world, I'm sure," replied Reade smilingly.
"As I was saying, can you tell us just where we can find the
S.B. & L.'s field camp of engineers?"

"What d'ye want of the camp?" growled Pete, after taking another
whiff from his cigarette.

"Why, our reasons for wanting to find the camp are purely personal,"
Tom continued.

"Now, tenderfoot, don't get fresh with me," warned Pete sullenly.

"I haven't an idea of that sort in the world, sir," Tom assured
him.  "Do you happen to know the hiding-place of the camp?"

"What do you want of the camp?" insisted Pete.

"Well, sir, since you're so determined to protect the camp from
questionable strangers," Tom continued, "I don't know that it
will do any harm to inform you that we are two greenhorns---tenderfeet,
I believe, is your more elegant word---who have been engaged to
join the engineers' crowd and break in at the business."

"Cub engineers, eh, tenderfoot?"

"That's the full size of our pretensions, sir," Tom admitted.

"Rich men's sons, coming out to learn the ways of the Rookies?"
questioned Bad Pete, showing his first sign of interest in them.

"Not quite as bad as that," Tom Reade urged.  "We're wholly respectable,
sir.  We have even had to work hard in order to raise money for
our railway fare out to Colorado."

Bad Pete's look of interest in them faded.

"Huh!" he remarked.  "Then you're no good either why."

"That's true, I'm afraid," sighed Tom.  "However, can you tell
us the way to the camp?"

From one pocket Bad Pete produced a cigarette paper and from another
tobacco.  Slowly he rolled and lighted a cigarette, in the meantime
seeming hardly aware of the existence of the tenderfeet.  At last,
however, he turned to the Colorado boy and observed:

"Pardner, I reckon you'd better drive on with these tenderfeet
before I drop them over the cliff.  They spoil the view.  Ye know
where Bandy's Gulch is?"

"Sure," nodded the Colorado boy.

"Ye'll find the railroad outfit jest about a mile west o' there,
camped close to the main trail."

"I'm sure obliged to you," nodded the Colorado boy, stepping up
to his seat and gathering in the reins.

"And so are we, sir," added Tom politely.

"Hold your blizzard in until I ask ye to talk," retorted Bad Pete
haughtily.  "Drive on with your cheap baggage, pardner."

"Cheap baggage, are we?" mused Tom, when the wagon had left Bad
Pete some two hundred feet to the rear.  "My, but I feel properly
humiliated!"

"How many men has Bad Pete killed?" inquired Harry in an awed
voice.

"Don't know as he ever killed any," replied the Colorado boy,
"but I'm not looking for trouble with any man that always carries
a revolver at his belt and goes around looking for someone to
give him an excuse to shoot.  The pistol might go off, even by
accident."

"Are there many like Mr. Peter Bad in these hills nowadays?" Tom
inquired.

"You'll find the foothills back near Denver or Pueblo," replied
the Colorado youth coldly "You're up in the mountains now."

"Well, are there many like Peter Bad in these mountains?" Tom
amended.

"Not many," admitted their driver.  "The old breed is passing.
You see, in these days, we have the railroad, public schools,
newspapers, the telegraph, electric light, courts and the other
things that go with civilization."

"The old days of romance are going by," sighed Harry Hazelton.

"Do you call murder romantic?" Reade demanded.  "Harry, you came
west expecting to find the Colorado of the dime novels.  Now we've
traveled hundreds of miles across this state, and Mr. Bad wore
the first revolver that we've seen since we crossed the state
line.  My private opinion is that Peter would be afraid to handle
his pistol recklessly for fear it would go off."

"I wouldn't bank on that," advised the young driver, shaking his
head.

"But you don't carry a revolver," retorted Tom Reade.

"Pop would wallop me, if I did," grinned the Colorado boy.  "But
then, I don't need firearms.  I know enough to carry a civil tongue,
and to be quiet when I ought to."

"I suppose people who don't possess those virtues are the only
people that have excuse for carrying a pistol around with their
keys, loose change and toothbrushes," affirmed Reade.  "Harry,
the longer you stay west the more people you'll find who'll tell
you that toting a pistol is a silly, trouble-breeding habit."

They drove along for another hour before a clattering sounded
behind them.

"I believe it's Bad Pete coming," declared Harry, as he made out,
a quarter of a mile behind them, the form of a man mounted on
a small, wiry mustang.

"Yep; it is," nodded the Colorado boy, after a look back.

The trail being wider here Bad Pete whirled by them with a swift
drumming of his pony's hoofs.  In a few moments more he was out
of sight.

"Tom, you may have your doubts about that fellow," Hazelton remarked,
"but there's one thing he can do---ride!"

"Humph!  Anyone can ride that knows enough to get into a saddle
and stick there," observed the Colorado boy dryly.

Readers of the "_Grammar School Boys Series_" and of the "_High School
Boys Series_", have already recognized in Tom Reade and Harry Hazelton
two famous schoolboy athletes.

Back in old Gridley there had once been a schoolboy crowd of six,
known as Dick & Co.  Under the leadership of Dick Prescott, these
boys had made their start in athletics in the Central Grammar
School, winning no small amount of fame as junior schoolboy athletes.

Then in their High School days Dick & Co. had gradually made
themselves crack athletes.  Baseball and football were their especial
sports, and in these they had reached a degree of skill that had
made many a college trainer anxious to obtain them.

None of the six, however, had gone to college.  Dick Prescott
and Greg Holmes had secured appointments as cadets at the United
States Military Academy, at West Point.  Their adventures are
told in the "_West Point Series_."  Dave Darrin and Dan Dalzell,
feeling the call to the Navy, had entered the United States Naval
Academy at Annapolis.  Their further doings are all described
in the "_Annapolis Series_."

Tom Reade and Harry Hazelton, however, had found that their aspirations
pointed to the great constructive work that is done by the big-minded,
resourceful American civil engineer of today.  Bridge building,
railroad building, the tunneling of mines---in a word, the building
of any of the great works of industry possessed a huge fascination
for them.

Tom was good-natured and practical, Harry at times full of mischief
and at others dreamy, but both longed with all their souls to
place themselves some day in the front ranks among civil engineers.

At high school they had given especial study to mathematics.
At home they had studied engineering, through correspondence courses
and otherwise.  During more than the last year of their home life
our two boys had worked much in the offices of a local civil engineer,
and had spent part of their school vacations afield with him.

Finally, after graduating from school both boys had gone to New
York in order to look the world over.  By dint of sheer push,
three-quarters of which Tom had supplied, the boys had secured
their first chance in the New York offices of the S.B. & L.  Not
much of a chance, to be sure, but it meant forty dollars a month
and board in the field, with the added promise that, if they turned
out to be "no good," they would be promptly "bounced."

"If 'bounced' we are," Tom remarked dryly, "we'll have to walk
home, for our money will just barely take us to Colorado."

So here they were, having come by rail to a town some distance
west of Pueblo.  From the last railway station they had been obliged
to make thirty miles or more by wagon to the mountain field camp
of the S.B. & L.

Since daybreak they had been on the way, eating breakfast and
lunch from the paper parcels that they had brought with them.

"How much farther is the camp, now that you know the way."  Reade
inquired an hour after Bad Pete had vanished on horseback.

"There it is, right down there," answered the Colorado youth,
pointing with his whip as the raw-boned team hauled the wagon
to the top of a rise in the trail.

Of the trail to the left, surrounded by natural walls of rock,
was an irregularly shaped field about three or four acres in extent.
Here and there wisps of grass grew, but the ground, for the most
part, was covered by splinters of rock or of sand ground from
the same.

At the farther end of the camp stood a small wooden building,
with three tents near try.  At a greater distance were several
other tents.  Three wagons stood at one side of the camp, though
horses or mules for the same were not visible.  Outside, near
the door of one tent, stood a transit partially concealed by the
enveloping rubber cover.  Near another tent stood a plane table,
used in field platting (drawing).  Signs of life about the camp
there were none, save for the presence of the newcomers.

"I wonder if there's anyone at home keeping house," mused Tom
Reade, as he jumped down from the wagon.

"There's only one wooden house in this town.  That must be where
the boss lives," declared Harry.

"Yes; that's where the boss lives," replied the Colorado youth,
with a wry smile.

"Let's go over and see whether he has time to talk to us," suggested
Reade.

"Just one minute, gentlemen," interposed the driver.  "Where do
you want your kit boxes placed?  Are you going to pay me now?"

"Drop the kit boxes on the ground anywhere," Tom answered.  "We're
strong enough to carry 'em when we find where they belong."

And---yes: we are going to pay you now.  Eighteen dollars, isn't it?"

"Yes," replied the young driver, with the brevity of the mountaineer.

Tom and Harry went into their pockets, each producing nine dollars
as his share of the fare.  This was handed over to the Colorado
youth.

"'Bliged to you, gentlemen," nodded the Colorado boy pocketing
the money.  "Anything more to say to me?"

"Nothing remains to be said, except to thank you, and to wish
you good luck on your way back," said Reade.

"I wish you luck here, too, gentlemen.  Good day."

With that, the driver mounted his seat, turned the horses about
and was off without once looking back.

"Now let's go over to the house and see the boss," murmured Tom.

Together the chums skirted the camp, going up to the wooden building.
As the door was open, Tom, with a sense of good manners, approached
from the side that he might not appear to be peeping in on the
occupants of the building.  Gaining the side of the doorway, with
Harry just behind him, Reade knocked softly.

"Quit yer kidding, whoever it is, and come in," called a rough
voice.

Tom thereupon stepped inside.  What he saw filled him with surprise.
Around the room were three or four tables.  There were many utensils
hanging on the walls.  There were two stoves, with a man bending
over one of them and stirring something in a pot.

"Oh, I beg your pardon," said Tom.  "I thought I'd find Mr. Timothy
Thurston, the chief engineer, here."

"Nope," replied a stout, red-faced man of forty, in flannel shirt
and khaki trousers.  "Mr. Thurston never eats between meals, and
when he does eat he's served in his own mess tent.  Whatcher want
here, pardner?"

"We're under orders to report to him," Tom answered politely.

"New men in the chain gang?" asked the cook, swinging around to
look at the newcomers.

"Maybe," Reade assented.  "That will depend on the opinion that
Mr. Thurston forms of us after he knows us a little while.  I
believe the man in New York said we were to be assistant engineers."

"There's only one assistant engineer here," announced the cook.
"The other engineers are Just plain surveyors or levelers."

"Well, we won't quarrel about titles," Tom smilingly assured the
cook.  "Will you please tell us where Mr. Thurston is?"

"He's in his tent over yonder," said the cook, pointing through
the open doorway.

"Shall we step over there and announce ourselves?" Tom inquired.

"Why, ye could do it," rejoined the red-faced cook, with a grin.
"If Tim Thurston happens to be very busy he might use plain talk
and tell you to git out of camp."

"Then do you mind telling us just how we should approach the chief
engineer?"

"Whatter yer names?"

"Reade and Hazelton."

"Bob, trot over and tell Thurston there's two fellows here, named
Reade and Hazelnut.  Ask him what he wants done with 'em."

The cook's helper, who, so far, had not favored the new arrivals
with a glance, now turned and looked them over.  Then, with a
nod, the helper stepped across the ground to the largest tent
in camp.  In a few moments he came back.

"Mr. Thurston says to stay around and he'll call you jest as soon
as he's through with what he's doing," announced Bob, who, dark,
thin and anemic, was a decrepit-looking man of fifty years or
thereabouts.

"Ye can stand about in the open," added the cook, pointing with
his ladle.  "There's better air out there."

"Thank you," answered Tom briskly, but politely.  Once outside,
and strolling slowly along, Reade confided to his chum:

"Harry, you can see what big fellows we two youngsters are going
to be in a Rocky Mountain railroad camp.  We haven't a blessed
thing to do but play marbles until the chief can see us."

"I can spare the time, if the chief can," laughed Harry.  "Hello---look
who's here!"

Bad Pete, now on foot, had turned into the camp from the farther
side.  Espying the boys he swaggered over toward them.

"How do you do, sir?" nodded Tom.

"Can't you two tenderfeet mind your own business?" snarled Pete,
halting and scowling angrily at them.

"Now, I come to think of it," admitted Tom, "it _was_ meddlesome
on my part to ask after your health.  I beg your pardon."

"Say, are you two tenderfeet trying to git fresh with me?" demanded
Bad Pete, drawing himself up to his full height and gazing at
them out of flashing eyes.

Almost unconsciously Tom Reade drew himself up, showing hints
of his athletic figure through the folds of his clothing.

"No, Peter," he said quietly.  "In the first place, my friend
hasn't even opened his mouth.  As for myself, when I _do_ try
to get fresh with you, you won't have to do any guessing.  You'll
be sure of it."

Bad Pete took a step forward, dropping his right hand, as though
unconsciously, to the butt of the revolver in the holster.  He
fixed his burning gaze savagely on the boy's face as he muttered,
in a low, ugly voice:

"Tenderfoot, when I'm around after this you shut your mouth and
keep it shut!  You needn't take the trouble to call me Peter again,
either.  My name is Bad Pete, and I am bad.  I'm poison!  Understand?
Poison!"

"Poison?" repeated Tom dryly, coolly.  "No; I don't believe I'd
call you that.  I think I'd call you a bluff---and let it go at
that."

Bad Pete scowled angrily.  Again his hand slid to the butt of
his revolver, then with a muttered imprecation he turned and stalked
away, calling back threateningly over his shoulder:

"Remember, tenderfoot.  Keep out of my way."

Behind the boys, halted a man who had just stepped into the camp
over the natural stone wall.  This man was a sun-browned, smooth-faced,
pleasant-featured man of perhaps thirty-two or thirty-three years.
Dressed in khaki trousers, with blue flannel shirt, sombrero
and well-worn puttee leggings, he might have been mistaken for
a soldier.  Though his eyes were pleasant to look at, there was
an expression of great shrewdness in them.  The lines around his
mouth bespoke the man's firmness.  He was about five-feet-eight
in height, slim and had the general bearing of a strong man accustomed
to hard work.

"Boys," he began in a low voice, whereat both Tom and Harry faced
swiftly about, "you shouldn't rile Bad Pete that way.  He's an
ugly character, who carries all he knows of law in his holsters,
and we're a long way from the sheriff's officers."

"Is he really bad?" asked Tom innocently.

"Really bad?" laughed the man in khaki.  "You'll find out if you
try to cross him.  Are you visiting the camp?"

"Reade!  Hazelton!" called a voice brusquely from the big tent.

"That's Mr. Thurston calling us, I guess," said Tom quickly.
"We'll have to excuse ourselves and go and report to him."

"Yes, that was Thurston," nodded the slim man.  "And I'm Blaisdell,
the assistant engineer.  I'll go along with you."

Throwing aside the canvas flap, Mr. Blaisdell led the boys inside
the big tent.  At one end a portion of the tent was curtained
off, and this was presumably the chief engineer's bedroom.  Near
the centre of the tent was a flat table about six by ten feet.
Just at present it held many drawings, all arranged in orderly
piles.  Not far from the big table was a smaller one on which
a typewriting machine rested.

The man who sat at the large table, and who wheeled about in a
revolving chair as Tom and Harry entered, was perhaps forty-five
years of age.  His head was covered with a mass of bushy black
hair.  His face was as swarthy, in its clean-shaven condition,
as though the owner had spent all of his life under a hot sun.
His clothing like that of all the rest of the engineers in camp
was of khaki, his shirt of blue flannel, with a long, flowing
black tie.

"Mr. Thurston," announced the assistant engineer, "I have just
encountered these young gentlemen, who state that they are under
orders from the New York offices to report to you for employment."

Mr. Thurston looked both boys over in silence for a few seconds.
His keen eyes appeared to take in everything that could possibly
concern them.  Then he rose, extending his hand, first to Reade,
next to Hazelton.

"From what technical school do you come?" inquired the engineer
as he resumed his chair.

"From none, sir," Tom answered promptly "We didn't have money
enough for that sort of training."

Mr. Thurston raised his eyebrows in astonished inquiry.

"Then why," he asked, "did you come here?  What made you think
that you could break in as engineers?"




CHAPTER II

BAD PETE BECOMES WORSE


Timothy Thurston's gaze was curious, and his voice a trifle cold.
Yet he did not by any means treat the boys with contempt.  He
appeared simply to wonder why these young men had traveled so
far to take up his time.

"We couldn't afford to take a college course in engineering, sir,"
Tom Reade continued, reddening slightly.  "We have learned all
that we possibly could in other ways, however."

"Do you expect me, young men, to detail an experienced engineer
to move about with you as instructor until you learn enough to
be of use to us?"

"No, indeed, we don't, sir," Tom replied, and perhaps his voice
was sharper than usual, though it rang with earnestness.  "We
believe, sir, that we are very fair engineers.  We are willing
to be tried out, sir, and to be rated exactly where you find that
we belong.  If necessary we'll start in as helpers to the chainmen,
and we have pride enough to walk back over the trail at any moment
when you decide that we're no good.  We have traveled all the
way from the east, and I trust, sir, that you'll give us a fair
chance to show if we know anything."

"It won't take long to find that out," replied Mr. Thurston gravely.
"Of course you both understand that we are doing real engineering
work and haven't any time to instruct amateurs or be patient with
them."

"We don't want instruction, Mr. Thurston," Hazelton broke in.
"We want work, and when we get it we'll do it."

"I hope your work will be as good as your assurance," replied
the chief engineer, with a slight twinkle in his eyes.  "What
can you do?"

"We know how to do ordinary surveying, sir," Tom replied quickly.
"We can run our courses and supervise the chaining.  We know
how to bring in field notes that are of some use.  We can do our
work well within the limits of error allowed by the United States
Government.  We also consider ourselves competent at leveling.
Give us the profile plan and the notes on an excavation, and we
can superintend the laborers who have to make an excavation.
We have a fair knowledge of ordinary road building.  We have the
strength of usual materials at our finger's ends, and for beginners
I think we may claim that we are very well up in mathematics.
We have had some all-around experience.  Here is a letter, sir,
from Price & Conley, of Gridley, in whose offices we have done
quite a bit of work."

Mr. Thurston took the letter courteously, though he did not \
immediately glance at it.

"Country surveyors, these gentlemen, I suppose?" he asked, looking
into Tom's eyes.

"Yes, sir," nodded Reade, "though Mr. Price is also the engineer for
our home county.  Both Mr. Price and Mr. Conley paid us the
compliment of saying that we were well fitted to work in a railway
engineering camp."

"Well, we'll try you out, until you either make good or convince
us that you can't," agreed the chief engineer, without any show
of enthusiasm.  "You may show them where they are to live, Mr.
Blaisdell, and where they are to mess.  In the morning you can
put these young men at some job or other."

The words sounded like a dismissal, but Blaisdell lingered a moment.

"Mr. Thurston," he smiled, "our young men ran, first thing, into
Bad Pete."

"Yes?" inquired the chief.  "Did Pete show these young men his
fighting front?"

Blaisdell repeated the dialogue that had taken place between Tom
and Bad Pete.

The chief listened to his assistant in silence.  Tom flushed slightly
under the penetrating glance Mr. Thurston cast upon him during
the recital.

When the assistant had finished, the chief merely remarked: "Blaisdell,
I wish you could get rid of that fellow, Bad Pete.  I don't like
to have him hanging about the camp.  He's an undesirable character,
and I'm afraid that some of our men will have trouble with him.
Can't you get rid of him?"

"I'll do it if you say so, Mr. Thurston," Blaisdell answered quietly.

"How?" inquired his chief.

"I'll serve out firearms to five or six of the men, and the next
time Pete shows his face we'll cover him and march him miles away
from camp."

"That wouldn't do any good," replied Mr. Thurston, with a shake
of his head.  "Pete would only come back, uglier than before,
and he'd certainly shoot up some of our men."

"You asked me, a moment ago, Mr. Thurston, what I could do," Tom
broke in.  "Give me a little time, and I'll agree to rid the camp
of Peter."

"How?" asked the chief abruptly.  "Not with any gun-play!  Pete
would be too quick for you at anything of that sort."

"I don't carry a pistol, and don't wish to do so," Tom retorted.
"In my opinion only a coward carries a pistol."

"Then you think Bad Pete is a coward, young man?" returned the
chief.

"If driven into a corner I'm pretty sure he'd turn out to be one,
sir," Tom went on earnestly.  "A coward is a man who's afraid.
If a fellow isn't afraid of anything, then why does he have to
carry firearms to protect himself?"

"I don't believe that would quite apply to Pete," Mr. Thurston
went on.  "Pete doesn't carry a revolver because he's afraid of
anything.  He knows that many other men are afraid of pistols,
and so he carries his firearms about in order that he may enjoy
himself in playing bully."

"I can drive him out of camp," Tom insisted.  "All I'll wait for
will be your permission to go ahead."

"If you can do it without shooting," replied the chief, "try your
hand at it.  Be careful, however, Reade.  There are plenty of
good natural lead mines in these mountains."

"Yes---sir?" asked Reade, looking puzzled.

"Much as we'd like to see Pete permanently out of this camp, remember
that we don't want you to give the fellow any excuse for turning
you into a lead mine."

"If Peter tries anything like that with me," retorted Tom solemnly,
"I shall be deeply offended."

"Very good.  Take the young men along with you, Blaisdell.  I'll
hear your report on them tomorrow night."

The assistant engineer took Tom and Harry over to a seven by nine
tent.

"You'll bunk in here," he explained, "and store your dunnage here.
There are two folding cots in the tent, as you see.  Don't shake
'em out until it's time to turn in, and then you'll have more
room in your house.  Now, come on over and I'll show you the mess
tent for the engineers."

This Blaisdell also showed them.  There was nothing in the tent
but a plain, long table, with folding legs, and a lot of camp
chairs of the simplest kind.

"What's that tent, Mr. Blaisdell?" inquired Harry, pointing to
the next one, as they came out of the engineers' mess.

"Mess tent for the chainmen and rod men laborers, etc.," replied
their guide.  "Now, the fellows will be in soon, and supper will
be on in half an hour.  After you get your dunnage over to your
tent amuse yourselves in any way that you care to.  I'll introduce
you to the crowd at table."

Tom and Harry speedily had their scanty dunnage stored in their
own tent.  Then they sat down on campstools just outside the door.

"Thurston didn't seem extremely cordial, did he?" asked Hazelton
solemnly.

"Well, why should he be cordial?" Tom demanded.  "What does he
know about us?  We're trying to break in here and make a living,
but how does he know that we're not a pair of merely cheerful
idiots?"

"I've an idea that Mr. Thurston is always rather cool with his
staff," pursued Harry.

"Do your work, old fellow, in an exceptionally fine way, and I
guess you'll find that he can thaw out.  Mr. Thurston is probably
just like other men who have to employ folks.  When he finds that
a man can really do the work that he's paid to do I imagine that
Thurston is well satisfied and not afraid to show it."

"What's that noise?" demanded Harry, trying to peer around the
corner of their tent without rising.

"The field gang coming in, I think," answered Tom.

"Let's get up, then, and have a look at our future mates," suggested
Harry Hazelton.

"No; I don't believe it would be a good plan," said Tom.  "We might
be thought fresh if we betrayed too much curiosity before the
crowd shows some curiosity about us."

"Reade!" sounded Blaisdell's voice, five minutes later.  "Bring
your friend over and inspect this choice lot of criminals."

Tom rose eagerly, followed by Harry.  As they left the tent and
hurried outside they beheld two rows of men, each before a long
bench on which stood agate wash basins.  The toilet preceding
the evening meal was on.

"Gentlemen," Mr. Blaisdell, as the two chums drew near, "I present
two new candidates for fame.  One is named Reade, the other Hazelton.
Take them to your hearts, but don't, at first, teach them all
the wickedness you know.  Reade, this is Jack Rutter, the spotted
hyena of the camp.  If he ever gets in your way just push him
over a cliff."

A pleasant-faced young man in khaki hastily dried his face and
hands on a towel, then smilingly held out his right hand.

"Glad to know you, Reade," he laughed.  Hope you'll like us and
decide to stay."

"Hazelton," continued the announcer, "shake hands with Slim Morris,
whether he'll let you or not.  And here's Matt Rice.  We usually
call him 'Mister' Rice, for he's extremely talented.  He knows
how to play the banjo."

The assistant engineer then turned away, while one young man,
at the farther end of the long wash bench stood unpresented.

"Oh, on second thoughts," continued Blaisdell, "I'll introduce
you to Joe Grant."

The last young man came forward.

"Joe used to be a good fellow---once," added the assistant engineer.
"In these days, however, you want to keep your dunnage boxes
locked.  Joe's specialty is stealing fancy ties---neckties, I
mean."

Joe laughed good-humoredly as he shook hands, adding:

"We'll tell you all about Blaisdell himself, boys, one of these
days, but not now.  It's too far from pay day, and old Blaze stands
in too thickly with the chief."

"If you folks don't come into supper soon," growled the voice
of the cook, Jake Wren, from the doorway of the engineer's mess
tent, "I'll eat your grub myself."

"He'd do it, too," groaned Slim Morris, a young man who nevertheless
weighed more than two hundred pounds.  "Blaze, won't you take
us inside and put us in our high chairs?"

There was infinite good humor in this small force of field engineers.
As was afterwards learned, all of them were graduates either
of colleges or of scientific schools but not one of them affected
any superiority over the young newcomers.

Just as the party had seated themselves there was a step outside,
and Bad Pete stalked in looking decidedly sulky.

"Evening," he grunted, and helped himself to a seat at the table.

"Reade and Hazelton, you've had the pleasure of meeting Pete,
I believe?" asked Blaisdell, without the trace of a smile.

"Huh!" growled Pete, not looking up, for the first supply of food
was on the table.

"We've had the pleasure, twice today, of meeting Mr. Peter," replied
Tom, with equal gravity.

"See here, tenderfoot," scowled Bad Pete, looking up from his
plate, "don't you call me 'Peter' again.  Savvy?"

"We don't know your other name, sir," rejoined Tom, eyeing the
bad man with every outward sign of courtesy.

"I'm just plain Pete.  Savvy that?

"Certainly, Plain Pete," Reade nodded.

Pete dropped his soup spoon with a clatter letting his right hand
fall to the holster.

"Be quiet, Pete," warned Blaisdell, his eyes shooting a cold glance
at the angry man.  "Reade is a newcomer, not used to our ways
yet.  Remember that this is a gentleman's club."

"Then let him get out," warned Pete blackly.

"He belongs here by right, Pete, and you're a guest.  Of course we
enjoy having you here with us, but, if you don't care to take us
as you find us, the fellows in the chainmen's mess will be glad to
have you join them."

"That tenderfoot is only a boy," growled Pete.  "If he can't hold
his tongue when men are around, then I'll teach him how."

"Reade hasn't done anything to offend you," returned Blaisdell,
half sternly, half goodhumoredly.  "You let him alone, and he'll
let you alone.  I'm sure of that."

"Blaisdell, if you don't see that I'm treated right in this mess,
I'll teach you something, too," flared Bad Pete.

"Threatening the president of the mess is a breach of courtesy
on the part of any guest who attempts it," spoke Blaisdell again.
"Gentlemen, what is your pleasure?"

"I move," suggested Slim Morris quietly, "that Pete be considered
no longer a member or guest of this mess."

"Second the motion," cried Rutter, Rice and Grant together.

"The motion appears to have been carried, without the necessity
for putting it," declared Mr. Blaisdell.  "Pete, you have heard
the pleasure of the mess."

"Huh!" scowled Bad Pete, picking up his soup plate and draining it.

Jake Wren, at this moment, entered with a big platter of roast
beef, Bob, the helper, following with dishes of vegetables.  Then
Bob came in with plates, which he placed before Blaisdell.  The
latter counted the plates, finding eight.

"We shan't need this plate, Bob," declared Blaisdell evenly, handing
it back.  Then he began to carve.

"Put that plate back with the rest, Bob, you pop-eyed coyote,"
ordered Bad Pete.

Bob, looking uneasy, started to do so, but Blaisdell waved him
away.  At that instant Jake Wren came back into the tent.

"For the present, Jake," went on the assistant engineer, "serve
only for seven in this tent.  Pete is leaving us."

"Do you mean-----" flared Pete, leaping to his feet and striding
toward the engineer.

"I mean," responded Blaisdell, without looking up, "that we hope
the chainmen's mess will take you on.  But if they don't like
you, they don't have to do so."

For ten seconds, while Pete stood glaring at Blaisdell, it looked
as though the late guest would draw his revolver.  Pete was swallowing
hard, his face having turned lead color.

"Won't you oblige us by going at once, Pete?" inquired Blaisdell
coolly.

"Not until I've settled my score here," snarled the fellow.  "Not
until I've evened up with you, you-----"

At the same time Pete reached for his revolver in evident earnest.
Both his words and his movement were nipped short.

Morris and Rice were the only men in the engineers' party who
carried revolvers.  They carried weapons, in the day time, for
protection against a very real foe, the Rocky Mountain rattlesnakes,
which infested the territory through which the engineers were
then working.

Both these engineers reached swiftly for their weapons.

Before they could produce them, however, or ore Pete could finish
what he was saying, Tom Reade leaped up from his campstool, closing
in behind the bad man.

"Ow-ow!  Ouch!" yelled Pete.  "Let go, you painted coyote."

"Walk right out of the tent, and I shall rejoice to let you depart,"
responded Tom steadily.

Standing behind the fellow, he had, with his strong, wiry fingers,
gripped Pete hard right over the biceps muscle of each arm.  Like
many another of his type Pete had developed no great amount of
bodily strength.  Though he struggled furiously, he was unable
to wrench himself free from this youth who had trained hard in
football training squads.

"Step outside and cool off, Peter," advised Tom, thrusting the
bad man through the doorway.  "Have too much pride, man, to force
yourself on people who don't want your company."

Reade ran his foe outside a dozen feet, then released him, turning
and reentering the tent.

"No, you don't!  Put up your pistol," sounded the warning voice
of Cook Jake Wren outside.  "You take a shot at that young feller,
Pete, and I'll never serve you another mouthful as long as I'm
in the Rockies!"

Bad Pete gazed fiercely toward the engineers' tent, hesitated
a moment, and then walked wrathfully away.




CHAPTER III

THE DAY OF REAL WORK DAWNS


The meal was finished in peace after that.  It was so hearty a
meal that Tom and Harry, who had not yet acquired the keen edge
of appetite that comes to hard workers in the Rockies, had finished
long before any one else.

"You fellers had better hurry up," commanded Jake Wren finally.
"It'll soon be dark, and I'm not going to furnish candles."

As the cook was an autocrat in camp, the engineers meekly called
for more pie and coffee, disposed of it and strolled out of the
mess tent over to their own little village under canvas.

"Bring over your banjo, Matt," urged Joe.  "Nothing like the merry
old twang to make the new boys feel at home in our school."

Rice needed no further urging.  As darkness came down a volume
of song rang out.

"What time do we turn out in the morning?"  Tom asked, as Mr.
Blaisdell brought over a camp stool and sat near them.

"At five sharp," responded the assistant engineer.  "An hour later
we hit the long trail in earnest.  This isn't an idling camp."

"I'm glad it isn't," Reade nodded.

Then Blaisdell chatted with the boys, drawing out of them what
they knew, or thought they knew, of civil engineering, especially
as applied to railroad building.

"I hope you lads are going to make good," said Blaisdell earnestly.
"We're in something of a fix on this work at best, and we need
even more than we have, of the very best hustling engineers that
can be found."

"I am beginning to wonder," said Tom, "how, when you have such
need of men of long training, your New York office ever came to
pick us out."

"Because," replied the assistant candidly, "the New York office
doesn't know the difference between an engineer and a railroad
tie.  Tim Thurston has been making a long yell at the New York
offices of the company for engineers.  Knowing the little that
they do, our New York owners take anyone who says he's an engineer,
and unload the stranger on us."

"I hope we prove up to the work," sighed Harry.

"We're going to size up.  We've got to, and that's all there is
to it," retorted Tom.  "We've been thrown in the water here, Harry,
and we've got to swim---which means that we're going to do so.
Mr. Blaisdell," turning to the assistant, "you needn't worry
as to whether we're going to make good.  We _shall_!"

"I like your spirit, at any rate, and I've a notion that you're
going to win through," remarked the assistant.

"You try out a lot of men here, don't you?" asked Harry.

"A good many," assented Blaisdell.

"From what I heard at table," Hazelton continued, "Mr. Thurston
drops a good many of the new men after trying them."

"He doesn't drop any man that he doesn't have to drop," returned
Blaisdell.  "Tim Thurston wants every competent man that he can
get here.  Let me see-----"

Blaisdell did some silent counting on his fingers.  Then he went
on:

"In the last eleven weeks, Thurston has dropped just sixteen new
men."

"Whew!" gasped Harry, casting a sidelong glance at his shoes,
with visions of a coming walk at least as far back as Denver or
Pueblo.

"Mr. Thurston isn't going to drop us," Tom declared.  "Mr. Blaisdell,
Hazelton and I are here and we're going to hang on if we have
to do it with our teeth.  We're going to know how to do what's
required of us if we have to stay up all night finding out.  We've
just got to make good, for we haven't any money with which to
get home or anywhere else.  Besides, if we can't make good here
we're not fit to be tried out anywhere else."

"We're in an especially hard fix, you see," the assistant engineer
explained.  "When we got our charter something less than two years
ago we undertook to have every mile of track ballasted and laid
on the S.B. & L., and trains running through, by September 30th
of this year.  There are three hundred and fifty-four miles of
road in all.  Now, in July, less than three months from the time,
this camp is forty-nine miles from the terminus of the road at
Loadstone, while the constructing engineers and the track-layers
are thirty-eight miles behind us.  Do you see the problem?"

"You can get an extension of time, can't you?" asked Tom.

"We can---_not_!  You see, boys, the S.B. & L. is the popular
road.  That is, it's the one that the people of this state backed
in the main.  When we got our charter from the legislature there
was a lot of opposition from the W.C. & A. railroad.  That organization
wishes to add to their road, using the very locations that our
preliminary engineering force selected for the S.B. & L.  The
W.C. & A. folks have such a bewildering number of millions at
their back that they would have won away from us, had they been
an American crowd.  The W.C. & A. has only American officers
and a few small stockholders in this country.  The W.C. & A.
is a foreign crowd throughout in reality, and back of them they
have about all the money that's loose in London, Paris and Berlin.
The W.C. & A. spent a lot of money at the state capital, I guess,
for it was common report that some of the members of the legislature
had sold out to the foreign crowd.  So, though public clamor carried
our charter through the legislature by sheer force, the best concession
we could get was that our road must be built and in operation
over the entire length by September 30th, or the state has the
privilege of taking over our road at an appraised value.  Do you
see what that means?"

"Does it mean that the state would then turn around and sell this
road to the W.C. & A. at a good profit?" asked Reade.

"You've hit it," nodded Mr. Blaisdell.  "The W.C. & A. would be
delighted to take over our road at a price paid to the state that
would give Colorado quite a few millions in profits.  The legislature
would then have a chance to spend those millions on public improvements
in the state.  I think you will understand why public clamor now
seems to have swung about in favor of the W.C.& A."

"Yet it seems to me," put in Harry, "that, even if the S.B. & L.
does fail to get the railroad through in time, the stockholders
will get their money back when the state takes the road over."

"That, one can never count on," retorted Blaisdell, shaking his
head.  "The state courts would have charge of the appraising of
the value of the road, and one can never tell just what courts
will award.  Ten chances to one the appraisal wouldn't cover more
than fifty per cent. of what the S.B. & L. has expended, and
thus our company would be many millions of dollars out of pocket.
Besides, if the courts could be depended upon to appraise this
uncompleted road at twenty per cent. more than has been expended
upon it, our company would still lose, for what the S.B. & L.
really expects to do is to bag the big profits that can be made
out of the section of the state that this road taps.  Take it
from me, boys, the officials of this road are crazy with anxiety
to get the road through in time, and not lose the many millions
that are waiting to be earned by the S.B. & L. getting this road
through is all that Tim Thurston dreams of, by night or day.
His reputation---and he has a big one in railroad building---is
wholly at stake on his carrying this job through.  It'll be a
big prize for all of us, professionally, if we can back Thurston's
fight to win."

"I'll back it to win," glowed Tom ardently "Mr. Blaisdell, I am
well aware that I'm hardly more than the lens cap on a transit
in this outfit, but I'm going to do every ounce of my individual
share to see this road through and running on time, and I'll carry
as much of any other man's burden as I can load onto my shoulders!"

"Good!" chuckled Blaisdell, holding out his hand.  "I see that
you're one of us, heart and soul, Reade.  What have you to say,
Hazelton?"

"I always let Tom do my talking, because he can do it better,"
smiled Harry.  "At the same time, I've known Tom Reade for a good
many years, and his performance is always as good as his promise.
As for me, Mr. Blaisdell, I've just told you that Tom does my
talking, but I back up all that he promises for me."

"Pinkitty-plank-plink!" twanged Matt Rice's banjo, starting into
another rollicking air.

"I guess it's taps, boys," called Blaisdell in his low but resonant
voice.  "Look at the chief's tent; he's putting out his candles now."

A glance at the gradually darkening walls of the chief engineers
big tent showed that this was the case.

"We'll all turn in," nodded Blaisdell.

So Tom and Harry hastened to their tent, where they unfolded their
camp cots and set them up.  There was not much bed-making.  The
body of the cot was of canvas, and required no mattress.  From
out of their baggage each took a small pillow and pair of blankets.
At this altitude the night was already rather chilly, despite
the fact that it was July.

Rapidly undressing in the dark the young engineers crawled in
between their blankets.

"Well, at last," murmured Harry, "we're engineers in earnest.
That is," he added rather wistfully, "if we last."

"We've got to last," replied Tom in a low voice, hardly above
a whisper, "and we're going to.  Harry, we've left behind us the
playtime of boyhood, and we're beginning real life!  But in that
playtime we learned how to play real football.  From now on we'll
apply all of the best and most strenuous rules of football to
the big art of making a living and a reputation.  Good night,
old fellow!  Dream of the folks back in Gridley.  I'm going to."

"And of the chums at West Point and Annapolis," gaped Hazelton.
"God bless them!"

That was not the only short prayer sent up, but within five minutes
both youngsters had fallen sound asleep.  The man who can sleep
as they did, when the head touches the pillow, has many successes
still ahead of him!

Nor did they worry about not waking in season in the morning.
Slim Morris had promised to see to it that they were awake on time.

Slam!  Bump!  Tom Reade was positive he had not been asleep more
than a minute when that rude interruption came.  He awoke to find
himself scrambling up from the ground.

Tom had his eyes open in time to see Harry Hazelton hit the ground
with force.  Then Slim Morris retreated to the doorway of the tent.

"Are you fellows going to sleep until pay days" Slim demanded jovially.

Tom hustled into his clothes, reached the doorway of the tent
and found the sun already well up in the skies.

"The boys are sitting down to breakfast," called Slim over his
shoulder.  "Want any?"

"_Do_ I want any?" mocked Tom.  He had laid out his khaki clothing
the night before, and was now in it, save for his khaki jacket,
which he caught up on his arm as he raced along toward the wash bench.

Nor had he gone very far with the soap and water when Harry Hazelton
was beside him.

"Tom, Tom!" breathed Harry in ecstacy.  "Do you blame people for
loving the Rocky Mountains?  This grand old mountain air is food
and drink---almost."

"It may be for you.  I want some of the real old camp chuck---plenty
of it," retorted Reade, drawing a pocket comb out and running it
through his damp locks while he gazed into the foot-square camp mirror
hanging from a tree.

"May we come in?" inquired Tom, pausing in the doorway of the
engineers' mess tent.

"Not if you're in doubt about it," replied Mr. Blaisdell, who
was already eating with great relish.  The boys slid into their
seats, while Bob rapidly started things their way.

How good it all tasted!  Bacon and fried eggs, corn bread and
potatoes, coffee and a big dish of that time-honored standby in
engineers' camp---baked beans.  Then, just as Tom and Harry, despite
their appetites, sat back filled, Bob appeared with a plate of
flapjacks and a pitcher of molasses.

"Ten minutes of six," observed Mr. Blaisdell, consulting his watch
as he finished.  "Not much more time, gentlemen."

Tom and Harry followed the assistant engineer out into the open.

"Can you tell us now, Mr. Blaisdell, what we're to do today?"
Reade inquired eagerly.

"See those transits?" inquired Blaisdell, pointing to two of the
telescoped and compassed instruments used by surveyors in running
courses.  "One for each of you.  Take your choice.  You'll go
out today under charge of Jack Rutter.  Of course it will be a
little bit slow to you the first two or three days, but between
you, I hope to see you do more than Rutter could do alone.  You'll
each have two chainmen.  Rutter will give you blank form books
for your field notes.  He'll work back and forth between the two
of you, seeing that you each do your work right.  Boys, don't
make any mistakes today, will you, So much depends, you know,
upon the way you start in at a new job."

"We'll do the best that's in us," breathed Tom ardently.

"Engineer Rutter," called Blaisdell, "your two assistants are
ready.  Get your two sets of chainmen and make a flying start."

Animated by the spirit of activity that pervaded the camp, Tom
and Harry ran to select their instruments, while Rutter hastened
after his chainmen.

Bad Pete had not appeared at either mess this morning.  He had
small need to, for, in the still watches of the night, he had
burglarized the cook's stores so successfully that not even that
argus-eyed individual had noticed the loss.

Having breakfasted heartily in a deep thicket, Pete now looked
down over the camp, his eyes twinkling in an evil way.

"I'll get bounced out of mess on account of two pasty-faced tenderfeet
like those boys, will I?"  Pete grumbled to himself.  "Before
this morning is over I reckon I'll have all accounts squared
with the tenderfeet!"




CHAPTER IV

"TRYING OUT" THE GRIDLEY BOYS


The chainmen picked up the transits, carrying also the chains
and rods.  Rutter led the way, Tom and Harry keeping on either
side of him, except when the rough mountain trail narrowed.  Then
they were obliged to walk at his heels.

"We are making this survey first," Rutter explained, "and then
the leveling over the same ground follows within a few days.
Both the surveying and the leveling have to be done with great
care.  They must tally accurately, or the work will all go wrong,
and the contractors would be thrown out so badly that they'd hardly
know where they stood.  A serious mistake in surveying or leveling
at any point might throw the work down for some days.  As you've
already heard explained, any delay, now, is going to lose us our
charter as sure as guns."

For more than a mile and a half the brisk walk continued.  At
last Rutter halted, pointing to a stake driven in the ground.

"See the nail head in the top of the stake?" he inquired.

"Yes," Tom nodded.

"You'll find a similar nail head in every stake.  The exact point
of the plummet of your bog-line must centre on the middle of that
nail head.  You can't be too exact about that, remember."

Turning to one of the chainmen, Rutter added:

"Jansen, take a rod and hustle along to the next stake."

"Yes, sir," answered the man, and started on a run.  Nor did he
pause until he had located the stake.  Then he signaled back with
his right hand.  Tom Reade, in the meantime, had quickly set up
his transit over the first stake on his part of the course.  He
did some rough shifting, at first, until the point of the plummet
was exactly over the nail head.  Then followed some careful adjusting
of the instrument on its supports until two fine spirit levels
showed that the compass of the instrument was exactly level.
"Now, let me see you get your sight," urged Rutter.

Tom did so, coolly, manipulating his instrument as rapidly as
he could with safety, yet not with speed enough to cause himself
confusion or worry.

"I've got a sight on the rod," announced Reade, without emotion.

"Are the cross-hairs, as you see them through the telescope, just
on the mark?" Rutter demanded.

"Yes, sir."

"Let me have a look," ordered Rutter. "A fine, close sight," he
assented, after taking a careful look through the telescope.
"Now, take your reading."

This showed the course by the compass, and was expressed in degrees,
minutes and seconds.  The poor reading of a course is one of the
frequent faults of new or careless engineers.

"Here is a magnifier for the vernier," continued Rutter, just
after Tom had started to make his reading.

"Thank you; I have a pretty good one of my own," Tom answered,
diving into one of his pockets and bringing to light a small but
powerful reading glass with an aplanatic lens.

"You carry a better magnifier than I do," laughed Rutter.  "Hazelton,
do You carry a pocket glass?"

"Yes, sir," nodded Harry "I have one just like Reade's."

"Good!  I can see that you youngsters believe in good tools."

Tom in the meantime was busy with the vernier of his transit.
This is an ingenious device for showing the smaller divisions
into which the circles of the compass are divided.  Tom quickly
jotted down his field note in degrees, minutes and seconds.  One
chainman now held an end of a hundred-link chain at the nail head
on the stake, while a second man started toward the rodman, unfolding
the chain as he went.

Tom remained over his transit.  The traveling chainman frequently
glanced back for directions from Reade whether or not he was off
the course of a straight line to the next stake.

Soon the chain-bearer was a little to the left of the line.

Tom held a hand over the telescope of the transit, moving it very
slowly to the right.  The chain-bearer, glancing slowly back,
stepped slowly to the right of the course until Tom's hand fell
abruptly.  Then the chain-bearer stopped, knowing that he was
on the right line.  A metal stake, having a loop at the top from
which fluttered a marker of red flannel, the man stuck upright
in the ground.  Tom took a peep, signaling so gently that the
man moved the stake just half an inch before Reade's hand again
fell.

"That stake is right; go ahead," ordered Tom, but he said it not by
word of mouth, but merely with a slight gesture of pushing forward.

"You've been well trained, I'll bet a hat," smiled Butter.  "I
can tell that by the practiced way that you signal.  O'Brien!"

"Yes, sir," answered another chainman, stepping forward.

"Take Thane with you, and carry Mr. Hazelton's transit to Grizzly
Ledge.  Mr. Hazelton and I will be there presently."

Two more chainmen started away.

Now, both of Tom's chainmen started forward, the rear one moving
to the first metal stake that displayed the red marker.  Tom still
remained at the transit, motioning to the men whenever they got
the least out of a true straight line to the rodman.  It was not
hard work for Reade at this point, but it required his closest
attention.

After some time had passed the chainmen had "chained" the whole
distance between Tom's stake and the rod resting on the next stake.
Now the rodman, after making a close measurement, signaled back.
Nine downward sweeps of his right arm signified nine chains;
next the movements of his arm signaled the forty-four links of
a tenth chain.  Then seven movements of the left hand across in
front of the eyes, and Reade knew that stood for seven-tenths
of a link.  Hence on the page of his field note book Tom wrote
the distance between the stakes as nine chains and forty-four
and seven-tenths links.

"That's good," nodded Rutter, who had been watching every move
closely.  The forty-four signaled by the rodman's left arm, instead
of being made up of forty-four downward strokes, had consisted
of four such strokes, followed by a pause, and then four more
strokes.

"I'll go along and see you get the course and distance to the
third rod," said Rutter.

This course and distance, too, in time, had been measured and
carefully noted by Reade.

"You'll get along all right, if you pay strict attention and don't
become confused or careless," nodded Jack Rutter.  "Now, I'll
write 'Reade' on this starting stake of yours, and I'll write
Hazelton on your friend's starting stake.  After you've surveyed
to Hazelton's starting stake let your rodman bring you forward
until you overhaul me."

"Very good, sir," nodded Tom coolly.

Rutter and Harry moved along the trail, leaving Tom with his own
"gang."

"Nothing very mentally wearing in this job," reflected Tom, when
he found himself left to his own resources.  "All a fellow has
to do is to keep his head clear, be faithful and exactly honest
with his work, and move with all the speed that good, straight
work will allow."

So Reade moved ahead, getting courses and distances to five more
stakes.  Then, as he reached the sixth, he gazed ahead and smiled.
A mountain pond lay right in his straight path to the seventh stake.

"Can that pond be easily forded?" Reade asked the nearer chainman.

"No, sir; it's about ten feet deep in the centre."

Tom smiled grimly to himself.

"Rutter didn't say anything about this to me," Tom muttered to
himself.  "He put this upon me, to see how I'd get over an obstacle
like an unfordable pond.  Well, it's going to take a lot of time
but I'll show Mr. Jack Rutter!"

Accordingly, Reade allowed his chainmen to proceed measuring until
they were fairly close to the pond.  Then he went forward to the
metal stake that had just been driven.  From this stake he laid
out a new course to the north and at exact right angles with the
proper course, sending his chainmen forward with markers.  When
he had thus passed the end of the pond Reade took another course
at exactly right angles to the northerly course, but now going
westerly.  This he extended until it passed the pond by a few
feet.  Once more Reade laid out a course, southerly, at exact
right angles with the westerly course, the southerly line being
exactly four chains in length, as the northerly line had been.
Now, the young engineer was able to resume his surveying toward
the seventh stake.  The extra route that he had followed made
three sides of a square.  Tom was now in line again, with the
pond passed, and the exact distance between the sixth and seventh
stakes.

"I guess that was where Rutter was sure he'd have me," chuckled
Tom quietly.  "He's probe ably waiting ahead to see me come hot-footing
over the trail to ask for orders."

At the tenth stake Tom found "Hazelton" written thereon.

"Men," said the young engineer, "I guess this is where we go forward
and look for the crowd.  Get up the stuff and we'll trot along."

Nearly an hour of solid tramping over the trail followed before
Tom and his party, guided by the rodman, came upon Harry Hazelton.
Jack Rutter, chewing a blade of grass, sat under a tree at a
little distance from where Harry was watching and signaling to
two chainmen who were getting a distance.

"Is your own work all done?" asked Rutter.

"Yes, sir," Tom answered.

"Let me see your field notes."

Reade passed over the book containing them.  From an inner pocket
Rutter drew out his own field note book.  Before another minute
had passed Tom had opened his eyes very wide.

"Your field notes are all straight, my boy.  If you've made any
errors, then I've made the same."

"You've already been over this work that we've been doing?" demanded
Tom, feeling somewhat abashed.

"Of course," nodded the older and more experienced engineer.
"You don't for a moment suppose we'd trust you with original work
until we had tried you out, do you?  We have all the field notes
for at least three miles more ahead of here.  Hazelton!"

"Coming," said Harry, after jotting down his last observations
and the distance.

"Let me see your last notes, Hazelton," directed Rutter.  "Yes;
your work is all right."

"What do you know about this, Harry?" laughingly demanded Reade.

"I've suspected for the last two hours that Mr. Rutter was merely
trying us out over surveyed courses," laughed Harry.

"If you don't know how to do anything other than transit work,"
Rutter declared, "the chief can use all your time at that.  He'll
be pleased when I tell him that you're at least as good surveyors
as I am.  And, Reade, I see from your notes that you knew how
to measure across a pond that your chainmen couldn't ford."

"Mr. Price taught me that trick, back in Gridley," Tom responded.

Suddenly Jack Rutter sprang to his feet sniffing vigorously.

"Boys," he announced, "an adventure is coming our way.  Can you
guess what it is?"

Tom and Harry gazed at him blankly.




CHAPTER V

TOM DOESN'T MIND "ARTILLERY"


"I give it up," Reade replied.

"Well, it's dinner time," declared Rutter, displaying the face
of his watch.

"Do we have to walk all the way back to camp?" queried Harry,
who knew that no provisions had been brought with them.

"No; camp is going to be brought to us," smiled Rutter.  "At least,
a part of the camp will be brought here.  Look up the trail there,
at that highest rise.  Do you see dust near there?"

"Yes," nodded Tom.

"A burro pack-train, conveying our food and that of the other
surveying parties ahead of us," nodded Rutter.  "You'll find the
cook's helper, Bob, in charge of it."

"Is that the way the meals are brought out every day?" asked Hazelton.

"No; but now we're getting pretty far from camp, and it would
waste a lot of our time to go back and forth.  So our noon meals
will come by burro route.  Tomorrow or the day after the camp
will be moved forward."

"How long before that train will be here?" Tom wanted to know.

"Probably ten minutes," guessed Rutter.

"Then I'm going to see if I can't find some little stream such
as I've passed this morning," Tom went on.  "I want to wash before
I'm introduced to clean food."

"I'll go along presently," nodded Harry to his chum.  "There's
something about the spirit level on this transit of mine that
I want to inspect."

So Tom Reade trudged off into the brush alone.  After a few minutes
he returned.

"That burro outfit in sight?" he called, as he neared the trail.

"No," answered Rutter.  "But it's close.  Once in a while I can
hear a burro clicking his hoofs against stones."

Harry appeared two minutes later, just as the foremost burro,
with Bob by its head, put in an appearance about fifty yards away.

"All ready for you, Bob," called Rutter good-humoredly.

"You gentlemen of the engineer corps are always ready," grunted
the cook's helper.

A quick stop was made, Bob unloading tin plates, bowls and cups.

"Soup!" cried Rutter in high glee.  "This is fine living for buck
engineers, Bob!"

"There's even dessert," returned the cook's helper gravely, exposing
an entire apple pie.

There was also meat, still fairly warm, as well as canned vegetables
in addition to potatoes.  A pot of hot coffee finished the repast
that Bob unloaded at this point.

"Everything but napkins!" chuckled Rutter, as he and the boys
quickly "set table" on the ground.

"No; something else is missing," answered Tom gravely.  "Bob forgot
the finger-bowls."

The helper, beginning to feel that he was being "guyed," took
refuge in cold indifference.

"Just stack the things up at this point when you're through," directed
Bob.  "I'll pick 'em up when I come back on the trail."

Rutter, like a good chief, saw to it that his two assistants and
the chainmen were started on their meal ere he himself began.
In half an hour every morsel of food and the final drop of coffee
had disappeared.

"Twenty minutes to loaf," advised Rutter, throwing himself on
the ground and closing his eyes.  "I'll take a nap.  You'd better
follow my example."

"Then who'll call us?" asked Tom.

"I will," gaped Rutter.

"Without a clock to ring an alarm?"

"Humph!  Any real backwoods engineer can wake up in twenty minutes
if he sets his mind on it," retorted Jack.

This was a fact, though it was the first that Tom or Harry had
heard of it.

"See the time?" called Rutter, holding out his watch.  "Twenty
minutes of one.  I'll call you at one o'clock---see if I don't."

In that fine air, with all the warmth of the noon hour, there
was no difficulty in going to sleep.  Truth to tell, Tom and Harry
had tramped so far that forenoon that they were decidedly tired.
Within sixty seconds both "cubs" were sound asleep.

"One o'clock!" called Rutter, sitting up and consulting his watch.
"Fall to, slaves!  There is a big batch of work awaiting us.
Hazelton, you can go right on where you left off.  Survey along
carefully until you come upon a stake marked 'Reade.' Then come
forward until you find us.  Reade, I'll go along with you and
show you where to break in."

Preceded by their chainmen, Rutter and Reade trudged along the
trail for something like a mile.

"Halt," ordered Jack Rutter.  "Reade, write your autograph on that
stake and begin."

Tom stepped over to the transit, adjusting it carefully and setting
the hanging plummet on dead centre with the nail head in the top
of the short stake.

"Never set up a transit again," directed Rutter, "without making
sure that your levels are absolutely true, and that your vernier
arrangement is in order."

"I don't believe you'll ever catch me at that, Mr. Rutter," Tom
answered, busying himself with the finer adjustments of the transit.
"Mr. Price pounded that into me every time that he took me out
in the field."

"Nevertheless," went on Rutter, "I have known older engineers
than you, Reade, who became careless, and their carelessness cost
their employers a lot of wasted time and money.  Now, you-----"

At this juncture Jack Rutter suddenly crouched behind a low ledge
at the right.

"Get behind here, quickly, Reade!" called Rutter.  "Bad Pete is
up the hillside, about two hundred yards from you-----"

"I haven't time to bother with him, now," Tom broke in composedly.

"Duck fast, boy!  Pete has an ugly grin on his face, and he's
reaching for his pistol.  He's got it out---he's going to shoot!"
whispered Rutter, drawing his head down where it would be safe
from flying bullets.

The chainmen, lounging nearby, had wasted no time in getting safely
to cover.

"Going to shoot, is he?" murmured Tom, without glancing away from
the instrument.  "Does Peter really know how to shoot,"

"You'll find out!  Jump---like a flash, boy!"

Tom went calmly on tinkering with the mechanism of his instrument.

Bang! sounded up the trail.  Tom's fingers didn't falter as he
adjusted a small, brass screw.

Bang! came the second shot.  Tom betrayed no more annoyance than
before.  Bad Pete was aiming to drive bullets into the ground close
to the young engineer's feet, making him skip about.  The sixth shot
Pete was saving for clipping Reade's hat from his head.

The shots continued to ring out.  Tom, though he appeared to be
absorbed in his instrument, counted.  When he had counted the
sixth shot Reade dropped suddenly, picked up a stone that lay
at his feet, and whirled about.

Tom Reade hadn't devoted years to ball-playing without knowing
how to throw straight.  The stone left his hand, arching upward,
and flew straight toward Bad Pete, who had advanced steadily as
he fired.

Whiff!  Though Pete tried, too late, to dodge the stone, it landed
against his sombrero, carrying that away without injuring the
owner.

"Kindly clear out!" called Tom coolly.  "You and your noise annoy me
when I'm trying to do a big afternoon's work."

Snatching up his sombrero, Bad Pete vanished into a clump of brush.

Jack Rutter leaped up from his haven of safety, advancing swiftly
to his cub assistant.

"Reade," he exclaimed, with ungrudging admiration, "you're the
coolest young fellow I ever met, without exception.  But you're
foolhardy, boy.  Bad Pete is a real shot.  One of these days,
when you're just as cool, he'll fill you full of lead!"

"If he does?" retorted Tom, again bending over his transit, "and
if I notice it, I'll throw a bigger stone at him than I did that
time, and it'll land on him a few inches lower down."

"But, boy, don't you understand that the days of David and Goliath
are gone by," remonstrated Rutter.  "It's true you're turned the
laugh on Pete, but that fellow won't forgive you.  He may open
on you again within two minutes."

"I don't believe he will," replied Tom, with his quiet smile.
"At the same time, I'll be prepared for him."

Bending to the ground, and rummaging about a bit, Reade selected
three stones that would throw well.  These he dropped into one
of his pockets.

"Now, let the bad man trot himself on, if he has to," added the
cub engineer, waving a signal to the rodman, who had just halted
at the next stake.

"Well, of all the cool ones!" grunted Rutter, under his breath.
"But, then, Reade's a tenderfoot.  He doesn't understand just
how dangerous a fellow like Pete can be."

The chainman started away to measure the distance.  From up the
hillside came sounds of smothered but very bad language.

"There's our friend Peter again," Tom chuckled to Rutter.

"Yes, and the ruffian may open on you again at any moment," warned
Jack, keeping an anxious glance turned in the direction whence
came the disturbing voice of Bad Pete.

"Oh, I don't think he will," drawled Tom, making a hand signal
to the leading chainman to step a little more to the left.  "I
hope not, anyway, for the noise of revolver shots takes my thoughts
away from my work."

Jack Rutter said no more after that, though through the rest of
the afternoon he kept an alert lookout for signs of Pete.  There
were none, however.  Rather earlier than usual, on account of
the distance back to camp, Rutter knocked off work for the entire
party and the start on the return to camp was made.

Harry Hazelton was considerably excited when he heard the news
of the firing on his chum.  Reade, however, appeared to be but
little interested in the subject.

Pete was not in camp that evening.

Rutter went at once to the tent of the chief, to tell him how
well the "cubs" had done during the day.  Nor did Jack forget
to relate the encounter with Bad Pete.

Just as the underlings of the staff were seating themselves around
the table in their mess, Mr. Thurston thrust his head in at the
doorway.

"Reade," called the chief engineer, "I have heard about your trouble
with Pete today."

"There wasn't any real trouble, sir," Tom answered.

"Fortunately for you, Reade, Pete didn't intend to hit you.  If
he had meant to do so, he'd have done it.  I've seen him shoot
all the spots out of a ten of clubs.  Don't provoke the fellow,
Reade, or he'll shoot you full of fancy holes.  Of course it showed
both grit and coolness on your part in keeping steadily on with
your work all the time the fellow was firing at you.  Still, it
was unwise to expose yourself needlessly to danger."

"I didn't consider Bad Pete particularly dangerous," Tom rejoined.

"A lawless man with a loaded revolver is hardly a safe person
to trifle with," retorted Mr. Thurston dryly.

"I see that I shall have to make a confession," smiled Tom.  "It
was this way, sir.  When Hazelton and I were on our way west Harry
insisted that we were coming into a dangerous country and that
we'd need firearms. So Harry bought two forty-five six-shooters
and several boxes of cartridges, too.  I was provoked when I heard
about it, for we hadn't any too much money, and Harry had bought
the revolvers out of our joint treasury."

"I felt sure we'd need the pistols," interrupted Hazelton.  "Today's
affair shows that I was right.  Tom, you'll have to carry one
of the revolvers after this."

"I'm no gun-packer," retorted Tom scornfully.  "Young men have
no business carting firearms about unless they're hunting or going
to war.  Any fellow who carries a pistol as he would a lead pencil
is either a coward or a lunatic."

"I'm glad to hear you say that, Reade," nodded Mr. Thurston approvingly.
"Two of my staff carry pistols, but they do so under my orders.
In the first place they're grown men, not boys.  In the second
place, they're working over a stretch of ground where rattlesnakes
are thick.  Your coolness today served you better than a pistol
would have done.  If you had had a revolver, and had drawn it,
Pete would have drilled you through the head."

"Drilled me through the head---with what?" asked Tom, smiling.

"With a bullet, of course, young man," retorted Mr. Thurston.

"I don't believe he would have gone as far as that," laughed Tom.
"You see, sir, it was like this: When I found Harry so set on
carrying a pistol, I went down deep in my own pocket and bought
two boxes of blank cartridges to fit the forty-fives.  I thought
if Harry were going to do some shooting, it would be the part
of friendship to fix him so that he could do it in safety to himself
and others."

Harry's face turned decidedly red.  He was beginning to feel foolish.

"Now, this morning," Tom continued, "when I got the khaki out
of my dunnage, I ran across the blanks.  I don't know what made
me do it, but I dropped the box of blanks into one of my pockets.
This noon, when I went off to find a stream where I could wash
up, I almost stepped on our friend Peter, asleep under a bush.
For greater comfort he had taken off his belt and holster.  Somehow,
I didn't like the idea of his being there.  As softly as I could
I crept close.  I emptied his revolver and fitted in blanks from
my own box.  Then I took about twenty cartridges out of Peter's
belt and replaced them with blanks."

"Do you mean to tell me," broke in Rutter, "that Bad Pete, when
he turned his revolver loose on you, was shooting nothing but
blanks?"

"That was all he had to shoot," Tom returned coolly.  "And blanks
were all he had in his belt to reload with.  Don't you remember
when we heard him making a noise up the hillside, and talking
in dots and dashes!"

"I do," nodded Rutter, looking half dazed.

"That," grinned Reade, "was when he started in to reload?  and
discovered that he had nothing on hand but temperance cartridges.
Here-----" Tom began to unload one of his pockets upon the wooden
table before the astonished eyes of the others.  There was a mixture
of his own blank cartridges with the real ammunition that he had
stealthily abstracted from Bad Pete's revolver and belt.

Such a whoop of glee ascended that the head chainman came running
from the other nearby mess tent to see what was up.

"Just a little joke among our youngsters, my man," explained Mr.
Thurston.  "The young gentlemen are going to keep the joke to
themselves for the present, though."

So the mystified and disappointed chainman returned to his own
crowd.

"Let me see, Reade," continued Mr. Thurston, turning once more
to Tom, "what is your salary?"

"I was taken on, sir, at forty dollars a month, as a starter,"
Tom replied.

"A young man with your size of head is worth more than that to
the company.  We'll call it fifty a month, Reade, and keep our
eyes on you for signs of further improvement," said the chief
engineer, as he turned to go back to his own waiting dinner.




CHAPTER VI

THE BITE FROM THE BUSH


From the time that they parted in the morning, until they started
to go back to camp in the afternoon, Tom and Harry did not meet
the next day.  Each, with his chainmen, was served from Bob's
burro train at noon.

"Did you see Bad Pete today?" was Harry's greeting, as they Started
back over the trail.

"No."

"Did you hear from him or of him in any way?" pressed Hazelton.

"Not a sign of any sort from Peter," Tom went on.  "I've a theory
as to what's keeping him away.  He's on a journey."

"Journey?"

"Yes; between you and me, I believe that Peter has gone in search
of someone who can sell him, or give him, a few forty-five cartridges."

"He'd better apply to you, then, Tom," grinned Harry.

"Why, I couldn't sell him any," Tom replied.

"What did you do with those you had last night?"

"You remember the unfordable pond that came in one of my courses
yesterday?"

"Yes."

"To-day I threw all of Peter's .45's into the middle of the pond.
They must have sunk a foot into the mud by this time."

"Seriously, Tom, don't you believe that you'd better take one
of the revolvers that I bought and wear it on a belt?"

"Not I," retorted Reade.  "Harry, I wish you could get that sort
of foolishness out of your head.  A revolver is of no possible
use to a man who hasn't any killing to do.  I'm trying to learn
to be a civil engineer, not a man-killer."

"Then I believe that Bad Pete will 'get' you one of these days,"
sighed Hazelton.

"Wait until he does," smiled Tom.  "Then you can have the fun
of coming around and saying 'I told you so.'"

Their chainmen were ahead of the "cub" engineers on the trail.
Tom and Harry were talking earnestly when they heard a pony's
hoofs behind them.  Hazelton turned with a start.

"Oh, it's Rutter mounted," Hazelton said, with a sigh of relief.
"I was afraid it was Bad Pete."

"Take my word for it, Harry.  Peter is a good deal of a coward.
He won't dare to show up until he has some real cartridges.
The temperance kind do not give a man like Peter any real sense
of security in the world."

Rutter rode along on his sure-footed mountain pony at a rapid
jog.  When he came close, Tom and Harry stepped aside into the
brush to let him go by on the narrow trail.

"Don't get off into the brush that way," yelled Rutter from the
distance.

"We're trying to give you room," Tom called.

"I don't need the room yet.  I won't run over you, anyway.  Stand out
of the brush, I tell you."

Tom good-humoredly obeyed, Harry moving, too, though starting
an instant later.

Prompt as he was, however, Tom Reade was a fraction of a second
too late.

Behind them there was a half-whirring, half-clicking sound.

Then Reade felt a stinging sensation in his left leg three or
four inches from the heel.

"Look out!" yelled Rutter, more excitedly than before.  "Get away
from there!"

Tom ran some distance down the trail.  Then he halted, laughing.

"I wonder what's on Rut's mind," he smiled, as Hazelton joined
him.

Jack Rutter came at a gallop, reining up hard as he reached where
Tom had stood.

Again that whirring, clicking sound.  Rutter's pony reared.

"Still, you brute!" commanded Rutter sternly.  Then, without waiting
to see whether his mount would stand alone, Rutter leaped from
saddle, going forward with his quirt---a rawhide riding whip---uplifted.

Into the brush from which Tom had stepped Rutter went cautiously,
though he did not lose much time about it.

Swish! swish! swish! sounded the quirt, as Rutter laid it on
the ground ahead of him.  Then he stepped out.  The pony had drawn
back thirty or forty feet and now stood trembling, nostrils distended.

"Is that the way you take your exercise?" Reade demanded.

Rutter, however, came running along the trail, his face white
as though from worry.

"Reade," he demanded, "Did that thing strike you?"

"What thing," asked Tom in wonderment.

"The rattler that I killed!"

"Rattler?" gasped both cub engineers.

"Yes.  From the distance I thought I saw it strike out at you.
There's a nest of the reptiles at some point near that brush.
That's why I warned you to get away from there.  Never stand
in brush, in the Rockies, unless you've looked before stepping.
Were you struck?"

"I believe something did sting me," Reade admitted, remembering
that smarting sensation in his left leg.

"Which leg was it?  demanded Rutter, halting beside the cub.

"Left---a little above the ankle," replied Tom.

"Take off your legging.  I must have a look.  Hazelton, call to
one of your chainmen and send him back to make sure of my pony."

Harry hastened to obey, then came back breathless.  Rutter, in
the meantime, had turned up enough of Tom's left trousers' leg
to bare a spot on the flesh that was red.  There were fang marks
in the centre of this reddened surface.

"You got it, boy," spoke Rutter huskily.  "Now we'll have to go
to work like lightning to save you."

"How are you going to do it?" asked Tom coolly, though he felt
decidedly queer over the startling news.

"Hazelton," demanded Rutter, turning upon the other cub engineer,
"have you nerve enough to put your lips to that wound, and draw,
draw draw as hard as you can, and keep on until you've drawn all
the poison out?"

"I have," nodded Harry, sinking to his knees beside his chum.
"I'll draw all the poison out if I have to swallow enough to
kill me."

"You won't poison yourself, Hazelton," replied Rutter quickly,
as one of the chainmen came near with the recaptured pony.  "Snake
venom isn't deadly in the stomach---only when it gets into the
blood direct.  There's no danger unless you've a cut or a deep
scratch in your mouth.  Spit the stuff out as you draw."

Having given these directions, Jack Rutter turned, with the help
of one of the chainmen to fasten a blanket behind the saddle to
make a sort of extra saddle.  The blanket had been lying rolled
at the back of the saddle.

Harry, in the meantime, without flinching, performed his task
well.  Had he but known it, Rutter's explanation of the lack of
danger was true; but in that moment, with his chum's life at stake,
Harry didn't care a fig whether the explanation were true or not.
All he thought of was saving Tom.

"I reckon that part of the job has been done well," nodded Rutter,
turning back from the horse.  "Now, Reade, I want you to mount
behind me and hold on tightly, for we're going to do some hard,
swift riding.  The sooner we get you to camp the surer you will
be of coming out of this scrape all right."

"I've never had much experience in horsemanship, and I may out
a sorry figure at it," laughed Reade, as, with Harry's help he
got up behind Rutter.

"Horsemanship doesn't count---speed does," replied Rutter tersely.
"Hold on tightly, and we'll make as good time as possible.  I'm
going to start now."

Away they went, at a hard gallop, Tom doing his best to hold on,
but feeling like a jumping-jack.

"It won't take us more than twenty minutes," promised Jack Rutter.




CHAPTER VII

WHAT A SQUAW KNEW


All the way to camp Rutter kept the pony at a hard gallop.

"Thurston!  Mr. Thurston!" he shouted.  "Be quick, please!"

Even as the young man called, Mr. Thurston ran out of his tent.

"You know something about rattlesnake bites, I believe?" Rutter
went on hurriedly, as Tom Reade slipped to the ground.  "The boy
has been bitten by one and we'll have to work quickly."

"Don't bring any liquor, though," objected Reade, leaning up against
a tree.  "If liquor is your cure for snakebites I prefer to take
my chances with the bite."

"Get the shoe off and roll up the trousers," directed the chief
engineer, without loss of words.  "Fortunately, I believe we have
someone here who knows more about treating the bites than I do.
Squaw!"

An Indian woman who had been sitting on the grass before the chief's
tent, a medley pack of Indian baskets arranged before her, glanced up.

"Snake!  You know what to do," went on Mr. Thurston hurriedly.  "You
know what to do----eh?  Pay you well."

At the last three magic words the aged squaw rose and hobbled quickly
forward.

"Take boy him tent," directed the Indian woman.

"I can walk," remarked Tom.

"No; they take you.  Heap better," commanded the woman.

Instantly Mr. Thurston and Rutter took hold of Tom, raising him
into their arms.  Through the flap of his tent they bore him,
depositing him on his cot.  The Indian woman followed them inside.

"Now you go out," she ordered, with a sweep of her hand.  "Send
him cookman.  Hot water---heap boil."

Thus ordered, Jake Wren came on the run with a kettle of boiling
water.  The Indian squaw received it with a grunt, ordering that
bowls and cups be also brought.  When Wren came the second time
he lingered curiously.

"You go out; no see what do," said the squaw.

So Jake departed, the squaw tying the flap of the tent after he
had gone.  Then, from the bosom of her dress she drew out a few
small packages of herbs.  The contents of these she distributed
in different bowels and cups.

"I'd like to see what the old witch is doing, and how she's doing
it," declared Rutter in a whisper.

"She'll stop short if she catches you looking in on her," replied
the chief, with a smile.  "For some reason these Indians are very
jealous of their secrets in treating snakebites.  They're wizards,
though, these same red-skinned savages."

"You believe, then, that she can pull Reade through?" asked Rutter
eagerly.

"If she knows her business, and if there's any such thing as saving
the boy she'll do it," declared Mr. Thurston, as they reached
the door of the chief's tent.  "Will you come inside, Rutter!
You look badly broken up."

"I am, and I shall be, just as long as Reade is in any danger,"
Rutter admitted.  "Reade is a mighty fine boy and I'm fond of
him.  Besides, more than a little of our success in getting the
road through on time depends on the boy."

"Is Reade really so valuable, then?"

"He goes over the course, Mr. Thurston, as rapidly as any man
in our corps, and his work is very accurately done.  Moreover,
he never kicks.  If you told him to work half the night, on top
of a day's work, he'd do it."

"Then Reade, if he recovers, must be watched and rewarded for
anything he does for us," murmured Mr. Thurston.

"Don't say, 'if he recovers,' chief," begged Jack.  "I hate to
think of his not pulling through from this snakebite."

"What became of the reptile that did the trick?" asked Mr. Thurston.

"That crawler will never bite anything else," muttered Rutter.
"I got the thing with my riding quirt."

Not very long after Harry Hazelton reached camp, well in advance
of the chainmen, for Harry, good school athlete that he was, had
jog-trotted every step of the way in.

"Where's Tom?" Hazelton demanded.

"Here," called a voice from Reade's tent.

Hazelton turned in that direction, but Mr. Thurston looked out
from the large tent, calling:

"Don't go there now, Hazelton.  You wouldn't be admitted.  Come here."

Despite his long run, Harry's face displayed pallor as he came
breathlessly into Mr. Thurston's field abode.  In a few words,
however, the lad was acquainted with the situation as far as it
had developed.

In the meantime what was the squaw doing with Tom?  It must be
admitted that Reade hadn't any too clear an idea.  The gaunt old
red woman poured hot water, small quantities at a time, into the
bowls and cups in which she had distributed the herbs.  Then she
stirred vigorously, in the meantime muttering monotonously in
her own language.

"She isn't relying on the herbs alone," muttered Tom curiously
to himself.  "She's working up some kind of incantation.  I wonder
what effect she expects an Indian song to have on snake poison?"

Presently the squaw turned, bringing one of the cupfuls to the
wounded boy.

"Sit up," she ordered.  "Drink!"

Tom nearly dropped it, it was so hot.

"Drink!" repeated the squaw.

"But it's so hot it'll burn my gullet out," remonstrated Reade.

"You know more I do?" demanded the squaw stolidly.  "Drink!"

Tom took a sip, and shuddered from the intense heat of the stuff.

"Humph!  White man him heap papoose!" muttered the squaw, scornfully.
"You want live, drink!"

Tom took a longer swallow of the hot stuff.  Whew, but it was
bitter!

"The bronze lady is trying to turn me inside out!" gasped the
boy to himself.

"Drink---all down!" commanded the squaw with scarcely less scorn
than before in her voice.

This time Tom took a hard grip on himself and swallowed all the
liquid.  For a moment, he thought the nauseating stuff would kill him.

"Now, eat grass," ordered the squaw.

"Meaning eat these herbs," demanded Tom, glancing up.

"Yes.  Heap quick."

"To make a fellow eat these herbs after drinking the brew from
them is what I call rubbing it in," grimaced Reade.

"Now, this," continued the squaw, calmly handing a second cup
to Tom.

"It's all right for _you_ to be calm," thought Tom, as he took
the cup from her.  "All you have to do is to stand by and watch
me.  You don't have to drink any of these fearful messes."

However, Tom brought all his will power into play, swallowing
a second brew, compared with which the first had been delicious.

"Eat this grass, too"? inquired Tom, gazing at the squaw.

"Yes."

Tom obeyed.

"I shall be very, very careful not to meet any more snakes," he
shuddered, after getting the second dose down.

Now the squaw busied herself with spreading soaked herbs on a
piece of cloth that she had torn from one of Tom's white shirts'
to which she had helped herself from his dunnage box.

"What's a dollar shirt, anyway, when an interesting young man's
life is at stake" mused Reade.  "Ow---ow---ooch!"

"You baby---papoose?" inquired the squaw calmly.  She had slapped
on Tom's leg, over the bite, a poultice that, to his excited mind,
was four hundred degrees hotter than boiling water.

"Oh, no," grimaced Tom.  "That's fine and soothing.  But it's
growing cool.  Haven't you something hotter?"

Just five seconds later Reade regretted his rashness, for, snatching
off the first poultice, the squaw slapped on a second that seemed,
in some way, ten times more powerful---and twenty times hotter.

"It's queer what an awful amount of heat a squaw can get out of
a kettle of hot water, thought the suffering boy.  I'll wager
some of the heat is due to the herbs themselves.  O-o-o-o-ow!  Ouch!"

For now the third poultice, most powerful of all, was in place,
and Mrs. Squaw was binding it on as though she intended it never
to come off.

Two minutes after that Tom Reade commenced to retch violently.
With a memory of the messes that he had swallowed he didn't wonder.
The squaw now stepped outside, calling for coffee.  This was
brought.  Tom was obliged to drink several cupfuls, after which
he began to feel decidedly more comfortable.

"Now, take nap," advised the squaw, and quitted the tent.

"The bronze lady seems to know what she's doing," thought Tom.
"I guess I'll take the whole of her course of treatment."  Thereupon
he turned his face to the wall.  Within sixty seconds he slept.

"How's Reade?" demanded Harry, rising eagerly as the squaw stepped
inside the chief's tent.

"He sleep," muttered the squaw.

"He---he---isn't dead!" choked Harry, turning deathly pale.

"You think I make death medicine?" demanded the squaw scornfully.
"You think me heap fool?"

"The young man will be all right, squaw?" asked Mr. Thurston.

"Humph!  Maybe," grunted the red woman.  "Yes, I think so.  You
know bimeby."

"That's the Indian contempt for death," explained the chief engineer,
turning to Harry.  "I imagine that Reade is doing all right, or
she wouldn't have left him."

However, Hazelton was not satisfied with that.  He slipped out,
crossed camp and stealthily peeped inside of the tent.  Then
Hazelton slipped back to Mr. Thurston to report.

"If Tom doesn't swallow some of those big snores of his, and choke
to death, I think he'll get well," said Harry, with a laugh that
testified to the great relief that had come to his feelings.  With
that all hands had to be content for the time being.




CHAPTER VIII

'GENE BLACK, TROUBLE-MAKER


In the morning Tom Reade declared that he was all right.  The
old Indian squaw had pronounced him safe, and had gone on her way.

"You'll stay in camp today, Reade," announced Mr. Thurston, dropping
into the mess tent.

"With all the work there is ahead of us, sir?" cried Reade aghast.

"That's why you'll stay," nodded Mr Thurston.  "Your life has
been saved, but after the shock you had yesterday you're not as
strong as you may feel.  One day of good rest in camp will fit
you for what's ahead of us in the days to come.  The strain of
tramping miles and working like a steam engine all day is not
to be thought of for you today.  Tomorrow you'll go out with the
rest."

Tom sighed.  True, he did not feel up to the mark, and was eating
a very light breakfast.  Still he chafed at the thought of inaction
for a whole day.

"The chief wouldn't order you to stay in," remarked Blaisdell,
after Mr. Thurston had gone, "unless he knew that to be the best
thing for you."

So, after the engineers, their chainmen and rodmen had left camp
Tom wandered about disconsolately.  He tried to talk to the cook,
but Jake and his helper were both rushed in getting the meal that
was to be taken out over the trail by burro train.

"Lonely, Reade?" called the chief from his tent.

"Yes, sir," Tom nodded.  "I wish I had something to do."

"Perhaps I can find work for you in here.  Come in."

Tom entered eagerly.  Mr. Thurston was seated at the large table,
a mass of maps and field notes before him.

"How are you on drawing, Reade?" queried his chief.

"Poor, sir."

"Never had any training in that line?"

"I can draw the lines of a map, sir, and get it pretty straight,
as far as the mathematics of map-drawing goes," Tom answered.
"But another man has to go over my work and put in the fine touches
of the artist.  You know what I mean, sir; the fancy fixings of
a map."

"Yes, I know," nodded Mr. Thurston.  "I can sympathize with you,
too, Reade, for, though I always longed to do artistic platting
(map-work) I was always like yourself, and could do only the mathematical
part of it.  You can help me at that, however, if you are careful
enough.  Take a seat at that drawing table; and I'll see what
you can do."

First, Reade stepped to a box that held map paper.  Taking out
a sheet, he placed it on the surface of the drawing table, then
stuck in thumb-tacks at each of the four corners.

"All ready, sir," he announced.

Mr. Thurston stepped over with an engineer's field note book.

"See if these notes are all clear," directed the chief engineer.

"Yes, sir; I know what the notes call for," Tom answered confidently.

"Then I'll show you just what's wanted Reade," continued the chief.

After some minutes of explanation Tom picked up the T-square,
placing the top at the side of the drawing surface.  Then against
the limb of the "T" Tom laid the base of a right-angled triangle.
Along this edge he drew his perpendicular north-and-south line
in the upper left-hand corner.  He crossed this with a shorter
line at right angles, establishing his east-and-west line.  Mr.
Thurston, standing at the cub engineer is back, looked on closely.

Tom now settled on his beginning point, and made the dot with
his pencil.  From that point he worked rapidly, making all his
measurements and dotting his points.  Then he began to draw in.
The chief engineer went back to his table.

After Tom had worked an hour the chief interrupted him.

"Now, Reade, get up and let me sit down there for a little while.
I want to go over your work."

For some minutes Mr. Thurston checked off the lad's work.

"You really know what you are doing, Reade," he said at last.
"Your line measurements are right, and your angles tally faultlessly,
I'm glad I kept you back today.  You can help me here even more
than in the field.  Tomorrow, however, I shall have to keep Rice
back.  He's our ornamental draughtsman, and puts in the fine,
flowery work on our maps.  Here's some of his work."

Tom gazed intently at the sheet that Mr. Thurston spread for his
inspection.

"Rice does it well," remarked Reade thoughtfully.  "You've one
other man in the corps who can do the pretty draughting about as well."

"Who is he?"

"Hazelton.  Harry doesn't do the mathematical part as easily as
I do, but he has a fine talent for fancy drawing, sir."

"Then I'll try Hazelton tonight," decided Mr. Thurston aloud.
"You may go on with your drawing now, Reade.  Hello; someone
is coming into camp."

Mr. Thurston stepped over to the doorway in time to see a young
man riding up on a pony.

"Where's the chief engineer?" called the newcomer.

"You're looking at him," replied Mr. Thurston.

The young man, who appeared to be about twenty-eight years of
age, rode his horse to a near-by tree, then dismounted gracefully
and tied his mount.

The young man was well-built, dark-haired and smooth-faced, with
snapping black eyes.  There was an easy, half-swaggering grace
about him suggesting one who had seen much of free life in the
open air.  For one attired for riding in saddle over mountain
trails the stranger was not a little of a dandy in appearance.
His khaki trousers and leggings, despite his probably long ride,
were spotless.  His dark-blue flannel shirt showed no speck of
dust; his black, flowing tie was perfection; his light-hued sombrero
looked as though it had just left the store.

"If you are Mr. Thurston, I have the honor to present a letter,"
was the stranger's greeting as he entered the large tent.

Mr. Thurston glanced at the envelope, reading: "Mr. Eugene Black."

"Be seated, Mr. Black," requested the chief, then opened the letter.

"Oh, you're a new engineer, sent out from the offices in New York,"
continued the chief.

"Yes," smiled the newcomer.

"An experienced engineer, the vice-president of the company informs
me."

"Six years of experience," smiled the newcomer, showing his white,
handsome teeth.

Tom glanced up just in time to see that smile.  "Somehow, I don't
quite like the looks of Mr. Black," Reade decided.

"What is your especial line of work, Mr. Black?" Thurston continued.

"Anything in usual field work, sir."

"This letter states that you expect one hundred and twenty-five
dollars a month."

"Then the letter is correct, sir."

"All right, Mr. Black; we'll put you at work and let you prove
that you're worth it," smiled Mr. Thurston pleasantly.

"How soon shall I go to work, sir?" asked Black.

"I expect my assistant, Mr. Blaisdell, here in about an hour.
I'll send you out with him when he returns to field."

"Then, if you're through with me at present, sir, I'll step outside
and be within call."

Tom and his chief were again alone.  Reade kept steadily on with
his work, and no word was spoken for half an hour.  Then there
came a commotion in camp, for four drovers came in with two dozen
horses that had been ordered for the use of the engineering party.

"Step outside, Reade, and see the horses, if you care to do so,"
suggested Mr. Thurston, reaching for his sombrero.

"Thank you, sir; but the horses will keep, and I'm greatly interested
in finishing my drawing so that I can take up more work."

"That young cub, Reade, is no idler." thought the chief, as he
stepped into the open.

Tom kept steadily at work.

Ten minutes later, Thurston still being absent, Eugene Black strolled
into the tent.  He glanced at Tom's drawing with some contempt,
then inquired:

"Drawing, boy?"

"Why, not?" laughed Tom.  "I'm only one of the stable boys, and,
as you can see, I'm currying a horse."

"Stop that sort of nonsense with me, right at the start," flashed
Black angrily, striding closer.  "I don't allow boys to be fresh
with me."

"Where's the boy?" drawled Tom, turning slightly, for a better view \
of the stranger's face.

"You're one," snapped Black.

"What are you?" Tom asked curiously.

"I'm an engineer."

"If that is anything to be chesty about, then I'm an engineer also,"
Reade replied, rising.

"Sit down, boy!" commanded Black angrily.

The trace of frown on Reade's face disappeared.  He smiled
good-humoredly as he observed.

"Black, I'm a bit uncertain about you."

"_Mister_ Black, boy!" warned the other, his dark eyes snapping.
"Why are you uncertain about me?"

"I'm wondering," purred Tom gently, "whether you are just _trying_
to be offensive, or whether you don't know any better than to talk
and act the way you do?"

"You young puppy, I'll teach you something right now," cried Black,
stepping closer and raising a clenched fist.

"Look out," begged Tom.  "You'll upset my drawing table."

Eugene Black closed in, striking out.  Reade who felt that the
situation didn't call for any fighting, retreated, still smiling.

Whether by accident or design, Black, as he made a half turn to
start after the cub engineer anew, brushed a corner of the unstable
drawing table hard enough to tip it over.  A bottle of drawing
ink fell, too, splashing ugly black blotches over Tom's carefully
drawn outlines of a map.

"Now, you've done it!" exclaimed Tom.

"I haven't quite finished," snapped the stranger, rushing after Reade.

"I'm going to box your ears soundly, boy!"

"Are you, indeed?" demanded Tom, halting.  He was still smiling,
but there was a stern look in his eyes.  Tom no longer retreated,
but stood awaiting Black's assault.

Blanks fist shot out straight, but Reade didn't stop the blow.
Instead, he ducked low.  When he came up his arms enveloped Black's
legs in one of the swift football tackles that Tom had learned
with the Gridley High School football team.

"You annoy me," drawled Tom, and hurled the fellow ten feet away.
Black landed on his back with an angry roar, followed by cursing.

"Profanity is always objectionable to a gentleman," declared Tom
dryly, running over ere the newcomer could regain his feet.  Once
more Reade bent and rose.  As he did so, Eugene Black shot through
the tent doorway, landing on the ground a dozen feet beyond.

Tom stood in the doorway, smiling.  Black leaped to his feet.

"You puppy!" gasped Black, sending his right hand back to his
hip pocket.  Tom didn't wait to see what he would bring out, but
darted forward.  This time he seized the stranger in a dead tackle,
dropping him over on his back without throwing him.

"Now, roll over," ordered Reade grimly.  "I'm curious to see what
you have in your pocket.  Ah!  So---this is it!  You're another
Peter Bad, are you?"

Tom held in one hand a silver-plated revolver with ivory handle
that he had snatched out of Black's pocket.

"I wonder why it is," mocked Tom, grinning, "that nine out of
every ten dude tenderfeet from the east come west with one of
these things."

Black charged the cub, intent on recapturing his pistol, but Reade
shot out a foot, tripping him.  Then Tom ran nimbly over to the
cook tent.  Here he halted, breaking the weapon at the breech
and allowing the cartridges to drop into his hand.  He transferred
them to his pocket, then wheeled and picked up Jake's kitchen
hatchet.

With a few swift strokes from the head of the hatchet Tom put
that firearm on the retired list for good.

"Give me my pistol, boy!" choked Black, running up.

"Certainly," rejoined Reade, wheeling and politely offering the
ruined firearm.  "I don't want it.  I've no use for such things"

Black took his weapon, gasped, then, seizing it by the barrel,
leaped at Tom, intent on battering his head.

"Here, what's the trouble?" cried Mr. Thurston, appearing around
the corner of the cook house and promptly seizing Black by the
collar of his flannel shirt.

"Nothing much, sir," laughed Tom.  "Mr. Black has just been showing
me how bad men behave out in this part of the country."

"This boy is a troublesome cub, Mr. Thurston," declared Black
hotly.  "Do you see what he has done to my revolvers"

"How did Reade come to have it?" inquired Mr. Thurston.

"He snatched it away from me."

"Reade, is this true?" demanded the chief engineer, turning to
the youth.

"Yes, sir; as far as the story goes."

"Tell me the whole truth of this affair," ordered Mr. Thurston
sternly.

Tom started to do so, modestly, but Black broke in angrily at
points in the narrative.

"The principal thing that I have against Mr. Black," Tom said,
"is that he spoiled all my drawing work of this morning."

"Yes; but how did I come to do it?" insisted the newcomer.  "You
pushed me against your drawing table."

Tom started with astonishment.

"My friend," he remarked, "Baron Munchausen never had anything
on you!"

"Careful, Reade!  Don't pass the lie," ordered the chief engineer
sternly.  "I shall look fully into this matter, but at present
I'm inclined to believe that you're more at fault than is Black.
Return to the tent and start your drawing over again."

There was a smile again on Tom's face as he turned back to make
his spoiled work good.

Mr. Thurston went back to his inspection of the ponies.  Later,
the chief engineer was able to pick up some details of the trouble
from Jake Wren, who had seen Black reach for his revolver.

"Understand two things, Mr. Black," said the chief briskly.  "In
the first place, it is not expected that the engineers of this
corps will find any real cause for fighting.  Second, I will tolerate
no pistol nonsense here."

Then he went back to Tom Reade and spoke to him more quietly.

"Reade, if Black doesn't turn out to be a valuable man here he
won't last long.  If he is a good man, then you will find it necessary,
perhaps, to use a little tact in dealing with him.  Did you notice
what snapping black eyes the man has?  Men with such black eyes
are usually impulsive.  Remember that."

"I never thought of that before, sir," Tom admitted dryly.  "I
really didn't know that people with black eyes are impulsive.
This I do know, however, people who are too impulsive generally
get black eyes!"




CHAPTER IX

"DOCTORED" FIELD NOTES?


There was no more trouble---immediately.  When the other engineers
heard of the row---which news they obtained through Jake, not
from Reade---they soon made it plain to 'Gene Black that Tom Reade
was a favorite in the corps.  Black was therefore treated with
a coldness that he strove hard to overcome.

In the matter of being a capable civil engineer 'Gene Black speedily
proved himself efficient.  Assistant Chief Engineer Blaisdell
soon reported at headquarters that the new member of the corps
was an exceedingly valuable man.  Black was therefore placed at
the head of a leveling squad that obtained the field notes from
which were to be estimated the cost of making excavations in several
cuts that must be made ere the coming tracks could be laid.

In the days that passed Tom and Harry saw little of the field
work.  They were kept at the chief's tent.  Hence Reade had but
little to do with 'Gene Black, which may have been fortunate,
as Tom still retained his first instinctive dislike for the black-eyed
fellow.

* * * * * * * * *

"Reade and Hazelton, you two young men are going to forge ahead
rapidly, and you are sure to earn good salaries, if you don't
make the too common mistake of young engineers first starting
out," Mr. Thurston told the cubs one forenoon.

"And what is that mistake, sir, if you please?" Tom queried.

"Don't make the mistake of getting too large an idea of the value
of your services," replied the chief.  "Just work hard all the
time and be wholly unassuming.

"I think we can follow that advice, sir," Tom replied, with a
smile.

"If you can, you'll get along rapidly.  I have already written
to our officers in New York, thanking them for having sent you
two young men."

"Here's the map I have just finished, sir," said Harry, rising
from his drawing table on which were arranged the various draughtsman's
inks and washes---the latter being thin solutions of water colors
with which some parts of the maps were colored.

"Very handsomely done, Hazelton.  Reade, what are you doing?"

"I'm at work on Black's field notes of the leveling," Tom answered.

"I am very much pleased with Black's work," replied Mr. Thurston.
"His notes show that we are going to get out of the excavating
in the cuts at about one third of the trouble and expense that
I had looked for."

"Black's field notes certainly do look good, sir, for they show
that you can get the work through on this division in much less
time than you had supposed."

As he turned around to speak, Tom sat where he could easily see
the colored field map that Harry had just turned in to the chief.

"Hold on, there, Harry," Tom objected.

"You've lined in a pretty high hill on Section Nineteen.  You'll
have to cut that down a bit."

"The surveyor's field notes call for that hill," Hazelton retorted.

"But, as it happens," objected Tom, "I'm just working out the
profile drawing of Section Nineteen from Black's notes.  See here-----"
Tom rested a pencil point on a portion of the hill depicted on
Hazelton's map.  "You've drawn that pretty steep.  Now, as you'll
see by Black's notes, the upgrade at that point is only a three
per cent. grade."

"Humph!  It's all of an eight per cent. grade," grunted Hazelton.
"See, here are the surveyor's field notes."

"Three per cent. grade," insisted Tom, holding forward Black's
leveling notes.

"There's a difference there, then, that must be reconciled," broke
in Mr. Thurston, rising, a look of annoyance on his face.  "We
can't have any such disagreement as that between the field map
and the profile sheet.  Let us find out, at once, where the trouble
lies."

Yet the more the three pondered over the matter the greater became
the puzzle.  The notes of the surveyor, Matt Rice, and of the
leveler, 'Gene Black, were at utter variance.

"We must get hold of these men as soon as they come in tonight,"
exclaimed Mr. Thurston, much disturbed.  "We must find out just
which one is at fault."

"Rice is a very reliable man, sir," spoke up Tom.

"Yes; but Blaisdell reports that Black thoroughly understands
his work, too," grumbled the chief.  "We must settle this tonight."

"May I make a suggestion, sir?" asked Tom.

"Certainly.  Go ahead."

"There is no use, sir, in my going ahead with this profile drawing,
if there's a chance that the sights turned in by Black are wrong.
Until we know, my time at this drawing board may all be wasted.
Trotter, one of the rodmen, is in camp today.  I might take him,
and a level along, and go over the foresights and backsights myself.
All of the stakes will be in place.  In two hours I ought to
have a very good set of leveling notes.  Then I can bring them
back and compare them with Black's sights."

"Can you run a level well?" inquired Mr. Thurston.

"Of course I can, sir.  It's simple enough work, and I've done
a good bit of it in the east."

"Go along, then, and see if you can throw any light on this,"
sighed the disturbed chief.

"Reade really ought to have two rodmen," broke in Harry eagerly.
"May I go along, sir, to serve as the other rodman?"

"Run along," assented Mr. Thurston.  "Remember, boys, I can't
go any further until this tangle is settled.  Come back as speedily
as you can."

Tom and Harry snatched up their sombreros, hurrying forth.  Trotter
was found readily, and was ordered to saddle three ponies.  Tom
busied himself in picking out the best leveling instrument in
camp, while Hazelton secured the rods and a chain.  Then the party
set forth in Indian file, Tom riding in advance.

A trot of half an hour brought them to Section Nineteen.  Here
Tom speedily adjusted his instrument, taking up his post over
the first stake at the bottom of the hill.

Leveling is not difficult work, though it calls for some judgment
and a good deal of care.  For instance, when Tom set his telescope
exactly level and took a reading of the rod at the second stake,
which Harry held, he read the height as eight feet and four inches.
Then he trudged forward, carrying his instrument, while Trotter
held his rod exactly perpendicular over the first stake.  From
the second stake Tom sighted back through his telescope, reading
two feet three inches.  The difference between these two readings
was six feet and one inch, showing that, for the distance between
first and second stakes the rise in the hillside was six feet
one inch.  Thereupon Reade turned and sighted, from stake number
two to stake number three, noting in his book the reading he secured
from the rod at number three.  Once at number three he turned
his telescope backward, taking a reading from Trotter's rod at
number two.  Ten stakes were thus covered, and not only were the
foresights and backsights read and recorded, but the distance
between each pair of stakes was measured with the chain and the
distances entered on the record.

At stake number ten Tom halted.

"Harry," he directed, "you take Black's leveling notes and hold
them while I read my own notes.  Stop me every time that you note
a difference between the two records."

After that Harry steadily stopped his chum at every reading.
By the time that they had finished the comparisons Hazelton's
face looked blank from sheer astonishment.

"Why, every single one of Blacks foresights and backsights is
wrong!" gasped Harry.  "And yet Mr. Blaisdell reported that 'Gene
Black is such a fine engineer."

Tom turned to make sure that Trotter was resting out of hearing
before he replied:

"Harry, Black isn't such a fool as to bring in an absolutely wrong
record of sights, and yet do it innocently.  If he didn't do it
unintentionally, then he must have tangled the record purposely."

"But why should he do it purposely?" Harry insisted.  "He would
know that, sooner or later, his blunders or lies would be discovered,
and that he would be discharged.  Now, Black really wants to hold
his job with this outfit."

"Does he?" asked Tom bluntly.

"Why, what do you mean?"

"I don't know," Reade confessed.  "I never heard of any such bungle
as this before by an engineer.  Why, Harry, this hillside averages
an eight and a third grade, yet Black's field notes show it to
be only a three per cent. grade.  Hang it, the fellow must have
played the trick purposely!"

"Yet why?" pressed Hazelton.

"I'll admit that I can't understand.  Unless, well---unless-----"

"Say it!"

"Unless Black joined this outfit with the express purpose of
queering all the work of the entire corps as he could easily
do.  Harry, do you think that Black could possibly be serving
with this outfit as the paid tool of the rival road, the W.C.
& A.?  Can he be the enemy's spy within our lines---sent to prevent
our finishing the road on time?"




CHAPTER X

THINGS BEGIN TO GO DOWN HILL


"I suppose I'm thick," Harry murmured.  "How would Black, by turning
in some wrong backsights and foresights, expect to delay the building
of the road, even if he wanted to do it?"

"How?" repeated Tom Reade, showing an amount of heat and excitement
that he rarely displayed.  "Why, Harry, this same old Section
Nineteen is one of the hard spots on the road.  A lot of excavating
has to be done before the tracks can be laid here.  It's not a
mere matter of scooping up dirt and removing it, either.  A large
amount of solid rock has to be blasted out here before the roadbed
can be laid."

"I know it," Harry nodded.

"Well, then, at the present moment our chief, Mr. Thurston, is
preparing the estimates for the work that must be done.  On his
estimates will be based the strength of the laboring gangs that
must come forward to do the work."

"Yes."

"Then, suppose that Mr. Thurston has been misled into making a
certain estimate as to the number of thousand cubic yards of stuff
that must be taken out of the outs that are to be made.  After
he gets his laborers here, and at work, he finds that he has at
least three times as much rock and dirt to get out-----"

"I see," cried Hazelton.  "Before the chief could get men and
wagons, and make all necessary changes in the work, the time would
have slipped by so far that the finishing of the road would be
blocked."

"And the S.B. & L. would lose its charter," finished Tom grimly.

"It's mighty lucky that we came out here today, then," exclaimed
Hazelton, now fully alive to the danger that menaced their employers.
"Come, we must hustle back to camp and show Mr. Thurston how
he has been imposed on.  There can't be a doubt that 'Gene Black
has been deliberately crooked."

"Go slowly," advised Tom.  "Don't be in a rush to call any other
man a crook.  Mr. Thurston can hear our report.  Then he can look
into it himself and form his own opinion.  That's as far as we
have any right to go in the matter."

"Thurston is at fault in not having come out here himself," Harry
continued.  "The chief engineer in charge of a job should know
every foot of the way."

"Thurston, from the nature of his own work, is obliged to leave
much of the detail to his assistant, Mr. Blaisdell," Tom explained.

"Then why doesn't Blaisdell look out that no such treacherous
work is done by any member of the engineer corps?" flared Harry.

"'Gene Black is plainly a very competent man," Reade argued.
"The work has had to be rushed of late, and, on so simple a matter
as leveling, I don't suppose Blaisdell has thought it at all necessary
to dig into Black's field notes."

"I hope Black is fired out of this outfit, neck and crop!" finished
Hazelton.

"That's something with which we have nothing to do," Reade retorted.
"Harry, we'll confine ourselves to doing our work well and reporting
our results.  Mr. Thurston is intelligent enough to form all his
own conclusions when he has our report.  Come, it's high time
for us to be putting the ponies to real speed on the trail back."

Not long afterwards the young engineers rode into the engineer
camp.  Harry dismounted, seating himself on the ground, while
Tom hurried toward the chief's big tent.

It was Blaisdell who sat in the chief's chair when Tom entered.

"Oh, hello, Reade," was the assistant's pleasant greeting.

"Where's the chief?"

"Gone back to the track builders.  You know, they're within fourteen
miles of us now."

"When will Mr. Thurston be back?"

"I don't know," Blaisdell answered.  "In the meantime, Reade, you
know, I'm acting chief here."

"I beg your pardon," Tom murmured hastily.

"The chief told me, just before leaving, that you thought some of
Black's sights on Section Nineteen are wrong," Blaisdell pursued.

"They're all wrong," Reade rejoined quietly.

"_All_?" echoed Blaisdell, opening his eyes very wide.

"Yes, sir; everyone of them."

"Come, come, Reade!" remonstrated the acting chief.  "Don't try
to amuse yourself with me.  All of the sights can't be wrong."

"But they are, sir.  Hazelton and I have been over them most carefully
in the field.  Here are _our_ notes, sir.  Look them over and
you'll find that Section Nineteen calls for three or four times
as much excavating as Black's notes show."

"This is strange!" mused Blaisdell, after comparing the two sets
of notes.  "I can't credit it.  Reade, you and Hazelton are very
young---mere cubs, in fact.  Are you sure that you know all you
owlet to know about leveling?"

"Mr. Blaisdell, I'll answer you by saying, sir, that though Hazelton
and I are nothing but cubs, we have the success of this railroad
building game at heart.  We're deeply in earnest.  We'll work
ourselves to our very bones in order to see this road get through
in time.  I don't ask you, sir, to take our word about these sights,
but we both beg you, sir, to go out with a gang of men and go
over some of the work yourself.  Keep on surveying, sir, until
you're satisfied that Black is wrong and that Hazelton and I are
right.  You know what it would mean, sir, if we're right and you
don't find it out in time.  Then you simply couldn't get the cut
through Section Nineteen in time and the S.B. & L. would lose
its charter."

"By Jove, you're right," muttered Blaisdell uneasily, as he slowly
stood up.  "Reade, I'm going to take men and go out, carrying
your notes and Black's.  Let me warn you, however, that if I find
that Black is right and you're wrong, then it will give you two
cubs such a black eye that the chief will run you out of camp."

"If we had made any such gigantic blunder as that," returned Tom
firmly, "then we'd deserve to be run out.  We wouldn't have the
nerve to put in another night in camp."

"Hey, you, don't unsaddle those ponies.  Hold yourselves ready
to go out," called Blaisdell from the doorway of the tent.

"Will you give us our orders on drawing before you go, sir?" asked
Reade.

"No," smiled Blaisdell.  "If you've made a blunder out on Nineteen,
then you're not to be trusted with drawing.  Wait until I return.
Take it easy until then."

"Very good."

"And---Reade!"

"Yes, sir."

"Neither you nor Hazelton are to let a word cross your lips regarding
the disagreement over Section Nineteen."

"You'll never have any trouble, sir, over our talking when we ought
not to do it," promised Reade.

Two minutes later the assistant engineer rode out with a pair of
rodmen whom he picked up on the way to Nineteen.

"What happened?" asked Harry, coming into the big tent.

Tom told him all that had taken place, adding the caution that
nothing was to be said about the matter for the present.

"Whew!  I wish Mr. Blaisdell had let me go along," murmured Hazelton.
"I'd like to have seen his face when he finds out!"

Hearing footsteps approaching outside, Reade signaled for silence.
Then the flap of the tent was pulled back and Bad Pete glanced in.

"Howdy, pardners?" was the greeting from the bad man, that caused
Tom Reade almost to fall from his campstool.

"How are you, Peter?" returned Tom.  "This is, indeed, a pleasure."

"Where's the boss?" continued Bad Pete.

"If you mean Mr. Thurston, he's away."

"Where's Blaisdell, then?"

"He hit the trail, just a few minutes ago," Tom responded.

"Then I suppose you have no objections if I sit in here a while?"

"Peter," replied Tom solemnly, "you'll be conferring a great honor
on us."

The bad man's present mood was so amiable that Harry did not deem
it desertion to go outside.  Bad Pete had his cartridge belt restocked
with sure-enough cartridges, and his revolver swung as jauntily
in its holster as ever.  Pete seemed to have no idea, however, of
trying to terrify anyone with his hardware.

"You've been away?" suggested Tom, by way of making conversation,
after an awkward silence had endured for nearly two minutes.

"Yep," admitted the bad one.  "Pardner, it seems like home to
get back.  Do you know, Reade, I've taken a big liking to you?"

"Peter," protested Tom, "if you don't look out you'll make me
the vainest cub on earth."

"I mean it," asserted Pete.  "Pardner, I've a notion me and you
are likely to become big friends."

"I never dared to hope for so much," breathed Tom, keeping back
a laugh.

"'Cause," continued Bad Pete, "I reckon you're one of the kind
that never goes back on a real pardner."

"I should hope not," Tom assured him.

"Have a cigar?" urged Pete, doffing his sombrero and taking out
a big, black weed that he tendered the cub.

"What's the matter with it?" asked Tom curiously.

For just a second Bad Pete's eyes flashed.  Then he choked back
all signs of anger as he drawled:

"The only matter with this cigar, pardner, is that it's a gen-u-wine
Havana cigar."

"I couldn't tell it from a genuine Baltimore," asserted Tom.
"But I suppose that is because I never smoked."

"You never smoked?  Pardner, you've got a lot to learn," replied
Bad Pete, as he put the cigar back in his hat and replaced the
latter on his head.  "And, while we're talking about such matters,
pardner, you might just hand me a twenty for a few days."

"Twenty dollars?" returned Tom.  "Peter, until payday gets around
I won't have twenty cents."

Bad Pete gazed at the cub keenly.

"Fact!" Tom assured him.

"Huh!" grunted Pete, rising.  "I've been wasting my time on a pauper!"

Saying which, he stalked out.

Tom discreetly repressed his desire to laugh.  Hazelton glided
into the tent, grinning.

"Tom, be careful not to string Bad Pete so hard, or, one of these
days, you'll get him so mad that he won't be able to resist drilling
you through with lead."

"Let's go over to the cook tent and either beg or steal something
to eat," proposed Reade.

It was two hours later when a rodman rode hurriedly into camp.

"Hey, you cubs," he called, "come and help me get Mr. Blaisdell's
bed ready for him.  He's coming back sick."

"Sick?" demanded Reade, thunderstruck.  "Why, he looked healthy
enough when he went out of camp a little while ago."

"He's sick enough, now," retorted the rodman.

"What ails Mr. Blaisdell?" asked Harry.

"It's mountain fever, I reckon," rejoined the rodman.