Chapter 1. The Cub Engineers Reach Camp

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_ 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?" _

Read next: Chapter 2. Bad Pete Becomes Worse


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