"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," a.s.sented 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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?"