"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 b.u.t.t 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 b.u.t.t 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 a.s.sistant 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 ma.s.s 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 a.s.sistant 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 a.s.surance," 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 a.s.sistant in silence. Tom flushed slightly under the penetrating glance Mr. Thurston cast upon him during the recital.