"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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sistants 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,"