"It's just what I expected," nodded Tom, as the leading party halted under the flare of the torches. "You see, sir, here was the point of greatest cave and drift in the quicksand. It's where your former engineers found such a morass of the shifty stuff that they declared the Man-killer never could have its appetite satisfied with dirt. There was a good log and concrete foundation laid down there, and for thirty-six hours the sand had not shifted a particle as far as the eye could discover. Now, look at it!"
Before them the top layer of desert sand had sunk away, revealing a well or sink, one hundred and fifty feet across and the bottom at least forty feet below the general level.
"I always wondered why a suspension bridge wouldn't solve the problem more easily and cheaply than any other construction," muttered Mr. Ellsworth, after he had gotten over his first indignation.
"To avoid every possibility of lurking quicksand the suspension bridge would have to be more than a mile long," Reade answered. "Beyond, there are other treacherous little patches of quicksand. It would cost the road millions to put up a suspension bridge that would hold.
"A short bridge would look all right and doubtless serve all right, for a while. Then, some fine day, part of the structure would give, and a trainload of passengers would be sucked down and out of sight by the shifting sands of the Man-killer."
Mr. Ellsworth turned aside with a shudder.
"I'm glad I'm not an engineer," he said earnestly. "The responsibility for safety of life at this point is all yours, Reade."
"And I'm willing enough to take it, sir, if you don't run trains over the Man-killer until the new roadbed has stood tests that I'll put upon it."
"It'll cost at least ten thousand dollars to repair the mischief that the scoundrels have done to-night," figured Harry Hazelton thoughtfully.
"Then, if we can find out the guilty wretches for certain, we'll see that they earn more than that amount by enforced labor in prison,"' retorted the general manager grimly.
"Mr. Bell!" called Tom briskly.
"Here, sir," reported the foreman, coming forward..
"Mr. Bell, I wish you'd pick out twenty-one good men. Make the brightest of the lot head of the new force of night watchmen. Place the other twenty under his orders. Your gangs will come into play here later than the others, so I'll let your shift of men have the first chance at night-watchman duty."
"All right, sir," nodded Foreman Bell. "Any further orders?"
"None, except that your watchmen will do their best to guard both the line of roadbed and the camp. Further, tell the night engineer to be sure to have steam up so that he can blow a lot of signals at anytime in the night."
"Very good, sir," and the foreman hurried away.
"I'm disgusted with myself for having been caught in this fashion," Tom admitted to Mr. Ellsworth. "But I hadn't an idea that Paloma held any dynamite. I can't imagine how a frontier town on the alkali desert needs dynamite."
"It will probably be found that someone shipped it in a hurry," suggested Mr. Ellsworth.
"But how? Any fellow would be detected who had it brought in on our trains. There has been no time to I stage I it from any other point since the row with Duff started."
"It's a puzzle," admitted Mr. Ellsworth.
"It is, but it won't be for long," Reade declared confidently. "There are ways of finding out how that dynamite got into Paloma, there must be ways of finding out who caused it to be brought in."
Then, suddenly, Tom's eyes grew wider open and brighter.
"Mr. Ellsworth, I believe that dynamite was brought in before the trouble opened."
"But who would have wished to bring dynamite here until the trouble started?"
"Anyone might be interested in doing it who wanted to see trouble start."
"I'm afraid I don't follow you, Reade," observed the general manager, frowning slightly.
"There were others who wanted the job of blocking the Man-killer," Tom went on earnestly. "They wanted a lot more money for the job than we thought was necessary. I don't want to accuse anyone, but I am just a trifle suspicious that the concern of Chicago contractors—"
"The Colthwaite people!" broke in Mr. Ellsworth.
"Yes; if they were bad people, and ugly business rivals—"
"How would the Colthwaite people be able to foresee that you were going to have a fight with Jim Duff?" interposed Mr. Ellsworth.
"I'm going after the answer, if there is one. I hope to be able to tell you the answer one of these days."
Tom and Harry made two trips each, in different directions, to make sure that the watch men were awake and alert. It was nearly eleven o'clock when the general manager and his engineers turned in for a night's rest—"subject to the approval of Jim Duff," as Tom dryly stated it.
No more interruptions followed during the night, however. At daylight the watchmen sought their tents and the day force began to stir soon after.
After the steam whistle bad blown the breakfast call, Reade slipped away from his friends to inspect the laborers at the meal.
"There are some of your men absent, Mr. Mendoza," Tom murmured to the Mexican foreman.
"Yes, Senor. Some of my men slipped away in the night."
"Went off to Paloma, eh?"
Mendoza shrugged his shoulders.
"Gambling, drinking—both," nodded Tom.
"Undoubtedly, Senor."
"Get the names of your absent Mexicans, and report to me with them."
Reade then went to the other foremen, with the same orders.
Before Tom had seated himself at his own meal, with Harry and Mr. Ellsworth, the foremen appeared, lists in their hands. Tom rapidly ran his finger down the lists.
"Twenty-eight Mexicans and fourteen Americans absent from camp," he muttered. "Foremen, when these men come back you may tell them that they are no longer needed."
All four of the gang bosses looked somewhat astonished.
"Merely for leaving camp in the night time?" Mendoza inquired.
"Yes, under the circumstances," nodded Tom. "If any of these men declare that they were properly absent, and did not visit the gambling and the drinking dives, then such men may be reinstated after they have satisfied Mr. Hazelton, Mr. Hawkins or myself of the truth of their statements."
"Some of these men will be very ugly when they find that they are discharged, Senor," suggested Mendoza.
"But you are loyal to us?"
"Can you doubt it, Senor?" asked Mendoza proudly.
"Then you will know how to handle your own fellow-countrymen. The other foremen will be able to handle the rest of the disgruntled ones. However, as I have told you, if any man claims that he is unjustly treated, send him to headquarters for a chance at reinstatement."
General Manager Ellsworth had heard the conversation, but had not interfered. As soon as the young engineers were alone he joined them at table, saying:
"Aren't you afraid, Reade, that these discharged men will hasten to join our enemies?"
"That is very likely, sir," Tom answered. "These missing men, however, have shown their willingness to become our enemies by leaving camp and seeking their pleasures in the strongholds of the scoundrels who are fighting to break us up."
"That's another way of looking at the matter," assented the general manager.
"I'd much rather have our enemies outside of camp than inside," Reade continued. "If we took these absentees back after they've been in the company of rascals, then we wouldn't have any means of knowing how many of the absentees had agreed to do treacherous things within the camp. It would hardly be a wise plan to encourage the breeding of rattlesnakes within the camp limits."
It was nearly noon when the first batch of laborers, some American and some Mexican, returned to camp. These men started to go by the checker's hut at a distance, but keen-eyed Superintendent Hawkins saw them and ordered them around to the hut.
"You'll have to wait here until your foremen are called," declared the checker.
"Say, wh
at's the trouble here!" demanded one American belligerently.
CHAPTER VIII. READE MEETS A "KICKER" HALF WAY
"Who's your foreman?" asked the checker, a young fellow named Royal
"Payson—if it's any of your business." replied the workman roughly.
The others, seeing him take this attitude, were willing to let him talk for all. Superintendent Hawkins had rounded up the foremen, and now sent them to the checker's hut to deal with the men.
"Some of you are my men," said Payson, looking the lot over. "You're discharged."
"What's that?" roared the same indignant spokesman, a big, bull-necked, red-faced fellow.
"Discharged," said Payson briefly. "All of you who belong to my gang. Checker, I'll call their names off to you."
While Payson, and then the other foremen, were calling the names, the workmen stood by in sullen silence. When the last name had been entered the same bull-necked spokesman flared up again.
"Have we no rights?" he demanded. "Is there no such thing as the right of appeal in this camp, or are we under a lot of domineering, petty tyrants like you?"
"I'm a poor specimen of tyrant,"' laughed Payson good-naturedly. "All I'm doing, Bellas, is following orders. Any man who feels that he was justified in being away, and that he ought to be kept on the pay rolls here, may make his appeal to Mr. Hawkins, Mr. Hazelton or Mr. Reade."
"I'll see Reade!" announced Bellas stiffly. "That youngster is doing all the dirty work here. I'll go to him straight."
"I'll take you over to his office," nodded Foreman Payson.
"I'm going, too," announced another workman.
"So'm I," added another.
"One at a time, men," advised Payson. "I think Bellas feels that he's capable of talking for all of you."
The other foremen restrained the crowd, while Mr. Payson led Bellas over to the headquarters shack.
Tom looked up from a handful of old letters as the two men entered.
"See here, you!" was Bellas's form of greeting.
"Try it again," smiled Tom pleasantly.
"You're the man I want to talk to," Bellas snarled. "What do you mean by—"
"What's your name?" asked Reade quickly.
"None of your—"
"We can never do business on that kind of courtesy," smiled Reade. "Mr. Payson, show the man out and let him come back when he's cooler."
"There isn't anyone here who can show me out!" blustered Bellas, swinging his big arms and causing the heavy muscles to stand out.
"If you don't care to behave in a businesslike way, and talk like a man, we'll do our best to show you out," Tom retorted, still with a pleasant smile. "What are you here for, anyway?"
"Why have I been fired?" roared Bellas.
"Can't you guess?" queried Tom.
"Was it for going to town and being away all night?"
"Yes, and also for not being on hand this morning."
"There wasn't any work to do," growled Bellas.
"You expected to be paid for your time, and you should have been in camp, as your time belonged to the railroad by, right of purchase. Bellas, you have been drinking over in town, haven't you?"
"If I have, it's my own business. I'm no slave."
"Ben gambling, too?"
"None of your—"
"You're in error," Tom answered pleasantly, though firmly. "The gamblers over in Paloma are leagued with the dive keepers against us, Bellas. You know what they did out at the big sink of the Man-killer last night. Any man who goes away from camp and 'enjoys' himself for hours among those who are trying to put us out of business shows himself to be a friend to the enemies of this camp. Therefore the man who does that shows himself to be one of our enemies, in sympathy if not in fact."
"I'm no lawyer," growled Bellas sullenly, "and I can't follow your flow of gab."
"You know well enough what I'm saying to you, Bellas, and you know that I'm right. Since you've been away and joined our enemies we don't want you here. More, we don't intend to have you here. Mr. Payson has dropped you from the rolls, and that cuts you off from this camp. Now, I think you will understand that it is some of our business whether you have been over in town emptying your pockets, into Jim Duff's hat. If that is what you have been doing, then we don't want you here, and won't have you. If you haven't been hob-nobbing with our enemies, and paying all you had for the privilege, then we'll look into any claims of better conduct that you may make, and, if satisfied that you've been telling the truth, we'll reinstate you."
"Oh, you make me tired—you kid!" burst from Bellas's lips.
"This isn't an experience meeting," Tom replied, not losing his smile, "and I'm not interested in your impressions of me. Do you wish to make any statement advocating your right to be taken on the pay roll again?"
"No, I don't!" roared the angry fellow. "All I want to do is to show you my opinion of you, Tommy! I can do that best by rubbing your nose in the dirt outside."
Foreman Payson flung himself between the big, angry human bull and the young chief engineer.
"Don't waste any time or heat on him, Mr. Payson," Tom advised, slipping his handful of letters into his coat and tossing that garment to the back of the room. "If Bellas has any grudge against me, I don't want to stop him from making his last kick."
Tom took a step forward, his open hands hanging at his sides. He didn't look by any means alarmed, though Bellas appeared to be about twice the young chief engineer's size.
So prompt had been Reade's action that, for a moment, Bellas looked astounded. Then, with a roar, he leaped forward, swinging both arms and closing in.
Tom Reade had had his best physical training on the football gridiron. He dropped, instantly, as he leaped forward, making a low tackle and rising with both arms wrapped around Bellas's knees. Tom took two swift steps forward, then heaved his man, head first, out through the open doorway.
Bellas landed about eight feet away. He was not hurt, beyond a jolting, and leaped to his feet, shaking both fists.
"Not unless you really insist upon it," smiled Tom, shaking his head. "It's too warm for exercise to-day."
"You tricky little whipper-snapper!" roared Bellas, making an angry bound for the doorway.
Tom met his angry rush. Both went down, rolling over and over on the ground. Bellas wound his powerful arms about the boy, and would have crushed him. Though Tom hated to do it, there was no alternative but to choke the powerful bully. Bellas soon let go, dazed and gasping. Ere the big fellow came to his senses sufficiently to know what he was about, Reade had hoisted Bellas to one shoulder.
Down by the checker's hut the crowd of curious workmen gasped as they saw Tom Reade jogging along with this great load over one shoulder. Reaching the line, Tom gave another heave. Bellas rolled on the ground. He was conscious and could have gotten up, but he chose to lay where he had fallen and think matters over.
"Don't think I'm peevish, men," Tom called pleasantly. "I wouldn't have done that if Bellas hadn't attacked me. I had to defend myself. Now, while I'm here, does any man wish to make a claim for justice? Does any man feel that he has been discharged unfairly?"
Three or four men answered, though none of the Mexicans was among the number. When questioned as to whether they had spent the night among Jim Duff's friends all the speakers admitted that they had. Tom then made them the same explanation he had offered Bellas.
"That's about all that can be said, isn't it, men?" Tom asked in conclusion. "I am sorry for those of you who feel hurt, but while there is bad blood in the air every man must choose between one camp or the other. You men chose Jim Duff, and you'll have to abide by your choice."
"But we haven't any money," declared one of the men sullenly.
"Now you're just beginning to understand that Jim Duff won't be a very good friend to a penniless man. Didn't you know that when you shook all your change into his hat?"
"Are you going to let us starve?" growled the man.
"You won't starve, nor need you be out
of work long," Tom retorted. "Any man who can do the work of a railway laborer in this country doesn't have to remain out of a job. Now, I'll ask you to get off the railroad's ground."
Tom turned and went back to the office, while Payson and the other foremen saw to it that the discharged men left the railroad's property. In less than half an hour the disgruntled ones were back in the worst haunts of Paloma, spreading the news of Tom Reade's latest outrage.
When Tom reached the office he found Mr. Ellsworth inside.
"I saw what you did, Reade, though you didn't know I was about. You handled it splendidly. You made it plain enough, too, to the men that they had joined the enemy and thereby declared against us."
"Message, Mr. Reade," called the operator from the doorway.
"The construction material train, the first one, will be here within two hours," cried Tom, looking up from the paper, his eyes dancing. "Now we can do some of the real work that we've been waiting to do!"
CHAPTER IX. THE MAN-KILLER CLAIMS A SACRIFICE
In the days that followed Tom Reade and Harry Hazelton were more continuously and seriously busy than they had ever been before in their lives.
Sometimes it happens that engineers come upon a quicksand that apparently has no bottom. It will be filled and apparently the earth on top is solid. After a few days there will follow either a gradual shifting away or a sudden cave in, and the quicksand must once more be attacked.
This condition had been experienced more than a dozen times with the Man-killer before Tom and Harry had been called to solve the problem.
There is no definite way of attacking a quicksand. Much must depend upon the local conditions. Where it is a small one, yet of seemingly considerable depth, it is sometimes quickest and cheapest to cross it with a suspension bridge, the terminal pillars resting on sure foundations. Some quicksands are overcome by merely filling in new sand or loam, patiently, until at last the trap is blocked and a permanently solid foundation is laid. There are many other ways of overcoming the difficulty.
The method hit upon by Tom and Harry, after looking over the situation, was one that was largely original with them.
The Young Engineers in Arizona Page 6
