The Young Engineers in Colorado Part 21

"Perhaps so, Pete. You don't need to know that. All you have to know is what I want done. I'm a business man, Pete, and money is the soul of business. Here!"

Black peeled some banknotes from his roll.

"Ten twenties, Pete. That makes the two hundred I was talking to you about. Understand, man, that isn't your pay. That's simply your expense money, for you to spend while you're hanging about.

Stick to me, do things just as I want them done, and your pay will run several times as high as your expense money."

"Do you know how long I've been looking for this sort o' thing, pardner?" Pete inquired huskily.

"No; of course not," rejoined 'Gene Black rather impatiently.

"All my life," returned Bad Pete solemnly. "Pardner, I'll sell myself to you for the money you've been talking about."

"Come along, then. We're too near the camp. I want to talk with you where we're not so likely to be interfered with by people who have too much curiosity."

"If that means me," quoth Tom Reade inwardly, "the shoe fits to a nicety."

Tom followed the pair for a little way, with a stealth that was born in him for the present need. Then the plotters stepped into a rocky, open gully, where the cub engineer could not have followed without being seen.

"Oh, dear! I never wanted to follow anyone as much in my life!"

groaned Reade in his disappointment.

There was nothing to do but to go back. Then, too, with a guilty start, Tom remembered the great need of ice for poor, fever-tossed, big-hearted Bill Blaisdell, who had been so kind to the two cubs from the hour of their arrival in the field camp.

Just as he stepped into the camp area Tom espied Jack Rutter, who also saw him and came quickly forward.

"I've been looking everywhere for you, Reade," said Rutter, in a tone that was close to carrying reproach with it.

"I've been absent on real business, Rutter," Tom answered, with a flush, nevertheless. "Mr. Blaisdell must have ice a lot of it."

"Great Scott! Where shall we find it in these mountains in midsummer?"

Rutter demanded.

"We've got to have it, haven't we?" Tom urged. "It will be the first thing that the doctor will call for."

"Then he should bring it with him," returned Rutter.

"Would you want the doctor to be hampered with a ton or so of ice!" asked Reade.

"Would we need that much?" Rutter seemed hopelessly ignorant in such matters.

"I imagine we'd want a lot of it," Tom answered. "By the way, Mr. Rutter-----"

"Well?" Jack inquired.

Tom was on the point of giving a hint of what he had heard in the gully during the meeting between Black and Bad Pete. Then, on second thought, the cub engineer decided to hold that news for the ear of Mr. Thurston alone.

"What were you going to say?" pressed Rutter.

"Probably Hazelton has told you," Tom continued, "that you're in charge here until Mr. Thurston arrives."

"Yes; and I'm mighty glad that the chief will be here before daylight tomorrow," returned Jack. "I may be a fair sort of engineer, but I'm not cut out for a chief engineer."

Later, one of the rodmen was sent to guide Harry to the nearest small town, twenty-eight miles away, for ice. If they succeeded in obtaining it they might be back by dark of the following day.

Supper in camp was a gloomy meal. No one felt light-hearted.

"Mr. Rutter," asked Tom, approaching the temporary chief, soon after the evening meal, "what do you want Hazelton and myself to do this evening?"

"Don't ask me," returned Jack, with a shrug of his shoulders.

"What have you been doing? Drawing?"

"Yes."

"Why don't you go on with it?"

"We're at a point where we need orders, for we've had to lay down one part of the work while waiting for further instructions."

"I can't help you any, then," replied Rutter. "Sorry, but before I could give any orders I'd need a few myself."

At eleven o'clock that night Dr. Gitney arrived, with saddle-bags full of medicines and other necessaries. He saw Blaisdell, and p.r.o.nounced the a.s.sistant engineer a very sick man.

Shortly after midnight Mr. Thurston rode into camp. He tottered from saddle and reeled until Tom, on the lookout for him, ran forward and supported the chief engineer to his tent.

Then Dr. Gitney was sent for and came.

"Your chief has mountain fever, too," said the medical attendant to Tom, after stepping outside the tent.

"How long will it take them to get well?" asked Wade anxiously.

"Weeks! Hard to say," replied the physician vaguely.

"Weeks!" groaned Tom Reade. "And the camp now in charge of Jack Rutter, who's a fine workman but no leader! Doc Gitney doesn't know it, but he has sentenced the S.B. & L. railroad to death!"

It was a trying situation. The cub engineer felt it keenly, for he had set his heart on seeing the S.B. & L. win out over its rival.

Then, too, all in a flash, the memory of 'Gene Black's treachery to his employers came back to the mind of Tom Reade.

CHAPTER XII

FROM CUB TO ACTING CHIEF

Tom didn't sleep that night. He sat by, silently, in the big tent, nursing the patient as Dr. Gitney directed.

In the morning, at five, Matt Rice came. Tom gladly surrendered the post to him and took a scant hour of deep slumber on the bare ground outside.