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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Young Engineers in Nevada, by H. Irving
+Hancock
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Young Engineers in Nevada
+
+Author: H. Irving Hancock
+
+Release Date: June 29, 2004  [eBook #12777]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: US-ASCII
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YOUNG ENGINEERS IN NEVADA***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Jim Ludwig
+
+
+
+THE YOUNG ENGINEERS IN NEVADA
+
+or, Seeking Fortune on the Turn of a Pick
+
+By
+
+H. IRVING HANCOCK
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTERS
+    I. Alf and His "Makings of Manhood"
+   II. Trouble Brews on the Trail
+  III. Jim's Army Appears
+   IV. Sold Out for a Toy Bale!
+    V. No Need to Work for Pennies
+   VI. Tom Catches the "Nevada Fever"
+  VII. Ready to Handle the Pick
+ VIII. Jim Ferrers, Partner
+   IX. Harry Does Some Pitching
+    X. Tom's Fighting Blood Surges
+   XI. Planning a New Move
+  XII. New Owners File a Claim
+ XIII. Jim Tries the New Way
+  XIV. The Cook Learns a Lesson
+   XV. Why Reade Wanted Gold
+  XVI. The Man Who Made Good
+ XVII. The Miners Who "Stuck"
+XVIII. The Goddess of Fortune Smiles Wistfully
+  XIX. Harry's Signal of Distress
+   XX. Tom Turns Doctor
+  XXI. The Wolves on the Snow Crust
+ XXII. Dolph Gage Fires His Shot
+XXIII. Tom Begins to Doubt His Eyes
+ XXIV. Conclusion
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+ALF AND HIS "MAKINGS OF MANHOOD"
+
+
+"Say, got the makings?"
+
+"Eh?" inquired Tom Reade, glancing up in mild astonishment.
+
+"Got the makings?" persisted the thin dough-faced lad of fourteen
+who had come into the tent.
+
+"I believe we have the makings for supper, if you mean that you're
+hungry," Tom rejoined.  "But you've just had your dinner."
+
+"I know I have," replied the youngster.  "That's why I want my
+smoke."
+
+"Your wha-a-at?" insisted Tom.  By this time light had begun to
+dawn upon the bronzed, athletic young engineer, but he preferred
+to pretend ignorance a little while longer.
+
+"Say, don't you carry the makings?" demanded the boy.
+
+"You'll have to be more explicit," Tom retorted.  "Just what are
+you up to?  What do you want anyway?"
+
+"I want the makings for a cigarette," replied the boy, shifting
+uneasily to the other foot.  "You said you'd pay me five dollars
+a month and find me in everything, didn't you?"
+
+"Yes; everything that is necessary to living," Reade assented.
+
+"Well, cigarettes are necessary to me," continued the boy.
+
+"They are?" asked Tom, opening his eyes wider.  "Why, how does
+that happen?"
+
+"Just because I am a smoker," returned the boy, with a sickly
+grin.
+
+"You are?" gasped Tom.  "At your age?  Why, you little wretch!"
+
+"That's all right, but please don't go on stringing me," pleaded
+the younger American.  "Just pass over the papers and the tobacco
+pouch, and I'll get busy.  I'm suffering for a smoke."
+
+"Then you have my heartfelt sympathy," Tom assured him.  "I hate
+to see any boy with that low-down habit, and I'm glad that I'm
+not in position to be able to encourage you in it.  How long have
+you been smoking, Drew?"
+
+Alf Drew shifted once more on his feet.
+
+"'Bouter year," he answered.
+
+"You began poisoning yourself at the age of thirteen, and you've
+lived a whole year?  No; I won't say 'lived,' but you've kept
+pretty nearly alive.  There isn't much real life in you, Drew,
+I'll be bound.  Come here."
+
+"Do I get the makings?" whined the boy.
+
+"Come here!"
+
+Drew advanced, rather timidly, into the tent.
+
+"Don't shrink so," ordered Tom.  "I'm not going to spank you,
+though some one ought to.  Give me your wrist."
+
+Reade took the thin little wrist between his thumb and finger,
+feeling for the pulse.
+
+"Are you a doctor?" sneered Drew.
+
+"No; but generally I've intelligence enough to know whether a
+pulse is slow or fast, full or weak."
+
+"But-----"
+
+"Keep quiet," Tom commanded, as he drew out his watch.  His face
+expressed nothing in particular as he kept the tip of his forefinger
+against the radial artery at the boy's wrist.
+
+"Fine," commented the young engineer, a few moments later, as
+he let go the captive wrist.
+
+"Good pulse, eh?" questioned Alf Drew.
+
+"Great!" quoth Tom.  "Fine and wiry, and almost skips some beats.
+I'm not much of an authority on such subjects, but I believe
+a boy of your age ought to have a normal pulse.  Where do you
+expect to wind up with your 'makings' and your cigarettes?"
+
+"They don't hurt me," whined Alf.
+
+"They don't, eh?" demanded Reade, rising and drawing himself up
+to his full height of five-feet-eleven.  "Drew, do you think you
+look as healthy as I do?"
+
+As he stood there, erect as a soldier, with his fine athletic
+figure revealed, and the bronze on his face seemingly inches deep,
+Tom Reade looked what he was---every inch a man though still a
+boy in years.
+
+"Do you think you look as healthy as I do?" Tom repeated.
+
+"No-o-o-o," admitted Alf.  "But you're older'n me."
+
+"Not so much, as years go," Tom rejoined.  "For that matter, if
+you go on with your cigarettes you'll be an old man before I get
+through with being a young man.  Fill up your chest, Alf; expand
+it---like this."
+
+As he expanded his chest Reade looked a good deal more like some
+Greek god of old than a twentieth century civil engineer.
+
+Alf puffed and squirmed in his efforts to show "some chest."
+
+"That isn't the right way," Tom informed him.  "Breathe deeply
+and steadily.  Draw in your stomach and expand your chest.  Fill
+up the upper part of your lungs with air.  Watch!  Right here
+at the top of the chest."
+
+Alf watched.  For that matter he seemed unable to remove his gaze
+from the splendid chest development that young Reade displayed
+so easily.  Then the boy tried to fill the upper portions of his
+own lungs in the same manner.  The attempt ended in a spasm of
+coughing.
+
+"Fine, isn't it?" queried Tom Reade, scornfully.  "The upper parts
+of your lungs are affected already, and you'll carry the work
+of destruction on rapidly.  Alf, if you ever live to be twenty you'll
+be a wreck at best.  Don't you know that?"
+
+"I---I have heard folks say so," nodded the boy.
+
+"And you didn't believe them?"
+
+"I---I don't know."
+
+"Why did you ever take up smoking?"
+
+"All men smoke," argued Alf Drew.
+
+"Lie number one.  All men _don't_ smoke," Tom corrected him.
+"But I think I catch the drift of your idea.  If you smoke you
+think men will look upon you as being more manly.  That's it, it?"
+
+"It must be manly, if men do it," Alf argued.
+
+"You funny little shaver," laughed Tom, good-humoredly.  "So you
+think that, when men see you smoking cigarettes, they immediately
+imagine you to be one of them?  Cigarette-smoking, for a boy of
+fourteen, is the short cut to manhood, I suppose."
+
+Tom laughed long, heartily, and with intense enjoyment.  At last
+he paused, to remark, soberly:
+
+"Answering your first question, Drew, I haven't the 'makings.'
+I never did carry them and never expect to."
+
+"What do you smoke then?" queried Alf, in some wonder.  "A pipe?"
+
+"No; I never had that vice, either.  I don't use tobacco.  For
+your own sake I'm sorry that you do."
+
+"But a lot of men do smoke," argued Alf.  "Jim Ferrers, for instance."
+
+"Ferrers is a grown man, and it would show a lot more respect
+on your part if a 'kid' like you would call him 'Mr. Ferrers.'
+But I'll wager that Mr. Ferrers didn't smoke cigarettes at your
+age."
+
+"I'll bet he did."
+
+"We'll see."
+
+Tom stepped to the doorway of the tent, Alf making way for him,
+and called lustily:
+
+"Ferrers!  Oh, Mr. Ferrers!"
+
+"Here, sir!" answered the voice of a man who was invisible off under
+the trees.  "Want me?"
+
+"If you please," Tom called back.
+
+Ferrers soon appeared, puffing at a blackened corn-cob pipe.  He was
+a somewhat stooped, much bronzed, rather thin man of middle age.
+Ferrers had always worked hard, and his body looked slightly the
+worse for wear, though he a man of known endurance in rough life.
+
+"Ferrers, do you know what ails this boy?" demanded Tom.
+
+"Laziness," Jim answered, rather curtly.  "You hired him for a
+chore-boy, to help me.  He hasn't done a tap yet.  He's no good."
+
+"Don't be too hard on him, Ferrers," pleaded Tom solemnly.  "I've
+just heard the youngster's sad story.  Do you know what really ails
+him?  Cigarettes!"
+
+"Him?  Cigarettes!" observed Ferrers disgustedly.  "The miserable
+little rascal!"
+
+"You see," smiled Tom, turning to the boy, "just what men think
+of a lad who tries to look manly by smoking cigarettes."
+
+"Cigarettes?  Manly?" exploded Jim Ferrers, with a guffaw.  "_Men_
+don't smoke cigarettes.  That's left for weak-minded boys."
+
+"Say, how many years you been smoking, Jim Ferrers?" demanded Alf,
+rather defiantly.
+
+"Answer him, please," requested Tom, when he saw their guide and
+cook frown.
+
+"Lemme see," replied the Nevada man, doing some mental arithmetic
+on his fingers.  "I reckon I've been smoking twenty-three years,
+because I began when I was twenty-four years old.  Hang the stuff,
+I wish I had never begun, either.  But I didn't smoke at your
+age, papoose.  If I had done so, the men in the camps would have
+kicked me out.  Don't let me catch you smoking around any of the
+work you're helping me on!  Is that all, Mr. Reade?  'Cause I've
+got a power of work to do."
+
+"That's all, thank you," Tom assured him.  "But, Ferrers, we'll
+have to take young Drew in hand and try to win him back to the
+path of brains and health."
+
+"Say, I don't believe I'm going to like this job," muttered Alf
+Drew.  "I reckon I'll be pulling my freight outer this camp."
+
+"Don't go until tomorrow, anyway," urged Tom.  "You'll have to go
+some distance to find other human beings, and grub doesn't grow on
+trees in Nevada."
+
+With a sniff of scorn Ferrers tramped away.
+
+"I guess, perhaps, what you need, Drew is a friend," remarked Tom,
+resting a hand on the boy's nearer shoulder.  "Make up your mind
+that you can't have a cigarette this afternoon, take a walk with me,
+in this fresh air and the good old sunshine.  Let's drop all talk of
+cigarettes, and give a little thought to brains and a strong body.
+They don't flourish where you find boys smoking cigarettes.  Come
+along!  I'm going to show you how to step out right, and just how to
+breathe like a human being.  Let's try it."
+
+Tom had almost to drag the boy, to make him start.  But Reade
+had no intention of hectoring the, dough-faced little fellow.
+
+It was rough ground along this mountain trail in the Indian Smoke
+Range of mountains, in Nevada.  Soon the pulses of both began to beat
+more heavily.  Tom took in great breaths of the life-giving air, but
+Alf was soon panting.
+
+"Let's stop, now," proposed Tom, in a kindly voice.  "After you've
+rested a couple of minutes I'm going to show you how to breathe
+right and fill your lungs with air."
+
+Soon they were trying this most sensible "stunt."  Alf, however,
+didn't succeed very well.  Whenever he tried hard it set him to
+coughing.
+
+"You see, it's mostly due to the cigarettes," said Tom gravely.
+"Alf, you've simply got to turn over a new leaf.  You're headed
+just right to have consumption."
+
+"Cigarettes don't give a fellow consumption!" retorted the younger
+boy sullenly.
+
+"I don't believe they do," Tom admitted, thoughtfully.  "Consumption
+is caused by germs, I've heard.  But germs take hold best in a
+weakened part of the body, and your lungs, Alf, are weak enough
+for any germ to find a good place to lodge.  What you've got to do is
+to make your lungs so strong that they'll resist germs."
+
+"You talk like a doctor!"
+
+"No; I'm trying to talk like an athlete.  I used to be a half-way
+amateur athlete, Drew, and I'm still taking care of my body.
+That's why I've never allowed any white-papered little 'coffin-nails'
+to fool around me.  Bad as your lungs are, Alf, they're not one
+whit worse than your nerves.  You'll go to pieces if you find
+yourself under the least strain.  You'll get to shivering and crying,
+if you don't stop smoking cigarettes."
+
+"Don't you believe it," muttered the boy, sullenly.
+
+"Alf," smiled Tom, laying a hand gently on the boy's shoulder,
+"you don't know me yet.  You haven't any idea how I can hang to
+a thing until I win.  I'm going to keep hammering at you until
+I make you throw your cigarettes away."
+
+"I'm never going to stop smoking 'em," retorted Drew.  "There
+wouldn't be any comfort in life if I stopped."
+
+"Is it as bad as that?" queried Tom, with ready sympathy.  "Then
+all the more reason for stopping.  Come; let's finish our walk."
+
+"Say, I don't want to go down and through that thick brush," objected
+Alf Drew, slowing his steps.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Snakes!"
+
+"Are you afraid of snakes, Alf?"
+
+"Some kinds."
+
+"What kinds?"
+
+"Well, rattlers, f'r instance."
+
+"There are none of that kind on this part of the Indian Smoke
+Range," Reade rejoined.  "Come along with me."
+
+There was something mildly though surely compelling in Tom's
+manner.  Alf Drew went along, though he didn't wish to.  The two
+were just at the fringe of the thick underbrush when there came
+a warning sound just ahead of them.
+
+Click! cl-cl-click!
+
+"Whee!  Me for outer this!" gasped Alf, going whiter than ever
+as he turned.  But Tom caught him by the shoulder.
+
+"What's the matter?" demanded Reade.
+
+Click cl-cl-click!
+
+"There it is again," cried Alf, in fear.
+
+"What on earth are you talking about?" Tom demanded.
+
+Once more the dread sound smote the air.
+
+"Rattlers!" wailed Drew, perspiring from fear.  "Lemme get away
+from this."
+
+"Nonsense!" retorted Reade, retaining a strong clutch on the boy's
+shoulder, though once more the sound reached their ears.
+
+"It's all your nerves, Alf," Tom insisted.  "You just imagine such
+things.  That's what cigarettes do to your nerves."
+
+"But don't you hear the rattlesnake?"
+
+"I don't," Tom gravely informed him, though once more the
+nerve-disturbing sound rose clearly on the air.  "See here, Alf,
+rattlers, whatever their habits, certainly don't climb trees.  I'll
+put you up on that limb."
+
+Tom's strong young arms lifted Alf easily until he could clutch
+at the lowest limb of a tree.
+
+"Climb up there and sit down," Reade ordered.  Drew sat on the limb,
+shaking with terror.
+
+"Now, I'll show you that there isn't a snake anywhere in that
+clump of brush," Tom proposed, and forthwith stepped into the
+thicket, beating about lustily with his heavy boots.
+
+"L-l-l-look out!" shivered Drew.  "You'll be bitten!"
+
+"Nonsense, I tell you.  There isn't a rattler anywhere on this
+part of the Range.  It's your nerves, Alf.  Cigarettes are destroying
+'em.  There!  I've beaten up every bit of this brush and you see
+that I've not been bitten.  Now I'll help you down to the ground,
+and you want to get a good, steadying grip on your nerves."
+
+Alf Drew permitted himself to be helped to the ground.  No sooner,
+however, had his feet touched the earth than there came that ominous
+rattling sound.
+
+"There, you big idiot!" howled Alf. "There it is again!"
+
+"Just your bad nerves, Alf," Tom smiled.  "They're so bad that I'll
+overlook your lack of respect calling me an idiot!"
+
+"Don't you s'pose I know rattlers when I hear 'em?" asked Drew,
+sullenly.  "I was almost bitten by one once, and that's why I'm so
+afraid of 'em."
+
+"I _was_ bitten once," Tom replied.  "Yet you see that I'm not very
+nervous about them, especially in a part of the country where
+none are ever found.  It's your nerves, Alf---and cigarettes!"
+
+"I wish I had one now," sighed the younger boy.
+
+"A rattlesnake?" Tom inquired innocently.
+
+"No---of course not!  A cigarette."
+
+"But you're going to forget those soul-destroying little coffin-nails,"
+Reade suggested.  "You're going to become a man and act like one.
+You're going to learn how much more fun it is to have your lungs
+filled with pure air instead of stifling cigarette smoke."
+
+"Maybe I am!" muttered the boy.
+
+"Oh, yes; I'm sure of it," said Reade cheerfully.
+
+Cl-cl-cl-click!
+
+"O-o-o-ow!" shrilled Alf, jumping at least two feet.
+
+"Now, what's the matter with you?" inquired Tom in feigned astonishment.
+
+"Don't tell me you didn't hear the rattler just now," cried young
+Drew fiercely.
+
+"No; I didn't," Tom assured him.  "And how could we find a
+rattler--_here_?  We're crossing open ground now.  There is no place
+within three hundred feet of us for a rattlesnake to move without our
+seeing him."
+
+Cl-cl-cl-click!
+
+Alf Drew held back, trembling.
+
+"I'm not going forward another step," he insisted.  "This ground
+is full of rattlers."
+
+"Let's go back to camp, then, if your nerves are so unstrung,"
+Reade proposed.
+
+They turned, starting backward.  Again the warning rattle sounded,
+seemingly just in front of Alf, though there was no place for a snake
+to conceal itself nearby.
+
+Alf, however, turned paler still, halted and started off at right
+angles to his former course.  Again the rattle sounded.
+
+"Hear that snake?" demanded young Drew.
+
+"No; and there isn't one," Tom assured him.  "Why will you be so
+foolish---so nervous?  In other words, why do you destroy your five
+senses with cigarettes in this fashion?"
+
+Cl-cl-click!
+
+Alf Drew halted, trembling so that he could hardly stand.
+
+"I'm going to quit camp---going to get out of this place," he
+shivered.  "The ground is full of rattlers.  O-o-o-oh!  There's
+another tuning up."
+
+Tom laughed covertly.  The disturbing sound came again.
+
+"I never saw a place like this part of the range," Alf all but
+sobbed, his breath catching.  "Oh, won't I be glad to see a city
+again!"
+
+"Just so you can find a store where you can buy cigarettes?" Tom
+Reade queried.
+
+"I wish I had one, now," moaned the young victim.  "It would steady
+me."
+
+"The last ones that you smoked didn't appear to steady you," the
+young engineer retorted.  "Just see how unstrung you are.  Every
+step you take you imagine you hear rattlers sounding their warning."
+
+"Do you tell me, on your sacred honor," proposed Alf, "that you
+haven't heard a single rattler this afternoon?"
+
+"I give you my most solemn word that I haven't," Tom answered.
+"Come, come, Alf!  What you want to do is to shake off the trembles.
+Let me take your arm.  Now, walk briskly with me.  Inflate your
+chest with all the air you can get in as we go along.  Just wait
+and see if that isn't the way to shake off these horrid cigarette
+dreams."
+
+Something in Reade's vigorous way of speaking made Alf Drew obey.
+Tom put him over the ground at as good a gait as he judged the
+cigarette victim would be able to keep up.
+
+Readers of the preceding volumes of this series, and of other,
+earlier series, need not the slightest introduction to Tom Reade
+and Harry Hazelton.  Our readers of the "_Grammar School Series_"
+know Tom and Harry as two of the members of that famous sextette
+of schoolboy athletes who, under the leadership of Dick Prescott,
+were known as Dick & Co.
+
+In the "_High School Boys Series_," too, our readers have followed
+the fortunes of Tom Reade and Harry Hazelton, through all their
+triumphs on football fields, on baseball diamonds and in all the
+school sports.
+
+Dick Prescott and Greg Holmes succeeded in winning appointments
+to the United States military Academy, and their adventures are
+fully set forth in the "_West Point Series_."
+
+Dave Darrin and Dan Dalzell "made" the United States Naval Academy
+at Annapolis, and what befell them there has been fully set forth
+in the "_Annapolis Series_."
+
+Reade and Harry Hazelton elected to go through life as civil engineers.
+In "_The Young Engineers in Colorado_" has been fully set forth
+the extraordinary work of these young men at railroad building
+through the mountains wilds.  In "_The Young Engineers in Arizona_"
+we have followed Tom and Harry through even more startling adventures,
+and have seen how they handled even greater problems in engineering.
+
+Up to date the careers of these two bright young men had not been
+humdrum ones.  The surroundings in which their professional lives
+had been passed had been such as to supply them with far more
+startling adventures than either young man had ever looked for.
+
+And now they were in Nevada, the state famous for its gold and silver
+mines.  Yet they had come ere solely in search of a few weeks of rest.
+Rest?  There was anything but rest immediately ahead of the young
+engineers, but the curtain had not been lifted.
+
+Immediately after the completion of their great work in Arizona,
+Tom Reade and Harry Hazelton had gone back east to the good old
+home town of Gridley.  While there they had encountered Dick Prescott
+and Greg Holmes, their old school chums, at that time cadets at
+the United States Military Academy.  The doings of the four old
+chums at that time in Gridley are set forth fully in "_Dick Prescott's
+Third Year At West Point_."
+
+During the weeks spent East, Tom and Harry had taken almost their
+first steps in the study of metallurgy.  They had succeed in mastering
+the comparatively simple art of assaying gold and silver.
+
+So now, with the summer past, we find our young engineers out in
+Nevada, taking a little more rest just because no new engineering
+task of sufficient importance had presented itself.
+
+"If we're going to be engineers out West, though, Harry, we simply
+must know a good deal about assaying precious metals," Tom had
+declared.
+
+So, though the chums were "taking a rest," as they phrased it, they
+had brought with them a small furnace and the rest of the outfit for
+assaying minerals in small quantities.
+
+Today, however, was altogether too fine for thoughts of work.  Just
+after breakfast Harry Hazelton had borrowed the only horse in camp,
+belonging to Jim Ferrers, their cook and guide, and had ridden away
+for the day.
+
+Barely had Hazelton departed when Alf Drew, hungry, lonely and
+wistful, had happened along.  He asked for "a job."  There really
+wasn't one for him, but good-natured Reade created one, offering
+five dollars a month and board.
+
+"No telling, young man, how long the job will last," Tom warned him.
+"We may at any hour break camp and get away."
+
+But Alf had taken the job and gratefully.  Not until after the noon
+meal had the little fellow revealed his unfortunate vice for
+cigarette smoking.
+
+"You've simply got to give up that habit, Alf" Tom urged, as they
+walked along.
+
+"You can't make me," retorted young Drew.  "You've no right to."
+
+"No, I haven't," Tom admitted soberly.  "If I had any real rights
+over you I'm afraid I'd turn you over my knee and spank you, three
+times a day, until you gave up the beastly habit."
+
+"You're not going to bounce me, are you?" asked Alf.
+
+"No; I'll keep you here as long as we can use a boy.  But, mark
+me, Alf, somehow, and before very long, I'm going to break you
+from your cigarettes.  I don't know how I'm going to do it, but I'm
+going to do it just the same!"
+
+Alf Drew looked uncommonly solemn, but he said nothing.
+
+For five minutes more they walked on, then came suddenly out from
+under a line of trees and stood at the edge of a low cliff, gazing
+down in astonishment at the gully below them.
+
+"What on earth-----" began Tom Reade, in amazement.
+
+"Let's scoot!" begged Alf tremulously.  "There's going to be some
+killing right down there!"
+
+It certainly looked that way.
+
+In the gully three automobiles, showing the effects of long travel
+over hard roads, stood close together.  More than a dozen people,
+all but two of whom were dressed in "eastern" clothes, stood by the
+machines.  Two of the party were women, and one a girl of twelve.
+
+The two men who belonged to the party, but did not appear to be
+"eastern," had drawn revolvers, and now stood facing four
+sullen-looking men who stood with the butts of their rifles resting
+on the ground.
+
+"Gracious!  We can't have any shooting with women and children
+standing around to get hit!" gasped Tom Reade.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+TROUBLE BREWS ON THE TRAIL
+
+
+So silent had been the approach of Tom and his waif companion
+that those below had not perceived them.
+
+Moreover, judging from the expressions on the faces of the people
+almost at Reade's feet, they were all too deeply absorbed in their
+own business to have any eyes or ears for outside matters.
+
+Through the scene below was one of armed truce that might, at any
+moment, break into hostilities, with human lives at stake, Tom
+glanced coolly downward for a few seconds after his first startled,
+unheard remark.
+
+"I'm going, to duck out of this," whispered Alf Drew, whose slim
+little figure was shaking in a way suggestive of chills.
+
+"Don't be in a hurry," Tom murmured.  "We may be of some use to
+some of these people."
+
+"Tote those guns away, friends," spoke one of the revolver-armed
+men with the automobile party, "and march yourselves under the
+guns.  Remember, we have women here."
+
+"They can get away," returned one of the sullen-faced men with rifles.
+"We won't hinder 'em.  We'll give 'em two full minutes to get where
+it's safe.  Then we're going to turn our talking machines loose."
+
+From the top of the low cliff came Tom Meade's drawling voice:
+
+"Oh, I say, friends!"
+
+Startled, all below glanced quickly upward.
+
+"There seems to be trouble down there," Tom suggested.
+
+"There sure is," nodded one of the armed men with the automobile
+party.
+
+"Now, it's too glorious a day to spoil it with fighting," Reade
+went on.  "Can't we arbitrate?"
+
+"The first move for you, young man," warned one of the four men,
+raising his rifle, "is to face about and git outer here."
+
+"Not while there are women and children present who might get hurt,"
+Tom dissented, with a shake of his head.
+
+"Git, I tell you!" shouted the man, now aiming his rifle full at
+Tom's chest.  Git---before I count five."
+
+"Save your cartridge," proposed Tom.  "I'm too poor game, and
+I'm not armed, either.  Surely you wouldn't shoot a harmless orphan
+like me."  Saying which the young engineer, having found a path down
+the cliff nearby, started slowly to descend.
+
+"Get back there!  Another step, and I'll put a ball through you!"
+roared the man who had Reade covered with his rifle.
+
+"That wouldn't prove anything but your marksmanship," Suggested Tom,
+and coolly continued to descend.
+
+"Going to get back?" howled the man behind the gun.
+
+Without further answer Reade quickened his pace somewhat, reaching
+the flat bottom of the gully on a run.
+
+Though he felt that the chances were eight out of ten that he would
+be shot at any second, Tom didn't betray any outward fear.  The
+truth was that even if he wanted to stop, he would have found it
+somewhat difficult on that steep incline.
+
+Where he landed, on his feet, Tom stood between the hostile parties.
+Had hostilities opened at that moment he would have been in a bad
+position between the two fires.
+
+"Great Scott!" gasped the frightened Alf, peering down.
+
+That youngster had thrown himself flat on his stomach his head
+behind a bush.  He was trying to make himself as small as possible.
+"Whew!  But Reade has the real grit!"
+
+First of all Tom gazed curiously at the four men, who glared back at
+him with looks full of hate.
+
+"Who are you, anyway?" demanded the spokesman of the sullen four.
+
+"I might be the sheriff," Tom replied placidly.
+
+"Huh!" retorted the spokesman.
+
+"But I'm not," Tom went on, rather genially.  "I'm just an inquisitive
+tourist."
+
+"Heard o' Bald Knob?" demanded the leader of the four.
+
+"No," admitted Reade, opening his eyes with interest.  "Who is he,
+and how did he become bald?"
+
+"Bald Knob is a place," came the information.  "It's the place where
+inquisitive tourists are buried in these parts."
+
+"I'll look it up some day," Tom promised, good-humoredly.
+
+"You'll look it up before dark if we have time to pack you there,"
+growled the leader of the men.  "Now, are you going to stand aside?"
+
+Tom shook his head.
+
+"Let's shake hands all around and then sit down for a nice little
+talk," the young engineer suggested.
+
+"There's been too much talk already," snarled Tom's antagonist.
+
+The men of the automobile party were silent.  They had scented
+in Tom an ally who would help their cause materially.
+
+"Then you won't be sociable?" Reade demanded, as if half offended.
+
+"Git out and go about your business," ordered the leader of the
+four men.
+
+"It's always my business when women and children appear to be in
+danger," returned Tom.  He turned on his heel, presenting his
+broad back as a target to the rifles as he stepped over to automobile
+party.
+
+Oddly the four men, though they had the look of being desperate, did
+not offer to shoot.
+
+Tom's audacity had almost cowed them for the moment.
+
+"I hope I can be of some use to you," suggested Tom, raising his
+hat out of respect to the women.
+
+"I reckon you can, if you're a good hand with a gun," replied the
+older of the two armed men with the motor party.  "Got any shooting
+irons about you?"
+
+"Nothing in that line," Tom admitted.
+
+"Then reach under the cushion, left-hand front seat of that car,"
+returned the same speaker.  "You'll find an automatic revolver
+there."
+
+Reade, however, chose to ignore the advice.  He had small taste for
+the use of firearms.
+
+Seeing, the young engineer's reluctance the younger of the two
+armed men went himself to the car, taking out the revolver and
+offering it to this cool young stranger.
+
+"Thank you," was Tom's smiling reply.  "But that tool is not for
+me.  I'm the two-hundred-and-thirteenth vice president of the
+Peace Society."
+
+"You'd better fight, or hike," advised the older of the two men.
+"This isn't going to be a safe place for just nothing but chin.
+And, ladies, I ask you to get behind one of the cars, since you
+won't leave here.  Throw yourselves flat on your faces.  We don't
+want any good women hit by any such mean rascals as that crowd
+over there."
+
+The men with the rifles scowled dangerously.
+
+"Now, listen to me---all hands," begged Tom, raising his right hand.
+"It's none of my business, as I very well know, but may I inquire
+what all this trouble is about?"
+
+A rather portly, well dressed and well-groomed man of sixty, who
+had been leaning against the side of one of the cars, now spoke
+up promptly enough:
+
+"I am head of the company that has legally staked out a claim
+here, young man.  Ours is a mining company.  The men yonder say
+that they own the claim---that they found it first, and that it
+is theirs.  However, they never staked it off---never filed their
+claim."
+
+"It's our claim, just the same," spoke up the at the four men.
+"And we won't have it jumped by any gang of tenderfeet on earth.
+So get out of here, all of you, or the music will start at once.
+We don't want to hit any woman or children, but we're going to
+hold our own property.  If the women and the child won't get out
+of here, then they'll have to take their chances."
+
+"That's the case, and the line of action!" growled another of
+the men.
+
+"But let me ask you men," continued Tom, facing the quartette, "do
+you claim that you ever made legal entry of your asserted title here?"
+
+"Maybe we didn't," grunted the spokesman.  But we've known of
+this place for 'most a year Today we came to settle here, stake
+off our claims, file our entry and begin living here.  But we
+found these benzine trotters on the ground.
+
+"But these people state that they have made legal claim here," Tom
+urged.
+
+"We have," insisted the portly man in black.
+
+"If there is any dispute over the facts, my friends," Tom continued,
+turning once more to the four men, "then it looks like a case for the
+courts to settle.  But if these people, who appear to be from the
+East, have acquired legal title here then they'll be able to hold it,
+and you four men are only intruders here.  Why, the matter begins to
+look rather clear---even for a Nevada dispute."
+
+"These folks are going to move, or we'll topple 'em over and move
+'em ourselves," insisted the leader.
+
+"Men," rejoined Reade, "I'm afraid you're not cool enough to settle
+this case fairly.  We'll call in a few of the neighbors and try to
+get the facts of the case.  We'll-----"
+
+"Neighbors?" jeered the leader of the quartette.  "Where are you
+going to find any?"
+
+"Right near at hand," Tom proposed.  "Much nearer than you think.
+Drew!"
+
+Alf still lay behind the bush near the edge of the cliff.  He
+was still present mainly because he had not courage enough to
+run away.
+
+"Drew!" Tom repeated, this time speaking sharply, for he guessed
+that the cigarette fiend was shaking in his boots.
+
+"Yes, sir," piped the faltering voice of Alf.
+
+"Drew, run to camp as fast as you can.  Tell Ferrers to bring
+the whole crowd over at once."
+
+Alf was astounded by this staggering command, which sounded like
+an order to rush an army to the spot.  Yet he managed to gasp:
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Now, go!  Make fast time.  Don't let any of this outfit catch
+you and hinder you."
+
+"No, sir!"
+
+This time Alf Drew's voice sounded faintly, over his shoulder
+from a considerable distance, for the boy was running fast, fear
+lending speed his feet.
+
+"You see," Tom went on coolly, standing so that he could face
+both factions in this quarrel, "I don't know much about the merits
+of the case, and I'm a stranger here.  I don't want to be accused
+of being too fresh, so I've sent for some of the natives.  They'll
+know, better than just what to advise here.  It won't take 'em
+long to get here."
+
+Tom wound up this last statement with a cheerful smile.
+
+"So Jim Ferrers is over in your camp, is he?" demanded the leader
+of the four men.
+
+"Yes," Tom assented affably.  "Do you know him?"
+
+"Maybe."
+
+"Jim is a fine fellow," Reade went on warmly.  "He knows all about
+Nevada, too, and he's a man of good judgment.  He'll be a lot of
+use to us in getting at the rights of this case."
+
+"There's only one right side," insisted the leader of the quartette.
+
+"So my friend here has informed me," answered Reade, nodding in
+the direction of the stout man in black.  "Yet there seems to
+be a good deal of difference in opinion as to which is really
+the right side.  But just wait until Jim and his friends get here.
+They'll be able to set us all straight and there won't be any
+need for doing any rough work like shooting."
+
+"Dolph, we'd better shoot up the whole crowd, including the cheeky
+young one, before Jim Ferrers and his crowd gits here," propose
+one of the quartette.
+
+"Jim Ferrers will be awfully displeased, you do," drawled Tom.
+"Do you know Jim?  He has a reputation, I believe, for being
+rather sore on folks who shoot up his friends."
+
+"I'll do it for you, anyway, kid!" growled one of the four, leveling
+his rifle.
+
+But their leader struck the weapon up angrily just before the
+shot barked out.
+
+"Who's having Fourth of July around here?" called a laughing voice
+from some distance down the rising path at the rear of the quartette.
+The four men turned quickly, but Tom had recognized joyfully
+the tones of Harry Hazelton's voice.
+
+"You keep out of here, stranger!" ordered one of the quartette
+gruffly.
+
+"Don't you do anything of the sort, Harry!" roared Reade's voice.
+"You keep right on an join us."
+
+"Did you hear my advice?" insisted the leader of the four, holding
+his rifle as though would throw the butt to his shoulder.
+
+"Yes," said Hazelton, calmly, "but I also heard my senior partner's
+order.  He and I stick together.  Gangway, please."
+
+Harry was cool enough as he rode his horse at a walk past the
+men.  Hazelton will never understand how near death he was at
+that moment.  But there had been a few whispered words between
+the men, and they had allowed him to ride by.
+
+"What's the game here, Tom?" Harry called cheerily.  "Any real
+excitement going on?"
+
+"No." Tom shook his head.  "Just a little misunderstanding over
+a question of fact."
+
+"Then I see that the lie hasn't been passed," grinned Hazelton.
+"The ground isn't littered at all."
+
+He rode up to his chum, displaying no curiosity.
+
+That the automobile party had been much cheered by the arrival
+of the young engineers was wholly apparent.  For the same reason
+the four men appeared to be a good deal less certain of themselves.
+
+"I guess there isn't going to be any real trouble," spoke Reade
+carelessly.  "But there's a question at issue that I feel it would
+be impertinent in me to try to settle, so I've sent for Jim Ferrers
+to bring over the whole crowd."
+
+Though Harry couldn't imagine where Ferrers's "crowd" was, he wisely
+held his tongue.
+
+At the same time an earnest conference was going on among the
+four men.  They spoke in low whispers.
+
+"Jim Ferrers, alone, we could handle," declared the leader.  "But
+if Jim has a crowd back of him things won't go our way when it come
+to the shooting."
+
+"Let's start it before Ferrers's party gets here," growled another
+of the sullen ones.
+
+"We would be tracked down and shot at by Ferrers and a crowd,"
+argued the leader.  "Things are too warm for us here, just now.
+In a case like this remember that a fellow lasts longer when
+he does his shooting from ambush and at his own time.  We won't
+let this Dunlop crowd fool us out of our rights, but we'll have
+to choose a better time---and fight from ambush at that."
+
+It was soon plain that this view prevailed among the quartette.
+As they turned to move away, the leader remarked:
+
+"We'll leave you for a while, Dunlop, but don't image you've won.
+Don't get any notion that you'll ever win.  You'll hear from us
+again."
+
+"And you'll hear a plenty as long as your hearing remains good,"
+snarled another of the men.
+
+The four disturbers, turning their backs, started down the sloping
+trail.
+
+"Oh, but I'm glad we've seen the last of them!" shuddered one
+of the women of the Dunlop party.
+
+"Don't be deceived into thinking that the last has been seen of
+that crew, madam," spoke Tom Reade gently.  "Those fellows will
+be heard from again, and at no very distant hour, either.  Mr.
+Dunlop---I believe that is your name, sir?"
+
+The stout man bowed.
+
+"Mr. Dunlop," Reade went on, earnestly, "I urge you to get these
+women and the child away from here as soon as you can.  Also any
+of the men who may happen to have no taste for fighting.  I don't
+believe you'll see those four men in the open any more, but there'll
+be more than one shot fired from ambush.  You surely won't expose
+these women and the child any further!"
+
+"But, Father," broke in one of the women, tremulously, "if we leave,
+it will take one of your two fighting men to run the car.  Think how
+weak that will leave your defense."
+
+"You forget, my dear," spoke Mr. Dunlop, gently, "that our newly-found
+young friends have just sent for other men."
+
+Tom smiled grimly as he thought of Jim Ferrers's "crowd"---consisting
+of poor, frighten little Alf with the cigarette-stained fingers.
+
+"At any cost or risk, sir," Tom went on, after a moment, "you must
+get the women and the child away from here.  But---why, where is
+the child?"
+
+There was an instant of dismay.  The little girl had vanished.
+
+"Gladys!" spoke Dr. Dunlop's daughter in alarm.
+
+From under one of the cars a muffled voice answered, "Here I am."
+Then Gladys, sobbing and shaking, emerged into view.
+
+"I was so frightened!" cried the child.  "I just had to hide."
+
+"The men have gone away, dear," explained her mother soothingly.
+"And now we're going too.  We'll be safe after this."
+
+At that instant three shots, fired in rapid succession, rang out.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+JIM'S "ARMY" APPEARS
+
+
+"Down on your faces!" called the older of the armed men with the
+motor party.
+
+"Not necessary," spoke Tom, dryly.  "The shots were fired by Jim
+Ferrers's army."
+
+"And I missed the pesky critter, too!" spoke Jim's voice, resentfully,
+as he showed his head over the edge of the cliff, where three puffs
+of smoke slowly ascended.
+
+"Don't show yourself, Jim!  Careful!" Reade warned their guide.
+
+"It's all right," declared Ferrers indifferently, as he rose to his
+full height, then discovered the path by which Tom had descended.
+"The critters took to cover as soon as they heard me making a noise."
+
+With that explanation Ferrers slid rather than walked down into the
+gully.
+
+"Where are the rest of your men?" questioned Mr. Dunlop, eagerly.
+
+"I'm all there are," explained Jim, "except one pesky little puffer
+of cigarettes.  He's hiding his stained fingers somewhere in the
+brush half a mile from here."
+
+"There are no more men to your crowd?" spoke Dr. Dunlop anxiously.
+
+"None," Tom broke in.  "My order to the boy, Drew, was intended
+by way of conversation to interest your four callers."
+
+"Then, indeed, we must look out for an ambush," said one of Mr.
+Dunlop's companions, a man of thirty.
+
+"And you will be in real danger every minute of the time," said
+Dunlop's daughter, fearfully.  "Father, why can't you come out
+of this wild country?  Is the money that you may make out here worth
+all the risk?"
+
+"Yes," answered Mr. Dunlop, with a firmness that seemed intended
+to settle the matter.
+
+"Why did you fire on those men without provocation?" Tom asked,
+aside, of Jim Ferrers, who stood stroking his rifle barrel with one
+hand.
+
+"I had provocation," Ferrers answered.
+
+"Oh," said Reade, who was none the wiser.
+
+"I'll 'get' Dolph Gage yet, if I ever have a fair chance without
+running my neck into the noose of the law," added Ferrers, with
+silent fury in his tone.
+
+"Is there a story behind it all, eh" queried Tom mildly.
+
+"Yes, Mr. Reade.  Too long a story to tell in a minute."
+
+"I didn't mean to pry into your affairs, Ferrers," Tom made haste
+to say.
+
+"Well, for one thing, Dolph Gage shot the only brother I ever
+had---and got cleared of the charge in the court!" muttered Ferrers.
+
+"Was your brother killed?" Tom inquired.
+
+"Didn't I state that Dolph Gage shot him?" demanded Jim in a
+semi-injured tone.  "Men don't often waste ammunition out in this
+county, even if I did send in three wild shots just now.  But that
+was because I was excited, and couldn't see straight.  I'll try to
+do better next time."
+
+Mr. Dunlop was now engaged in making his daughter, her child and
+the other woman comfortable in one of the touring cars.
+
+Several of the men in the party, also, had decided that they did not
+care to remain if they were to be exposed to shooting at all hours
+of the day.
+
+In the end Mr. Dunlop had but three of the men in his party left
+with him.
+
+The younger of the two armed men was sent to drive the car containing
+the women.  One of the guests of the Dunlop party drove a second
+car.  In this order they started for Dugout City, thirty miles
+away.  As the roads hardly deserved the name the motor cars would
+not be likely to reach Dugout before dark.
+
+"Look out for ambushes," exclaimed Mr. Dunlop, to the armed driver
+of the women's car.
+
+"Yes, sir; but there isn't much danger of our being fired on.  Gage's
+gang will be only too glad to see the women folks leaving here.  We
+won't be troubled."
+
+Mr. Dunlop stood anxiously gazing after the two touring cars as
+long as they could be seen.  Then he stepped briskly back, holding
+out his hand to Tom Reade.
+
+"Permit me, now, to thank you for your timely aid," said the stout
+man.  "You know my name.  Will you kindly introduce your friends?"
+
+This Tom did at once, after which Mr. Dunlop presented his three
+companions.  One was his nephew, Dave Hill, the second, George
+Parkinson, Mr. Dunlop's secretary, and the third a man named John
+Ransome, an investor in Mr. Dunlop's mining enterprise.  The elder
+of the armed men who remained behind was Joe Timmins, both guide
+and chauffeur.  The young man who had gone with one of the cars
+was Timmins's son.
+
+"You have a mining claim hereabouts, Mr. Dunlop?" Tom inquired.
+
+"Yes; but not exactly at this point," added the older man, with
+a smile as he noted Reade staring about him with a quizzical smile.
+"The claim stands over there on that slope"--- pointing to the
+westward.
+
+"Has it been prospected, sir?" asked Hazelton.
+
+"Yes: it's a valuable property, all right.  I brought my party
+out here to show it to them.  The friends who have returned to
+Dugout, and Mr. Ransome here, have the money ready to put up the
+needed capital as soon as they are satisfied."
+
+"I'm satisfied now," spoke up Ransome, "and I'm sure that the
+others are, after what Mr. Dunlop showed us this morning."
+
+"How soon do you begin operations?" Tom asked with interest.
+
+"As soon as my men have talked it over and have concluded to put
+up the money, replied Mr. Dunlop.
+
+"We're ready, now---all of us," Ransome broke in.
+
+"Then," said Mr. Dunlop, "the next step will be to get in touch
+with a satisfactory engineer.  You see, Mr. Reade, it's either
+a tunneling or a boring claim.  We must either sink a shaft or
+drive a tunnel---whichever operation can be done at the least
+cost.  Either way will be expensive, and we must find out for
+a certainty which will be the cheaper.  There's a lot of refractory
+rock in the slope yonder.  In the morning our party will get all
+the ore we can from the surface croppings, then start for Dugout,
+going from there to Carson City.  At Carson we hope to find an
+honest engineer and a capable metallurgist."
+
+"Then you haven't engaged any engineer?" Reade asked, almost eagerly.
+
+"Not yet.  There was no need, until we had satisfied the investors."
+
+"Perhaps Hazelton and I can make some deal with you, Mr. Dunlop,"
+Reade proposed.
+
+"In what line?" inquired Dunlop.  "Are you miners---or machinists?"
+
+"When we want to be really kind to ourselves," smiled Tom, "we call
+ourselves engineers."
+
+"Mining engineers?" demanded Mr. Dunlop, gazing at the two youths
+in astonishment.
+
+"No, sir.  Neither Hazelton nor myself ever handled a mine yet," Tom
+answered.  "But we have done a lot of railroad work."
+
+"Railroad work isn't mine digging," objected Mr. Dunlop.
+
+"I'm aware of that, sir," Tom agreed.  "Yet boring is largely
+excavation work; so is tunneling.  We've had charge of considerable
+excavating in our services to railroads."
+
+"Very likely," nodded Dunlop, reflectively.  But how about the
+assays for gold and silver?  Sometimes, when searching for drifts
+and runs of the metal we may need a dozen assays in a single week."
+
+"We have the furnace with us, sir; the assay balance and all the
+tools and chemicals that are used in an ordinary assay."
+
+"You have?" asked Mr. Dunlop.  "Then you must have come prepared
+to go into this line of work."
+
+"We thought it more than likely that we'd amuse ourselves along
+that line of work for a while," Tom explained truthfully.  "Yet
+mining attracts us.  We'd stay here and go into the thing in earnest
+if we could make good enough terms with you."
+
+"Would seventy-five dollars a month for each of you be satisfactory?"
+asked Mr. Dunlop keenly.
+
+"No, sir," replied Reade with emphasis.  "Nor would we take a
+hundred and seventy-five dollars, either.  When I said that we
+would consider a good proposition I meant just that, sir."
+
+"Hm-m-m-m!" murmured Mr. Dunlop.  "I shall have to give this matter
+thought, and question you a good deal more on your qualifications.
+I suppose you would be willing to let this matter remain open for
+a few days?"
+
+"Certainly, sir; we are in no hurry.  However, until we are definitely
+engaged we do not bind ourselves to be ready for your work."
+
+"Where is your camp?" said Mr. Dunlop.
+
+Jim Ferrers explained the easiest way of reaching the camp in a motor
+car.
+
+"And I'd advise you to come to our camp, too," Tom added.  "You'll
+be safer there than here."
+
+"But we would; expose you to danger, too," Mr. Dunlop objected.
+
+"We're rather used to danger," smiled Tom placidly.  "In fact, just
+a little of danger makes us feel that we're getting more enjoyment
+out of life."
+
+"Do you think it a good plan to take up the invitation of these
+gentlemen, Timmins?" inquired Mr. Dunlop.
+
+"It's the safest thing you can do, sir," answered Joe Timmins.
+
+"We'll start back, now," proposed Tom.  "If you don't drive too
+fast you'll give us a chance to reach our camp in time to welcome
+you."
+
+"You start now, and we'll start within ten minutes," proposed
+Mr. Dunlop.
+
+This being agreed to, Tom, Harry and Ferrers began the task of
+climbing the cliff path.  At last they reached the top, then started
+at long strides toward camp, Ferrers's horse having been surrendered
+by Harry to Dave Hill.
+
+"Who knows," laughed Tom, "we may become mining engineers here
+in Nevada"
+
+"Small chance of it," Harry rejoined.  "In opinion Mr. Dunlop is
+a good enough fellow, but he's accustomed to making all the money
+himself.  He'd want us at about a hundred dollars a month apiece."
+
+"He can want, then," Tom retorted.  "Yet, somehow, I've an idea
+That Mr. Dunlop will turn to be generous if he decides that we're
+the engineers for him."
+
+For some minutes the trio tramped on silently, in Indian file,
+Ferrers leading.
+
+"Hello, Alf!" bellowed Tom through the woods, as they neared their
+camp site.  No answer came.
+
+"Where did you leave the little fellow, Jim?" inquired Reade.
+
+"I didn't notice which way he went, sir," returned the guide.
+"He looked plumb scared, and I reckon he ducked into cover somewhere.
+Maybe he headed for Dugout City and hasn't stopped running yet."
+
+Then a turn of the path under the trees brought them in sight of
+their camp.
+
+Rather, where the camp had been.  Jim Ferrers rubbed his eyes for
+an instant, for the tents had been spirited away as though by magic.
+Nor were the cots to be seen.  Blankets lay strewn about on the
+ground.  A quarter the camp's food supplies was still left, and
+that was all.
+
+"Is it magic, Jim?" gasped puzzled Tom Reade.
+
+"No, sir; just plain stealing," Ferrers responded grimly.
+
+"Then who-----"
+
+"Dolph Gage's crew, I'll be bound, sir.  They don't want you two
+hanging around in this country, and they want me a heap sight
+less.  But maybe we'll show 'em!  The trail can't be hard to find.
+We'll have to start at once."
+
+"After we've seen and spoken to Mr. Dunlop," Tom amended.  "We
+can't run off without explanation to the guests that we have invited
+to share the camp that we thought had."
+
+Barely a hundred yards away four men lay on their stomachs, heads
+concealed behind a low fringe of brush under which the muzzles
+of their rifles peeped.
+
+"Remember," whispered Dolph Gage faintly, "all of you fire your first
+shot into Jim Ferrers.  After that we'll take charge of the
+youngsters!  Get a close bead on Jim.  Ready!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+SOLD OUT FOR A TOY BALE!
+
+
+Jim Ferrers had stated a plain truth when he remarked that Nevada
+men did not often waste ammunition.
+
+With four rifles aimed at him, at that short, point-blank range,
+it would seem that Jim's last moment had come.
+
+Yet at that instant the sound of an approaching motor ear was heard.
+
+Then the car, moving at twelve miles an hour mounted the crest at a
+point less than seventy yards from where the four ambushed men lay.
+
+Joe Timmins caught sight of them.
+
+"Take the wheel!" muttered Timmins, forcing Parkinson's nearer
+hand to the wheel.
+
+In an instant Joe was upon his feet, drawing his revolver.  He
+fired at the men in ambush, but a lurch of the car on the rough
+ground destroyed his aim.
+
+"Dolph Gage and his rascals at the ridge," bellowed Joe, in a
+fog-horn voice, pointing.
+
+Jim Ferrers dropped to the ground, hugging it flat.  Harry followed
+suit.  Tom Reade hesitated an instant, then away he flew at a
+dead run.
+
+Close to a tree Tom stopped, thrusting right hand in among the
+bushes.  Up and down his hand moved.
+
+"Shoot and duck!" snarled Dolph, in a passion because of their
+having been discovered.
+
+Boom!
+
+Over by the ridge where Gage and his fellow rascals lay it looked
+as though a volcano had started in operation on a small scale.
+
+Fragments of rock, clouds of dirt, splinters and bits of brush
+shot up in the air.
+
+Following the report came a volley of terrific yells from Dolph
+and his fellows.
+
+They had been on the instant of firing when the big explosion
+came.  Jim Ferrers, too, was taking careful aim at the moment.
+
+It is a law of Nature that whatever goes up debris, mixed with
+larger pieces of rock and clots of earth, descended on the scene
+of the explosion.  Yet little of this flying stuff reached Dolph
+Gage and his companions, for they were up and running despite
+the mark that they thus presented to Ferrers.
+
+Nor did the rascals stop running until they had reached distant cover.
+
+"Stop it, Jim---don't shoot!" gasped Tom Reade, choking with laughter,
+as Ferrers leaped to his feet, taking aim after the fugitives.
+
+"I want Dolph Gage, while I've got a good, legal excuse," growled
+Ferrers, glancing along rifle barrel at the forward sight.
+
+"Don't think of shooting," panted Tom, darting forward and laying
+a hand on the rifle barrel to spoil the guide's aim.  "Jim, it
+isn't sportsmanlike to shoot a fleeing enemy in the back!  Fight
+fair and square, Jim---if you must fight."
+
+There was much in this to appeal to the guide's sense of honor and
+fair play.  Though scowled, he lowered the rifle.
+
+"Tom, you everlasting joker, what happened?" demanded Harry Hazelton.
+
+"You saw for yourself, didn't you?" retorted Reade.
+
+"Yes; but-----"
+
+"Are you so little of an engineer that you don't know a _mine_
+when you see one, Harry?"
+
+"But how did that mine come to be there?"
+
+"I planted it."
+
+"When?"
+
+"Today, when you started on your ride."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"You see, Harry, I was pondering away over mining problems this
+morning.  As you had the only horse, that was all that there was
+left for me to do.  Now, you must have noticed that most of the
+outcropping rock around here is of a very refractory kind?"
+
+"Yes," nodded Hazelton.
+
+"Then, of course, you realize that for at least a hundred feet down
+in the mine the rock that would be found would be the same."
+
+"Undoubtedly."
+
+"So, Harry, I was figuring on a way to blast ore rock out whenever
+we should find refractory stuff down a shaft or in the galleries
+or tunnels of a mine."
+
+"Fine, isn't it?" retorted Hazelton.  "A great scheme!  You blast
+out the rock and the force of the explosion shoots all the fine
+particle of gold into the walls of the mine---just the way you'd
+pepper a tree with birdshot!"
+
+Mr. Dunlop had drawn close and now stood smiling broadly.
+
+"That appears to be one on you, Reade," suggested the mine promoter.
+
+"That's what I want to find out," returned Tom soberly; "whether
+I'm a discoverer, or just a plain fool."
+
+"What do you think about it?"
+
+"Let's go and look at the ledge, and then I can tell you, sir,"
+Reade answered, striding forward.
+
+"Look out!" cautioned Joe Timmins.  "Those hyenas will shoot.
+They'll be sore over the trick you played on them, and they'll
+be hiding waiting for a chance for a shot."
+
+"Oh, bother the hyenas," Tom retorted, impatiently.  "I'm out
+for business today.  Coming, Mr. Dunlop?"  The mine operator showed
+signs of hanging back.
+
+Harry promptly joined his chum at what was left of the little ledge.
+After a few moments Mr. Dunlop, seeing that no shots were fired,
+stepped over there also, followed by his nephew.  Jim Ferrers climbed
+a tree, holding his rifle and keeping his eyes open for a shot,
+while Timmins threw himself behind a rock, watching in the direction
+that the four men had taken.
+
+"This looks even better than I had expected," Tom explained, his
+eyes glowing as he held up fragments of rock.  "You see, the dynamite
+charge was a low-power one.  It just splintered the rock.  There
+wasn't so very much driving force to the explosion.  Another time
+I could make the force even lower."
+
+"Here's gold in this bit of rock!" cried Harry, turning, his eyes
+sparkling.
+
+"Yes; but not enough to look promising," replied Mr. Dunlop, after
+examining the specimen.  "But we'll look through the rest of the
+stuff that's loose."
+
+The two men who had hung back soon joined them.
+
+"I wouldn't care about filing a claim to it," Mr. Dunlop, shaking
+his head after some further exploration.  "This rock wouldn't
+yield enough to the ton to make the work profitable."
+
+"Just a little, outcropping streak, possibly from the claim that
+I have below," was Mr. Dunlop's conclusion "By the way, Reade,
+how did you explode the mine?"
+
+"With a magneto," Tom explained, then ran and took the battery
+from behind the tree from which he had fired it.  "I buried the
+wire, of course, so that no one would trip over it," he added.
+"Just after I got it attended to Alf Drew happened along, looked
+forlorn, and wanted a job.  So I had almost forgotten the mine,
+until I realized that the thing was planted right in front of
+where Dolph Gage's crew were hidden.  By the way, Jim, where is
+Alf?"
+
+"All the information I've got wouldn't send you two feet in the right
+direction," the guide reported gruffly.
+
+"And where are our tents and the other stuff?" Harry demanded.
+"Gage's crew couldn't get far with them in the time they've had.
+Shall we hustle after our property?"
+
+"Yes," nodded Tom.
+
+"At the momentary risk of being shot to pieces," added Mr. Dunlop,
+dryly.
+
+"Those little chances go with being involved in a Nevada mining
+dispute, don't they?" queried Reade.
+
+"Where can we begin to look?" Harry pressed.  "Let's scurry about
+a bit.  Surely men can't get away with tents without leaving some
+trail."
+
+Within two minutes they had the trail.  Marks were discovered
+that plainly had been made by dragging canvas and guy-ropes along
+over the ground.
+
+"We'll find our stuff soon," predicted Tom, striding along over
+a rough trail.  "The scoundrels didn't have a team, and they wouldn't
+take the stuff far without other transportation than their own backs.
+Hello!  What's in there?"
+
+Tom had detected some motions in a clump of brush.
+
+"Look out!" warned Jim Ferrers, bringing his rifle to "ready."
+
+But Tom darted straight into the brush.
+
+"Then this is where you are?" demanded Tom dryly.  He glanced down
+at the cowering form of Alf Drew.
+
+"So you've got the 'makings,' have you?"  Reade demanded, seizing
+Alf by the collar and yanking him up to his feet.
+
+Paper and tobacco fell from young Drew's nerveless grasp to the
+ground.
+
+"You made me drop the makings of a good one," whined Alf resentfully.
+
+"You didn't have that stuff two hours ago.  Where did you get
+it?" Reade demanded.
+
+"Found it," half whimpered Drew.
+
+"Do you expect me to believe any such fairy tales as that?" insisted
+Tom Reade.
+
+"If you have tobacco and cigarette papers," Tom continued, "then
+some one gave the stuff to you.  It was Dolph Gage, or one of
+his rascals, wasn't it?"
+
+"Don't know him," replied the boy, with a shake of his head.
+
+"Now, don't try to fool me, Drew," warned Tom, with a mild shake
+administered to the youngster's shoulders.  "How much tobacco
+have you?"
+
+"A whole package," admitted Alf reluctantly, feeling that it would
+be of no use to try to deceive his employer.
+
+"And plenty of papers to go with it?"
+
+"Ye-es."
+
+"You got it from four men?"
+
+"No; I didn't."
+
+"Well, from one of four men, then?  Tell me the truth."
+
+"Ye-es."
+
+"What did you do to please the four men?"
+
+Alf Drew shifted uneasily from one foot to the other, and then back
+again.
+
+"Come!  Speak up!" Reade insisted sternly.
+
+"You're wasting our time.  What did you do for the four men?"
+
+"I didn't do anything," Alf evaded.
+
+"What did you tell them, then?" Reade wanted to know.
+
+"They asked me a few questions."
+
+"Of course; and you answered the questions."
+
+"Well, I-----"
+
+"What did the men want to know about?" pressed Tom, the look in his
+eyes growing sterner still.
+
+"They wanted to know how many men Jim Ferrers had," admitted the
+Drew boy.
+
+"Oh, I see," pondered Tom aloud, a half smile creeping into his
+face.  "They were guessing the size of Ferrers's army, were they?"
+
+"I---I guess so," Alf replied.
+
+"And you told them-----?"
+
+"I told 'em the camp was made up of you and Mr. Hazelton, Jim
+Ferrers and myself."
+
+"And then they gave you the tobacco for cigarettes, did they?"
+
+"I made 'em gimme that first," Alf retorted, a look of cunning
+in his eyes.
+
+"So, my bright little hero, you sold us out for a toy bale of
+cigarettes, did you?" demanded Tom Reade, staring coldly down
+at the shame-faced youngster.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+NO NEED TO WORK FOR PENNIES
+
+
+"I---I didn't see how it could do any harm," sniveled young Drew.
+
+"Perhaps it didn't," Tom admitted.  "So far, it has resulted only
+in our being ambushed and all but murdered.  Now, where did they
+take our tents and the other stuff?"
+
+"I don't know," declared Alf.  "Are the tents gone?"  He answered
+so promptly that Reade believed him.
+
+"Very much so," replied Reade, releasing his grip on Drew's shoulder.
+"Come on, friends, we'll hunt further."
+
+"Say, what was that big explosion?" asked Alf, running after the
+party when he found himself being left alone.
+
+"No time to talk until we find our camp stuff," Tom called back
+over his shoulder.
+
+"I'll help you," proposed Alf eagerly.
+
+"You're full of helpfulness," Reade jibed.
+
+But Alf evidently preferred to stick to them.  He ran along at
+the heels of the last rapidly striding man.  Joe Timmins was the
+only one absent, he having remained at the camp site to keep a
+watchful eye over the automobile.
+
+Jim Ferrers was in the lead, his trained eyes searching the ground
+for the trail of the tents.
+
+Within five minutes the party came upon the tents and the food
+supplies, all of which had been dumped into a thicket in confused
+piles.
+
+"We'll sort this out and get it back to camp," Tom proposed.
+"Alf, little hero, redeem yourself by buckling down to a good
+load.  Come here; let me load you down."
+
+Alf meekly submitted, cherishing a half hope that he would not
+be discharged from his new position after all.
+
+At the end of an hour the stuff had all been taken back and the
+camp looked a good deal as it had looked that morning.
+
+"Now, Alf," directed Tom in a milder, kinder tone, "you hustle
+over and break your back helping Mr. Ferrers to get supper ready.
+We're a famished lot.  Understand?"
+
+Alf was only too glad to be able to understand that his part in
+the dismantling of the camp had been overlooked.  While Tom and
+Harry led their guests into one of the tents, young Drew hastened
+over to where Jim Ferrers was starting a fire in the camp stove.
+
+"Now, put that stuff back in your pockets, or I'll throw it in
+the fire!" sounded the angry voice of Ferrers.  "You can't use
+any of that stuff when you're working around me."
+
+"The poor little cigarette pest must have been trying to use his
+newly acquired 'makings,'" grinned Tom.
+
+While Ferrers was thus busied with preparation of the meal, Joe
+Timmins had taken the guide's rifle and was keeping a watchful
+eye over the approaches to the neighborhood.
+
+"So you young men think you could serve me satisfactorily as engineers,"
+questioned Mr. Dunlop.
+
+"I think we could," Tom answered.
+
+"But I am afraid you young men have a rather large notion as to the
+pay you're worth," continued the mine promoter.
+
+"That's right, sir," Reade nodded.  "We have a good-sized idea
+on the pay question.  Now, when you go to Dugout City next you
+might wire the president of the S.B. & L. railroad, at Denver,
+or the president of the A.G. & N.M., at Tucson, Arizona, and
+ask those gentlemen whether we are in the habit of making good on
+large pay."
+
+"How much will you young men want?"
+
+"For work of this character," replied Tom, after a few moments
+of thought, during which Harry Hazelton was silent, "we shall
+want six hundred dollars a month, each, with two hundred dollars
+apiece added for the fighting risk."
+
+"The fighting risk?" questioned Mr. Dunlop.
+
+"Well, we shall have Dolph Gage and his crowd to guard against, won't
+we?" Reads counter-questioned.
+
+"But such pay is absurd!" he protested.
+
+"From your view-point, very likely, sir.  From our view-point
+it will be very ordinary compensation, and nothing but our desire
+to learn more about mining will tempt us to go into it at the figure
+we have named."
+
+"Your price puts your services out of the question for my company,"
+replied Mr. Dunlop, with a shake of his head.
+
+"Very good, sir," Tom rejoined pleasantly.  "No harm done, and
+we need not talk it over any more.  We wish you good luck in finding
+proper engineers for your work.  You will probably motor back to
+Dugout tomorrow morning, won't you?"
+
+"We'll have to," Mr. Dunlop answered.  "We're not safe here until
+we hire a few good men to come out here to keep Gage and his fellows
+at a distance."
+
+"That's true, sir," Tom nodded.  "As you'll need a good many men
+here by the time you start work on your mine you'll do well to
+bring at least a score of them down at once.  Twenty good, rough
+men, used to this life and not afraid of bullets, ought to make
+you feel wholly safe and secure on your own property."
+
+There was more talk, but neither Tom nor Harry again referred
+to their serving the new company as engineers.
+
+In due course of time Jim Ferrers, with such help as Alf was able
+to give, had supper ready to serve.  It was a rough meal, of hard
+tack, pilot bread, potatoes, canned meats and vegetables, but
+outdoor life had given all a good appetite and the meal did not
+long remain on the camp table.
+
+For guard duty that night it was arranged that Jim Ferrers and
+Joe Timmins should relieve each other.  Tom also offered to stay
+up with Ferrers, Harry taking the watch trick with Timmins, though
+neither of the young engineers was armed or cared to be.
+
+Harry and Timmins were to take the first watch.  The others retired
+early.  Tom Reade was about to begin undressing when Hazelton came
+in for a moment.
+
+While the chums were chatting, Alf Drew's forlorn figure showed
+at the doorway of the tent.
+
+"Say, boss," complained Alf, "I haven't any place to sleep."
+
+"What?" Reade demanded in pretended surprise, "with nearly all
+the ground in Nevada at your disposal?"
+
+"But that isn't a bed," contended Alf.
+
+"Right you are there, lad" agreed Tom.
+
+"Now, see here, boss, only one of you two is going to sleep at a
+time tonight.  I'm tired---I ache.  Why can't I sleep on the other
+cot in this tent?"
+
+"Come here," ordered Tom.
+
+Alf wonderingly advanced.
+
+Whiff! whiff! moved the young engineer's nostrils.
+
+"Just as I thought," sighed Reade.  "You've been smoking cigarettes
+without any let-up ever since supper."
+
+"Well, I have ter," argued Drew.
+
+"And now you smell as fragrant as a gas-house, Alf.  Mr. Hazelton
+is rather particular about the little matter of cleanliness.
+If you were to sleep on his cot the smell of cigarettes would
+be so strong that I don't believe Mr. Hazelton could stay on his
+cot when it came his time to turn in."
+
+"But say!  If you knew how dead, dog-tired I am!" moaned Alf.
+
+"Oh, let him sleep on my cot," interposed Harry, good-heartedly.
+"If I can't stand the cot when I come to use it, then it won't
+be the first night that I've slept on hard ground and rested well."
+
+"All right, Alf, climb in," nodded Tom.  "But see here.  Cigarettes
+make you as nervous as a lunatic.  If you have any bad dreams
+tonight, and begin yelling, then I'll rise and throw you outdoors.
+Do you understand?"
+
+"Yes," mumbled the boy.  "But I won't dream.  I'm not nervous
+now.  It's only when I can't get enough cigs that I'm nervous."
+
+"You should have seen him this afternoon," Tom continued, turning
+to his chum.  "The lad and I took a walk.  At every other step
+he kept imagining that he heard rattlesnakes rattling."
+
+"And I did, too," contended Alf stoutly.  "You know I did.  You
+heard 'em yourself, Mr. Reade."
+
+"I didn't hear a single rattler," Tom replied soberly.
+
+"Let the tired little fellow go to bed in peace," urged Harry.
+
+"All right," Tom agreed.
+
+Alf went to the head of the cot, to turn the blanket down from
+the head.
+
+Click-ick-ick-ick!  came the warning sound.
+
+With a yell of terror Alf Drew bounded back.
+
+"There's another rattler," he screamed.  "It's under that blanket."
+
+"It's all your nerves," Tom retorted.  "There isn't a rattler
+within miles of here."
+
+"Didn't you hear a rattle, Mr. Reade?" wailed the cigarette fiend.
+
+"No; I didn't."
+
+"Didn't you, Mr. Hazelton?"
+
+Harry was on the point of answering "yes," but Tom caught his
+eyes, and Harry, knowing that something was up, shook his head.
+
+"You must both be deaf, then," argued Drew.
+
+"Why, see here, you nervous little wreck of a cigarette," said Tom,
+grinning good-humoredly, "I'll show you that there is no snake in
+that bed.  Watch me."
+
+With utmost unconcern, Tom took hold of the blanket, stripping
+it from the cot.  Then he ran his hands over the under blanket.
+
+"Not a thing in this bed but what belongs here," Tom explained.
+"Alf, do you see how cigarettes are taking the hinges off your
+nerves."
+
+Shame-faced, and believing that Tom was right, Alf advanced toward
+the cot.  As he reached the side of it-----
+
+Click-ick-ick! sounded close to him.
+
+"You can't make me stay in this tent.  It's the most dangerous
+spot in Nevada," cried Drew, turning and fleeing into flee open.
+The two chums could hear his feet as he sped to another part
+of the camp.
+
+"Some trick about that rattling?" queried Harry in a whisper.
+
+"Of course," Tom admitted with a wink.
+
+"It's a shame to tease the youngster so."
+
+"It would be," Tom assented rather gravely, "but I'm using that
+means to make the lad afraid to smoke cigarettes.  If young Drew
+goes on smoking the miserable little things he'll become come a
+physical wreck inside of a year."
+
+"How do you do the trick, anyway?" asked Harry curiously.
+
+"Does it really sound like the click of a rattler?" asked Tom.
+
+"Does it?  I was 'stung' almost as badly as poor Alf was.  How
+do you do the trick?"
+
+"I'll show you, some time," nodded Tom Reade.
+
+With that promise Harry had to be content, and so must the reader,
+for the present.
+
+Hazelton went out to stand first watch with Joe Timmins.  Alf
+Drew, finding that the Dunlop party had no room for him under
+the shelter they had rigged from the rear of the automobile, curled
+himself on the ground under a tree and fitfully wooed sleep.
+By daylight the little fellow was fretfully awake, his "nerves"
+refusing him further rest until he had rolled and smoked two cigarettes.
+By the time the smoke was over Jim Ferrers called to him to help
+start the breakfast.
+
+Nothing had been seen of the four intruders through the night.
+
+"I think we shall try to get safely through to Dugout City this
+morning," suggested Mr. Dunlop.
+
+"You'll make it all right, if you have gasoline enough," remarked
+Ferrers, who hovered close at hand with a frying pan filled with
+crisp bacon.
+
+"You don't believe Gage will try to attack us on the way?"
+
+"He has no call to," replied Ferrers.  "You're obeying him by
+leaving the claim, aren't you?"
+
+"Then probably Gage and his companions will settle down on the
+claim after we leave," suggested Mr. Dunlop.
+
+"If Gage tries to jump the claim in your absence," proposed Ferrers,
+"your course is easy.  If you have the legal right to the claim
+you'll have to bring back force enough to drive those hyenas off."
+
+"Will you people try to keep an eye over the claim while I'm gone?"
+asked Mr. Dunlop.
+
+"That would be a little out of our line," Tom made reply.  "Besides,
+Mr. Dunlop, I'm not at all sure that we shall be here until you
+return."
+
+"But we haven't settled, Reade, whether you and your partner are
+to be our engineers at the Bright Hope Mine."
+
+"Quite true, sir," nodded Tom.  "On the other hand, you haven't
+engaged us, either"
+
+"Won't you keep the matter open until our return?"
+
+"That would be hardly good business, Mr. Dunlop."
+
+"Yet suppose I had engaged you,"
+
+"Then we'd be going back to Dugout City with you."
+
+"Why, Reade?"
+
+"So that we might get in touch with the world and find out whether
+you are financially responsible.  We wouldn't take an engagement
+without being reasonably sure of our money."
+
+"You're a sharp one," laughed Mr. Dunlop.
+
+Yet he made no further reference to engaging the two young engineers,
+a fact that Reade was keen enough to note.
+
+Within an hour after breakfast the Dunlop ear pulled out, leaving
+Tom Reade with only his own party.
+
+"What our friend wants," smiled Harry, "is a pair of mining engineers
+at the salary of one mere surveyor."
+
+"He won't pay any more than he has to," rejoined Reade.
+
+"Do you really want to work for Dunlop?"
+
+"I really don't care a straw whether I do or not," was Tom's answer.
+"Harry, we're in the very heart of the gold country and we don't
+need to work for copper pennies."
+
+"If you'll allow me to say so, friends," put in Jim Ferrers, "I
+believe you two are the original pair with long heads and I'm going
+to stick to you as long as you'll let me."
+
+"Me, too," piped up Alf Drew ungrammatically.
+
+The young cigarette fiend was at that instant engaged in rolling
+one of his paper abominations.
+
+Click-ick-ick-ick!
+
+"Rattlers again!" shivered Alf.
+
+Paper and tobacco fell from his fingers and he fled in terror.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+TOM CATCHES THE "NEVADA FEVER"
+
+
+Two nights passed without adventure.  On each of these nights
+the three campers---for Alf didn't "count" divided the hours
+of darkness into three watches, each standing guard in his turn.
+On the third morning after the departure of the Bright Hope
+group the campers were seated at breakfast around the packing
+case that served as table.
+
+"I feel as though we ought to be at work," suggested Hazelton.
+
+"Good!" mocked Tom.  "You've been riding every day lately, and
+I have remained in camp, testing samples of ore that I've picked
+up on my strolls."
+
+"You take the horse today," proposed Harry, "and I'll stay in
+camp and work."
+
+"Suppose both of us stay in and work," proposed Reade.
+
+"That'll be all right, too," nodded Harry, pleasantly.  "May I
+ask, Tom, what you're up to, anyway?"
+
+"Yes," Reade smiled.  "If the Bright Hope is a real mine there
+must be other good property in this region.  I've been looking
+about, and making an assay every now and then.  Jim, you've prospected
+a bit, haven't you?"
+
+"Yes," nodded the guide.  "And, gentlemen, in my day I've been
+sole owner of three claims, each one of which panned out a fortune."
+
+"Great!" glowed Harry.  "But how did you lose your money, Jim!"
+
+"I never got a cent out of any of the mines," rejoined the guide
+grimly.
+
+"How did that happen?"
+
+"Did you ever hear of 'square gamblers'?" inquired Ferrers.
+
+"Some," Tom admitted with a grimace.  "We ran up against one of
+that brood in Arizona, eh, Harry?"
+
+"You didn't play against him, I hope, hinted Jim soberly.
+
+"Yes, we did," admitted Tom.  "Not with his own marked cards,
+though, nor with any kind of cards.  We met him with men's weapons,
+and it is necessary to add that our 'square gambler' lost."
+
+"The 'square gamblers' that I met didn't lose," sighed Jim Ferrers.
+"They won, and that's why all three of my mines passed out of my
+hands before they began to pay."
+
+"You must know something about ore and croppings, and the like,
+Jim?", Tom continued.
+
+"In a prospector's way, yes," Ferrers admitted.
+
+"Then we'll take a walk, now.  Alf can wash up the dishes."
+
+"It's all the little wretch is fit for," muttered Ferrers
+contemptuously.
+
+Jim looked carefully into the magazine of his repeating ride, then
+saw to it that his ammunition belt was filled.
+
+"Ready when you gentlemen are," he announced.
+
+"Say, won't you take me with you?" pleaded Alf.
+
+"You wouldn't be of any use to us," Reade answered.
+
+"But I---I am afraid to stay here alone."
+
+"Do you believe yourself to be so valuable that any one will want
+to steal you?" Tom laughed.
+
+Alf made a wry face and watched the others depart.  Then, filled
+with needless alarm, he crawled out into a thicket and hid himself.
+He didn't mean to be trapped by prowlers!
+
+Tom led the way for nearly a mile.  At last the trio climbed a
+slight ascent, halting at the top of the ridge.
+
+"You see, Jim," Tom explained, "this ridge runs southwesterly
+from here."
+
+"I see it does?" nodded the guide.
+
+"Now, to the northeastward I don't believe there are any croppings
+that look good enough.  But just keep along to the southeast,
+picking up a specimen here and there.  Some of the rock looks
+good to me."
+
+Jim Ferrers didn't answer in words, though his eyes gleamed with the
+old fever that he had known before.
+
+"Here's a pretty piece of stone," called the guide in a low tone.
+He stood holding a fragment about as big as his two fists.
+
+"It's streaked" pretty well with yellow, you see, gentlemen,"
+he remarked;
+
+"It is," Tom agreed, taking the specimen.
+
+"Does the vein run with the top of the ridge?" demanded Harry
+eagerly.
+
+"It runs a little more to eastward, from this point, I think,"
+Tom made answer.  "But let us walk along, in three parallel lines,
+and see who finds the best indications."
+
+By noon all three were fairly tired out by the steep climbing
+over the rocky ground.  Each had as many specimens as he could
+carry.  The result of the exploration had tended to confirm Tom's
+notion as to where the vein lay.
+
+"Now, let's see about where we'd stake the claim," Tom proposed.
+"Of course, we want to get the best rock obtainable.  We don't
+want to leave the best part of this slope for some one else to
+stake out.  It seems to me that the claim ought to start up by
+that blasted tree.  What do you say, Jim?"
+
+"Well, I don't like to make mistakes where you young gentleman
+are concerned," Ferrers answered, taking off his felt hat and
+scratching his head.  "You see, it isn't my claim."
+
+"The dickens it isn't!" Reade retorted.
+
+"Why, you---you gentlemen didn't plan to take me in, did you,"
+asked Ferrers, opening his eyes very wide in his amazement over
+the idea.  "You see I---I can't contribute my share of the brains,
+along with a pair like you," continued the guide.  "Look at you
+two---engineers already!  Then look at me---more'n twice as old
+as either of you, and yet I'm only a cook."
+
+"You're an honest man, aren't you, Jim?" demanded Reade.
+
+"Why, there's some folks who say I am," Ferrers slowly admitted.
+
+"And we're among those who believe that way," Tom continued.
+"Now, Jim, you're with us, and you've every right to be a partner
+if we find anything worth taking up in the mine line."
+
+"But there ain't no sense in it," protested the guide, his voice
+shaking with emotion.  "You don't need me."
+
+"We need a man of your kind, Jim," Tom rejoined, resting a very
+friendly hand on the guide's shoulder.  "Listen to me.  Hazelton
+and I are engineers first of all.  We'd sooner be engineers than
+kings.  Now, the lure of gold is all well enough, and we're human
+enough to like money.  Yet a really big engineering chance would
+take us away from a gold mine almost any day in the year.  Eh,
+Harry!"
+
+"I'm afraid it would," confirmed Hazelton.
+
+"If we left a paying mine, Jim, what would we want?" Tom continued.
+"We'd want an honest partner, wouldn't we---one whom we could
+leave for six months or a year and still be able to depend on
+getting our share of the profits of the mine.  You've gambled
+in the past, Jim, but you stopped that years ago.  Now you're
+honest and safe.  Do you begin to see, Jim Ferrers, where you
+come in?  Another point.  How old do you take us to be?"
+
+"Well, you're more than twenty-one, each of you," replied Ferrers.
+
+"Not quite, as yet," Tom answered.  "So, you see, in order to
+take out a claim we'd need a guardian, and one whom we could depend
+upon not to rob us.  Jim, if we're to take up a mine we must have
+a third man in with us.  Do you know a man anywhere who'd use
+us more honestly than you would?"
+
+"I don't," exclaimed Jim Ferrers.  "At the same time, gentlemen,
+I know your kind well enough.  Both of you talk of fighting as
+though you dreaded it, but I'll tell you, gentlemen, that I wouldn't
+_dare_ to try any nasty tricks on either of you."
+
+"We understand each other, then," Tom nodded.  "Now, then, let
+us try to make up our minds just where we would want to stake
+off this claim if the gold assays as well as it looks."
+
+At the beginning Tom and Harry built a little pile of stones.
+Then, by mere pacing they laid off what they judged to be the
+fifteen hundred feet of length which the government allows to
+a single mining claim.
+
+"We can attend to the proper width later," suggested Tom.  "Now,
+what do you say if we make for camp at once.  I'm not hungry;
+still, I think I could eat my half of a baked ox."
+
+The instant that the trio reached camp, Jim Ferrers, with an unwonted
+mist in his eyes, began to juggle the cooking utensils.  Tom busied
+himself with building the best fire that he could under the chamber
+of the assaying furnace, while Harry Hazelton, rolling up his
+sleeves, began to demonstrate his muscle by pulverizing little
+piles of ore in a hand-mill.
+
+"Be careful not to mix the lots, Harry," advised Tom, glancing
+over from his station by the furnace.
+
+"Thanks for the caution," smiled Hazelton.  "But I have just enough
+intelligence left to understand the value of knowing from what
+section of the slope each particular lot of rock comes."
+
+Dinner was eaten in silence.  For one thing the campers were
+ravenously hungry.  In the second place, though each kept as quiet
+as possible, he was deep in the thrall of the fever to dig up
+hidden gold.
+
+The meal was nearly over when Alf Drew came into camp.
+
+"Are you leaving anything to eat?" he asked.
+
+"Maybe," said Jim Ferrers grimly, "but you were left to wash the
+breakfast dishes, and you haven't done it yet.  Now, you'll wash the
+breakfast things, and then the dinner things, before you get even a
+cold bite to eat."
+
+Alf didn't protest.  Now that he was back safe in camp he felt
+much ashamed of himself for having run away and left the camp
+unwatched.
+
+As soon as he had eaten his dinner Tom Reade went back to the
+assay furnace to improve the fire.
+
+"Now, Harry, we'll get the powdered stuff ready to roast," Reade
+remarked.  "We've a lot of it to rush through this afternoon."
+
+"And we want to be sure to finish it at least two hours before
+dark, too," Larry nodded.  "If we decide to file a claim Jim ought
+to be riding for Dugout City by dark, ready to file the papers
+the first thing in the morning."
+
+"And Jim can bring back half a dozen men to help us sink the first
+shaft," proposed Tom.
+
+"That's where I feel like a fool," muttered Ferrers.  "I haven't
+a blessed dollar to put in as capital."
+
+"We'll take your honesty for a good deal in the way of capital,
+Jim," Tom hinted cheerfully.
+
+"Harry, you might get out the transit, the tape, markers and other
+things.  If we stake out a claim we'll do it so accurately that there
+can be no fight, afterward, as to the real boundaries of our claim."
+
+"What shall we call the claim?" inquired Hazelton, as he came
+back with the surveying outfit.
+
+"Suppose we wait until the assay is done, and find out whether
+the claim is worth anything better than a bad name," laughed Tom.
+
+The crucibles were in the furnace now, and a hot flame going.
+Jim Ferrers sat by, puffing reflectively at his pipe as he squatted
+on the ground nearby.  Alf Drew was smoking, too, somewhere, but
+he had taken his offensive cigarettes to some place of concealment.
+
+Harry anxiously watched the course of the sun, while Tom kept
+his gaze, most of the time, near the furnace.
+
+"Come on, Harry!" called Tom at last.  "We'd rake out the crucibles.
+My, but I hope the buttons are going to be worth weighing."
+
+A withering blast of hot air reached the young engineers as the
+oven door of the portable assay furnace was thrown open.  The
+crucibles were raked out and set in the air to cool.
+
+"Would fanning the crucibles with my hat do any good?" asked Hazelton
+eagerly.
+
+"Some," yawned Tom, "if you're impatient."
+
+Reade strolled off under the trees, whistling softly to himself.
+Jim Ferrers smoked a little faster, the only sign he gave of
+the anxiety that was consuming him.  Harry frequently sprang to
+his feet, walked up and down rapidly, then sat down again.  Two
+or three times Hazelton burned his fingers, testing to see whether
+the crucibles were cool enough to handle.  At last Tom strolled
+back, his gaze on the dial of his watch.
+
+"Cool enough for a look, now, I think," Reade announced.
+
+Harry bounded eagerly toward the crucibles, feeling them with
+his hands.
+
+"Plenty cool enough," he reported.  "But how did you guess, Tom?"
+
+"I didn't guess," Reade laughed.  "I've timed the crucibles before
+this, and I know to a minute how long it ought to take."
+
+"What a chump I am!" growled Harry, in contempt for self.  "I
+never think of such things as that."
+
+Tom now carefully emptied the crucibles.  In the bottom of each
+was found a tiny bead of half-lustrous metal, which miners and
+assayers term the "button."
+
+"The real stuff!" glowed Hazelton.
+
+"Ye-es," said Tom slowly.  "But the next question is whether the
+buttons will weigh enough to hint at good-paying ore.  Even at
+that, these buttons are only from surface ore."
+
+"But the ore underneath is always better than the surface ore,"
+contended Hazelton.
+
+"Usually is," Tom corrected.  "If we get good enough results from
+this assay it will at least be worth while to stake a claim and
+work it for a while."
+
+Harry waited with feverish impatience.  Tom Reade, on the other
+hand, was almost provokingly slow and cool as he carefully adjusted
+the sensitive assaying balance and finally weighed the buttons.
+Then he did some slow, painstaking calculating.  At last he looked up.
+
+"Well, sir?" asked Jim Ferrers.
+
+"From this surface ore," replied Tom calmly, "twenty-eight dollars
+in gold to the ton; silver, six dollars."
+
+"That's good enough for me!" cried Ferrers, his eyes brightening.
+
+"Wow! Whoop!  Oh---whee!" vented Harry, then ran and snatched
+up the surveying transit.
+
+"Yes; I guess we'd better go along and do our staking," assented Tom.
+
+"And I'll be ready at daylight to file the claim at Dugout City,"
+promised Jim.  "I won't sleep until I've seen our papers filed."
+
+"You'll file the claim in your own name, Jim," Tom suddenly suggested.
+
+"No; I won't," retorted Ferrers.  "I'll play squarely."
+
+"That will be doing squarely by us, Jim," Tom continued.  "We
+don't want to use up our claim privileges on one stretch of Nevada
+dirt."
+
+If we can find claims enough we'll stake out three, and then pool
+them all together in a gentlemen's agreement."
+
+"That's a good deal of trust you're showing in me, gentlemen," said
+Jim huskily.
+
+"Never mind, Jim," returned Reade quietly.  "You can show us, you
+know, that we didn't waste our confidence."
+
+While they were still talking the three came in sight of the ridge.
+
+"Look there!" gasped Harry suddenly.
+
+"Dolph Gage and his tin-horn crowd!" flared Jim Ferrers, in anger.
+"Hang the fellow!  This time I'll-----"
+
+"Stop fingering your rifle, Jim," ordered Reade.  "Remember, nothing
+like fighting!  If they haven't filed notice in due form on the claim,
+we're safe yet.  If they have-----"
+
+"Look!" hissed Ferrers.
+
+At that moment Dolph Gage could be seen nailing a sheet of white
+paper to a board driven into the soil.
+
+"We've staked what you want, I reckon!" bellowed Gage laconically.
+"Staked it in due form, too, if you want to know."
+
+"I guess we've lost that claim," said Tom slowly.
+
+"Have we?" hissed Jim Ferrers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+READY TO HANDLE THE PICK
+
+
+"Keep off this ground!" yelled Dolph Gage, snatching up his rifle.
+
+"Stop that nonsense," Tom bellowed back in his own lusty voice.
+
+"You've no right on this ground."
+
+"Yes, we have, if you want to know," Tom continued.  "You haven't
+filed your papers at Dugout yet."
+
+"How do you know we haven't?"
+
+"I'll take a chance on it," smiled Tom amiably, as he and his
+companions continued to walk nearer.
+
+Jim Ferrers held his rifle so that it would take him but an instant
+to swing it into action if the need came.
+
+"If you've filed your papers for this claim" Tom continued, lowering
+his voice somewhat as they drew nearer to the four rascals.  "Have
+you any such paper to show us?"
+
+"Perhaps not," growled Dolph Gage, his evil eyes seeming to shoot
+flame.  "But we've got our notice of claim nailed up here.  We
+got it here first, and now you can't file any mining entry at
+Dugout City for this bit o' ground."
+
+"Not if your notice is written in the prescribed language," Tom
+admitted.
+
+"Well, it is.  Now, keep off this ground, or we'll shoot you so
+full of holes that you'll all three pass for tolerable lead mines!"
+
+"If you don't shoot and make a good job of it," Reade insisted,
+"I'm going to look over your notice of claim and see whether it's
+worded in a way that will hold in law."
+
+"Drop 'em, boys!  Don't let 'em near!" roared Dolph Gage, swinging
+his rifle as though to bring it to his shoulder.
+
+But Jim Ferrers had forestalled him.  The guide was gazing at his
+enemy through his rifle sights.
+
+"Drop your weapon, Dolph Gage, and do it blazing quick, or I'll
+shoot you where you stand!" sounded Jim's voice, low and businesslike.
+"If any of you other galoots tries to raise his weapon I'll turn
+and drop him."
+
+As Jim Ferrers had a reputation in Nevada as a rifle shot the
+others hesitated, then let their rifles drop to the ground.
+
+"Hold them to their present good intentions, Jim," said Tom, with
+a smile, as he continued to move forward.  "Now, Mr. Gage---I
+believe that's your name let me see what kind of notice you know
+how to draw up."
+
+"There 'tis," muttered Dolph sullenly, pointing to the board.
+
+Tom read the notice through under his breath, word by word.
+
+"You've done this sort of thing before, I guess, Gage," said Reade
+quietly.
+
+"You bet I have.  Find it all reg'lar, too, don't you?"
+
+"As nearly as I can tell, it is," agreed Tom.
+
+"And the claim is ours."
+
+"It's yours if you file the formal papers soon enough."
+
+"They'll be filed first thing tomorrow morning," grunted Dolph
+Gage.  "Now, try a two-step off the dirt that goes with this claim."
+
+"Not until I've seen the borders that you claim," Tom rejoined.
+
+"Why!" demanded Gage cunningly.  "Going to start your claim right
+at the corners of ours."
+
+"If you'll pardon me," Reade smiled, "I don't believe I'll tell
+you anything about my intentions."
+
+"Maybe you think this claim is a pretty valuable one," Gage insinuated.
+
+"I didn't say so."
+
+"But you would have staked if we hadn't done it first."
+
+"That's what you've got to guess," smiled Reade.
+
+"Say, now you've lost this claim, tell us some thing straight,
+won't youth begged Dolph.
+
+"Tell you something straight?" repeated Tom.  "Certainly.  I'll tell
+you something just as straight as I know how,"
+
+"Well," he said, at last, "you said you'd tell us something straight."
+
+"And so I will," laughed Tom.  "It's just this: Go to blazes!"
+
+"Come, now, don't get fresh, kid!" warned Dolph angrily.  "If
+we're going to be on neighboring claims you may find it a heap
+to your advantage to use us about half-way decent and polite."
+
+Tom didn't answer at once.  He was rapidly covering the statement
+of location from the paper nailed to the board.
+
+"You fellows picked up a lot of ore stuff around here," continued
+Dolph Gage.
+
+"Yes?" Tom inquired.  "Did you see us?"
+
+"Yes, and we also saw you making an assay."
+
+"You did."
+
+"Of course we did.  Say, friend, how did that assay come out?"
+
+"It came out of the furnace," Tom answered still writing.
+
+"'Course it did.  But say, how did that assay read?"
+
+"Read?" repeated Tom.  "Why, bless me, I never knew that an assay
+could read."
+
+"You know what I meant, younker.  How did it figger?"
+
+"To the best of my belief," said Tom, "an assay is as much unable
+to figure as it is to read."
+
+"Don't waste any more time on the kid, Dolph," growled another
+of the group.  "He won't tell you anything that you want to know."
+
+"If he doesn't" rejoined Gage, "maybe he'll miss something.  See
+here---Reade's your name, isn't it?"
+
+"You've got that much of your information straight," assented
+Tom, looking up with a smile.
+
+"Well, Reade, maybe you'd better be a bit more polite and sociable.
+You've missed staking this claim, but I think we can fix it to give
+you a job here as engineer."
+
+"That would be very kind of you, I'm sure," nodded Tom.  "But I
+can't undertake any work for you."
+
+"Then you'll lose some money."
+
+"I'm used to losing money," smiled Tom.  "As for my partner, he's a
+real wonder in the way of losing money.  He lost ten cents yesterday."
+
+"We've got a fine claim," asserted Dolph Gage.  It's right under
+our feet, and there isn't another such claim in Nevada.  Now,
+if you two want to make any real money you'd better begin to be
+decent with us right now.  Otherwise, you won't get the job.
+Now, what do you say?"
+
+"I vote for 'otherwise,'" laughed Reade, turning on his heel.
+
+"Oh, you run along and be independent, then," called Dolph Gage
+after him.  "If you're going to stick the winter through on this
+Range you'll be hungry once or twice between now and spring, if
+you don't take the trouble to get in right with us."
+
+"Why?" questioned Reade, halting and looking squarely back.  "Do
+you steal food, too?"
+
+Once More Tom turned on his heel.  Harry walked along with him.
+Jim Ferrers all but walked backward, holding his rifle ready
+and keeping a keen eye over the claim stealers.
+
+"Come along, Jim," called Tom at last.  "Those fellows won't do
+any shooting.  Their minds are now set on their new claim.  They
+expect to dig out gold enough to enable them to buy two or three
+banks.  They won't shoot unless they're driven to it."
+
+Jim Ferrers turned and walked with the boys.
+
+Fifteen seconds later a rifle cracked out behind them, the bullet
+striking the dirt well to the left of Tom's party.
+
+"It's a bluff, Jim, and-----" began Reade.
+
+Crack! spoke Ferrers's ride.
+
+"I knocked Gage's hat off," said the guide dryly.  "Now, if he
+fires again, it'll show that he's looking for trouble."
+
+"The fellow who goes looking for trouble is always a fool," Tom
+remarked.
+
+"Because trouble is the most worthless thing in the world, yet
+a fellow who goes looking for it is always sure to find twice
+as much as he thought he wanted."
+
+By the time the young engineers had reached their own camp, Harry,
+whose face had been growing gradually "longer" on the walk, sank
+to the ground in an attitude of dejection.
+
+"Just our luck!" he growled.  "Gage is right when he says that
+claim is the best in this part of Nevada.  And, just because we
+were too slow, we lost it.  Fortune, you know, Tom, knocks but
+once at any man's door."
+
+"I don't believe that," said Tom stoutly.  "Harry, now that we've
+made a start and lost, my mind is made up as to our course now.
+I hope you'll agree with me."
+
+"What is it?" Hazelton asked.
+
+"Harry, old fellow, we'll turn mining engineers in earnest for
+the present.  We'll engineer our own mines, with Jim for a partner.
+Harry, we'll get up our muscle with pickaxes.  We'll stake our
+fortunes on the turn of a pick!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+JIM FERRERS, PARTNER
+
+
+"You mean it, do you?" asked Hazelton, after a pause of a few moments.
+
+"I never meant anything more in my life!"
+
+"Then, of course, I'll agree to it, Tom.  If I go astray, it'll be
+the first time that I ever went wrong through following your advice."
+
+"And you're with us, Ferrers?" inquired Tom, looking around.
+
+"Gentlemen," spoke the guide feelingly, "after the way you've
+used me, and the way you've talked to me, I'm with you in anything,
+and I can wait a month, any time, to find out what that 'anything'
+means.  Just give me your orders."
+
+"Orders are not given to partners," Tom told him.
+
+"Orders go with _this_ partner," Jim asserted gravely.  "And,
+gentlemen, if we make any money, just hand me what you call my
+share and I'll never ask any questions."
+
+"Jim, we're going in for mining," Tom continued.  "I can speak
+for Mr. Hazelton now, for he has authorized me to do so.  Mining
+it is, Jim, but we three are young and tender, and not expert
+with pickaxes.  We'd better have some experts.  Can you pick up
+at least six real miners at Dugout City?"
+
+"A feller usually can," Ferrers replied.
+
+"Then if you'll put in a good part of tonight riding, tomorrow
+you can do your best to pick up the men.  Get the kind, Jim, who
+don't balk at bullets when they have to face 'em, for we've a
+hornets' nest over yonder.  Get sober, level-headed fellows who
+know how to fight---men of good judgment and nerve.  Pay 'em what's
+right.  You know the state of wages around here.  While you're
+at Dugout, Jim, pick out a two-mule team and a good, dependable
+wagon for carting supplies.  Put all the chuck aboard that you
+think we'll need for the next two or three weeks.  I'll give you,
+also, a list of digging tools and some of the explosives that
+we'll need in shaft sinking.  While you're in Dugout, Jim, pick
+up two good ponies, with saddles and bridles.  I guess I'd better
+write down some of these instructions, hadn't I?"
+
+"And write down the street corner where I'm to pick up the money,
+Mr. Reade," begged Ferrers dryly.  "You can't do much in the credit
+line in Nevada."
+
+"The street corner where you're to find the money, eh, Jim?" smiled
+Tom.  "Yes; I believe I can do that, too.  You know the map of
+Dugout, don't you?"
+
+"'Course."
+
+"You know where to find the corner of Palace Avenue and Mission
+Street?"
+
+"Sure."
+
+"On one of those four corners," Tom continued, "you'll find the
+Dugout City Bank."
+
+"I've seen the place," nodded Ferrers, "but I never had any money
+in it."
+
+"You will have, one of these days," smiled Tom, taking out a fountain
+pen and shaking it.  Next he drew a small, oblong book from an
+inside pocket, and commenced writing on one of the pages.  This
+page he tore out and handed Ferrers.
+
+"What's this?" queried the guide.
+
+"That's an order on the Dugout City Bank to hand you one thousand
+dollars."
+
+Ferrers stared at the piece of paper incredulously.
+
+"What'll the feller pay me in?" he demanded.  "Lead at twelve cents
+a pound?  And say, will he hand me the lead out of an automatic gun?"
+
+"If the paying teller serves you that way," rejoined Reade, "you'll
+have a right to feel peevish about it.  But he won't.  Hazelton
+and I have the money in bank to stand behind that check."
+
+"You have?" inquired Ferrers, opening his eyes wide.  "Fellers
+at your age have that much money in banks"
+
+"And more, too," Tom nodded.  "Did you think, Jim, that we had
+never earned any money?"
+
+"Well, I didn't know that you probably made more'n eighteen or
+twenty dollars a week," Ferrers declared.
+
+"We've made slightly more than that, with two good railroad jobs
+behind us," Tom laughed.  "And here's our firm pass-book at the
+bank, Jim.  You'll see by it that we have a good deal more than
+a thousand dollars there.  Now, you draw the thousand that the
+check calls for.  When you're through you may have some money
+left.  If you do, turn the money in at the bank, have it entered
+on the pass-book and then bring the book to me."
+
+"I'll have to think this over," muttered Ferrers, "and you'd better
+set down most of it in writing so that I won't forget."
+
+The smoke from the cook fire brought Alf Drew in from hiding, his
+finger-tips stained brown as usual.
+
+"Now, see here, young man," said Tom gravely, "there is no objection
+to your taking some of your time off with your 'makings,' but
+Ferrers is going away, and you must stay around more for the next
+two or three days.  Otherwise, there won't be any meals or any
+payday coming to you."
+
+"Is Mr. Ferrers going to Dugout City?" asked Alf, with sudden
+interest.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Say, I'll work mighty hard if you'll advance me fifty cents and
+let me get an errand done by Mr. Ferrers."
+
+"Here's the money," smiled Tom, passing over the half dollar.
+
+Alf was in such haste that he forgot to express his thanks.  Racing
+over to Jim the little fellow said something in a very low voice.
+
+"No; I won't!" roared Ferrers.  "Nothing of the sort!"
+
+"Does he want you to get the 'makings,' Jim!" called Tom.
+
+"Yes; but I won't do it," the guide retorted.
+
+"Please do," asked Tom.
+
+"What?  _You_ ask me to do it, sir?  Then all right.  I will."
+
+"What do you want to do that for?" murmured Harry.
+
+"Let the poor little runt have his 'makings,' if he wants," Tom
+proposed.  "But I don't believe that Alf will smoke the little white
+pests very much longer."
+
+"You're going to stop him?"
+
+"I'm going to make him want to stop it himself," Tom rejoined,
+with a slight grin.
+
+Alf came back, looking much pleased.
+
+"Let me feel your pulse," requested Reade.  "Now, let me see your
+tongue."
+
+This much accomplished, Tom next turned down the under lid of
+one of young Drew's eyes and gazed at the lack of red there displayed.
+
+"I see," remarked Reade gravely, "that your nerves are going all
+to pieces."
+
+"I feel fine," asserted Alf stolidly.
+
+"You must, with your nerves in the state I now find them," retorted
+the young engineer.  "Next thing I know you'll be hearing things."
+
+Click-ick-ick!
+
+"Wow-ow-wow!" shrieked Alf Drew, bounding some ten feet away from the
+low bush near which he had been standing.
+
+Click-ick-ick-ick!
+
+"Get away from that bush, Mr. Reade!" howled the young cigarette
+fiend.  "That rattler will bite you, if you don't."
+
+"I didn't hear any rattler," said Tom gravely.  "Did you, Harry?"
+
+"Not a rattle," said Hazelton soberly.
+
+Jim Ferrers looked on and grinned behind Alf's back.  The youngster
+was trembling.  As Tom came near him the "rattle" sounded again.
+Within five minutes two more warning "rattles" had been heard near
+the boy.
+
+"The camp must be full of 'em," wailed the terrified boy.  "And
+I'm afraid of rattlers."
+
+"So am I, Alf," Tom assured him, "but I haven't heard one of the
+reptiles.  The trouble is with your nerves, Drew.  And your nerves
+are in league with your brain.  If you go on smoking cigarettes
+you won't have any brain.  Or, if you do, it will be one that
+will have you howling with fear all the time.  Why don't you drop
+the miserable things when you find they're driving you out of
+your heads"
+
+"Perh-h-h-haps I will," muttered the boy.
+
+After an early supper, Jim Ferrers rode away.  He offered to leave
+his rifle in camp, but Tom protested.
+
+"I'd feel responsible for the thing if you left it here, you know,
+Jim.  And I don't want to have to keep toting it around all the
+time you're away."
+
+"But suppose Dolph Gage and his crew come over here, and you're
+not armed?"
+
+"Then I'll own up that we haven't anything to shoot with, and
+ask him to call again," Tom laughed.  "But don't be afraid, Jim.
+Gage and his crew will be anxious, for the next few days, to
+see whether they can coax us into serving them.  They need an
+engineer over at their stolen claim, and they know it."
+
+So Ferrers rode away, carrying his rifle across his saddle.
+
+Alf spent an evening of terror, for the ground around the camp
+appeared to be full of "rattlers".
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+HARRY DOES SOME PITCHING
+
+
+As Tom had surmised, Dolph Gage was anxious to become friends with
+the young engineers.
+
+"They're only kids," Dolph explained to his comrades, "but I've
+heard that they know their business.  If we can get their help
+for a month, then when they hand in their bill we can give them
+a wooden check on a cloud bank."
+
+"Their bill would be a claim against our mine wouldn't it?" asked
+one of the other men.
+
+"Maybe," Dolph assented.  "But, if they try to press it, we can
+pay it with lead coin."
+
+The morning after Jim had gone, one of Gage's companions stalked
+into camp.
+
+"The boss wants to see you," said this messenger.
+
+"Whose boss?" Tom inquired.
+
+"Well, maybe he's yours," scowled the messenger.  "And maybe you'll
+be sorry if you fool with him."
+
+"I?  Fool with Gage?" inquired Reade, opening his eyes in pretended
+astonishment.  "My dear fellow, I've no intention of doing anything
+of the sort."
+
+"Then you'll come over to our camp, right away?"
+
+"Nothing like it," Tom replied.  "Kindly present my compliments
+to your boss, and tell him that I have another appointment for
+today."
+
+"You'd better come over," warned the fellow.
+
+"You heard what I said, didn't you?" Reade inquired.
+
+"There'll sure be trouble," insisted the fellow, scowling darkly.
+
+"There's always trouble for those who are looking for it," Tom
+rejoined smilingly.  "Is Dolph Gage hunting it?"
+
+"You'll find out, if you don't come over!"
+
+"Really," argued Reade, "we've disposed of that subject, my dear
+fellow.  Have you any other business here!  If not, you'll excuse
+us.  Mr. Hazelton and I are to be gone for the day."
+
+"Going prospecting?"
+
+"We're going minding," smiled Reade.
+
+"Mining?" repeated the visitor.  "Mining what?"
+
+"We are going off to mind our own business," Tom drawled.  "Good
+morning."
+
+"Then you're not coming over to our place?"
+
+"No!" shouted Harry Hazelton, losing patience.  "What do you want?"
+
+"As you will observe, friend," suggested Tom, smiling at the messenger,
+"my partner has well mastered the lesson that a soft answer is
+a soother."
+
+"Are you going to leave our camp?" Harry demanded, as the visitor
+squatted on the ground.
+
+"If you two are going away," scowled the other, "you'll need some one
+to stay and watch the camp. I'll stay for you."
+
+"Come on, Harry!" Tom called, starting away under the trees.
+Alf Drew had already gone.  Breakfast being over the young cigarette
+fiend had no notion of staying in camp for a share in any trouble
+that might be brewing.
+
+"Why on earth are you leaving the camp at that fellow's mercy?"
+quivered Harry indignantly, as he and Tom got just out of earshot
+of the visitor.
+
+"Because I suspect," Reade returned, "that he and his crowd want
+to steal our assaying outfit."
+
+"And you're leaving the coast clear for that purpose?" Hazelton
+gasped in high dudgeon.
+
+"Now, Harry, is that all you know about me?" questioned his partner,
+reproachfully.  "Listen.  Around here you'll find plenty of stones
+of a throwing size.  Just fill your pockets, your hands---your
+hat.  Creep in close to camp and hide.  If you see 'Mr. Sulky'
+poking his nose into anything in our camp---the furnace, for instance,
+or the assay balance, then just drop a stone so near to him that
+it will make him jump.  Be careful that you don't drop a stone
+on that balance.  You used to be a pretty fair pitcher, and I
+believe you can drop a stone where you want."
+
+"And what will you be doing?" asked Harry curiously.
+
+"Oh, I'll be keeping out of harm's way, I promise you," laughed
+Tom Reade.
+
+"Humph!  Yes, it would be like you to put me into danger and to
+leave yourself out of it, wouldn't it?" mocked Harry Hazelton,
+unbelievingly.
+
+"Well, I'll try to make good use of my time, Harry, old fellow.
+For one thing, if you haunt camp and keep Gage's crowd busy,
+then you'll keep them from following or watching me.  Don't you
+see?"
+
+"No; I don't see," grunted Hazelton.  "But what I do suspect is
+that you have something up your sleeve that I may not find out
+for two or three days to come.  Yet, whatever it is, it will be
+for our mutual good.  I can depend upon you, Tom Reade!  Go ahead;
+go as far as you like."
+
+"Get the stones gathered up, then, and get back to camp," counseled
+Reade.  "Don't lose too much time about it, for Gage's rascal
+may be able to do a lot of harm in the two or three minutes that
+you might be late in getting back."
+
+Harry industriously picked up stones.  Hardly had he started when
+Tom Reade silently vanished.
+
+"Well, I'm glad, anyway, that Tom doesn't want us both away from
+camp while he's doing something," reflected Hazelton, as he began
+to move cautiously back.  "There wouldn't be any camp by noon
+if we were both away."
+
+Even before he secured his first glimpse of camp, Harry heard
+some one moving about there.
+
+"The rascal must feel pretty sure that we're both fools enough
+to be away," quivered Hazelton indignantly.  "What on earth is
+he doing, anyway?"
+
+Then the young engineer crawled in close enough to get an excellent
+view of what was going on.
+
+"Well, of all the impudence!" choked Harry, balancing a stone
+nicely in his right hand.
+
+First of all the visitor had rounded up all the firewood into
+one heap.  Now, to this combustible material the fellow was bringing
+a side of bacon and a small bag of flour.  These he dropped on
+the firewood, then went back for more of the camp's food supply.
+
+"Just wait," scowled Hazelton.  "Oh, my fine fellow, I'll make
+your hands too hot for holding other people's property!"
+
+Over the brush arched a stone.  Hazelton had been a pitcher in
+his high school days, and no mistake.  The descending stone fell
+smack across the back of the fellow's right hand.
+
+"That's right!  Howl!" cried Harry, exultantly.  "Now, for a surprise."
+
+The second stone flew with better speed, carrying away the fellow's
+hat without hitting his head.
+
+"Hey, you, stop that!" roared the fellow.
+
+From behind the bushes all was quiet.  The camp prowler stood
+up straight, staring to see whence the next stone would come.
+After nearly two minutes he bent to pick up the case of biscuit
+that he had dropped.
+
+Smack!  Even as his nearer hand touched the box a sharp stone
+struck the back of that hand, cutting a gash and causing the blood
+to spurt.
+
+"I'll have your scalp for that!" howled the enraged man.  Making
+a pretty good guess at the direction from which the stone had
+come, the fellow started toward the brush on a run.
+
+"Here's where you get all of yours!" chuckled Harry Hazelton.
+Still crouching he let three stones fly one after the other.
+The first struck the prowler in the mouth, the second on the
+end of the nose and the third over the pit of his stomach.
+
+"You two-legged Gatling gun!" howled the fellow, shaking with
+rage and pain.  He halted, shaking his fist in the direction from
+which the stones had come.
+
+Another lot of stones flew toward him.  The prowler waited no
+longer, but turned, making for Gage's camp as fast as he could go.
+
+"That ought to hold those rascals for a little while," speculated
+Harry.  "But, of course, there'll be a come-back.  What'll they
+do to me now, I wonder?"
+
+By way of precaution Hazelton cautiously shifted to another hiding
+place.  Within fifteen minutes he saw the same prowler stealing
+back into camp.  When the fellow was near enough, Harry let fly
+a stone that dropped near the rascal's toes.
+
+"Hey, you stop that, or I'll make you wish you had!" roared the
+fellow, shaking his fist.
+
+Harry's answer was to drive two more stones in, sending them close
+to the fellow, yet without hitting him.
+
+Again the man shouted at him, though he did not attempt to come
+any nearer to so expert a thrower of stones.
+
+Then, suddenly, just behind him, Harry Hazelton heard a sound.
+In the next instant two men hurled themselves upon the young
+engineer, pinning him to the ground.
+
+"I ought to have suspected this!" grunted Harry inwardly, as he
+fought back with all his strength.  He might have succeeded in
+slipping away from the two men who sought to pin him down, but
+the third man, still aching from contact with Harry's missiles,
+now darted into the scrimmage, striking several hard blows.  Harry
+was presently conquered and tied.
+
+"Take the cub to his own camp!" sounded the exultant voice of
+Dolph Gage.  "With one of the pair tied, it won't be hard to
+handle the other whenever he happens along."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+TOM'S FIGHTING BLOOD SURGES
+
+
+"Take another hitch of rope around that young steer," Dolph ordered,
+after he had flung Harry violently to the ground.
+
+"He wont get away as he is," replied one of the other two men.
+
+"Maybe not, but take an extra roping, as I told you," was Gage's
+tart retort.
+
+So another length of line was passed around Hazelton, until he
+felt as though he had been done up in network.
+
+"Now; we'll give your partner a chance to show up," muttered Gage,
+throwing himself on the ground.  "You young fellers will have
+to learn the lesson that you're thirty miles from anywhere, and
+that we rule matters around here.  We're going to keep on ruling,
+too, in this strip of Nevada."
+
+"Are you?" grimaced Hazelton.  "Then, my friend, allow me to tell
+you that you are making the mistake of trying to reckon without
+Tom Reade!"
+
+"Is that your partner's name?" jeered Dolph Gage.  "A likely enough
+boy, from what I've heard of him.  But he isn't old enough to
+understand Nevada ways."
+
+"No, perhaps not," Harry admitted ironically.  "So far Tom has
+gotten his training only in Colorado and in Arizona.  I begin
+to realize that he isn't bright enough to have his own way among
+the bright men of Nevada.  But Reade learns rapidly---don't forget
+that!"
+
+"Huh!" growled Gage.  "The young cub seems to think that he has
+come out here to take charge of the Range.  According to his idea
+he has only to pick out what he wanted here; and take it.  He
+never seems to understand that gold belongs to the first man who
+finds it.  I was on this Range long before Reade was out of school."
+
+"And he doesn't object to your staying here," remarked Hazelton
+calmly.
+
+"That's good of him, I'm sure," snapped Gage.  "I've no objection
+to his staying here, either.  Fact is, I'm going to encourage both
+of you to stay here."
+
+"Encourage us?" grinned Harry.
+
+"Well, then, I'm going to make you stay here, if you like that word
+any better."
+
+"That will be more difficult," suggested Hazelton.
+
+"First of all, we're going to tote your assay outfit over to our
+camp.  You won't be able to do much without that.  Look around
+a bit, Eb," added Dolph, turning to one of his companions.  "Perhaps
+you'd better get the furnace out first.  Two of you can carry
+it.  I wish we had our other man back from Dugout.  We need hands
+here."
+
+"Can't you use some of my muscle in helping you to loot our camp?"
+suggested Hazelton, ironically.  "I'm fairly strong, you know."
+
+"Yes; I know you are.  That's why we've tied you up," growled
+Gage.
+
+The man addressed as Eb had taken the other fellow aside, and
+they were now lifting the assay furnace in order to decide how
+heavy it was.
+
+"It doesn't weigh much over a hundred and fifty pounds," called
+out Dolph Gage.  "Two men like you can get it over to camp.  And
+bring over our guns, too.  It was a mistake to leave 'em over
+in camp."
+
+Gage watched until the pair were out of sight among the trees.
+
+"Hurry, you men!" Gage roared after them.
+
+Then he started in to nose around the camp.
+
+As he passed a clump of bushes there was a slight stir among them.
+Then Tom Reade leaped forth.
+
+In a twinkling Dolph Gage had been caught up.  He was in the grip
+of a strong, trained football player.
+
+"Drop me!" ordered Gage, with a slight quiver in his voice.
+
+"I'm going to," agreed Tom, hurling the fellow fully a dozen feet.
+
+With an oath Gage leaped to his feet.  Before he was fairly Tom
+Reade's fist caught him in the left eye, sending him to earth
+once more.
+
+"Is that the way you fight, you young cub?" roared Gage hoarsely.
+
+"I can fight harder if you want me to," Tom retorted, as the other
+again got to his feet.  "Now, put your hands up, and I'll show you."
+
+Tom went at it hammer and tongs.  He was a splendidly built young
+athlete, and boxing was one of his strong points, though he rarely
+allowed himself to get into a fight.  Indeed, his usually abounding
+good nature made all fighting disagreeable to him.  Now, however,
+he drove in as though Dolph Gage were a punching-bag.
+
+"Stand up, man, and fight as though you had some sand in you!" Tom
+ordered.  "Get up steam, and defend yourself."
+
+"I have had enough," Gage gasped.  Indeed, his face looked as
+though he had.
+
+"Are you a baby?" Reade demanded contemptuously.  "Can't you fight
+with anything but your tongue!"
+
+"You wait and I'll show you," snarled the badly battered man.
+
+"What's the need of waiting?" Tom jeered, and swung in another blow
+that sent Gage to the ground.
+
+"Eh!  Josh!" bellowed Gage, with all the breath he had left.
+"Hustle o-o-o-over here!"
+
+"Let 'em come!" vaunted Reade.  "You'll be done for long before
+they can get here."
+
+"I'll have you killed when they get here with the guns!" cried
+Gage hoarsely.
+
+Tom continued to punish his opponent.  Then Dolph, on regaining
+his feet, sought to run.  Tom let him go a few steps, then bounded
+after him with the speed of the sprinter.  Gage was caught by
+the shoulders, swung squarely around, and soundly pummelled.
+
+"Let up!  Let up!" begged Gage.  "I'm beaten.  I admit it."
+
+"Beaten, perhaps, but not punished enough," retorted Tom.  As
+Dolph would no longer stand up, Reade threw himself upon the fellow
+and pummelled him fearfully.
+
+"This is no fair fight," protested Gage, now fairly sobbing in his
+pain and terror, for good-humored Reade seemed to him now to be the
+impersonation of destroying, fury.
+
+"Fair fight?" echoed Reade.  "Of course it isn't.  This is a
+chastisement.  You villain, you've done nothing but annoy us and
+shoot at us ever since we've met you.  You've got to stop it after
+this; do you understand?"
+
+"I'll stop it---I'll stop it.  Please stop yourself," begged Gage,
+now thoroughly cowed.
+
+"I'll wager you'll stop," gritted Tom.  "I've never hammered a man
+before as I've hammered you, and I'm not half through with you.  By
+the time I am through with you you'll slink into a corner every time
+you see me coming near.  You scoundrel, you bully!"
+
+Tom's fists continued to descend.  Dolph's tone changed from one
+of entreaty to one of dire threats.  He would spend the rest of
+his life, he declared, in dogging Reade's tracks until he succeeded
+in killing the boy.
+
+"That doesn't worry me any.  You'll experience a change of
+heart---see if you don't," Tom rejoined grimly, as he added to the
+pounding that the other was receiving.
+
+Harry Hazelton had struggled to his feet, though he had been unable
+to free his hands from the cords that held them behind his back.
+"You're not talking quite the way you did a few minutes ago, Gage,"
+Harry put in dryly.
+
+"You'll see---both of you young pups!" moaned the battered wretch.
+"Ask any one, and they'll tell you that Dolph Gage never overlooks
+a pounding such as I've had."
+
+"And you got it from the boy that you were going to teach something,"
+jeered Hazelton, "Gage, you know a little more about Tom Reade, now,
+don't your?"
+
+Then Harry straightened up, as he caught sight of moving objects
+in the distance.
+
+"Get through with him, Tom" advised the other young engineer.
+"I see Eb and Josh coming on the run.  They'll have the guns.
+We've got to look out for ourselves."
+
+Tom flung the badly beaten man from him where he lay on the ground
+moaning over his hurts and vowing vengeance on Tom.
+
+"Stand still, Harry, and I'll have you free in a jiffy," Tom
+proposed, hauling out his pocket knife.
+
+"It won't do for us to stand still too long," urged Hazelton,
+as his chum began to slash at the cords.  "The other scoundrels
+will kill us when they see what's been going on here."
+
+"No, they won't," Tom promised calmly.  "We'll take care of 'em
+both.  You wait and see which one I take.  Then you take the other.
+We'll handle 'em to the finish."
+
+This seemed like foolhardy talk when it was considered that the
+other two men would return armed.  But Harry had unlimited confidence
+in his friend, and so followed Tom, crouching, until they had
+hidden behind bushes along the trail.
+
+"Where be you, Dolph?" called the voice of Eb, as the pair drew
+near.
+
+"He's over there," spoke Reade, springing out of the bushes.
+"You'll join him after a bit."
+
+Neither Eb nor Josh was armed.  Tom sailed into Eb, while Harry
+sprang at Josh.  For a few minutes the trail was a scene of swift
+action, indeed.  Shortly Eb and Josh tried to run away, as Gage
+had done, but each time the young engineers caught them and compelled
+them to renew the fight.
+
+"My man's going to sleep, now, Harry!" Tom called, and drove in
+a knockout blow with his left.
+
+Josh swiftly followed Eb to the ground.
+
+"They'll keep quiet for a little while," declared Tom, after a look
+at each.
+
+Dolph Gage had by this time painfully risen to his feet and came
+limping slowly down the trail.
+
+"You might look after your friends, Gage," Tom called, pointing.
+"They need attention."
+
+"How did they come to be here?" gasped Dolph.
+
+"They'll give you full particulars when they have time," Tom laughed.
+
+"You boys won't feel quite so smart when our turn comes," snarled
+Gage.
+
+"Not a bit," Reade answered.  "If you fellows have any sense you'll
+conclude that you've had about all the settlement that you can stand."
+
+Gage didn't make any answer.  Doubtless he concluded that it wouldn't
+be wise to talk back So he began working over Eb and Josh, until
+they showed signs of reviving.
+
+"Did ye---did ye kill 'em for us, Dolph?" gasped Josh, as he opened
+his eyes and beheld the face of his comrade.
+
+"No," said Gage curtly.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Shut up!"
+
+Not many minutes more had passed when Eb became conscious.
+
+"You fellows can go over to your camp, any time you want," suggested
+Tom.
+
+Slowly, painfully, the trio started.
+
+"I feel almost ashamed of myself," Harry muttered.
+
+"So do I," Tom agreed.  "Yet what else was there for us to do!
+We've stood all the nonsense we can from that crowd.  They'd have
+killed us if we hadn't done something to bring them to their senses.
+Now, I believe they'll let us alone."
+
+"They'll ambush us," predicted Hazelton
+
+"Well, they won't have any guns to do it with," Tom grinned.
+
+"Why, what became of their guns"
+
+"I'm the only fellow on earth who knows," Tom laughed.
+
+"Then you were at their camp?"
+
+"Of course.  My telling you to stone any prowler who visited this
+place was only a trap.  I thought that he'd run off and get the
+rest of the crew.  Knowing you to be alone and unarmed, and believing
+me to be far away prospecting, they didn't imagine that they'd need
+their rifles.  As soon as they left their camp I dropped in and
+borrowed the rifles and all their ammunition."
+
+"Where is the stuff now?"
+
+"Come on and I'll show you."
+
+"Hold on a minute," begged Harry, as Tom leaped up.  "Do you miss
+anything?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Our assay furnace.  Eb and Josh carted it away."
+
+"Then we'll go after that, first," Tom smiled.  "Our friends are
+so sore that it would be hardly fair to ask them to return the
+furnace."
+
+That missing article was found about halfway between the two camps.
+Tom and Harry picked it up, carrying it back to where it had
+been taken from.  "Going after the guns, now?" Hazelton inquired.
+
+"First of all," Tom suggested, "I think we had better start a
+roaring good campfire."
+
+"What do we want such a thing as that for?" Harry protested.
+"The day is warm enough."
+
+"The fire will be just the thing," laughed Tom quietly.  "Come
+on and gather the wood with me.  Alf!  Oh, you Alf Drew!"
+
+But the cigarette fiend was not in evidence If he heard, he did
+not answer.
+
+"We might as well pay that imitation boy for his time and let
+him go," muttered Harry.
+
+"Oh, I hardly think so," dissented Reade.  "It's worth some time
+and expense to see if we can't make something more nearly resembling
+a man out of him."
+
+The fire was soon crackling merrily.  Tom led the way to a thicket
+an eighth of a mile from camp.  Here he produced from hiding three
+repeating rifles and several boxes of ammunition.
+
+"We'll hold on to these," Hazelton said.
+
+"For what reason?"
+
+"They'll come in handy to steer off that other crowd."
+
+"I wouldn't be bothered with keeping the rifles about camp," Tom
+retorted, as they started backward.
+
+"But say!  Gage's man that went to Dugout will soon be back.
+Do you forget that he carries a rifle?"
+
+"Jim Ferrers will be back at about the same time," Tom rejoined.
+"They'll have rifles until the camp will look like an outdoor
+arsenal.  We don't want these added rifles around camp.  Besides,
+if we kept 'em we'd soon begin to feel like thieves with other
+folks' property."
+
+"What are you going to do with these guns, then?"
+
+"By tomorrow," Reade proposed, "I rather expect to put these guns
+out where Gage's crew can find them again."
+
+"Well, you're full of faith in human nature, then!" gasped Harry.
+
+"Wait and see what happens," begged Tom.
+
+When they stepped back into camp Tom threw the magazine of one
+of the rifles open, extracting the cartridges.  Then he stepped
+over and carefully deposited the rifle across the middle of the
+fire.
+
+"I might have known!" cried Hazelton.
+
+The other two rifles were soon disposed of in the same manner.
+
+"Let the rifles cook in the fire for an hour," smiled Reade,"
+and the barrels will be too crooked for a bullet ever to get through
+one again."
+
+"What are you going to do with the cartridges, though?"
+
+"Fire a midnight salute with them," Tom answered briefly.  "Wait
+and you'll hear some noise."
+
+Alf Drew cautiously approached camp when he felt the pangs of
+hunger.  The cigarette fiend must have been satisfied, for Tom
+and Harry had already gotten the meal.  But Reade, without a word
+of rebuke to their supposed helper, allowed young Drew to help
+himself to all he wanted in the way of hot food and coffee.
+
+Bringing midnight two hours nearer---that is to say, at ten o'clock,
+Tom and Harry, aided this time by Alf, built a large fire-pile
+in a gully at a safe distance from camp.  The wood was saturated
+with oil, a powder flash laid, then Tom laid a fuse-train.  Lighting
+the fuse, the three speedily decamped.
+
+Presently they saw the flames of the newly kindled fire shooting
+up through the trees.  Then the volleying began, for Tom had carefully
+deposited through the fire-pile all the captured cartridges.
+
+For fully five minutes the cartridges continued to explode, in
+ragged volleys.
+
+"It's a regular Fourth of July," Harry laughed, back in camp.  "Tom,
+who's going to take the first trick of watch tonight?"
+
+"Neither one of us," Reade replied.  "We'll both get a sound sleep."
+
+But the enemy?"
+
+"It would take four mules apiece to drag them over here tonight,"
+laughed Reade, as he rolled himself up in his blanket.  "Good
+night!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+PLANNING A NEW MOVE
+
+
+Barely were the young engineers astir the following morning when
+Alf Drew came racing back with news.
+
+"There's a whole slew of men coming, on horseback and on foot!"
+Alf reported.  "And a whole train of wagons!"
+
+"Good enough!" nodded Tom.  "I hope the new folks camp right close
+to here.  We need good neighbors more than anything else."
+
+"But they may belong to Gage's crowd," Alf insisted.
+
+"Don't you believe it, lad.  Dolph Gage hasn't money enough to
+finance a crowd like that."
+
+"It may be Dunlop's crowd," suggested Hazelton.
+
+"That's more likely," said Tom.  "Well we'll be glad enough to
+see Dunlop back here with a outfit.  This part of the woods will
+soon be a town, at that rate."
+
+"Come out where you can get a look a new crowd," urged Alf.
+
+"If it's any one who wants to be neighborly," Reade answered with
+a shake of his head, "he's bound to stop in and say 'howdy.' We're
+going to get breakfast now."
+
+"Then I'll be back soon, and tell you anything I can find out
+about the new folks," cried Alf, darting away.
+
+But Tom raced after the lad, collaring him.
+
+"Alf, listen to me.  We're not paying you to come in on time to
+get your meals.  You get over there by Jim's cooking outfit and
+be ready to take orders."
+
+"Humph!" grunted young Drew, but he went as directed, for there
+was nothing else to do.
+
+Five minutes later Mr. Dunlop turned his horse's head and rode
+down into the camp.
+
+"Howdy, boys!" called the mine promoter.
+
+"Glad to see you back, Mr. Dunlop," Tom nodded, while Harry smiled
+a welcome.
+
+"I've sent my outfit around by the other trail," explained Mr.
+Dunlop.  "I've brought back men enough to start work in earnest.
+There will be a mule train here by tomorrow with donkey engines
+and machinery enough to start the work of mine-digging in earnest.
+Here, boy, take my horse and tie him."
+
+As Alf led the animal away, Mr. Dunlop turned to the young engineers
+with a smile of great amiability.
+
+"Boys, I'm glad to say that I wired the two railroad presidents
+you mentioned to me.  Both wired back, in effect, that my mine
+was bound to be a success if I turned the engineering problem
+over to you.  So I'm going to accept your offers---hire you at
+your own figures.  I want you to come over to the Bright Hope
+claim as soon as you've had breakfast."
+
+Tom glanced at his chum, then answered, slowly:
+
+"I'm sorry, Mr. Dunlop, sorry indeed, if-----"
+
+"What are you trying to say?" demanded the mine promoter sharply.
+
+"When you left here, Mr. Dunlop, we told you that we couldn't agree
+to hold our offer open."
+
+"Oh, that's all right.  I've come right back and taken up your
+terms with you," replied the promoter easily.
+
+"But I'm sorry to say, sir, that you are too late."
+
+"Too late?  What are you talking about, Reade?  You haven't entered
+the employ of any one else not in this wilderness."
+
+"We've formed a partnership with Ferrers, sir," Reade gravely
+informed Mr. Dunlop, "and we're going into the mining business
+on our own account."
+
+"Nonsense!  Where's your claim?"
+
+"Somewhere, sir, in this part of Nevada."
+
+"You haven't found the claim yet, then?" asked the promoter, with
+a tinge of relief in his voice.
+
+"No, sir.  We located a promising claim, but the Gage gang tricked
+us out of it.  We'll find another, though."
+
+"Then you'll prove yourselves very talented young men," scoffed
+Mr. Dunlop.  "Lad, don't you know that I've been all over this
+country with old-time prospectors?  There isn't any claim left
+that will pay you for the trouble of locating and working it."
+
+"We're going to hope for better luck than your words promise us,
+sir," Harry hinted.
+
+"You'll have your labor for your pains, then, and the satisfaction
+of finding yourselves fools," exclaimed Dunlop testily.  "You'd
+better drop all that nonsense, and report to me after breakfast."
+
+"It's not to be thought of, Mr. Dunlop," Tom replied gravely.
+"We are here in the land of gold.  We think we see our chance
+to work for ourselves for a while, and we're going to make the
+most of our chance."
+
+"Then you're a pair of idiots," quivered indignant Dunlop.
+
+"We'll be our own fools, then," smiled Harry.
+
+"I beg your pardon for getting out of patience," spoke Mr. Dunlop,
+more gently.  "I'm disappointed in you.  All the way here I have
+been planning to get you both at work early.  The stockholders in
+the Bright Hope are all looking for early results."
+
+"Couldn't you get hold of an engineer at Dugout?" Tom inquired.
+
+"Not one."
+
+"Then you'll have to go farther---Carson City," Reade suggested.
+"There must be plenty of mining engineers in Nevada, where their
+services are so much in demand."
+
+"A lot of new claims are being filed these days," explained Mr.
+Dunlop.  "The best I could learn in Dugout was that I'd have to
+wait until some other mine could spare its man."
+
+"I'm sorry we can't help you, sir," Tom went on thoughtfully.
+
+"I shall feel it a personal grievance, if you don't," snapped
+the mine promoter.
+
+"We can't do anything for you, Mr. Dunlop," spoke Reade decisively.
+"Just as soon as Ferrers returns, so that our camp can be taken
+care of, we three partners are going to hustle out on the prospect.
+Will you have breakfast with us, sir?"
+
+Mr. Dunlop assented, but his mind was plainly on his disappointment
+all through the meal.
+
+Even when Harry Hazelton related how Dolph Gage and his crew had
+been served, the mine promoter displayed but little enthusiasm.
+
+"By the way, sir," suggested Tom, "you are not going to use all
+of your men today?"
+
+"I cannot use any of them for a day or two."
+
+"Then you might do us a great favor by sending a few of your men
+over here.  I expect that Gage's absent comrade will return at
+any time.  He will have his rifle, and one gun in the hands of a
+marksman, might be enough to make considerable trouble around
+here."
+
+"You ask me a favor, and yet you won't work for me," complained
+their guest.
+
+"I think we did you a favor, once upon a time, by helping to chase
+off the Gage crowd at a critical time for you," said Tom bluntly.
+"However, if you don't wish-----"
+
+"I'll send half a dozen men over here until Ferrers returns,"
+interjected Mr. Dunlop hastily.
+
+The men reported to Tom and Harry within half an hour.  A few minutes
+after their arrival Harry espied Dolph Gage's absent man galloping
+over to the Gage claim.
+
+"There would have been trouble, if we hadn't shown a few armed men
+here," muttered Hazelton.
+
+"There's some excitement in that camp, as it is," exclaimed Tom,
+who had a pair of binoculars at his eyes.  "Gage, Eb and Josh
+are crowding around the new arrival.  Take the glasses, Harry.
+Note how excited they are about something."
+
+"Gage is stamping about and looking wild," Harry reported.  "He
+looks as though, for two cents, he'd tear his hair out.  And Eb
+has thrown his hat on the ground and is stamping on it.  I wonder
+what the trouble can be?"
+
+Two hours later Jim Ferrers rode into camp at the head of his
+new outfit.  He had the two-mule team and wagon, and seven men,
+all miners and armed.  Two of the men rode the ponies that Reade
+had instructed Jim to buy.
+
+"Jim," called Tom, as he ran toward their mining party, "have
+you any idea what's wrong with the Gage crowd?"
+
+"I've a small notion," grinned the guide.  "The man who was sent
+over couldn't file their claim to the ridge."
+
+"Couldn't file it!  Why not?"
+
+"Because every man in that crowd has exhausted his mineral land
+privileges taking up claims elsewhere."
+
+"Why, then, man alive!" gasped Tom, halting, a look of wonder
+on his face, and then a grin of realization, "if they can't file
+the claim to that strip, why can't we!"
+
+"We can, if we're quick enough," Ferrers answered.  "I tried to
+file the claim while I was over in Dugout, but the clerk at the
+mining claim office said he 'lowed that we'd have to have our
+declaration tacked up on the ridge first of all."
+
+"That'll take us a blessed short time," muttered Reade.  "Harry
+and I have all the particulars we need for writing out the notice
+of claim.  Get some breakfast on the jump, Jim, and we'll hustle
+over there."
+
+"I had my breakfast before I rode in here," errors answered, his
+eyes shining.  "I'd a-missed my guess, Mr. Reade, if you hadn't
+been ready for prompt action."
+
+"Then there's no reason, Jim, under mining customs, why we shouldn't
+ride over there and stake out that claim?"
+
+"Not a reason on earth, Mr. Reade, except that Gage will probably
+put up a big fight."
+
+"Let him!" added Tom, in a lower voice.  "Take it from me, Jim
+Ferrers, that claim on the ridge yonder is worth all kinds of
+fight.  Here, get the horses saddled again, while Harry and I
+write our notice in record-breaking time for legible penmanship."
+
+Tom's eyes were gleaming in a way that they had not done in months.
+For, despite his former apparent indifference to the trick Gage
+had played on them, Tom Reade would have staked his professional
+reputation on the richness of the ridge claim.
+
+"It's gold, Harry---gold!" he exclaimed, hoarsely, in his chum's
+ear.  "It's gold enough to last us through life if we work it
+hard from the start."
+
+"We'll have to kill a few men before we can get Gage off that
+ridge, though," Hazelton predicted.
+
+"It's gold, I tell you, Harry.  When the gold-craze gets into
+a fellow's blood nothing but gold can cure it.  We won't kill
+any one, and we'll hope not to be killed ourselves.  But that
+claim was our discovery, and now the way is clear for us to own
+that strip of Nevada dirt.  Gold, Harry, old chum---gold!"
+
+Then they fell to writing.  Harry did the pen work while Reade
+dictated rapidly.
+
+If Engineer Tom Reade had been briefly excited he did not betray
+the fact when he stepped outside the tent.
+
+"Horses saddled, Mr. Reade," announced Ferrers.  "I s'pose you're
+going to take some of the boys over with us, in case Gage tries
+to put up any shooting bluff?"
+
+"Yes," nodded Tom.  "But don't take with us any fellow who is
+hot-blooded enough to do any real shooting."
+
+"It'll take real shooting to get Gage's crew off that ridge,"
+Ferrers warned the young engineer.  "All men get gold crazy when
+they find their feet on a claim.  Dolph Gage will fight while
+he has breath left.  Don't try to go over there, sir, if you're
+not satisfied to have a little shooting done at need."
+
+"We're going over," declared Tom, the lines about his mouth tightening,
+"and we're going to take the claim for our own, as long as we
+have the legal right to do so.  But I hope there won't have to
+be any gun-powder burned.  Killing belongs only to one line of
+business---war!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+NEW OWNERS FILE A CLAIM
+
+
+Dolph Gage, after his richly deserved battering of the day before,
+presented a sorry-looking sight as he stood near the notice of
+his claim location.
+
+In his right hand he gripped the only rifle there now was in his
+outfit, the one brought back by the man who had been to Dugout.
+
+Jim Ferrers, rifle resting across the front of his saddle, rode
+at the head of the Reade-Hazelton party as that outfit reached
+the edge of the claim.
+
+On either side of the guide, just to the rear, rode Tom and Harry.
+Behind them tramped four men armed with rides, the other two
+men carrying a board, stakes and a hammer.
+
+"The first man who sets foot on this claim dies!" shouted Dolph
+Gage hoarsely.
+
+"Same thing for any man who raises a rifle against us," Ferrers
+called back.  "Gage, I want only a good excuse for taking one
+honest shot at you!"
+
+The moment was tense with danger.  Heedless of the black looks
+of Dolph, Tom dug his heels into his pony's flanks, moving forward
+at a trot.
+
+"Gage," called the young engineer, steadily, "I think you have been
+in wrong often enough.  This time I am sure that you will want to keep
+on the right side."
+
+"You keep on the right side by staying off the claim!" Gage ordered,
+but at that instant Reade rode over the boundary.
+
+For an instant no man could guess who would fire the first shot.
+Gage was angry and desperate enough to fire and take great chances.
+Had he fired at that moment there was no doubt that he would have
+been killed at the next breath.
+
+Something stuck in Gage's throat.  He did not raise his rifle, but
+instead he growled:
+
+"You're a fine lot, to bring a small army against one man!"
+
+"We have as much right here, Gage, as you have, spoke Tom, steadily.
+
+"What do you want here!"
+
+"We have come to look this claim over."
+
+"Get off, then.  You have no right here."
+
+"You know, quite well, Gage, that we have as much right here as
+you have," Tom rejoined easily.  "We are quite well aware that
+your man failed to file the claim because all of you have exhausted
+your mineral rights under the law.
+
+"So you think you can come here and take it from us, do you?" glared
+Gage, his face livid with passion.
+
+"We have just the same right to this claim now that any man has
+who has any mineral rights left under the law," Reade made answer.
+
+"But you haven't.  I'm going to get this claim yet," Gage insisted.
+"I've sent for a friend who hasn't taken up any mineral rights yet.
+He will file the claim.  See here!"
+
+Gage moved aside, displaying a new board, on which a notice had
+been written.
+
+"That's signed with the name of the man the claim belongs to now,"
+declared Gage, triumphantly.
+
+Tom handed his bridle to Harry, then dismounted, bending over
+to scan the new notice.  It was a duplicate of the former one,
+except that the new signature was that of one, Joseph Pringle.
+
+"Where is Pringle?" Tom demanded.
+
+"None of your business."
+
+"But you see," explained the young engineer dryly, "it happens to be
+my business."
+
+From under his coat Reade drew forth a folding camera.  Quickly
+opening and focussing he held the camera close, pressing the bulb.
+
+"That photograph will enlarge to almost any size," Tom declared.
+"Now, then, Gage, do you claim that this strip has been claimed
+by one, Pringle?"
+
+"I do," scowled Gage, "and Pringle is our partner.  We're going
+to work this claim with him, and you're trespassing."
+
+"Is that Pringle's own signature?" Tom insisted.
+
+"None of your business!"
+
+"You've given me that same kind of an answer before," Tom smiled.
+"As it happens, this is our business.  Gage, the writing of that
+notice looks exactly like your writing, and Pringle's alleged
+signature is in the same hand-writing.  If you've signed Pringle's
+name---and I charge that you have---then that notice has no legal
+value whatever.  Recollect, I have a photograph of the notice
+and signature, and that this notice in turn, so that you may remember
+that the writing throughout is the same that my photograph is going
+to reveal."
+
+Jim Ferrers quickly came forward.  Gage stepped squarely in front
+of the board holding the notice.  But Tom took a swift step forward.
+Gage, shaking, drew back out of possible reach of Reade's fists.
+
+Then, one after the other, the other members of Tom's party inspected
+the writing.
+
+"Much good may it do you!" jeered Dolph Gage harshly.  "You'll
+find that this claim is ours!"
+
+"Look at what that cub is doing!" broke in Eb excitedly, pointing
+to Harry.
+
+Unobserved at first by others, Hazelton had slipped back of the
+crowd.  Now he was placing a board in position, and that board
+announced the fact that Jim Ferrers had staked out this strip
+for himself.
+
+"Take that down!" raged Gage, as soon as he saw the new board
+and paper.  "It won't do you any good."
+
+"We'll take a chance on it, anyway, and watch it for a few days,"
+Jim declared.  "Are you through with me now, Mr. Reade?"
+
+"Certainly," nodded Tom.
+
+Mounting his horse, Jim Ferrers rode away at an easy gait.
+
+"This is a mean trick to try to play on us, Reade," snarled Gage.
+
+"If you hadn't played a mean trick on us, and staked this place
+off while you knew we were making the assay of ore taken from
+here," rejoined Tom, "then we might be inclined to waive the purely
+legal side of the case and give you a fair chance to get your
+friend Pringle here.  But you must remember that you tricked us
+out of this claim in the first place, and now you have no right
+at all to complain.  This claim now stands in Jim Ferrers's name,
+and so it will continue to stand."
+
+"Go ahead," snarled Gage.  "Try to take ore out of here.  No man
+shall be a partner in this claim and live to spend any of the
+money he gets out of this mine!  I've said it, and I'll pledge
+myself to back it up."
+
+"And you've made that threat before witnesses, also, Gage.  Remember
+that," Tom advised sternly.
+
+"And all the time you're chinning, Dolph," broke in Josh, "Jim
+Ferrers is riding hard for Dugout City to file the new claim entry!"
+
+"If he is, something may happen to him on the way!" raged Dolph,
+wheeling about like a flash.  His saddle horse, ready for action,
+stood tied to a tree near by.  Gage leaped into his saddle after
+he had freed the horse.
+
+"Boss, he's going after Ferrers, to do him harm on the road,"
+hoarsely whispered one of Tom's new miners.  "Are you going to
+let the scoundrel start?"
+
+"Yes," nodded Tom coolly, "at Ferrers's special request.  He didn't
+want Gage stopped from trying to overtake him."
+
+Gage was now galloping away.
+
+"You've seen the last of Ferrers," jeered Josh, after Gage had
+vanished in the distance.
+
+"Perhaps we've seen the last of one of the men," replied Reade
+coldly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+JIM TRIES THE NEW WAY
+
+
+"I've attended to the firm's business," exclaimed Jim Ferrers,
+wrathfully, on his return to camp.  "I filed the papers at Dugout
+City, and the claim now stands in my name, though it belongs to
+the firm.  And now, having attended to the firm's business, I'm
+going out to settle some of my own."
+
+"What business is that!" Tom inquired over the supper table.
+
+It was three days after the morning on which Ferrers had ridden
+away.
+
+"That mongrel dog, Dolph Gage, took a shot at me this afternoon!"
+Ferrers exploded wrathfully.  "I'd ought to have gotten him years
+ago.  Now I'm going to drop all other business and find the fellow."
+
+"What for?" Tom inquired innocently.
+
+"What for?" echoed Jim, then added, ironically: "Why, I want to do
+the hyena a favor, of course."
+
+"If you go out to look for him, you're not going armed, are you?"
+Reade pursued.
+
+"Armed?" repeated Ferrers, with withering sarcasm.  "Oh, no, of
+course not.  I'm going to ride up to him with my hands high in
+the air and let him take a shot at me."
+
+"Jim," drawled Tom, "I'm afraid there's blood in your eye---and not
+your own blood, either."
+
+"Didn't that fellow kill my brother in a brawl?" demanded Ferrers.
+"Hasn't he pot-shotted at me?  And didn't he do it again this
+afternoon?"
+
+"Why didn't the law take up Gage's case when your brother was
+killed?" Tom inquired.
+
+"Well, you see, Mr. Reade," Ferrers admitted, "my brother had a hasty
+temper, and he drew first---but Gage fired the killing shot."
+
+"So that the law would say that Gage fired in self-defense, eh?"
+
+"That's what a coroner's jury did say," Jim admitted angrily.
+"But my brother was a young fellow, and hot-headed.  Gage knew
+he could provoke the boy into firing, and then, when the boy missed,
+Gage drilled him through the head."
+
+"I don't want to say anything unkind, Jim," Reade went on,
+thoughtfully.  "Please don't misunderstand me.  But, as I
+understand the affair, if your brother hadn't been carrying a
+pistol he wouldn't have been killed?"
+
+"Perhaps not," Ferrers grudgingly admitted.
+
+"Then the killing came about through the bad practice of carrying a
+revolver?"
+
+"Bad practice!" snorted Jim.  "Well, if that's a bad practice
+more'n half the men in the state have the vice."
+
+"Popular custom may not make a thing right," argued Reade.
+
+"But what are you going to do when the men who have a grudge against
+you pack guns?" Jim queried, opening his eyes very wide.
+
+"I've had a few enemies---bad ones, too, some of them," Tom answered
+slowly.  "Yet I've always refused to carry an implement of murder,
+even when I've been among rough enemies.  And yet I'm alive.
+If I had carried a pistol ever since I came West I'm almost certain
+that I'd be dead by this time."
+
+"But if you won't carry a gun, and let folks suspect you of being
+a white-flagger, then you get the reputation of being a coward,"
+argued Ferrers.
+
+"Then I suppose I've been voted a coward long ago," Reade nodded.
+
+"No, by the Great Nugget, you're not a coward," retorted Ferrers.
+"No man who has seen you in a tough place will ever set you down
+for a coward."
+
+"Yet I must be, if I don't tote a gun in a wild country," smiled
+Reade.
+
+"But to go back to the case of that good-for-nothing, Dolph Gage,"
+Jim Ferrers resumed.  "You advise me to forget that he shot at me?"
+
+"Oh, no, I don't," Tom retorted quietly.  "But you don't have to go
+out and take your own revenge.  There are laws in this state,
+aren't there?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"And officers to execute the laws"
+
+"To be sure."
+
+"Then why not go back to Dugout City, there to lay information
+against Gage.  That done, the sheriff's officers will have to
+do the hunting.  Having nothing personal against the officers,
+Gage will very likely hold up his hands when the officers find
+him, and then go back with them as peaceable as a lamb.  Jim,
+you want to be even with Gage for shooting your brother and for
+trying to finish you.  Won't it give you more satisfaction to
+feel that you've put Gage day for his bread and water?  I know
+that is the way I'd want to punish a man that I had cause to hate.
+At least, I believe it's the way; I don't really know, for I
+can't recall any man that I hate hard enough to wish him worse
+than out of my sight."
+
+"Say, it would be kinder funny to go up to the state 'pen' some
+day, and see Dolph Gage walking lock-step with a lot of rascally
+Chinamen, drunken Indians, Knife-sticking foreigners and sassy
+bill-collectors, wouldn't it?" grinned Jim Ferrers.
+
+"I'm glad your sense of humor is improving," smiled Tom Reade.
+"Now, tomorrow, morning, Jim, you take two of the other men,
+and our ponies, and ride into Dugout.  If you run across Gage
+don't try to pick up any trouble.  Of course, I don't mean to say
+that you shouldn't shoot in self-defense if you're attacked, but
+try, if possible, to keep out of any trouble with Gage.  Just
+save him for the sheriff.  It's the law's business to handle such
+fellows.  Let the law have its own way."
+
+"I'll do it," promised Ferrers.  "Putting it the way you've done,
+Mr. Reade, it doesn't seem like such a baby trick to use the sheriff
+instead of killing the hyena, myself.  Yes; I'll sure leave it
+to the law.  If Dolph Gage gets caught and sent to the 'pen' I'll
+sure go there on some visiting day and see how he looks in his
+striped suit!"
+
+Instead of being offended, it was plain that Ferrers was in high
+good humor.  He went about camp whistling that night, and with
+a cheery word for everyone.
+
+Camp had been moved over to the ridge, and the young engineers
+were ready to begin blasting operations the following morning.
+Ferrers was no longer concerned with cooking, he having engaged
+a man to do that work.  The new man kept a sharp eye on Alf Drew,
+making that youngster do a really honest day's work every day
+in the week.
+
+"I hate to take two men from you, Mr. Reade right at the start
+of operations," complained Jim, the next morning at breakfast.
+"I don't need two men, either, to protect me."
+
+"I don't need the two men here, either, Jim for a few days.  As
+for you, you don't know how many men you are going to need.  All
+three of Gage's partners have vanished, and I'm sure that they're
+together somewhere out on the Range.  They undoubtedly have rifles
+again, at that, and if you meet them, three men won't be any too
+many to stand off those four rascals."
+
+Tom watched the trio of horsemen out of sight in the morning.
+
+"If Jim doesn't lose his head that trip will mean that we shall
+see the last of Dolph Gage," mused the young engineer.
+
+For once Tom Reade was in grave error, as subsequent events proved.
+
+"It's ten minutes of seven," Harry reminded him.
+
+"Get ready, men," Tom shouted to their few laborers, who were
+enjoying a few minutes leisure after breakfast.
+
+At seven o'clock the young engineers and their handful of toilers
+moved over to the point in the outcropping vein of ore that Reade
+had selected for their first blast.
+
+A small portable engine had already been fired, and all was ready
+for turning on the steam drill.
+
+Twenty minutes later a satisfactory boring had been made.
+
+"Bring up the dynamite," called Tom.
+
+"Are you going to pack the charge?" Harry inquired.
+
+"Yes," nodded Tom, and received the stick of dynamite from the
+miner who brought it.
+
+While this was being made ready, Hazelton superintended the laying
+of the wires to the magneto battery.  All was soon in readiness.
+
+"The red flag is up," Tom shouted.
+
+The dynamite had been rather loosely tamped home, for young Reade
+wanted to begin with light rending force and work up, through
+successive blasts, to just the proper amount of force.
+
+"Get back, everybody!" Reade called, and there was a flying of
+feet.  Tom was last to leave the spot.  He ran over to where Harry
+stood at a safe distance.
+
+"Pump her up, Harry," nodded the young chief engineer.
+
+"You watch me, and see just how I run this magneto," Hazelton
+said to one of their men who stood near by.  "This will be your
+job after we've fired a few charges.  I want you to get the hang
+of the trick."
+
+Harry worked the handle of the magneto up and down.
+
+Bang!  Over where the drilling had been done a mass of dirt and
+rock was shot up into the air.
+
+"What are you running so fast for, Harry?" laughed Tom, as he pursued
+his chum back to the scene of the blast.
+
+"I want to see if we stirred up any real ore.  I want to know if our
+claim is worth the grub it takes to feed the men," was Hazelton's
+almost breathless response.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE COOK LEARNS A LESSEN
+
+
+Arrived on the spot it took Tom only a moment to estimate that
+considerably less than a quarter of a ton of ore had been loosened
+from the rock bed by the blast.
+
+"We'll drill six inches deeper next time, and put in fifty per
+cent. more dynamite," Reade decided.
+
+The men brought up the drill and set it, after which the engineer
+was signaled.
+
+Harry, in the meantime, was down on his hands and knees, curiously
+turning over the small, loose bits of rock.
+
+"Stung, if this stuff proves anything," sighed Hazelton.
+
+"You can't judge by one handful, Harry," Tom told him.  "Besides,
+we may have to get down twenty, or even fifty feet below surface
+before we strike any pay-stuff.  Don't look for dividends in the
+first hour.  I've been told that gold-mining calls for more sporting
+blood than any other way in which wealth can be pursued."
+
+"But I don't find a bit of color in this stuff," Harry muttered.
+"If we're on the top of a vein of gold it seems to me that we
+ought to find a small speck of yellow here and there."
+
+A dozen blasts were made that morning.  When the men knocked off
+at noon Harry Hazelton's face bore a very serious expression.
+
+"Tom," he murmured to his partner, "I'm afraid we have a gold brick
+of a gold mine."
+
+"It's an even chance," nodded Reade.
+
+"And think of all the money---out of our savings---we've sunk
+in this thing."
+
+"I hope you're not going to get scared as early as this," protested
+Tom.  "Why, before we even get in sight of pay-rock we may have
+to sink every dollar of our savings."
+
+"Then hadn't we better get out of it early, and go to work for
+some one who pays wages?" questioned Hazelton.
+
+"Yes," Tom shot out, quickly, "if that's the way you feel about it."
+
+"But do you feel differently, Tom?"
+
+"I'm willing to risk something, for the sake of drawing what may
+possibly turn out to be the big prize in the mining lottery."
+
+"But all our savings," cried Harry, aghast.  "That seems like
+a foolish risk, doesn't it?"
+
+"If you say so, I'll draw out now," Tom proposed.
+
+"What do you think about it?"
+
+"If all the money at stake were mine," Reade said slowly, "then
+I'd hang on as long as I had a penny left to invest."
+
+"Tom Reade, I believe you're turning gambler at heart!"
+
+"I intend to be a good, game business man, if that's what you
+mean by gambling.  But see here, Harry, I don't want to pull your
+money into this scheme if you feel that you'd rather hold on to
+what you have."
+
+"If you're going to stay in, Tom, then so am I.  I'm not the kind
+of fellow to go back on a chum's investment."
+
+"But if we lose all we've saved then you'll feel-----"
+
+"Don't argue any more, Tom," begged Hazelton.  "I'm going to be
+game.  You've voted, old fellow, to stay by this claim as long
+as you can, and that's enough for me."
+
+"But if we lose all our savings," Tom urged.  He had now become
+the cautious one.
+
+"If we lose them, we lose them," declared Hazelton.  "And we're
+both of us young enough to be able to save more before we're
+seventy-five or eighty years old.  Go ahead, Tom.  I'm one of the
+investors here, but the whole game is in your hands.  Go as far
+as you like and I'll stand back of you."
+
+"But-----"
+
+"Say no more.  Tom, I shall try never again to be a quitter.
+Whoop!  Let the money slip!  We'll make the old mine a dividend
+payer before we are through with it."
+
+That afternoon about a dozen and a half more blasts were laid
+and fired.  Some five hundred feet of the surface of the vein
+had been lightly blasted, and several tons of ore thrown up.
+
+"I wouldn't call it ore, though," muttered Harry to himself.
+"I don't believe this rook holds gold enough to put a yellow plating
+on a cent."
+
+"It does look rather poor, doesn't it, Harry?" Tom asked, trying
+to speak blithely.
+
+"Humph!  We've got to go deeper than this before we can expect
+to loosen rock worth thirty dollars to the ton," Harry declared
+cheerily.
+
+"Oh, we'll surely strike pay-rock in big lots after a while,"
+predicted Reade, smiling happily and whistling merrily as he strode
+away.  "I'm glad Harry has his courage with him and his hopes high,"
+Reade added to himself.
+
+"I'm glad Tom is so cheerful and positive," thought Hazelton.
+"I'll do my best to help him keep in that frame of mind; though,
+for myself, I believe we would make more money if we stood on
+a cliff and tossed pennies into the ocean."
+
+"I'm glad to see that all your high hopes have returned," declared
+Tom, at supper that evening.
+
+"Oh, I've got the gold fever for fair," laughed Hazelton.  "Tom, how
+are we going to spend the money when we get it?"
+
+"A new house for the folks at home will take some of my money, when
+I get it," Tom declared, his eyes glowing.
+
+"Any old thing that the folks take a fancy to will catch my share
+of the gold," Harry promised.
+
+"But, of course, we'll wait until we get it."
+
+"You haven't any doubts about getting the gold, have you?"
+
+"Not a doubt.  Have you?"
+
+"I'm an optimist," Harry asserted.
+
+"What's your idea of an optimist, anyway?" laughed Tom.
+
+"An optimist is a fellow who believes that banknotes grow on potato
+vines," laughed Harry.
+
+"Oh, we'll get our gold all right," Reade predicted.
+
+"We will, and a lot more.  Tom, you and I still have mineral rights
+that we can file, with Ferrers as trustee."
+
+"We'll go prospecting for two more bully claims just as soon as
+we begin to see pay-rock coming out of this vein," Tom planned.
+"Alf, you lazy cigarette fiend, hurry up and bring me some more
+of the canned meat."
+
+"Bring me another cup of coffee on the jump," called Harry.  "While
+you're about it make it two cups of coffee."
+
+As soon as he had brought the required things Alf tried slyly to
+slip away by himself, for he had already had his own supper.
+
+"Here, you son of the shiftless one, get back here and drag the
+grub to this table," yelled one of the men at the miners' table.
+
+After that Alf remained on duty until all hands had been fed.
+Then he tried to slip away again, only to be roped by a lariat in
+the hands of the new cook.
+
+"Let me catch you trying to sneak away from work again, and I'll
+cowhide you with this rope," growled the cook.  "Why are you trying
+to sneak away before your work is finished?"
+
+"I'm almost dead for a smoke," said Alf.
+
+"Smoke, is it?  You stay here and wash the dishes.  Don't try
+to get away again until I tell you you can go.  If you do---but
+you won't," finished the cook grimly.
+
+Alf worked away industriously.  At last this outdoor kitchen work
+was finished.
+
+"Now I can go, can't I?" spoke up Alf, hopefully.  "Say, I'm perishing
+for want of a smoke."
+
+"Stay and have a man's smoke with me," said the cook.  "Here,
+hold this between your teeth."
+
+Alf drew back, half-shuddering from the blackened clay pipe, filled
+with strong tobacco, which the cook passed him.
+
+"You're always itching to be a man," mocked the cook.  "And now's
+your chance.  A pipe is a man's smoke.  Them cigs are fit only
+for 'sheeters."
+
+"I don't wanter smoke it," pleaded Alf, drawing back from the
+proffered pipe.
+
+"You take matches, light that pipe and smoke it," insisted the
+cook, a man named Leon, in a tone that compelled obedience.
+
+Poor Alf smoked wretchedly away.  Finally, when he thought Leon
+wasn't looking, he tried to hide the pipe.
+
+"Here, you keep that a-going!" ordered the cook wrathfully, wheeling
+upon the miserable youngster.
+
+So Alf puffed up, feebly, and, when the pipe went out, he lighted
+the tobacco again.
+
+"Here!" he protested, three minutes later, handing back the pipe.
+
+"Smoke it!" gruffed Leon.
+
+"I---I don't wanter."
+
+"Smoke it!"
+
+"I---I can't," pleaded Alf Drew, the ghastly pallor of his face
+bearing out his assertion.
+
+"You smoke that pipe, or I'll-----"
+
+"You can kill me, if you wanter," gasped, Alf, feeling far more
+ill than he had ever felt in his life before.  "I don't care---but
+I won't smoke that pipe.  There!"
+
+He flung it violently to the ground, smashing the pipe.
+
+"You little-----" began the cook, making a leap after the youngster.
+
+But Alf, his sense of self-preservation still being strong, fled
+with more speed than might have been looked for in one so ill.
+
+Tom Reade, passing a clump of bushes, and hearing low moans, stopped
+to investigate.  He found the little cigarette fiend stretched
+out on the ground, his face drawn and pale.
+
+"What on earth is the matter, mosquito?" inquired Reade, with
+more sympathy than his form of speech attested.
+
+"Oh, dear!" wailed Alf.
+
+"So I gathered," said Tom dryly.  "But who got behind you and scared
+you in that fashion?"
+
+"O-o-oh, dear!"
+
+"You said that before; but what's up?"
+
+"At first I was afraid I was going to die," Alf declared tremulously.
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"And now I'm afraid I won't die!"
+
+Alf sat up shivering convulsively.
+
+"Now, Alf," Tom pursued, "tell me just what happened."
+
+By degrees the young engineer extracted the information that he
+was after.  Bit by bit Alf told the tale, interspersing his story
+with dismal groans.
+
+"I always told you, Alf, that smoking would do you up if you ever
+tackled it," Reade said gravely.
+
+"But I have smoked for a year," Alf protested.
+
+"Oh, no," Tom contradicted him.  "The use of cigarettes isn't
+smoking.  It's just mere freshness on the part of a small boy.
+But smoking---that's a different matter, as you've found out.
+Now, Alf, I hope you've learned a needed lesson, and that after
+this you'll let tobacco alone.  While you're about it you might
+as well quit cigarettes, too.  But I'm going to change your job.
+Don't go back to the cook.  Instead, report to me in about an
+hour."
+
+Then Tom strode forward.  After he had left young Drew there was
+an ominous flash in the young engineer's eyes.  He strode into
+camp and went straight to the cook's shack.
+
+"Leon," Tom demanded, "what have you been doing to that poor little
+shrimp of a helper?"
+
+The cook turned around, grinning.
+
+"I've been teaching him something about smoking," the man admitted.
+
+"So I've heard," said Tom.  "That's why I've dropped in here---to
+tell you what I think about it."
+
+"If you're going to get cranky," warned the cook, angrily, "you
+needn't take the trouble."
+
+"Punishing Alf isn't your work, Leon," Tom went on quietly.  "I'm
+one of the heads here, and the management of this camp has been
+left more or less in my hands.  I gave you a weak, deluded, almost
+worthless little piece of humanity as a helper.  I'll admit that
+he isn't much good, but yet he's a boy aged fourteen, at any rate,
+and therefore there may be in that boy the makings of a man.
+Your way of tackling the job is no good.  It's a fool way, and,
+besides, it's a brutal, unmanly way."
+
+"I guess you'd better stop, right where you are, Mister Reade!"
+snapped Leon, an ugly scowl coming to his face.  "I don't have
+to take any such talk as that from you, even if you are the boss.
+You may be the boss here, but I'm older and I've seen more of
+the world.  So you may pass on your way, Mister Reade, and I'll
+mind my own business while you mind yours."
+
+"Good!" smiled Tom amiably.  "That's just the arrangement I've
+been trying to get you to pledge yourself to.  Mind your own business,
+after this, just as you've promised.  Don't play the brute with
+small boys."
+
+"You needn't think you can boss me, Mister Reade," sneered Leon,
+a dangerous look again coming into his eyes.  "I've told you that
+I won't take that kind of talk from you."
+
+"You'll have to listen to it, just as long as you stay in camp,"
+Reade answered.  "I don't want to be disagreeable with any man, and
+never am when I can avoid it.  But there are certain things I won't
+have done here.  One of them is the bullying of small boys by big
+fellows like you.  Do I make myself plain?"
+
+"So plain," Leon answered, very quietly, as one hand traveled
+back to the butt of the revolver hanging over his right hip, "that
+I give you just ten seconds, Mister Reade, to get away and do
+your talking in another part of the camp."
+
+Tom saw the motion of the hand toward the weapon, though no change
+in his calm face or steady eyes denoted the fact.
+
+"I believe I've just one thing more to say to you, Leon.  I've
+told young Drew that he needn't bother about coming back as your
+helper.  He is to report to me, and I shall find him another job."
+
+"Are you going to get away from here?" snarled the angry cook.
+
+"Presently."
+
+"I'll give you only until I count ten," Leon snapped, his hand still
+resting on the butt of his revolver.
+
+"You're not threatening me with your pistol, are you?" Tom inquired
+in a mild tone.
+
+"You'll find out, if you don't vamoose right along.  One---two---"
+
+"Stop it," Tom commanded, without raising his voice.  "You may
+think you could get your pistol out in time to use it.  Try it,
+and you'll learn how quickly I can jump on you and grab you.
+Try to draw your weapon, or even to shift your position ever so
+little, and I'll show you a trick that may possibly surprise you."
+
+There was no trace of braggadocio in Tom Reade's quiet voice, but
+Leon knew, instantly, that the young engineer could and would be as
+good as his word.
+
+"Take your hand away from the butt of your pistol," came Tom's
+next command.
+
+Something in the look of the young engineer's eyes compelled the
+angry cook to obey.
+
+"Now, unbuckle your belt and hand it to me, revolver and all."
+
+"I'll-----" Leon flared up, but Tom interrupted him.
+
+"Exactly, my friend.  You'll be very wise if you do, and very
+sorry if you don't!"
+
+White with rage Leon unbuckled his belt.  Then he handed it out,
+slowly.  He was prepared to leap upon the young engineer like
+a panther, but Tom was watching alertly.  He received the belt
+with his left hand, holding his right hand clenched ready for
+"business."
+
+"Thank you," said Tom quietly.  "Now, you may return to your work.
+I'm ready to forget this, Leon, if you are."
+
+Leon glared speechlessly at his conqueror.  This cook had lived
+in some of the roughest of mining camps, and had the reputation
+of being dangerous when angry.
+
+From outside came an appreciative chuckle.  Then Jim Ferrers stepped
+into the shack.
+
+"So you were hanging about, ready to back up the kid?" demanded
+the cook.
+
+"I?  Oh, no," chuckled Jim.  "Leon, when you've known Mr. Reade
+as long and as well as I do you'll understand that he doesn't ask
+or need any backing.  Mr. Reade wants only what's right---but he's
+going to have it if he has to move a township."
+
+Tom departed, swinging the belt and revolver from his right hand.
+
+"I'm through here," muttered Leon, snatching off his apron.  "That
+is, just as soon as I've squared up accounts with that kid."
+
+"Then you'd better put your apron on again," Jim drawled, humorously.
+"It takes longer than you've got left to live when any one goes
+after Tom Reade to get even."
+
+"Jim Ferrers, you know me well enough," remarked Leon, reaching for
+his hat.  "Most times I'm peaceable, but when I get started I'm a
+bad man."
+
+"Exactly," nodded Jim undisturbed.  "That's why you can never
+hope to come out on top in a row with Mr. Reade.  While you may
+be a bad man, he's a good man---and ALL MAN!  You don't stand
+any show with that kind.  Hang up your hat, Leon.  Here's your
+apron.  Put it on and stay with us.  When you cool down you can
+stay right along here and take lessons in the art of being a real
+man!"
+
+Jim Ferrers strolled out of the shack, leaving the vanquished
+cook in a towering rage.  By degrees the expression on the fellow's
+face altered.  Ten minutes later he was at work---at cook's duties.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+WHY READE WANTED GOLD
+
+
+Four weeks moved on rapidly.  All too rapidly, in some respects,
+to please Engineer Harry Hazelton.
+
+Sheriff's officers had ridden into camp, and had scoured that
+part of the country, in an effort to locate Dolph Gage and that
+worthy's friends.  Just where the four vagabonds were now no man
+knew, save themselves.
+
+However, another spectre had settled down over the camp.  The
+truth was that the young engineers were now using up the last
+thousand dollars of their combined savings.
+
+By way of income, less than fifty dollars' worth of gold and silver
+had been mined.  Every few days some promising-looking ore was
+turned out, but it never came in sufficient quantities.  None
+of this ore had yet been moved toward Dugout City.  There wasn't
+enough of it to insure good results.  Brilliant in streaks, still
+the mine looked like a commercial fizzle.
+
+"Hang it, the gold is down there!" grunted Tom, staring gloomily
+at the big cut that had been blasted and dug out along the top
+of the ridge.
+
+"I'll be tremendously happy when you show me a little more of it,"
+smiled Hazelton weakly.
+
+"It's lower down," argued Tom.  "We've got to dig deeper---and then
+a lot deeper."
+
+"On the capital that we have left?" ventured Harry.
+
+"Oh, we may strike enough, any day, to stake us for a few weeks
+longer," urged Tom.
+
+"We'll soon have to be working in covered outs, where the frost
+won't put up trouble for us, you know," Hazelton hinted.
+
+"Yes; I know that, of course.  What we must begin to do, soon, is to
+sink the shaft deeper and then tunnel."
+
+"That will cost a few thousand dollars, Tom."
+
+"I know it.  Come on, Harry.  Get a shovel."
+
+Tom himself snatched up a pick.
+
+"What are you going to do, Tom?"
+
+"Work.  You and I are strong and enduring.  We can save the wages of
+two workmen."
+
+Both young engineers worked furiously that afternoon.  Yet, when
+knocking-off time came, they had to admit that they had no better
+basis for hope.
+
+"I wonder, Tom, if we'd better get out and hustle for Jobs?" Harry
+asked.
+
+"You might, Harry.  I'm going to stick."
+
+Mr. Dunlop dropped in at camp, that evening, after dark.
+
+"You young men are doing nothing," said the mine promoter.  "I
+can use you a couple of months, if you'll stop this foolishness
+here and come over to me."
+
+"Why, I suppose Hazelton could go over and work for you, Mr. Dunlop,"
+Tom suggested.
+
+"That would be of no use.  I need you both, but you, Reade, most
+of all."
+
+"I can't go to you now, Mr. Dunlop," Tom replied regretfully. "I'm
+committed to the development of this piece of property, which is
+only a third my property."
+
+"Bosh!  A decent farm would be worth more to you than this claim,"
+argued Mr. Dunlop derisively.
+
+"Perhaps.  But neither of my partners has quit, Mr. Dunlop, and I'm
+not going to quit, either."
+
+"This is the last chance I can give you, Reade.  You'd better take it."
+
+"No; though I beg you to accept my best thanks, Mr. Dunlop.  However,
+Hazelton can go over and help you."
+
+"Both, or neither," returned Mr. Dunlop firmly.
+
+Harry looked half eagerly at Reade, but Tom shook his head.
+
+"What do you say, Mr. Reade?" pressed the promoter.  "Last call
+to the dining car.  With your funds running low, and a hard winter
+coming on you'll soon know what it means to be hungry."
+
+"I'm much obliged, sir but I'm going to stick here at my own work."
+
+"What do you say, Hazelton?" coaxed the promoter.
+
+"Nothing," Harry replied loyally.  "You heard what my partner had
+to say.  In business matters he talks for both of us."
+
+"Good night, then," grunted Mr. Dunlop, rising.  "If you should
+change your minds in the morning, after breakfast, come and tell me."
+
+After Dunlop had gone Tom and Harry walked up and down the trail
+together under the stars.
+
+"Sixteen hundred dollars a month Dunlop is offering the two of
+us," half sighed Hazelton.  "Two months of that would mean thirty-two
+hundred dollars.  How much money have we now, Tom?"
+
+"Six hundred and forty-two dollars and nineteen cents," Reade
+answered dryly.
+
+"That won't last us long, will it?"
+
+"No; especially as we owe some of it on bills soon due at Dugout."
+
+"Then---what?"
+
+"I don't know," Tom answered almost fiercely.  "Yes; I do know!
+As soon as our present few pennies are gone it means a future of
+fight and toil, on empty stomachs.  But it's worth it, Harry---if
+we live through the ordeal."
+
+"And for what are we fighting?" inquired Harry musingly.
+
+"First of all, then, for gold."
+
+"Tom, I never knew you to be so crazy about gold before.  What
+are we going to do with it---if we get it?"
+
+"There are the folks at home."
+
+"Of course, Tom, and they would be our first thought---if we had
+the gold.  But we can do all we want to for the home folks out
+of the pay that we are able to earn at steady jobs."
+
+"True."
+
+"Then why are we fooling around here?  We are nearly broke, but
+we can honestly settle all the debts we owe.  Then we could get
+back to work and have bank accounts again within a few months."
+
+"Yes; but only pitiful bank accounts---a few hundreds of dollars,
+or a few thousands."
+
+It would be steady and growing."
+
+"Yes; but it would take years to pile up a fortune, Harry."
+
+"What do we really want with fortunes?"
+
+"We want them, Harry," Tom went on, almost passionately, "because
+we have ambitions.  Look out upon the great mountains of this
+Range.  Think of the rugged bits of Nature in any part of the
+world, waiting for the conquering hand and the constructive brain
+of the engineer!  Harry, don't you long to do some of the big
+things that are done by engineers?  Don't you want to get into
+the real---the big performances of our profession?"
+
+"Of course," nodded Hazelton.  "For that reason, aren't we doubly
+wasting our time here?"
+
+"That's just as it turns out," Reade went on, with a vehemence
+that astonished his chum.  "Harry, what's our office address?
+Where are our assistant engineers---where our draftsmen?  Where
+are our foremen that we could summon to great undertakings?  Where
+is the costly equipment that we would need as a firm of really
+great engineers?  You know that we must these things before we
+can climb to the top of our profession.  The gold that's hidden
+somewhere under that ridge would give us the offices, the assistants,
+the draftsmen, the equipment and the bank account that we need
+before we can launch ourselves into first class engineering feats
+of the great civilization that rules the world today.  Harry,
+I've firm faith in our claim, and I can go on working on a meal
+every third day."
+
+"Then now, as always, you can count on me to stand by you without
+limit or complaint," said Harry generously.
+
+"But, just the same, you haven't my faith in the mine, have you?"
+Tom queried half-disappointedly.
+
+"Er---er---"
+
+"Out with it, chum!"
+
+"So far I have been disappointed in the claim.  But I am well
+aware that I may be wrong.  Listen, Tom, old fellow.  This isn't
+a matter of faith in the mine; it's one of faith in you.  Go as
+far as you like, and, whichever way it turns out, remember that
+I regard your judgment as being many times as good as my own."
+
+"Yet you'd drop out if the decision rested solely with you, wouldn't
+you, Harry,"
+
+"You'll never again get my opinion of this claim of ours," laughed
+Hazelton.  "You'll have to be contented with my good opinion of
+you and your judgment."
+
+"But see here, Harry, I wish you'd get out of here for a while.
+Go back into the world; take a position that will support you
+and provide the luxuries and savings as well.  I'll work here
+faithfully and work for both of us at the same time."
+
+"You must have a mighty small opinion of me, Tom Reade, to think
+I'd leave you in the lurch like that."
+
+"But I ask it as a favor, Harry."
+
+"If you ever ask that sort of a favor again, Tom Reade, you and
+I will be nearer to fighting than we've ever been yet in our lives!"
+
+It was plain that Hazelton intended to stick to the mine, even
+to the starving point, if Reade did.  After some further talk
+the two went back to their tent and lay down on their cots.
+
+Five minutes later Harry's quiet, regular breathing betrayed the
+fact that he was asleep.  With a stealthy movement, Tom Reade
+threw down the blankets, reached for his shoes, his coat and hat
+and stole out into the quiet and darkness.
+
+From other tents and shacks nearby came snores that showed how
+soundly miners could sleep.
+
+"I believe this is the first night that I ever failed to sleep
+on account of business worries," muttered Reade grimly, as he
+strode away.  "This may be a fine start toward becoming a nervous
+wreck.  In time I may become as shattered as poor little Alf Drew.
+I wonder if I shall ever fall so low as to smoke cigarettes!"
+
+For some minutes Tom plodded on through the darkness.  He did
+not go toward the claim, but in the opposite direction.  He walked
+like one who felt the need of physical exhaustion.  Presently
+coming to a steep trail winding along among boulders he took to
+the trail, striding on at barely diminished speed.
+
+At last, out of breath from the rapid climb, Tom halted and gazed
+down over the rugged landscape.  "The gold is there," he muttered.
+"I'm sure of it.  Oh, if we could only find it!"
+
+As Tom stood, deep in thought, the face of his patient friend
+rose before him.
+
+"I don't mind going to smash for myself, in a good, hard fight,"
+Reade went on audibly.  "But it seems a crime to drag Harry down
+to poverty with me.  If I could only get him to go away I'd give
+up my own life, if need be, to prove what's under our ridge of
+Nevada dirt."
+
+"Ye'll give up your life for less'n that, I reckon!" sounded
+another voice, close at hand.
+
+Around a boulder Dolph Gage stepped into view, followed by two of
+his men.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE MAN WHO MADE GOOD
+
+
+"Good evening, Gage," Tom responded pleasantly, after a slight
+start of alarm.  "What brings you in this section again?"
+
+"Wanter know?" sneered Gage, while his companions scowled.
+
+"That was my object in inquiring," Tom smiled.
+
+"We're hiding---that's what we're doing here," Gage volunteered
+harshly, though he spoke in a low voice.
+
+"Hiding here---with the officers looking for you?"
+
+"Well, what could be a safer place than right where we're wanted?"
+demanded Dolph.  "The officers are scouring other counties for
+us, and they have handbills up offering rewards for us.  Right
+here, overlooking your claim, they'd never think of looking for
+men who have a price set on their capture."
+
+"Well, you needn't be afraid of me," offered Reade, with mock
+generosity.  "I'm short of money, but I'm not looking for blood
+money.  You had better travel fast from here.  I'll give you until
+daylight before I send word to the law's officers."
+
+"Daylight?  You'll never see daylight again," Gage retorted.
+"You will be lying here, looking up at the stars, but you won't
+see anything!"
+
+"Your words have a mysterious ring to them," laughed Tom.
+
+He wasn't in any doubt as to what the rascals meant to do with
+him.  It was a rule with Tom Reade, however, that he wasn't dead
+until he had actually been killed.  Even while he spoke so lightly,
+Tom, through his half-closed eyes, was taking in every detail
+of the situation.
+
+None of the trio had yet drawn their weapons, though all wore
+them in plain sight.  If they started to draw their pistols Tom
+decided that he would leap forward holding to Gage, kicking one
+of the latter's companions so as to render the fellow helpless,
+and----
+
+"But the third man will get me with his pistol," Tom decided.
+"That is, unless they become flustered when I show fight.  It's
+a slim chance for me---a mighty slim chance, but I'll do my best
+as soon as these wretches start something!"
+
+"Lost your money in your claim, haven't you?" jeered Gage, who
+was plainly playing with his intended victim.  "Serves you right,
+after jumping us out of the property just because the law said
+you could!  But the gold's there, and we've got a man with mineral
+rights to nab the claim as soon as you give up."
+
+"That will be a long while, I imagine," Tom smiled back at the rascal.
+
+"Not as long as you may think," laughed Gage harshly.  "We've
+got you now, and we'll get Hazelton and Jim Ferrers, next thing
+you know.  Then our claim will be established through our friend,
+and we'll protect him from being jumped by any one else."
+
+"If you live," Tom reminded the fellow.
+
+"Oh, we'll live!" Gage retorted grimly.  "We're hunted, now, and
+we'll kill every man that comes near enough."
+
+"Begin with this cub!" spoke up Eb, gruffly.  "Don't play with
+him until he tricks us and gets away."
+
+"Perhaps you don't realize how close help is to me," Tom broke in
+quickly.  It was a "bluff," but he hoped that it might have its
+effect.
+
+"If there's help near you," quivered Gage, his anger rising, "we'll
+make sure that it doesn't get here in time to do you any good.
+Draw and finish him boys!"
+
+Before Reade could tense his muscles for a spring, a shot rang
+out behind them.  Eb fell, with a swift, smothered groan of pain.
+
+"Duck!" panted Dolph Gage.  "Out of this!  To cover, and then
+we'll reckon with any one who tries to follow us!"
+
+In the same instant Tom turned, bounding down the trail in the
+direction from which the shot had come.
+
+"Good!  Keep on going, boss!" whispered a calm voice.  "Don't
+let 'em catch you again."
+
+"Who are you?" Tom demanded, halting and trying to make out the
+man's face in the intense shadow under a ledge of rock.
+
+"Duck!" commanded the same voice.  "I'll follow close.  I'm alone,
+and some of that crew may pluck up heart and follow us.  Vamoose!"
+
+"I'll go at your side, but I won't run ahead of you," Tom whispered
+back.  "I know you, now.  Thank you, Leon!"
+
+In the darkness, in lieu of shaking hands Tom gripped one of the
+man's elbows in sign of thanks.
+
+"We'd better get out of this," Tom went on, in a barely louder whisper.
+"But how did you come to be on hand, Leon?"
+
+"Followed you," was the terse reply.
+
+"From the camp?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Wanted to get even with you."
+
+"You're talking in riddles," Reade protested, in a puzzled tone.
+"At the same time I'm greatly obliged to you."
+
+"Thought you'd be," grunted Leon.  "That's how I got even."
+
+"What do you mean?" Tom wanted to know.  "You got even by placing
+me under a great obligation?"
+
+"Just that," nodded the cook, "we had trouble, once, and you
+came out on top, didn't you?"
+
+"Yes; but that little affair needn't have prevented us from being
+friends."
+
+"It did, until I had done something to make you needed me as a
+friend," the cook declared.
+
+Tom laughed at this statement of the case.  It accorded quite closely,
+however, with the cook's generally sulky disposition.  Even a
+friendship Leon would offer or accept grudgingly.
+
+"But why did you follow me?" Tom continued, as they neared the camp.
+"Did you think I was going to run into danger?"
+
+Leon hesitated.
+
+"Well," he admitted, finally, "when I saw you stealing off, soft
+like, I had a queer notion come over me that, maybe, you were
+discouraged, and that you were going off to put an end to yourself."
+
+Tom started, stared in amazement, then spoke in a tone of pretended
+anger:
+
+"Much obliged for your fine opinion of me, Leon," he declared.
+"Only cowards and lunatics commit suicide."
+
+"That's all right," nodded the cook doggedly.  "I've seen men
+lose their minds out here in these gold fields."
+
+They were now in camp.
+
+"Wait, and I'll call Ferrers and a few of the men, Leon," Tom
+proposed.
+
+"What for?  To stand guard?"
+
+"No; we must send back a few of the men to find that man you wounded.
+It was Eb.  He fell in a heap.  If his own companions didn't
+carry him away he was left in a bad fix."
+
+"You'll be going back to nurse rattlesnakes yet!" almost exploded
+the cook.
+
+"That's all right, but we're going to find that wounded man if
+he's in need of help," Tom stoutly maintained.
+
+He called Jim Ferrers, who roused five more men.  Then the party
+returned to the place on the trail where Eb had been left.  There
+were still blood spots on the ground, but Eb had vanished.  The
+party spent some minutes in searching the vicinity, then concluded
+that Gage had rescued and carried away the wounded man.
+
+It may be said, in passing, that Eb was subsequently found, by
+officers, lying in a shack not far from Dugout City.  The fellow
+was nearly dead, when found, from careless handling of his wound.
+At Dugout the surgeons amputated his wounded leg, and Eb finally
+wound up in prison.
+
+During all the excitement Hazelton had not been aroused.  He knew
+nothing of what had happened until morning came.
+
+Before Tom Reade turned in that night he shook hands with the
+sullen cook.
+
+"I think you and I are going to be good friends, after this, Leon,"
+Tom smiled.  "I hope so, anyway."
+
+"And I'm glad you gave me back my gun," grunted Leon.  "It gave
+me a chance to do something for you.  Yes; I reckon we'll be good
+friends after this."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE MINERS WHO "STUCK"
+
+
+"Hey, Tom!" Harry called down, from the top of their shaft, now
+one hundred and thirty feet down into the ground.
+
+"Yes!" Reade answered from below, making a trumpet of his hands.
+
+"Doing anything?" Harry bawled.
+
+"Not much.  Why?"
+
+"If you want to come up I'll show you something."
+
+"What?"
+
+"The first snow of winter is falling." Harry tried to speak jovially,
+but his tone was almost sepulchral.
+
+"Yes, I'll come up, then," Tom Reade answered.  "It's high time
+for us to see to building a shelter that will keep out of the
+shaft the big snows that are coming."
+
+"The big snows are likely to be here, now, within a week," remarked
+one of the miners who had paused to rest from digging for a moment.
+"Men!" bawled Tom, stepping from the long into the short tunnel.
+"All hands knock off and go up to the surface."
+
+There was a tub hand-hoist for carrying up ore, but the men always
+used the series of ladders that had been built in on the side
+of the shaft.  Two minutes later these ladders swarmed with men
+going above.
+
+As they stepped out into the world the first soft flakes of winter
+floated into their faces.
+
+"Reade, we'll have to start building the cover to the shaft," spoke
+Jim Ferrers, who stood beside Hamilton.
+
+"I know it," Tom nodded.  "However, first of all, I want a few words
+with you and Harry."
+
+The three partners stepped aside, waiting in silence while a whispered
+consultation went on around Tom.
+
+At length Reade stepped back.
+
+"Men" he began, and every eye was turned in his direction.  "You
+are waiting for orders to start on shedding over the shaft, and the
+lumber is ready.  However, we mean to be fair with you.  You all
+know that this claim has been going badly.  When my partners and I
+started we had some capital.  Before we do any more work here it
+is only fair to tell you something.  We now have money enough left
+so that we can pay you your wages up to Saturday.  When we've paid
+that we shall have a few dollars left.  If you men want to quit
+now we'll pay you up to Saturday, and you'll have time to be in
+Dugout before your time here is up."
+
+"Do you want us to go, Mr. Reade?" asked Tim Walsh."
+
+"Why, no, of course not," Tom smiled.  "If we had the money we'd
+want to keep you here all winter.  But we haven't, and so we've no
+right to ask you to stay."
+
+Walsh glanced around him, as though to inquire whether the men were
+willing that he be their spokesman.  Receiving their nods the big
+miner went on:
+
+"Mr. Reade, sir, we've seen this coming, though, of course, we
+didn't know just how big your pile was.  We've talked it over
+some, and I know what the fellows think.  If you don't pay us
+our wages, but put the money into grub only, you can keep a-going
+here some weeks yet."
+
+"Yes," Tom nodded.  "But in that case, if the mine didn't pan out,
+we wouldn't have a cent left out of which to pay you off.  At least,
+not until Reade and I had been at work for months, perhaps a year,
+on some salaried job.  So you see that we can't fairly encourage you
+men to remain here."
+
+"Mr. Reade," Walsh declared, this time without glancing at the
+other men, and there was a slight huskiness in the big miner's
+voice, "we wouldn't feel right if we went anywhere else to work.
+We've never worked under men as fair and square as you three
+men have been.  You've treated all of us white.  Now, what kind
+of fellows would we be if we cleared out and left you just because
+the snow had come and the money had gone.  No, sir!  By your leave,
+gentlemen, we'll stay here as long as you do, and the money can
+take care of itself until it shows up again.  Mr. Reade, and gentlemen,
+we stick as long as you'll let us!"
+
+Tom felt slightly staggered, as his face showed it.
+
+"Men," he protested, "this is magnificent on your part.  But it
+wouldn't be fair to let you do it.  You are all of you working for
+your living."
+
+"Well, aren't you three working for your living, too?" grinned Walsh.
+
+"Yes; but we stand to make the big stake here, in case of victory
+at last."
+
+"And I reckon we stand a show of having a little extra coming to
+us, if we do right by you at this minute," laughed Walsh.
+
+"Yes, you do---if we strike the rich vein for which we're hunting.
+Yet have you men any idea a how little chance we may have of
+striking that vein?  Men, the mine may---perhaps I would better
+say probably will---turn out a fizzle.  I am afraid you men are
+voting for some weeks of wasted work and a hungry tramp back to
+Dugout City at the end.  As much as we want to go on with the work,
+we hate to see you all stand to lose so much."
+
+"You're no fool, Mr. Reade.  Neither is Mr. Hazelton," returned
+Walsh bluntly.  "You're both engineers, and not green ones, either.
+You've been studying mines and mining, and it isn't just guess-work
+with you when you say that you feel sure of striking rich ore."
+
+"Only one of us is sure," smiled Tom Reade wistfully.  "I'm the
+sure one.  As for my partners, I'm certain that they're sticking
+to me just because they're too loyal to desert a partner.  For
+myself, I wouldn't blame them if they left me any day.  As for
+you men, I shall be glad to have you stay and stand by us, now
+that you know the state of affairs, but I won't blame you if you
+decide to take your money and the path back to Dugout City."
+
+"It's no use, Mr. Reade," laughed Walsh, shaking his shaggy head.
+"You couldn't persuade one of us to leave you now."
+
+"And I'd thrash any man who tried to," declared another miner.
+
+"Men, I thank you," Tom declared, his eyes shining, "and I hope
+that we shall all win out together."
+
+"Now, what do you want us to do?" asked Walsh.
+
+"We have timbers and boards here," Tom replied.  "If the big snows
+are likely to be upon us within a week, then we can't lose any time
+in getting our shaft protected.  At the same time we must use other
+timber for putting up two or three more shacks.  The tents will
+have to come down until spring."
+
+Harry immediately took eight of the men and started the erection
+of three wooden shacks not far from the mine shaft.  Ferrers took
+the rest of the men and speedily had timbers going up in place
+over the mouth of the shaft.
+
+For three hours the snow continued to float lightly down.  Then
+the skies cleared, but the wind came colder and more biting.
+
+Jim Ferrers and one of the men started for Dugout City with a
+two-horse wagon, that the camp might be kept well-supplied with
+food.
+
+By night of the day following all of the carpenter work had been
+finished, though not an hour too soon, for now the weather was
+becoming colder.
+
+"Never put in a winter on the Indian Smoke Range, did you, Mr.
+Reade?" Walsh inquired.
+
+"Never."
+
+"Then you'll find out what cold weather is like.  A winter on
+this Range isn't much worse, though, than what I've heard about
+cold weather in Alaska."
+
+"It'll be a relief to see six feet of snow, after living on the
+hot desert of Arizona," Harry muttered.
+
+By evening of the following day, when Jim and his companion returned
+with the wagon-load of provisions, another day's work had been
+done in the mine.
+
+"Any color today?" was Ferrers's first question.
+
+"No signs of gold," sighed Harry.
+
+"I heard a new one over at Dugout City," Jim remarked carelessly.
+
+"Heard a new one?" echoed Tom.  "What was it?"
+
+"A baby," Jim answered dryly.
+
+"What are you talking about?" Harry demanded.  "What has a baby
+to do with a 'new one'?"
+
+When the men began to laugh Harry suddenly discovered the joke.
+
+"That's all right, Jim," growled Harry.  "But I know something
+that would tickle you."
+
+"A feather, or a straw," mocked Ferrers.
+
+"No!  A crowbar!" grunted Hazelton making a reach for a tool of
+that description.
+
+Jim hastily jumped out of the way as Harry balanced the bar.
+
+"Go and tell the men about the 'new one' you heard, Jim," laughed
+Tom.  "By the time you get back Harry will have the joke pried loose
+with that bar of his."
+
+"'Heard a new one'!" grunted Harry.  But his look of disgust was
+because it had taken him so long to penetrate the "sell."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+THE GODDESS OF FORTUNE SMILES WISTFULLY
+
+
+"Haul away!" called Jim, from the bottom of the shaft.
+
+Up came the tub, filled with chunks of ore, each about the size
+of a man's head.
+
+At the top stood Harry Hazelton, on the crust of two feet of frozen
+snow.
+
+Tom thrust his head out through the doorway of the nearby shack
+in which the partners lived.
+
+"Is Jim sending up any bricks" he inquired.
+
+"He's sending up ore, but I don't know whether it's any good,"
+Harry answered.
+
+"Why don't you look the stuff over?"
+
+"I haven't had the heart to look at it."
+
+Close to the shaft stood a wagon.  The horses were resting in
+the stable shack, for by this time the weather averaged only a
+few degrees above zero and the horses were brought out only when
+they could be used.
+
+"Take a good look at the stuff, Harry," called Tom, as soon as
+he saw two of the workmen dumping it.
+
+Then Reade closed the door, and went back to the furnace that
+he had rigged up under the chimney at one end of the shack.
+
+"Oh, what's the use?" sighed Hazelton, to himself, as he paused,
+irresolute.  "In weeks and weeks we haven't brought up enough
+gold to pay for the keep of the horses."
+
+Still, as Tom had asked him to do so, Hazelton presently walked
+over to the little pile that had just been dumped.
+
+"You men up there work faster," sounded Jim's voice.  "We want
+to send up a tub every five minutes."
+
+"Want the team yet?" bawled the teamster, from another shack.
+
+"No," Harry answered.  "Not for a half an hour yet."
+
+That question was enough to cause the young engineer to forget
+that he had intended to inspect the tub-load of ore.  He strolled
+back to the head of the shaft.  The wind was biting keenly today.
+Harry was dressed in the warmest clothing he had, yet his feet
+felt like lumps of lead in his shoes.
+
+"Arizona may be hot, but I'd rather do my mining down there, anyway,"
+thought the young engineer.  "If I could move about more, this
+wouldn't be so bad."
+
+Just off of the shaft was a rough shack several feet square which
+contained a small cylinder of a wood stove.  There was a fire
+going in the stove, now, but Harry knew from experience that if
+he went in to the stove to get warm, he would only feel the cold
+more severely when he came out again.
+
+"Say, I don't know why I couldn't run that furnace as well as
+Tom, and he likes this cold stuff better than I do," murmured
+Hazelton.  "I am going to see if he won't swap jobs for a couple
+of hours."
+
+"Getting anything out of those ore-tests of yesterday's dump?"
+Harry demanded, entering their shack.
+
+"Not so much," Tom replied cheerily.  "We're in a bad streak of
+stuff, Harry.  But I thought you were watching the dump.  What's
+the matter?  Too cold out there?"
+
+"Yes," nodded Harry.  "I feel like a last year's cold storage
+egg.  Don't you want to spell me a bit out there, Tom?  I can
+run the furnace in here."
+
+"Certainly," Reade agreed, leaping up.  "There's nothing to do,
+now, but weigh the button when it cools."
+
+"Did you really get a button?" Harry asked, casually, as he drew
+off his heavy overcoat.
+
+"Yes; a small one."
+
+"How much ore did you take it from?"
+
+"About two tons, I should say."
+
+"Then, if the button is worth sixty cents," mocked Harry, "it
+will show that our ore is running thirty cents to the ton."
+
+"Oh, we'll have better ore, after a while," Tom laughed.
+
+"We've got to have," grunted Hazelton, "or else we'll have to
+walk all the way to our next job."
+
+"Just weigh the button, when it cools, and enter the weight on
+this page of the notebook," directed Reade, then went for his
+own outdoor clothing.  "Have you been inspecting the dump as the
+stuff came up?"
+
+"You'll think me a fool," cried Harry, "but I totally forgot it."
+
+"No matter," Tom answered cheerily.  "I've been doing bench work
+so long in here that I need exercise.  I can run over all the
+stuff."
+
+After Reade had pulled on his overcoat and buttoned it he fastened
+a belt around his waist.  Through this he thrust a geologist's
+hammer.
+
+"Don't go to sleep, Harry, old fellow, until you've cooled and
+weighed the button.  Then you may just as well take a nap as not."
+
+"There he goes," muttered Hazelton, as the door closed briskly.
+"Faith and enthusiasm are keeping Tom up.  He could work twenty-four
+hours and never feel it.  I wish I had some of his faith in this
+ridge.  I could work better for it.  Humph!  I'm afraid the ridge
+will never yield anything better than clay for brick-making!"
+
+Harry did succeed in keeping his eyes open long enough to attend
+to the button.  That tiny object weighed, and the weight entered,
+Hazelton sat back in his chair.  Within a minute his eyes had
+closed and he was asleep.
+
+Tom Reade, out at the ore dump, looked anything but sleepy.  With
+tireless energy he turned over the pieces of rock, pausing, now
+and then, to hold up one for inspection.
+
+In reaching for a new piece his foot slipped.  Glancing down,
+to see just where the object was on which he had slipped, Tom
+suddenly became so interested that he dropped down on his knees
+in the snow.
+
+It was a piece of rock that had come up in the first tubful.
+At one point on the piece of rock there was a small, dull yellow
+glow.
+
+Reads pawed the rock over in eager haste.  Then he drew the hammer
+from his belt, striking the rock sharply.  Piece after piece fell
+away until a solid yellow mass, streaked here and there faintly
+with quartz, lay in his hand.
+
+"By the great Custer!" quivered Tom.
+
+"What's the matter, boss?" called one of the workmen.  "Got a sliver
+in your hand?"
+
+"Have I?" retorted Tom joyously.  "Come here and take a look."
+
+"Haul away!" sounded Ferrers's hoarse voice from below.
+
+"Tell Jim to stop sending and come up a minute," nodded Tom.
+
+"Do you often see a finer lump than this?"  Tom wanted to know
+as the two workmen came to him.  He held up a nugget.  Shaped
+somewhat like a horn-of-plenty, it weighed in the neighborhood
+of three ounces.
+
+"Say, if there are many more like that down at the foot of the
+shaft this old hole-in-the-ridge will be a producer before another
+week is out!" answered one of the workmen.  "How much is it worth,
+boss?"
+
+"Allowing for the quartz that streaks this little gold-piece,
+it ought to be worth from forty to fifty dollars," Tom responded
+thoughtfully.
+
+"Fifty dollars?" broke in Jim Ferrers, as he sprang from the top
+ladder to the ground.  "Is there that much money on the Indian
+Smoke?"
+
+"Not minted, of course," laughed Tom.  "But here's something as
+good as money."
+
+"Where did you get it?" Jim demanded, tersely, after one look
+at the nugget.
+
+"In this ore-dump."
+
+"Today's send-up, then?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+Without a word Ferrers fell at work on the pile of rocks, turning
+them over fast.
+
+Tom helped him.  The two men, released from hoisting duty, also
+aided.
+
+"Nothing more like that sticking out of the rock," Jim grunted,
+turning to one of the men.  "Bring me a sledge."
+
+With that larger hammer, held in both hands, Jim placed ore pieces
+with his feet, swiftly bringing down sharp blows that reduced
+the rocks to nearly the size of pebbles.
+
+"I don't see any more nuggets coming," mused!  Tom.  "But wait
+a minute.  Look at the yellow streak through some of these fragments."
+"We're getting into the vein, I believe," spoke Jim solemnly.
+"Look at the stuff!  But wait!  I've a little more hammering to do."
+
+Back of them stood the teamster, who had just come up with the horses.
+
+"Am I to take that stuff and dump it down the ravine?" he asked
+slowly.
+
+"If you do," retorted Ferrers heatedly, "I'll hammer in the top
+of your head, Andy!  Reade, won't you pick out what you want for
+the site of the ore-dump.  We've got some real ore at last!"
+One of the two hoist-men now ran to the shaft, shouting down the
+great news.
+
+"Hold on there, Bill," Tom called dryly.  "Don't get the boys excited
+over what may turn out to be nothing.  Don't tell 'em any more than
+that we have-----"
+
+"Tell 'em yourself, boss," retorted Bill.  "Here they come!"
+
+From the ladder a steady stream of men discharged itself until the
+last one was up.
+
+"Where are you going, Tim?" called Tom, turning just in time to
+note big Walsh's movements.
+
+"Going to call Mr. Hazelton, sir."
+
+"Don't do it.  Don't get him stirred up for nothing."
+
+"For nothing, boss?"
+
+"Don't bother Hazelton until we can tell him something more definite.
+Boys, with all my heart I hope that we have something as good
+as we appear to have.  But every man of you knows that, once in
+a while, gold is found abundantly in a few hundred pounds of rock,
+and then, from that point on, no more yellow is found.  We won't
+get excited until we get our first thousand dollars' worth out
+of the ground and have the smelter's check in hand.  We'll hope---and
+pray---but we won't cheer just yet."
+
+"Humph!  If you don't want us to cheer, then what shall we do?"
+demanded big Walsh.
+
+"We'll work!" Tom retorted energetically.  "We'll work as we never
+did before.  We'll keep things moving every minute of the time.
+Back with you into the shaft and out into the tunnel!  You hoist-men
+stand by for a big performance with the tub.  Jennison, you may
+stay up from below and tote specimens for me.  I shall be at the
+furnace until midnight at the least."
+
+"I'll tote for you till daylight, if the good streak only holds
+out," laughed Jennison, with glowing eyes.
+
+"Come softly into the shack when you do come," Tom directed.
+"I'm going to put Mr. Hazelton to bed, and I don't want any one
+to wake him.  When I play out tonight he'll have to be fresh enough
+to take my place at the assay bench and furnace."
+
+Softly Tom entered their shack.
+
+Harry lay fast asleep, breathing heavily.
+
+"This won't do, old fellow," spoke Tom gently, shaking his chum's
+shoulder.  "No; don't wake up.  Just get into bed.  I may want
+to turn in later, and, when I do, I may have some work left over
+that I'll want you to do."
+
+"Anything up?" asked Harry drowsily.
+
+"I'm going to be busy for a while, and then I want you to be,"
+Tom answered.
+
+He half pushed his chum toward the narrow bunk against the wall.
+Drowsy Hazelton needed no urging, but stretched himself out in
+his bunk.
+
+Tom drew the blankets up over him, adding:
+
+"Don't stir until I call you."
+
+Hour after hour the men below in the mine sent up tub-lots of
+rock.  Jim spent half of his time above ground, the rest below.
+Jennison was busy bringing the best samples in to Reade, but
+he walked so softly that Harry slept peacefully on.
+
+Still the yellow rock came up.  None of it looked like the richest
+sort of ore, but it was good gold-bearing stuff, none the less.
+Tom made many assays.  It was seven in the evening ere the excited
+miners would agree to knock off work for the day.
+
+Then Tom quit and had supper with them.  There was excitement
+in the air, but Tom still counseled patience.
+
+"We'll know more in a week than we do now," he urged.
+
+"That's all right, Mr. Reade," laughed Tim Walsh.  "As long as
+you were hopeful we didn't bring up enough yellow to pay for the
+dynamite we used in blasting.  Now, boss, you're begging us not
+to be hopeful, and the luck is changing."
+
+"I'm not kicking against hopefulness," Tom objected, smiling.
+"All I ask of you men is not to spend the whole year's profits
+from the mine before we get even one load fit to haul to the smelter."
+
+"We've got the ore dump started," retorted Jennison, "and we don't
+have to haul stuff to the smelter.  Boss, you can raise money
+enough without hauling a single load before spring."
+
+"How?" Tom wanted to know.
+
+"The banks at Dugout will lend you a small fraction of the value
+of the dump as soon as they're satisfied that it has any value,"
+Jim Ferrers explained.
+
+"I didn't know that," Tom admitted.
+
+"Now you can understand why the boys are excited tonight.  They
+know you'll outfit the camp liberally enough if the yellow streak
+holds out."
+
+"Outfit the camp liberally?" repeated Tom.  "I'll go just as far
+in that line as my partners will stand for."
+
+"We want a bang-up Christmas dinner, you see, boss," Tim Walsh
+explained.  "We wouldn't have spoken of it if this streak hadn't
+panned today.  Now, we know we're going to have doings on the
+ridge this winter."
+
+"If the yellow rook holds out," Tom urged.
+
+"Don't say anything more in that strain, just now, Reade," whispered
+Jim.  "If you do, and things go badly, the boys will think you've
+been the camp's Jonah."
+
+Tom went back to work in the partners' shack.  Jim came in at ten
+and went to bed.  It was midnight when Tom shook Harry by the shoulder.
+
+"Time to get up, young man, and give me a rest," Tom announced.
+
+Harry got drowsily out of his bunk.
+
+"Why didn't you call me before, Tom?"
+
+"Well, to tell the truth, I was too busy.  But now you may have
+a few hours' work all by yourself, while I turn in," drawled Reade.
+
+"Tom, old fellow, there's something up," discovered Hazelton,
+now studying his chum's face keenly.  "Out with it."
+
+Then Tom told of the day's luck, though he cautioned Harry against
+too soon growing elated.
+
+"We'll just wait and hope," Reade finished.  "Now I'll show you
+the work that's on the bench."
+
+The gold news had waked up Hazelton.  He examined eagerly the
+assay reports that Tom had filled out, then turned to the specimens
+that awaited his attention.
+
+At six in the morning Reade was up again, nor did Harry turn in.
+Both were present to inspect the first tub-lot of ore that came
+up the shaft.  The yellow streak was continuing.
+
+By the middle of the afternoon, however, the streak played out.
+Though the men worked an hour overtime they did not succeed in
+sending up any more ore.
+
+"Just one pocket?" wondered Tom.  "Or does our vein run in scattered
+pockets?"
+
+"Oh, we'll find more pockets soon," predicted Harry cheerily.
+"Our luck has turned again.  It's running in the old channels."
+
+A feverish week passed.  Towards its end the first big snow of
+the winter came, and the ridge was shut off from the rest of the
+world.  It would have been all but impossible to get over even
+to the Bright Hope Mine.
+
+The week of brisk work was using up the stock of dynamite, while
+the rock was too hard to work much with picks.  Moreover, the
+money of the partners was gone.  To seek credit at Dugout would
+be a dangerous proceeding, for those who granted the accommodation
+of credit would be sure to want a high price for it, even to a
+goodly share in the output of the mine.  More than one mine has
+been taken over by creditors, and the original owners have gone
+out into the world again, poor men.
+
+Saturday morning of this week Tom and Harry descended the shaft
+together.  Jim was already there with the men.
+
+"I thought we had two more boxes of dynamite, Reade," explained
+Ferrers.  "I find that we have just six sticks left."
+
+"Then may the Fates favor us with some lucky blasts!", muttered Tom.
+
+"We can borrow money on our ore dump," suggested Harry.
+
+"How about that?" asked Tom, looking intently at Ferrers.
+
+"How much do you figure there is in the dump?" queried Jim.
+
+"About two hundred dollars' worth of metal."
+
+Ferrers shook his head.
+
+"It would cost us forty dollars to cart the stuff to Dugout in
+the Spring.  Then there'd be the smelter's charges.  We couldn't
+borrow more than fifty dollars on such security.  No bank is going
+to bother with such a small item."
+
+Tom said nothing, but went forward to the heading of the tunnel.
+Here he made a careful examination ere he ordered the men to go
+ahead.
+
+One after another five sticks of the dynamite were fired in small
+blasts, but the ore that came out did not suggest hope.
+
+Then another drilling was made, and the sixth stick put in place,
+the magneto wires being connected with the charge.
+
+Tom himself seized the magneto handle.
+
+"Now, hold your breaths," he called, cheerily.  "This blast means
+a lot, and then a bit more, to all of us.  This blast may point
+the path to fortune!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+HARRY'S SIGNAL OF DISTRESS
+
+
+Through the tunnel a dull boom sounded.  Then, as if by a common
+impulse, all hands rushed back to the heading.
+
+"Hard rock!" muttered Reade.  "The blast didn't make much of a
+dent.  Hand me a pick, one of you."
+
+Then Tom swung it with all the force and skill of which he was
+possessed.
+
+Some of the miners, who thought themselves strong men, looked on
+admiringly as Tom swung the pick again and again.
+
+Clack!  clack!  clack!
+
+"Some muscle there," proclaimed Tim Walsh.  "I didn't think it
+was in a slim fellow like you."
+
+"I haven't so much muscle," Tom informed him, "but I have a tremendous
+amount at stake here.  One of you shovelmen come forward and get
+this stuff back."
+
+Reade went tirelessly on with his pick.  Some of the big fellows
+came forward with their tools and worked beside him.  Tom still led.
+
+For half an hour all hands worked blithely.  Then Tom, halting,
+called them off.
+
+"No use to go any further, boys, until we get some dynamite,"
+he declared.  "We're striking into harder and harder rock every
+minute.  We are dulling our tools without making any headway."
+
+"Dynamite?" asked Jim Ferrers, who had been looking over the shoveled
+back rook with Harry.  "Where are we going to get any?"
+
+"It's time for a council of war, I reckon," sighed Tom.  "At any
+rate it's no use to work here any longer this morning.  Let's
+go above."
+
+As it was yet too early for dinner, the men congregated in one of
+the shacks, while the partners went to their own rough one-room abode.
+
+"What's to be done?" asked Harry.
+
+"I'd say quit," muttered Jim Ferrers.  "Only, if we do, we lose
+our title to our claim.  Of course, I mean quit only for a while---say
+until spring---but even that would forfeit our title here."
+
+"Then it's not to be thought of," rejoined Tom, with a vigorous
+shake of his head.  "I haven't lost a bit of my faith that, one of
+these days, this ridge is going to pay big profits to some one."
+
+"We either have to quit, and give up, or stay and starve," rejoined
+Ferrers.
+
+"We've got to stick," Tom insisted.  "In the first place, we owe
+our men a lot of money."
+
+"They offered to take their chances," suggested Jim.
+
+"True, but it's a debt, none the less.  I shall see everyone of
+these men paid, even if I have to wait until I can save money
+enough at some other job to square the obligations in full.  For
+myself, I don't intend to quit as long as I can swing a dull pick
+against a granite ledge."
+
+"Then what did you come up for?" asked Harry dryly.
+
+"Because there's nothing the men can do for the present, and I
+wanted all hands to have a chance to get over their disappointment.
+Jim, this snow-crust will bear the weight of a pony, won't it?"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I must get to Dugout City."
+
+"For what?"
+
+"We haven't a big enough ore dump on which to borrow any money.
+but I've an idea I can sell this nugget for enough to get another
+good stock of dynamite."
+
+"You don't want to try to get to Dugout today or tomorrow," replied
+Ferrers slowly.
+
+"But I must," Tom insisted.  "Every hour's delay is worse than
+wasted time.  I must get to Dugout and back again as speedily
+as possible."
+
+"Hotel living is expensive in Dugout," remarked Jim.
+
+"But I don't intend to stop at a hotel for more than one meal."
+
+"Have you looked at the sky?"
+
+It was Reade's turn to ask:
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Just go to the door and take a look at the sky," suggested Ferrers.
+
+Tom swung the door open and looked.
+
+"Well?" he asked.
+
+"What do you think of the sky?" Jim persisted.
+
+"It looks as though we might have a little snow," Tom admitted.
+
+"A little, and then a whole lot more," nodded Ferrers.  "Notice
+how still the air is?  We're going to have a howling blizzard,
+and I believe it will start in before night."
+
+"Then we'd better turn the men out to fell and chop firewood,"
+declared Harry, jumping up.  "We haven't enough on hand to last
+through a few days of blizzard."
+
+"Will you look after the wood, Harry?" asked Tom.  "I want to
+keep my mind on getting to Dugout."
+
+"We'll knock over a lot of trees between now and dinner-time,"
+promised Hazelton, as he hurried away.
+
+"Now, Reade, you'd better give up your idea of getting to Dugout
+for the present," resumed Jim Ferrers.
+
+"But the work?  We've got to keep the men busy, and we must keep
+the blasts a-going."
+
+"You'll have to forget it for a week or so," insisted the Nevadan.
+"Your freezing to death in a gale of snow wouldn't help matters any."
+
+"But I must get to Dugout," Tom pleaded.
+
+"You won't try it unless you're crazy," Jim retorted.  "If you
+make an attempt to stir from camp this afternoon, Reade, I'll
+call on the men to hold you down until I can tie you.  Do you
+think I've waited, Reade, all these years to find a partner like
+you, and then allow him to go off in a blizzard that would sure
+finish him?"
+
+"Then, if you're sure about this, Jim, I won't attempt to go until
+the weather moderates."
+
+"When the time's right I'll go," proposed Ferrers.  "A pony is
+no good on this white stuff.  From some of the Swedes we've had
+working out in this country I've learned how to make a pair of
+skis.  You can travel on skis where a pony would cut his legs
+in two against the snow crust."
+
+"Then, if I'm not going to Dugout, I'll go out and swing an axe
+for a while," Tom suggested.  "I want to be of some use, and I
+can't sit still anyway."
+
+"Oh, sit down," urged Ferrers, almost impatiently, as he filled
+his pipe and lighted it.  "I'll amuse you with some stories about
+blizzards on this Range in years past."
+
+Outside they could hear axes ringing against the trees.  Then
+the dinner-horn called the men in.  Soon after the meal was over
+all the horses in camp were hitched and employed in bringing in
+the wood.  Harry was out again to superintend the men.
+
+By half-past two the first big flakes began to come down.  There
+was still no wind to speak of.
+
+Tom had lain down in a bunk, leaving Jim to brighten the fire.
+
+Ferrers, too, nodded in his chair.  It was the howling of the
+wind that awoke Tom.
+
+"Where's Harry?" he asked, sitting up.
+
+"Eh?" queried!  Ferrers, opening his eyes.
+
+"Where's Harry!  Is he out in this storm?"
+
+"I've been dozing," Jim confessed.  "I don't know where he is."
+
+"Hear the wind howl," cried Tom, leaping from his bunk and pulling
+on his shoes.  Then he rapidly finished dressing, Jim, in the
+meantime, lighting the reflector lamp.
+
+"Where on earth can Harry be?" Tom again demanded.
+
+"Maybe in one of the other shacks, with some of the men."
+
+Tom threw open the door.  The snow-laden gale, sweeping in on
+him, nearly took away his breath.  Then, after filling his lungs,
+he started resolutely for the nearest shack.
+
+"Mr. Hazelton in here?" Tom called, swinging open the door.
+
+"No, sir; thought he was with you."
+
+Tom fought his way through the gale to the next shack.  Here Tim
+Walsh had news.
+
+"We came in, sir, when the blizzard got too bad," Walsh explained,
+"but we found we'd left one of the teams behind in the woods.
+Mr. Hazelton said he'd go back and get the team.  Half an hour
+later one of the boys here noticed that the team was standing
+up against the door of the stable shack.  So I went out and put
+up the team."
+
+"Didn't it occur to you to wonder where Mr. Hazelton was?" Tom
+asked, rather sharply.
+
+"Why, no, sir; we thought he had gone to your shack."
+
+"Mr. Hazelton wouldn't leave horses out in a storm like this one,"
+Tom rapped out briskly.  "As a matter of fact he isn't in camp.
+You men get out lanterns and be ready to go into the woods.
+We've got to find Mr. Hazelton at the earliest possible moment!"
+
+Twenty minutes later the beams of light from lanterns carried
+by the men revealed the form of Harry Hazelton, in the woods and
+nearly covered with snow.
+
+"Pick him up," ordered Tom.  "Make the fastest time you can to
+our shack."
+
+In the shack the fire was allowed to burn low.  Harry, still unconscious,
+was stripped and put to bed.
+
+"Anything you want, let us know, sir," said Tim Walsh, as the men
+tramped out again.
+
+Then Tom and Ferrers sat down to try to think out the best thing
+to do for Harry Hazelton.
+
+He was still alive, his pulse going feebly.  He had been briskly
+rubbed and warmly wrapped, and a quantity of hot, strong coffee
+forced gently down his throat.
+
+After a while Hazelton came to, but his eyes had a glassy look
+in them.
+
+"You're a great one, old fellow, to go out into the snow and get
+lost," Tom chided him gently.
+
+"Did---I get---lost?" Harry asked drowsily.
+
+"Yes.  Here, drink some more of this coffee.  Jim, make a fresh
+pot.  You can stir the fire up a bit now."
+
+"I---want to sleep," Harry protested, but Tom forced him to drink
+more coffee.  Then Hazelton sank into a deep slumber, breathing more
+heavily.
+
+"He's all right, now, or will be when he has slept," declared
+Jim Ferrers.
+
+"Is he?" retorted Tom, who held one hand against Harry's flushed
+face, then ran the fingers down under his chum's shirt.  "Jim, he's
+burning up with fever.  That's all that ails him!"
+
+Then Tom placed one ear over Hazelton's heart.
+
+"None too strong," Reade announced, shifting his head.  "And here's
+a wheezy sound in his right lung that I don't like at all."
+
+"You don't suppose it's pneumonia?" asked Jim gravely.
+
+It was congestion of the right lung that ailed Harry Hazelton.
+But Tom knew nothing of that.  Jim Ferrers, who had never been
+ill in his life, knew even less about sickness.
+
+As for Harry, he lay dangerously ill, with a doctor's help out
+of the question!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+TOM TURNS DOCTOR
+
+
+The door opened almost noiselessly.
+
+"Shut that door," cried Tom, angrily, without looking around.
+"Whoever you are, do you know that we have a sick man here"
+
+"Well, the men chased me out of one shack, and wouldn't let me
+in the other, and I don't want to go near the cook," complained
+a whining young voice.
+
+It was Alf Drew who uttered the words.
+
+"Shut the door," Tom repeated.
+
+"May I stay here?" asked Alf, after obeying.
+
+"I suppose so, though we have about enough trouble here already.
+Why did the men chase you out of their shack?"
+
+"They said they couldn't stand the smell of cigarettes," Drew
+replied.
+
+"I don't wonder at that," muttered Tom.
+
+"They were all smoking.  I don't see why I couldn't smoke, too,"
+Alf whined.
+
+"That's just the point," Tom returned.  "The men were smoking.
+Now, as I've told you before, the use of cigarettes isn't smoking
+at all.  You annoyed men who were minding their own business."
+
+"They're a mean lot," complained young Drew.  Being cold he went
+over to the fire to warm himself.  Then he drew a cigarette from
+one of his pockets, and struck a match.  Tom Reade, slipping up
+behind the youngster, deftly took the cigarette away from him,
+tossing it into the fire.
+
+"You'll have to quit that," Tom ordered sternly.  "If I catch
+you trying to light a cigarette then out you go.  We have a man
+here sick with lung trouble and with a high fever, and we don't
+propose to have any cigarette smoke around here."
+
+"What am I going to do, then?" asked Alf, after a minute or so
+spent in a kind of trance.
+
+"Do anything you please, as long as you keep quiet and don't light
+any cigarettes," Tom suggested, rummaging in the cupboard for
+a medicine chest that he knew was there.
+
+"But I'll go to pieces, if I can't smoke a cigarette or two," whined
+the boy.
+
+Tom had the medicine chest in his lap by this time.  His hand
+touched a bottle of pellets labeled "quassia."
+
+"Here, chew on one of these, and you won't need your cigarette,"
+Tom suggested, passing over a pellet.
+
+Alf mutely took the pellet, crushing it with his teeth.
+
+"Ugh!" he uttered disgustedly.
+
+"Don't spit it out," urged Tom.  "It's the best thing possible to
+take the place of a cigarette.  Keep it in your mouth until it is
+all dissolved."
+
+Alf made a wry face, but knew he must obey Tom.  So he stuck to
+the pellet until the last of it had dissolved on his tongue.  The
+pellet was gone, but the taste wasn't.
+
+"Ugh!" grunted the youngster.
+
+"You said that before," urged Tom.  "Try to be original.  Want
+another pellet?"
+
+"No; I don't.  I wouldn't touch one again!"
+
+"Don't happen to want a cigarette, either, do you?"
+
+"I don't want anything, now, but just to get that taste out of
+my mouth," Alf uttered.
+
+"All right; go over in the corner and keep quiet.  Jim, do you
+know anything about the use of the medicines in this chest?"
+
+"Not a blessed thing," Ferrers replied regretfully.  "I never
+took as much as a pinhead of medicine in my life."
+
+"But Harry must have something," Tom insisted.  "We can't let
+him lie there and die."
+
+It was one of those ready-made medicine chests that are sold to
+campers and others who must live at a considerable distance from
+medical aid.  Finding a small book of instructions in the chest,
+Tom moved over under the strong light and settled himself to read
+thoughtfully.
+
+Harry tossed restlessly, unmindful of what was going on around
+him.  His heavy, rapid breathing filled the place.  Once in a
+while he moaned slightly, every sound of this kind going through
+Tom like a knife.
+
+A particularly deep moan caused Tom to shiver and close the book.
+He went over and felt Harry's hot, drier skin.
+
+"Jim," he directed, "I'm sure that, somehow, we should force the
+perspiration through his dry, parched skin.  Take some of the
+blankets out of my bunk and spread them over Harry."
+
+"It'll make his fever worse, won't it?"
+
+"I'm sure I don't know," Tom admitted helplessly.  "We'd better
+try it for a while, anyway."
+
+Then Tom stood looking down at the flushed face of his chum, muttering
+below his breath:
+
+"Harry, old fellow, I wish your mother were here.  She'd know
+just what to do.  And for your mother's sake, as well as my own,
+I've just got to blunder into something that will cure you."
+
+Heaving a sigh, Tom went back under the lamp to read with blurted
+eyes.
+
+At last he struck a paragraph that he thought bore on the case in
+hand.  He read eagerly, praying for light.
+
+"I've got it, at last," he announced, moving over to the bunk, beside
+which Ferrers stood.
+
+"Got what?" asked Jim.
+
+"I believe I'm on the track of the right stuff to give poor old Harry."
+
+"What's the name of the stuff you're going to give harry"
+
+"There are three medicines mentioned here," replied Reade, holding
+up the book.  "They're all to be given."
+
+"_Three_ medicines!" gasped Jim.  "By the great Custer three are
+enough to kill a horse!"
+
+"I'm going to try 'em," sighed Tom stolidly.  "The poor fellow will
+die if nothing is done for him."
+
+"Wouldn't it be better," suggested Ferrers, hopelessly, "to try
+one medicine on the lad and then wait ten minutes.  Then, if that
+doesn't work, try one of the others on him!  If that doesn't work
+then you know that the third kind of stuff is the right sort of
+bracer."
+
+Despite his great anxiety, Reade could not suppress the smile that
+Jim's advice brought out.  It was plain that Ferrers, good fellow
+as he was, would be of no use on the medical end of the fight that
+must be waged.
+
+Tom searched the chest and found the medicines.  Then he looked
+up the doses and started to administer the remedies as directed.
+
+Even over the steadily increasing gale the notes of the supper
+horn reached them faintly.
+
+"It's too tough weather to expect the cook to bring the stuff
+over here tonight," said Jim.  "So, if you can spare me, I'll
+go and eat with the boys.  Then I'll bring your chuck over to
+you."
+
+Alf came out of his corner, pulling on the ragged overcoat that
+he had picked up in a trade with an undersized man down at the
+Bright Hope Mine.
+
+Left alone, Tom drew a stool up beside the bunk, and sat studying
+his chum's face.
+
+Twenty minutes later Hazelton opened his eyes.
+
+"You're feeling better, now, aren't you?" asked Tom hopefully.
+
+"I---I guess so," Harry muttered faintly.
+
+"Where does it hurt you most, chum?"
+
+"In---in my chest."
+
+"Right lung!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Is the pain severe, Harry?"
+
+"It's about all I can---can stand---old fellow."
+
+"Poor chap.  Don't try to talk, now.  We're taking good care of
+you, and we'll keep on the job day and night.  You've had some
+medicine, though you didn't know it.  Now, try to sleep, if you
+can."
+
+But Hazelton couldn't sleep.  He tossed restlessly, his face aflame
+with fever.
+
+Jim Ferrers came back with the supper, but Reade could eat very
+little of it.  Alf Drew did not return.  He had made his peace with
+the workmen.
+
+Through the night Harry grew steadily worse.  When daylight came
+in, with the blizzard still raging, the young engineer was delirious.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+THE WOLVES ON THE SNOW CRUST
+
+
+The blizzard lasted for two days.  Toward the end the temperature
+rose, with the result that three feet of loose snow lay on top
+of the harder packed snow underneath.
+
+Harry Hazelton had passed out of the delirium, but he was weak,
+and apparently sinking.  He was conscious, though he spoke but
+little, nor did poor Tom seek to induce him to talk.
+
+By this time Reade knew the little medicine book by heart.  He
+also knew the label and dose of every drug in the case.  But he
+had not been able to improve upon his first selection of treatment.
+
+"Do you think he's going to die, Jim?" Tom frequently asked.
+
+"What's the use of a strong young fellow like him dying?" demanded
+Ferrers.
+
+"Then why doesn't he get better?"
+
+"I don't know.  But he'll come around all right.  Don't worry
+about that.  Strong men don't go under from a cold in the head,
+or from a bit of wheeze in the lungs."
+
+"But the fever."
+
+"That has to burn itself out, I reckon," replied the Nevadan.
+"Reade, you'll be sick yourself next.  Lay out the medicines, and
+I'll give 'em, to the minute, while you get six hours' sleep."
+
+"No, sir!" was Reade's quick retort.
+
+"Then, before you do cave in, partner, suppose you pick out the
+medicines that you want me to give you when you can't do anything
+for yourself any longer."
+
+Tom went back to his chair by the side of Harry's bunk.
+
+Outdoors some of the men were clearing a path to the mine-shaft.
+Not that it was worth while to try to do any work underground.
+The rock at the tunnel heading was too stubborn to be moved by
+anything less than dynamite.
+
+"I'd get some lumber together, and make a pair of skis," suggested
+Jim, the next day, "but what is the use?  We'll have to have
+twenty-four hours of freezing weather before we'll have a crust.
+As soon as we can see snow that will bear a human being I'll start
+for Dugout City."
+
+"But not for dynamite," declared Tom.
+
+"No; for a doctor, I suppose."
+
+"A physician's visit is the only thing I'm interested in now,"
+Tom declared, glancing at the bunk.  "I'd give up any mine on
+earth to be able to pull poor old Harry through."
+
+On the fifth day, while the weather still remained too warm for
+the forming of a snow-crust, Harry began to show signs of improvement.
+He was gaunt and thin, but his skin felt less hot to the touch.
+His eyes had lost some of the fever brightness, and he spoke
+of the pain in his chest as being less severe than it had been.
+
+"I've been an awful nuisance here," he whispered, weakly, as his
+chum bent over him.
+
+"Stow all that kind of talk," Reade ordered.  "Just get your strength
+back as fast as you can.  Sleep all you can, too.  Get a nap, now,
+and maybe when you wake up you'll be hungry enough to want a little
+something to eat."
+
+"I don't want anything," Harry replied.
+
+"He's a goner, sure!" gasped Tom Reade, inwardly, feeling a great
+chill of fear creep up and down his spine.  "It's the first time
+in his life that I ever knew Harry to refuse to eat."
+
+"The weather is coming on cold," Jim Ferrers reported that evening,
+when he came back from the coon shack with Tom's supper.
+
+"Is it going to be cold enough to put a crust on the snow?" Reade
+eagerly demanded.
+
+"If it keeps on growing cold we ought to have a good crust by
+the day after tomorrow."
+
+"I'll pray for it," said Tom fervently.
+
+Next day the weather continued intensely cold.  Jim Ferrers went
+to another shack to construct a pair of skis.  These are long,
+wooden runners on which Norwegians travel with great speed over
+hard snow.  Jim was positive that he could make the skis and that
+he could use them successfully.
+
+Harry still remained weak and ill, caring nothing for food, though
+his refusals to eat drove Reads well-nigh frantic.
+
+The morning after the skis were made, Jim Ferrers, who had relieved
+worn-out Tom at three in the morning, stepped to the young engineer's
+bunk and shook him lightly.
+
+"All right," said Reade, sitting up in bed.  "I'll get up."
+
+He was out of the bunk almost instantly.
+
+"I'm going to send Tim Walsh in to help you a bit," Jim whispered.
+"The crust is right this morning, and I'm off for Dugout.  Before
+we forget it give me that nugget."
+
+Tom passed it over, saying solemnly:
+
+"Remember, Jim, you've got to bring a doctor back with you---if
+you have to do it at the point of a gun!"
+
+"I'll bring one back with me, if there's one left in Dugout,"
+Ferrers promised, fervently.
+
+Fifteen minutes later Jim was on his way.  Tim Walsh came in on
+tip-toe, and seemed afraid to stir lest he make some slight sound
+to disturb the sleeping sick lad.
+
+"A day or two more will tell the tale, Tim," Tom whispered in
+the big miner's ear.
+
+"Oh, it isn't as bad as that, sir; it can't be," protested the big
+fellow in a hoarse whisper.  "I reckon Mr. Hazelton is going to get
+well all right."
+
+"He won't eat anything," said Tom.
+
+"He will when he's hungry, sir."
+
+"Tim, have you ever had any practice in looking after sick people?"
+
+"Quite a bit, sir.  When I was a younker I was private in the
+hospital corps in the Army."
+
+"Why on earth didn't you tell me that before?" Tom gasped.
+
+"Why, because, sir, I allowed that a brainy young man like you
+would know just what to do a heap better than I would."
+
+"Tim, do you know anything about temperatures and drugs?"
+
+"Maybe I'd remember a little bit," Walsh answered modestly.  "It's
+twelve years since I was in the Army."
+
+Tom brought the medicine case with trembling hands.
+
+"To think that, all the time," he muttered, "I've been longing
+for a doctor's visit, and yet I've had a man in camp who's almost
+a doctor."
+
+"No, sir; a long way from that," protested Tim Walsh.  "And, besides,
+I've forgotten a whole lot that I used to know."
+
+Tom rapidly explained how he had been treating Hazelton, according
+to the directions in the little medicine book.  Tim listened gravely.
+"Was that all right, Tim?" Tom asked, breathlessly, when he had
+finished.
+
+"I should say about all right, sir."
+
+"Tim, what shall I do next?"
+
+"Do you want me to tell you, sir?"
+
+"Yes, yes, yes!"
+
+"Then I might as well do it, sir, as tell you," Tim drawled out.
+"Mr. Reade, you're worn to pieces.  You get into your bunk and
+I'll take charge for an hour."
+
+"I want to see you do the things you know how to do."
+
+"Not a thing will I do, Mr. Reade, unless you get into your bunk
+for an hour," declared Walsh, sturdily.
+
+"Will you call me in an hour, if I lie down?"
+
+"I will."
+
+"You'll call me in an hour?"
+
+"On my honor, Mr. Reade."
+
+Tim Walsh thereupon bundled the young engineer into another bunk,
+covered him up, and then watched until Tom Reade, utterly exhausted,
+fell into a deep sleep that was more like a trance.
+
+"But I didn't say in which hour I'd call him," muttered Walsh
+under his breath, his eyes twinkling.  Then he tip-toed over to
+look at Harry Hazelton, who, also, was asleep.  Through the whole
+day Tom slept nor did the ex-Army nurse once quit the shack.
+
+When dark came Tim Walsh had just finished lighting the lamp and
+shading it when he turned to find Tom Reade glaring angrily into
+his eyes.
+
+"Tim, what does this treachery mean?" Reade questioned in a
+hoarse whisper.
+
+"It means, sir, that you had tired yourself out so that you were
+no longer fit to nurse your partner.  He was in bad hands, taking
+his medicines and his care from a man as dog-tired as you were,
+Mr. Reade.  It also means, sir, that I've been looking after Mr.
+Hazelton all day, and he's a bit better this evening.  Him and
+me had a short chat this afternoon, and you never heard us.  Mr.
+Hazelton went to sleep only twenty minutes ago.  When he wakes
+up you can feel his skin and take his pulse, and you'll find him
+doing better."
+
+"Tim, I know you meant it for the best, and that I ought to be
+thankful to you," Tom murmured, "but, man, I've a good notion
+to skin you alive!"
+
+"You'd better not try anything like that, sir," grinned Walsh.
+"Remember that I'm in charge here, now, and that you're only
+a visitor.  If you interfere between me and my patient, Mr. Reade,
+I'll put you out of here and bar the door against you."
+
+Tom, though angry at having been allowed to sleep for so long,
+had the quick good sense to see that the big miner was quite right.
+
+"All right, Tim Walsh," he sighed.  "If you can take better care
+of my chum than I can then you're the new boss here.  I'll be good."
+
+"First of all," ordered Walsh, "go over to the cook shack and
+get some supper.  Don't dare to come back inside of an hour, so
+you'll have time to eat a real supper."
+
+Tom departed obediently.  Once out in the keen air he began to
+understand how much good his day's sleep had done him.  He was
+alive and strong again.  Taking in deep breaths, he tramped along
+the path over to the shaft ere he turned his steps toward the
+cook shack.
+
+"Come right in, Mr. Reade, and eat something," urged Cook Leon.
+"This is the first time I've seen you in days.  You must be hungry."
+
+"There's a fellow ten times smarter than I who's looking after
+Hazelton," spoke Tom cheerily, "so I believe I am hungry.  Yes;
+you may set me out a good supper."
+
+"Who's the very smart man that's looking after your friend?" Leon
+asked.
+
+"Tim Walsh."
+
+"Why, he's nothing but a miner!"
+
+"You're wrong there, Leon.  Walsh has been a soldier, and a hospital
+corps man at that.  He knows more about nursing in a minute than
+I do in a month.  Oh, why didn't I hear about Walsh earlier?"
+
+Leon soon had a steaming hot supper on the table.  First of all,
+Reade swallowed a cupful of coffee.  Then he began his supper.
+
+"I wonder if Ferrers can get back tonight?" Tom mused, after the
+meal.
+
+"He might, but a doctor couldn't get here tonight, unless he,
+too, could move fast on skis," Leon replied.
+
+"Anyway, I'm not as worried as I was," sighed Reade.
+
+The door opened, and Alf Drew entered.  That youngster rarely
+came to the cook shack alone, but the lad learned that Tom Reade
+was present.
+
+"Sit down and keep quiet, if you're going to stay here," ordered
+Cook Leon.
+
+Alf went to the corner of the shack furthest from the other two.
+Tom, watching covertly, saw Alf furtively draw out cigarette
+and match.
+
+Very softly Drew scratched a match.  He was standing, his back
+turned to the others, over a wood-box.
+
+Click-ick-ick! sounded a warning note.
+
+"Ow-ow-ow-ow!" howled Alf, jumping back, dropping both match and
+cigarette.
+
+"What's the matter, youngster?" demanded Tom placidly.
+
+"There's a rattlesnake in there under the wood," wailed the boy,
+his face ashen.
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"I heard him rattle!"
+
+Leon, too, had heard the sound, and would have started after a
+poker, intent on killing the reptile, had he not seen Tom shake
+his head, a twinkle in his eye.
+
+"There are no rattlesnakes about in the dead of winter on this
+Range," Tom declared positively.
+
+"That one has been keeping hisself warm in the bottom of the wood-box,"
+insisted Alf.
+
+Click-ick-ick!
+
+"There, didn't you hear it?" quivered the cigarette fiend.
+
+"I heard no rattler," declared Tom, innocently.  "Did you, Leon?"
+
+The cook thought, to be sure that he had heard one, but he caught
+the cue from Reade and answered in the negative.
+
+"Go and turn the wood-box out, Leon, to show the young man that
+there's no snake there," Tom requested.
+
+Just then that task was hardly welcome to the cook, but he was
+a man of nerve, and, in addition, he reasoned that Reade must
+know what he was talking about.  So Leon crossed the room with
+an air of unconcern.
+
+"Here's your rattlesnake, I reckon," growled the cook, picking
+up Alf's dropped cigarette and tossing it toward the boy.
+
+"That's the only rattlesnake on the Range," Tom pursued.  "I've
+been trying to tell Alf that cigarettes are undermining his nerves
+and making him hear and see things."
+
+Leon unconcernedly overturned the wood-box.  Alf, with a yell,
+ran and jumped upon a stool, standing there, his eyes threatening
+to pop out from sheer terror.
+
+Leon began to stir the firewood about with his foot.
+
+Click-ick-ick!
+
+Alf howled with terror, and seemed in danger of falling from the
+stool.
+
+"You'll keep on hearing rattlers, I expect," grunted Reade, "when
+all the time it's nothing but the snapping of your nerves from
+smoking cigarettes.  The next thing you know your brain will snap
+utterly."
+
+Click-ick-ick!  On his stool Alf danced a mild war-dance from
+sheer nervousness.
+
+"Come, be like a man, and give up the pests," advised Tom.
+
+"I---I---be-believe I will," half agreed the lad.
+
+Click-ick-ick-ick!
+
+"Didn't you hear that?" quavered the youngster.
+
+"I hear your voice, but no rattlers," Reade went on.  "Are you
+still hearing the snakes?  Be a man, Alf!  Come, empty your pockets
+of cigarettes and throw them in the fire."
+
+Like one in a dream Alf Drew obeyed.  Then he sat down, and presently
+he began to recover from the worst of his fright.
+
+When his hour was up, Tom Reade went back to the other shack.
+Harry was awake, and feeling rather comfortable under big Walsh's
+ministrations.
+
+Soon after nine that night, the camp lay wrapped in slumber, save
+in the partner's shack, where the shaded light burned.  Tim Walsh
+was still on duty, while Tom sat half dozing in a chair.
+
+For the first time in days the young chief engineer was fairly
+contented in mind.  He now believed that his chum would surely
+recover.
+
+Had Tom been outside, hidden and keeping alert watch over the
+surroundings, his content would have vanished into action.
+
+In the deep darkness of the night, Dolph Gage glided about on
+the firm snow crust at the further side of the mine shaft.  With
+him, looking more like two evil shadows or spectres, were his
+two remaining companions.
+
+Most of the time since they had been seen last, Gage and his
+confederates had been within a mile or so of Reade's camp.  They
+had found a cave in which they had been passably comfortable.
+For food they had depended upon the fact that the commissary at
+the Bright Hope Mine was easily burglarized, and that no very
+strict account was kept of the miners' food.  Thus the three
+scoundrels had managed not only to hide themselves from the law's
+officers, but to keep themselves comfortable as well.
+
+"Now we can fix these youngsters, and slide back to our hiding
+place during the excitement," Gage whispered to his two friends.
+"This crowd is broke.  If we fix the mine in earnest tonight
+they won't be able to open it again.  With the dynamite we brought
+up from the Bright Hope on this sled we can fire a blast that
+will starve and drive Reade and Hazelton away from the Indian
+Smoke Range for good and all!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+DOLPH GAGE FIRES HIS SHOT
+
+
+"Yes, if we don't blow ourselves to kingdom come in the effort,"
+growled the man known as Josh.
+
+"You're talking bosh!" grunted Dolph.  "Why should we blow ourselves
+up?  Is this the first time we've used dynamite!"
+
+"But there's such a lot of the stuff," grunted Josh.  "We must
+have a hundred and fifty sticks on the sled."
+
+"All of that," nodded Gage.
+
+"If the stuff goes oh accidentally, when we're near-----"
+
+"Then our troubles will be over," said Gage grimly.
+
+"I'm not so all-fired anxious to have my troubles over that way,"
+grumbled Josh.  The other man said nothing, but he looked extremely
+thoughtful.
+
+"The best way to make the thing sure," Gage went on, "is to get
+to work before some one comes prowling this way."
+
+"Who's going to prowl?" queried Josh.  "The camp is asleep."
+
+"Reade is up; we know that," Dolph insisted.
+
+"Humph!  We saw through the window that he's too drowsy to stir."
+
+"Don't be too sure," warned Gage.  "He may be only a boy, but
+he's a sure terror, the way he finds out things!  He may be out
+at any time.  Come, we'll hustle, and then get away from here."
+
+"I'm ready," said the third man.
+
+"Then get on to the top ladder," ordered Dolph.  "When you're
+down about fifteen feet, then stop and light your lantern.  We'll
+each do the same."
+
+Dolph waited until the other two had reached the bottom of the
+shaft and he could see their lanterns.  Then he, too, descended,
+lighting two more lanterns after he reached firm ground.
+
+"Where are you going to set the stuff off?" Josh asked.
+
+"In two places," Gage answered.  "One big pile in the tunnel,
+half-way between the heading and the shaft, and the other at the
+bottom of the shaft.  Get picks and a couple of shovels, and we'll
+soon lay mines and tamp 'em."
+
+While the men were obeying, Gage reclimbed the ladders.  Roping
+about a third of the dynamite sticks, and passing a loop over
+one shoulder, he succeeded in carrying the dynamite below.  In
+two more trips he brought down the rest.  The fourth trip he came
+down with a magneto and several coils of light firing wire.
+
+On account of their industry the time slipped by rapidly.  As
+a matter of fact their wicked task occupied them for nearly four
+hours.  However, no sound of what went on underground reached
+the ears of those who slept in the shacks.
+
+"We're ready for the wiring," announced Josh at last.
+
+"I'll do that myself," said Gage.  "I want it well done.  Each
+of you hold a lantern here."
+
+By the light thus provided Dolph attached the light wires so that
+the electric spark would be communicated to each stick in this
+"mine."  This was done by looping a circuit wire around each separate
+stick, and connecting the wire with each detonating cap.  The
+dynamite, frozen on the snow crust, had thawed again at this
+subterranean level.
+
+"Now, for the last tamping," ordered Gage.
+
+While the others worked, Dolph carefully superintended their operations.
+
+At last the tamping was done, and the connecting wires were carried
+back to the bottom of the shaft.
+
+Here the second mine was connected in the same manner, and the wires
+joined so that the circuit should be complete.
+
+"One spark from the magneto, now," chuckled Dolph, "and both blasts
+will go on at once.  Whew!  This old ridge will rock for a few
+seconds!"
+
+For a few moments he stood surveying his work with huge satisfaction.
+
+"Now, get up with you," he ordered.  "Remember, at the bottom of the
+last ladder, blow out your lanterns."
+
+"The wires?" queried Josh.
+
+"I'll carry 'em.  All you have to do is to get out of here."
+
+In quivering silence the three evil-doers ascended.  The light
+of their lanterns extinguished, they stepped out of the shaft
+and once more on the hard snow crust.
+
+"Now, take the magneto back about two hundred feet, leaving the
+wires stretched on the snow," whispered Dolph.
+
+"Who's that coming?" Josh demanded, in sudden alarm, clutching
+his leader's sleeve.
+
+For an instant all three men quailed.  But they remained silent,
+peering.
+
+"Don't get any more dreams, Josh," Dolph ordered sharply.  "There's
+no one coming.  It's all in your nerves."
+
+"I was sure I heard some one coming." Josh insisted in a whisper.
+
+"But you didn't"
+
+"What if some one comes now?"
+
+"No one is coming."
+
+"But if some one should?"
+
+"All the more reason for getting our work done with speed.  Once
+we've connected the magneto and fired the blast our whole job
+will be done."
+
+Josh, only half-convinced, drew a revolver and cocked the weapon.
+
+"Now, be mighty careful!" snarled Dolph.  "Don't get rattled and
+shoot at any shadows!  A shot might spoil our plans tonight, for
+it would bring men tumbling out this way as soon as they could
+get out of their bunks and into some clothes.  Give me that pistol!"
+
+Josh, hesitating, obeyed, whereupon Dolph Gage let down the hammer
+noiselessly, next dropping the weapon into a pocket of his own
+badly-frayed overcoat.
+
+"Now, get the magneto back, as I told you.  I'll take care of
+the wires and see that they don't snap or get tangled."
+
+This latter part of the work was quickly executed.  Dolph deftly
+attached the wires to the magneto, then seized the handle, prepared
+to pump.
+
+"All ready, now!" he whispered gleefully.  "Two or three pumps,
+and damage will be done that it would cost at least fifteen thousand
+dollars' worth of material and labor to remedy.  The kid engineers
+haven't the money and can't raise it.  They'll have to give up---be
+driven out.  Then we'll send our own man, who has his mineral rights,
+in here to take possession, and the mine will be ours once more---as
+it always has been by rights."
+
+"Let us get a little way to the rear before you fire the blasts,"
+pleaded Josh.
+
+"Go back a couple of hundred feet, if you want," assented Dolph.
+"But don't you run away!  Remember that part of your job is to
+stand by me if we're followed and fired upon."
+
+Josh and his companion carefully made their way back over the crust.
+
+Dolph Gage waited until he saw them to be a sufficient distance away.
+
+"Now, work away, my magneto beauty" muttered Gage, exultantly.
+"Do your work, straight and true.  Drive these upstarts off of
+Indian Smoke Range and bring my mine back into my own hands!
+These fool engineers have found no gold in the ridge, but it's
+there---waiting for me.  And---now!"
+
+He pumped the handle of the magneto vigorously.  In another instant
+the spark traveled.
+
+From underground there came a sudden rocking, followed, after
+a breathless interval, by a loud, crashing boom.
+
+Both blasts had exploded in the same instant, and the dynamite
+had done its work!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+TOM BEGINS TO DOUBT HIS EYES
+
+
+When the shock came it shook the shacks so that nearly all of the
+sleeping miners became instantly alert.
+
+Harry Hazelton, dozing lightly, sat up in bed, then felt dizzy and
+lay down again.
+
+"You keep on your pillow, Mr. Hazelton," Tim Walsh ordered, gently.
+"It isn't your time to sit up yet, sir."
+
+"What was the racket?" asked Harry, anxiously.
+
+"A blast in the mine," Tom Reade answered, truthfully enough.
+
+"I didn't know we had any dynamite left," persisted Harry.
+
+"You haven't been in a condition to know all that has been going
+on for the last few days," Tom retorted, gently.  "Now, don't
+ask me any more questions, for I've got to go out and see how
+the blast came along."
+
+As he spoke Tom was hustling into his coat and pulling his cap
+down over his ears.
+
+Then, full of the liveliest anxiety, the young chief engineer
+hastened out.
+
+His instant conclusion had been that some treachery was afoot,
+but whence it came he had no idea.  Just now Tom Reade wanted
+facts, not conjectures.
+
+As he closed the door and hurried across the camp, Tom found the
+aroused miners flocking out.  Several of them bore rifles, for
+they, too, had guessed treachery.
+
+"Here's the boss!"
+
+"What's happened, Mr. Reade?"
+
+"Men," Tom called softly, "I don't know what's up.  But don't
+talk loudly or excitedly, for Hazelton has been aroused by the
+noise and the shake, and I've tried to turn it off.  Don't let
+him hear your voices."
+
+"It was in the mine, sir, wasn't it?" asked one man, hurrying
+to Reade's side.
+
+"It must have been, Hunter.  Come along, all of you.  We'll go
+over to the shaft and take a look."
+
+Several of the men were carrying lighted lanterns.  At the shaft
+one of the first evidences they discovered was the wires running
+back to the magneto.
+
+"Trickery, here!" muttered one of the men.  "Mr. Reade, shall
+we try to pick up a trail and follow it?"
+
+"No," answered Tom, after a moment's thought.  "It would be wasted
+time.  Even if you pick up a trail on this frozen crust, which
+is hardly likely, you couldn't follow it except by lantern light.
+That would be slow work.  Besides, it would show the rascals
+where you were and how fast you were moving.  They could fire
+at you easily.  No; let's have a look at the damage."
+
+Looking down the shaft, with their rim light, from the top, all
+looked as usual about the shaft.
+
+"Hand me one of the lanterns," called Tom.  "Hunter, you take
+another and come with me."
+
+"Careful, sir," warned another man.  "The blasts may not be all
+over as yet."
+
+Tom Reade smiled.
+
+"The blasts were fired by magneto," he explained.  "There can't
+be any more blasts, unless some enemy should sneak back and adjust
+the magneto to some other 'mine.' You won't let any one down the
+shaft for that purpose, I know."
+
+There was a laugh, amid which Tom and Hunter descended.  Near
+the bottom of the third ladder Reade found that the rest of the
+way down the shaft had been blocked by the smashing of the ladders.
+
+"Go up, Hunter," the young engineer directed, "and start the men
+to knotting ropes and splicing 'em.  We want at least a hundred
+feet of knotted rope."
+
+Tom waited on the last solid rung while this order was being carried
+out.  By and by Hunter reached him with one end of a long, knotted
+line.
+
+"Don't pass down any more," Tom called, "until I have made this
+end fast."
+
+This was soon done, and the rest of the rope was lowered.
+
+"Hunter," Tom asked, "are you good for going down a hundred feet
+or so on a knotted rope?"
+
+"I don't believe I am, sir."
+
+"Then don't try it.  Go up and send down two or three men who
+feel sure they can do it.  But urge every man against taking the
+risk foolishly.  For a man who can't handle himself on a knotted
+rope it's a fine and easy way to break his neck."
+
+"Are you going down now, sir?"
+
+"At once."
+
+"Then I'll stay here and hold a lantern for you," replied Hunter,
+doggedly.  "I won't stir until I know you're safe at the bottom
+of the shaft."
+
+"Go ahead up," ordered Tom.  "I'm tying a lantern to my coat."
+
+This he was even then doing, in fact, making the knot with a
+handkerchief passed through one of the button-holes of the garment.
+
+"Why don't you go up, with my message, Hunter?" Tom demanded.
+
+"I'm afraid I can't stir, sir, until I know that you're safe at
+the bottom."
+
+"Nonsense!  What could you do to save me if I lost my hold and fell?"
+Tom questioned.
+
+"Nothing at all, sir; but I'll feel a heap easier when I know you're
+safe at the bottom."
+
+"All right, then," called Reade.  "Watch me!"
+
+He swung off into space with the skill and sureness of the practiced
+athlete.  A little later Tom touched bottom, calling up:
+
+"Now, get busy, Hunter.  I'm all right."
+
+"Are you at the bottom of the shaft, sir?"
+
+"I'm on solid ground, but I'm not sure about being at the bottom
+of the shaft.  I'm afraid the opening to the tunnel has been blocked.
+Send down two or three men, and then some tools.  The tools can
+come down in the tub, but forbid any men to try that way.  The
+tub is too uncertain and likely to tip over."
+
+"If the tub tips out a pick or two, they might fall on you, sir,
+and wind up your life," Hunter objected.
+
+"That's a chance to which no good sport can object," laughed Tom.
+"Go ahead and see that my instructions are carried out."
+
+One of the men came down the rope first.  He landed safely, but
+looked at his hands in the dim light.
+
+"That's a hard road to travel, Mr. Reade," he remarked.  "I'll
+not be much pleased with the trip back."
+
+"It's easy to any one who has had enough practice," Tom observed,
+mildly.
+
+Then two other men came down in turn.
+
+"We've enough men here," shouted Reade.  "Now send tools."
+
+Before long the young engineer had his little force busily engaged.
+
+Of course, many of the timbers had been blown out of the walling
+of the shaft.  There was danger of the dirt caving in on the few
+workers below.
+
+"Now, you four can keep going, digging straight down and to the
+eastward," said Tom.  "I'm going up to get some more men at work,
+putting in temporary walling.  I don't want any of you men hurt
+by saving dirt from the sides of the shaft."
+
+All four men stopped work at once.
+
+"What's the matter!" asked Reade.
+
+"Coming down's easy, sir; we're waiting to see you go _up_
+that rope."
+
+"Then I'll endeavor not to keep you long away from your tasks,"
+smiled the young engineer athlete.
+
+Grasping the rope just above a knot over his head, Tom gave a
+slight heave, then went rapidly up, hand over hand.  He was soon
+lost from the little circle of light thrown by the lanterns at
+the shaft's bottom.
+
+"Not many men like him," remarked one of the miners named Tibbets,
+admiringly.
+
+"I've been told that's what young fellers learn at college," said
+another miner, as he spat on his hands and raised his pick.
+
+For two hours Reade attended to the mending of the walling, as
+the system of laying walls in shafts is termed.  Ladders had to
+be rebuilt even in order to put temporary walling in place.
+
+Then the young chief engineer deemed it time to run over to the
+partners' shack.  He opened the door softly, peeping in.  Feeling
+the draught Tim Walsh turned and came to the door.
+
+"Mr. Hazelton is doing all right, sir."
+
+"Has he asked for me?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"If he does, tell him that I'm putting in all night at the mine.
+If he gets worse run over and get me."
+
+Then Tom went back to his labors.
+
+Dolph Gage and his fellow rascals, owing to their haste, and also
+to the fact that they did not know as much as they thought they
+did about laying and tamping blasts, had not done as much harm
+as they had planned.
+
+By the time that the miners had dug down some four feet, sending
+up the dirt in the hoist-tub, they came to the opening of the
+tunnel.  Thus encouraged, they worked faster than ever, until
+a new shift was sent down the repaired ladders to relieve them.
+
+By daylight the men, changing every two hours for fresher details,
+were well into the tunnel.
+
+Here, for some yards, the tunnel was somewhat choked.  After this
+semi-obstruction had been cleared away, Tom Reade was able to
+lead his men for some distance down the tunnel.  Then they came
+upon the scene of the late big blast.
+
+Here the rock had been hurled about in masses.  A scene of apparent
+wreck met the eyes of the miners and their leader, though even
+here the damage was not as great as had been expected by Gage
+and his rascals.
+
+To the north of the tunnel lay a great, gaping, jagged tear in
+the wall of rock.  This tear, or hole, extended some ten feet
+to the north of the tunnel proper.
+
+As Tom entered, a glint caught his eye.  Something in the aspect
+of that dull illumination, reflected back to him, made his pulses
+leap.
+
+He passed his left hand over his eyes, wondering if he were dreaming.
+
+"I---I can't believe it!" he stammered.  "Look, boys, and tell
+me what you see!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+CONCLUSION
+
+
+"It's the gleam of the real metal in the rock, sir---what's what
+it is," gasped one of the miners, as he held up a lantern to aid
+him in his quest.
+
+It lay there, in streaks and rifts, a dull gleaming here and there.
+To be sure, it was nothing at all like a solid golden wall, but
+Tom Reade could be contented with less than Golconda.
+
+In spots the precious metal showed in darkish streaks, instead
+of yellow.  But these dark streaks showed admixtures of silver.
+
+"Run and get me a hammer, one of you," cried Tom, breathing fast.
+
+When the miner returned with the chisel-nosed hammer he found
+the young engineer eagerly exploring the whole length of the new
+wall thus laid bare.
+
+"I knew that a real vein lay here," Tom went on, as he took the
+hammer.  "The only trouble with us, men, was that we were working
+eight or ten feet south of where the true vein lay.  Now, by the
+great Custer, we've hit it---thanks to the enemy!"
+
+Eagerly Tom chipped off specimens of the rich gold and silver
+bearing rock.  He loaded down two men and carried more himself.
+Every piece of rock was a specimen of rich ore.
+
+Up the shaft they went, emerging into the sunlight.
+
+"I'd like to know who the scamps were that fired the blasts in
+the mine," Tom muttered joyously.  "I'd like to reward them."
+
+"Party coming, sir," reported a miner, pointing to the southward.
+
+Over the snow came a cutter, drawn by two horses, slipping fast
+over the snow.  From one side of the cutter a pair of skis hung
+outward.
+
+"That's Jim Ferrers and the doctor from Dugout," Tom breathed.
+"But who can the other lot of people be."
+
+A pung, drawn also by a pair of horses, contained five men.
+
+Jim was quickly on hand to explain matters.
+
+"I've brought Dr. Scott.  He'll have to see Hazelton quickly, and
+then get back to Dugout," Jim declared.  "The doctor is afraid the
+crust may melt, and then he'll be stalled here with his outfit.
+
+"Those men over there?" inquired Reade, as the pung stopped, and
+the five men got out "Two of them look familiar to me."
+
+"I reckon," nodded Jim Ferrers.  "They're officers---all of 'em.
+They've come over here to hunt the rocks to the south of here.
+Up at the jail the keepers worried out of Eb some information
+about a cave where Dolph Gage hangs out.  It seems that Gage and
+his pals have been stealing supplies at the Bright Hope Mine."
+
+Jim introduced Dr. Scott, who said:
+
+"I must see my patient and be away in an hour.  I don't want to
+get stalled here by a thaw."
+
+So Tom led the way to the shack, and did not see the departure of
+the law's five officers.
+
+Outside Reade carefully dropped the ore he had brought along and
+made a sign to his workmen to do the same.  Then the partners
+and the physician went inside.
+
+Tom watched closely while the physician placed a thermometer in
+Harry's mouth and felt his pulse.  Respiration was also counted,
+after which Dr. Scott produced a stethoscope and listened at Harry's
+chest and back.  A little more, and the examination was completed.
+
+"Gentlemen," announced Dr. Scott, "you've brought me all this
+distance over the snow-crust to see a patient who is just about
+convalescent.  This young man may have some nourishment today,
+and by day after tomorrow he will be calling loudly for the cook."
+
+"What has been the trouble, doc?" Hazelton asked.
+
+"Congestion of the right lung, my son, but the congestion has
+almost wholly disappeared."
+
+A mist came before Tom Reade's eyes.  Now that his chum was out
+of danger Reade realized how severe on him the whole ordeal had
+been.
+
+As soon as Tom found a chance he asked Dr. Scott:
+
+"Will a little excitement of the happiest kind hurt Hazelton any?"
+
+"Just what kind of excitement?"
+
+"We've had a disappointing mine that has turned over night into
+a bonanza.  I've a lot of the finest specimens outside."
+
+"Bring them in," directed the physician.
+
+Tom came in with an armful.
+
+"Harry," he called briskly, "we were right in thinking we had
+a rich vein.  The only trouble was that we were working eight
+or ten feet south of the real vein.  Look over these specimens."
+
+Tom ranged half a dozen on the top blanket.  When Harry's glistening
+eyes had looked them all over, Tom produced other specimens of
+ore.  Dr. Scott examined them, too, with a critical eye.
+
+"If you've got much of this stuff in your mine, Reade," said the
+medical man, "you won't need to work much longer."
+
+"Won't need to work much longer?" gasped Tom Reade.  "Man alive,
+we don't want to stop working.  When a man stops working he may
+as well consult the undertaker, for he's practically dead anyway.
+What we want gold for is so that we can go on working on a bigger
+scale than ever!  And now, Harry, the name for our mine has come
+to me."
+
+"What are you going to call it?" Hazelton asked.
+
+"With your consent, and Ferrers's, we'll name it the Ambition
+Mine.  That's just what the mine stands for with us, you know."
+
+"The best name in the world," Harry declared.
+
+"And now, young man," said Dr. Scott, addressing Hazelton, "I
+want you to rest quietly while Tim Walsh sponges you off and the
+cook is busy making some thin gruel for you.  Reade, in order
+to get you out of here I'll agree to go down in your mine with you."
+
+Dr. Scott proved more than an interested spectator when he reached
+the tunnel.  He possessed considerable knowledge of ores.
+
+"Yes; you have your bonanza here, Reade," declared the physician.
+"Almost any ambition that money will gratify will soon be yours.
+From the very appearance of this newly-opened vein I don't believe
+it is one that will give out in a hurry."
+
+"By the way, Doe," called Ferrers, joining them, "here's that
+nugget that you wouldn't take when I offered it to you in Dugout.
+You've made your visit, and now the nugget is yours."
+
+"I don't want it," smiled Dr. Scott.  "I want real money, in place
+of the nugget, and I'll be content to wait for it.  The owners
+of this mine will be welcome to run up a very considerable bill
+with me."
+
+"Then can you stay a few days?" queried Tom eagerly.  "Until good
+old Harry is wholly out of danger."
+
+"Yes; I'll stay a few days, if you wish it, Mr. Reade."
+
+Finally Jim had the presence of mind to pilot the physician to
+the cook shack.
+
+Quietly enough the officers from Dugout had reentered camp.  With
+them they had borne one long, covered object---the remains of
+Dolph Gage, who had been shot and killed while resisting arrest.
+Gage's two remaining companions had been brought in, handcuffed.
+These expert sheriff's officers from Dugout had been able to
+find a trail, even on the hard-frozen snow crust, and had tracked
+the criminals directly to their cave.
+
+Jim Ferrers went over to where the body of Gage lay on the snow.
+Gently he turned down the cloth that covered the dead man's face.
+For a few moments Ferrers gazed at the still face; then, awkwardly,
+after hesitating, he lifted his hat from his head.
+
+"That man killed your brother, Jim," murmured Tom, stepping up
+to his Nevada partner.  "You had other reasons for hating him.
+In the old days you would have run Dolph Gage down and killed
+him yourself.  In these newer days you have left Gage to the hands
+of the law.  It is a much better way, and you will never even have
+to wonder whether you have done any wrong."
+
+"The law's way is always best, I reckon," returned Jim Ferrers,
+slowly.
+
+That same day, after the officers had gone with their men, Jim
+Ferrers, finding that the crust was holding, drove fresh horses
+to the doctor's cutter.  The physician remained behind to take
+care of Harry Hazelton, but Jim went fast toward Dugout City.
+He was armed with letters from Dr. Scott that told certain dealers
+in Dugout what unlimited credit the partners ought to have on
+account of their mine.
+
+Before Harry was sitting up vehicles had been employed to bring
+to Ambition Mine considerable supplies of dynamite, food and all
+else that was needed, including half a dozen of the latest books
+for the amusement of the invalid engineer.
+
+Everything went on swiftly now.  More miners, too, were brought
+over, while the hard crust lasted, and a score of carpenters.
+Lumber camp also.  There was a constant procession of vehicles
+between Dugout and Ambition Mine.  Tom did not hesitate to avail
+himself of his sudden credit, for every day's work showed that
+the vein was not giving out.  An ore dump was piling up that meant
+big returns when the ore could be hauled to the smelter.
+
+Ambition Mine proved a steady "payer."  No; our young men did
+not become multi-millionaires.  Mines that will do that for three
+partners are scarce, indeed.  Ambition, however, did pay enough
+so that, by spring, Tom and Harry, after looking over their bank
+account, found that they could go ahead and furnish their engineer
+offices on a handsome scale.  Some thousands, too, found their
+way to their families in the good old home town of Gridley.
+
+The mine was turned into a stock company.  Tom, Harry and Jim
+each retained one-fourth interest.  The remaining fourth of the
+stock was divided evenly between Cook Leon and the twenty-four
+miners who had stood by so loyally, so that now each of the original
+miners, in addition to his day's pay, owned one per cent. of the
+gold and silver that went up in the new elevator that replaced
+the tub-hoist.
+
+Alf Drew did not receive one of the small shares in the mine property.
+His cigarette smoking had made him lazy and worthless, and he had
+done nothing to promote the success of the once desperate
+mining venture.
+
+However, there was hope for Alf.  At the time when he threw his
+remaining "coffin nails" in the cook's fire he really did "swear
+off," and he afterwards was able to refrain from the use of tobacco
+in any form.  He grew taller and stouter and developed his muscles.
+Tom and Harry employed him at the mine as a checking clerk, where
+he actually earned his money, and saved a goodly amount of it
+every month.
+
+"Tom, you rascal, you promised some day to show me how you scared
+that boy stiff with your rattlesnake click," Harry reminded his
+partner.
+
+"Nothing very difficult about it," laughed Tom.  "Can you make
+a noise by grinding your molars together---your grinding teeth?
+Try it."
+
+Harry did.  The noise came forth from his mouth, though it didn't
+sound exactly like the rattle of a rattler.
+
+"Keep on practicing, and you'll get that rattle down to
+perfection---that's all," nodded Tom.
+
+Spring found the young engineers restless for new fields.  They
+longed to tackle other big feats of engineering.  Jim Ferrers
+understood, and said to them:
+
+"You youngsters know, now, that you can trust me to run this mine."
+
+"We always knew that we could trust you," Tom corrected him.
+
+"Well, you know it now, anyway.  You want to get back into the
+world.  You are restless for new fields to conquer.  Go ahead;
+only come back once in a while and shake hands with old Jim.
+While you're away I'll send you a monthly statement of your earnings
+and see that the money is placed to your credit."
+
+On their ride to Dugout, Tom and Harry were favored with the company
+of Mr. Dunlop, promoter of the Bright Hope Mine.
+
+"I suppose it's a lucky thing for you boys that you stuck to your
+own mine," said Dunlop.  "you've come out a good deal better.
+I wish I had secured your services, though.  We're making some
+money over at the Bright Hope, but we'd make a lot more with the
+right engineers in charge.  I'm on my way to Dugout to use the
+telegraph wires in earnest.  I've learned that the real way to
+make money out of a mine is to have a real engineer in charge."
+
+Tom and Harry delayed but a couple of hours at Dugout.  Then-----
+
+However, their further adventures must be delayed in the narration
+until they appear between the covers of the next volume in this
+series.  It will be published at once under the title, "_The Young
+Engineers In Mexico; Or, Fighting the Mine Swindlers_."
+
+In this new volume will be described what Tom and Harry did in
+a land of mystery and romance; a land where the sharp contrasts
+of wealth and squalor have fostered the development of many noble
+characters and have created some of the vilest among men.  The
+forthcoming story is one filled with the glamour and the fascination
+of that neighbor-country of hot-blooded men.  In Mexico, Tom and
+Harry encountered their most startling adventures of all.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE YOUNG ENGINEERS IN NEVADA***
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