The Young Engineers in Colorado | Page 2

two peaks of which, even at this season, were white-capped with snow. On the trail, however, the full heat of summer prevailed.
"This grand, massive scenery makes a human being feel small, doesn't it?" asked Tom.
Harry, however, had his eyes and all his thoughts turned toward the man whom they were nearing.
"This---er---Bad Pete isn't an---er---that is, a road agent, is he?" he asked apprehensively.
"He may be, for all I know," the driver answered. "At present he mostly hangs out around the S.B. & L. outfit."
"Why, that's our outfits---the one we're going to join, I mean," cried Hazelton.
"I hope Pete isn't the cook, then," remarked Tom fastidiously. "He doesn't look as though he takes a very kindly interest in soap."
"Sh-h-h!" begged Harry. "I'll tell you, he'll hear you."
"See here," Tom went on, this time addressing the driver, "you've told us that you don't know just where to find the S.B. & L. field camp. If Mr. Peter Bad hangs out with the camp then he ought to be able to direct us."
"You can ask him, of course," nodded the Colorado boy.
Soon after the horses covered the distance needed to bring them close to the bend. Now the driver hauled in his team, and, blocking the forward wheels with a fragment of rock, began to give his attention to the harness.
Bad Pete had consented to glance their way at last. He turned his head indolently, emitting a mouthful of smoke. As if by instinct his right hand dropped to the butt of a revolver swinging in a holster over his right hip.
"I hope he isn't bad tempered today!" shivered Harry under his breath.
"I beg your pardon, sir," galled Tom, "but can you tell us-----"
"Who are ye looking at?" demanded Bad Pete, scowling.
"At a polished man of the world, I'm sure," replied Reade smilingly. "As I was saying, can you tell us just where we can find the S.B. & L.'s field camp of engineers?"
"What d'ye want of the camp?" growled Pete, after taking another whiff from his cigarette.
"Why, our reasons for wanting to find the camp are purely personal," Tom continued.
"Now, tenderfoot, don't get fresh with me," warned Pete sullenly.
"I haven't an idea of that sort in the world, sir," Tom assured him. "Do you happen to know the hiding-place of the camp?"
"What do you want of the camp?" insisted Pete.
"Well, sir, since you're so determined to protect the camp from questionable strangers," Tom continued, "I don't know that it will do any harm to inform you that we are two greenhorns---tenderfeet, I believe, is your more elegant word---who have been engaged to join the engineers' crowd and break in at the business."
"Cub engineers, eh, tenderfoot?"
"That's the full size of our pretensions, sir," Tom admitted.
"Rich men's sons, coming out to learn the ways of the Rookies?" questioned Bad Pete, showing his first sign of interest in them.
"Not quite as bad as that," Tom Reade urged. "We're wholly respectable, sir. We have even had to work hard in order to raise money for our railway fare out to Colorado."
Bad Pete's look of interest in them faded.
"Huh!" he remarked. "Then you're no good either why."
"That's true, I'm afraid," sighed Tom. "However, can you tell us the way to the camp?"
From one pocket Bad Pete produced a cigarette paper and from another tobacco. Slowly he rolled and lighted a cigarette, in the meantime seeming hardly aware of the existence of the tenderfeet. At last, however, he turned to the Colorado boy and observed:
"Pardner, I reckon you'd better drive on with these tenderfeet before I drop them over the cliff. They spoil the view. Ye know where Bandy's Gulch is?"
"Sure," nodded the Colorado boy.
"Ye'll find the railroad outfit jest about a mile west o' there, camped close to the main trail."
"I'm sure obliged to you," nodded the Colorado boy, stepping up to his seat and gathering in the reins.
"And so are we, sir," added Tom politely.
"Hold your blizzard in until I ask ye to talk," retorted Bad Pete haughtily. "Drive on with your cheap baggage, pardner."
"Cheap baggage, are we?" mused Tom, when the wagon had left Bad Pete some two hundred feet to the rear. "My, but I feel properly humiliated!"
"How many men has Bad Pete killed?" inquired Harry in an awed voice.
"Don't know as he ever killed any," replied the Colorado boy, "but I'm not looking for trouble with any man that always carries a revolver at his belt and goes around looking for someone to give him an excuse to shoot. The pistol might go off, even by accident."
"Are there many like Mr. Peter Bad in these hills nowadays?" Tom inquired.
"You'll find the foothills back near Denver or Pueblo," replied the Colorado youth coldly "You're up in the mountains now."
"Well, are there many like Peter Bad in these mountains?" Tom amended.
"Not many," admitted their driver.