The Young Engineers in Colorado | Page 3

"The old breed is passing. You see, in these days, we have the railroad, public schools, newspapers, the telegraph, electric light, courts and the other things that go with civilization."
"The old days of romance are going by," sighed Harry Hazelton.
"Do you call murder romantic?" Reade demanded. "Harry, you came west expecting to find the Colorado of the dime novels. Now we've traveled hundreds of miles across this state, and Mr. Bad wore the first revolver that we've seen since we crossed the state line. My private opinion is that Peter would be afraid to handle his pistol recklessly for fear it would go off."
"I wouldn't bank on that," advised the young driver, shaking his head.
"But you don't carry a revolver," retorted Tom Reade.
"Pop would wallop me, if I did," grinned the Colorado boy. "But then, I don't need firearms. I know enough to carry a civil tongue, and to be quiet when I ought to."
"I suppose people who don't possess those virtues are the only people that have excuse for carrying a pistol around with their keys, loose change and toothbrushes," affirmed Reade. "Harry, the longer you stay west the more people you'll find who'll tell you that toting a pistol is a silly, trouble-breeding habit."
They drove along for another hour before a clattering sounded behind them.
"I believe it's Bad Pete coming," declared Harry, as he made out, a quarter of a mile behind them, the form of a man mounted on a small, wiry mustang.
"Yep; it is," nodded the Colorado boy, after a look back.
The trail being wider here Bad Pete whirled by them with a swift drumming of his pony's hoofs. In a few moments more he was out of sight.
"Tom, you may have your doubts about that fellow," Hazelton remarked, "but there's one thing he can do---ride!"
"Humph! Anyone can ride that knows enough to get into a saddle and stick there," observed the Colorado boy dryly.
Readers of the "_Grammar School Boys Series_" and of the "_High School Boys Series_", have already recognized in Tom Reade and Harry Hazelton two famous schoolboy athletes.
Back in old Gridley there had once been a schoolboy crowd of six, known as Dick & Co. Under the leadership of Dick Prescott, these boys had made their start in athletics in the Central Grammar School, winning no small amount of fame as junior schoolboy athletes.
Then in their High School days Dick & Co. had gradually made themselves crack athletes. Baseball and football were their especial sports, and in these they had reached a degree of skill that had made many a college trainer anxious to obtain them.
None of the six, however, had gone to college. Dick Prescott and Greg Holmes had secured appointments as cadets at the United States Military Academy, at West Point. Their adventures are told in the "West Point Series." Dave Darrin and Dan Dalzell, feeling the call to the Navy, had entered the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis. Their further doings are all described in the "Annapolis Series."
Tom Reade and Harry Hazelton, however, had found that their aspirations pointed to the great constructive work that is done by the big-minded, resourceful American civil engineer of today. Bridge building, railroad building, the tunneling of mines---in a word, the building of any of the great works of industry possessed a huge fascination for them.
Tom was good-natured and practical, Harry at times full of mischief and at others dreamy, but both longed with all their souls to place themselves some day in the front ranks among civil engineers.
At high school they had given especial study to mathematics. At home they had studied engineering, through correspondence courses and otherwise. During more than the last year of their home life our two boys had worked much in the offices of a local civil engineer, and had spent part of their school vacations afield with him.
Finally, after graduating from school both boys had gone to New York in order to look the world over. By dint of sheer push, three-quarters of which Tom had supplied, the boys had secured their first chance in the New York offices of the S.B. & L. Not much of a chance, to be sure, but it meant forty dollars a month and board in the field, with the added promise that, if they turned out to be "no good," they would be promptly "bounced."
"If 'bounced' we are," Tom remarked dryly, "we'll have to walk home, for our money will just barely take us to Colorado."
So here they were, having come by rail to a town some distance west of Pueblo. From the last railway station they had been obliged to make thirty miles or more by wagon to the mountain field camp of the S.B. & L.
Since daybreak they had been on the way, eating breakfast and lunch from