The Young Engineers in Colorado | Page 5

to the largest tent in camp. In a few moments he came back.
"Mr. Thurston says to stay around and he'll call you jest as soon as he's through with what he's doing," announced Bob, who, dark, thin and anemic, was a decrepit-looking man of fifty years or thereabouts.
"Ye can stand about in the open," added the cook, pointing with his ladle. "There's better air out there."
"Thank you," answered Tom briskly, but politely. Once outside, and strolling slowly along, Reade confided to his chum:
"Harry, you can see what big fellows we two youngsters are going to be in a Rocky Mountain railroad camp. We haven't a blessed thing to do but play marbles until the chief can see us."
"I can spare the time, if the chief can," laughed Harry. "Hello---look who's here!"
Bad Pete, now on foot, had turned into the camp from the farther side. Espying the boys he swaggered over toward them.
"How do you do, sir?" nodded Tom.
"Can't you two tenderfeet mind your own business?" snarled Pete, halting and scowling angrily at them.
"Now, I come to think of it," admitted Tom, "it was meddlesome on my part to ask after your health. I beg your pardon."
"Say, are you two tenderfeet trying to git fresh with me?" demanded Bad Pete, drawing himself up to his full height and gazing at them out of flashing eyes.
Almost unconsciously Tom Reade drew himself up, showing hints of his athletic figure through the folds of his clothing.
"No, Peter," he said quietly. "In the first place, my friend hasn't even opened his mouth. As for myself, when I do try to get fresh with you, you won't have to do any guessing. You'll be sure of it."
Bad Pete took a step forward, dropping his right hand, as though unconsciously, to the butt of the revolver in the holster. He fixed his burning gaze savagely on the boy's face as he muttered, in a low, ugly voice:
"Tenderfoot, when I'm around after this you shut your mouth and keep it shut! You needn't take the trouble to call me Peter again, either. My name is Bad Pete, and I am bad. I'm poison! Understand? Poison!"
"Poison?" repeated Tom dryly, coolly. "No; I don't believe I'd call you that. I think I'd call you a bluff---and let it go at that."
Bad Pete scowled angrily. Again his hand slid to the butt of his revolver, then with a muttered imprecation he turned and stalked away, calling back threateningly over his shoulder:
"Remember, tenderfoot. Keep out of my way."
Behind the boys, halted a man who had just stepped into the camp over the natural stone wall. This man was a sun-browned, smooth-faced, pleasant-featured man of perhaps thirty-two or thirty-three years. Dressed in khaki trousers, with blue flannel shirt, sombrero and well-worn puttee leggings, he might have been mistaken for a soldier. Though his eyes were pleasant to look at, there was an expression of great shrewdness in them. The lines around his mouth bespoke the man's firmness. He was about five-feet-eight in height, slim and had the general bearing of a strong man accustomed to hard work.
"Boys," he began in a low voice, whereat both Tom and Harry faced swiftly about, "you shouldn't rile Bad Pete that way. He's an ugly character, who carries all he knows of law in his holsters, and we're a long way from the sheriff's officers."
"Is he really bad?" asked Tom innocently.
"Really bad?" laughed the man in khaki. "You'll find out if you try to cross him. Are you visiting the camp?"
"Reade! Hazelton!" called a voice brusquely from the big tent.
"That's Mr. Thurston calling us, I guess," said Tom quickly. "We'll have to excuse ourselves and go and report to him."
"Yes, that was Thurston," nodded the slim man. "And I'm Blaisdell, the assistant engineer. I'll go along with you."
Throwing aside the canvas flap, Mr. Blaisdell led the boys inside the big tent. At one end a portion of the tent was curtained off, and this was presumably the chief engineer's bedroom. Near the centre of the tent was a flat table about six by ten feet. Just at present it held many drawings, all arranged in orderly piles. Not far from the big table was a smaller one on which a typewriting machine rested.
The man who sat at the large table, and who wheeled about in a revolving chair as Tom and Harry entered, was perhaps forty-five years of age. His head was covered with a mass of bushy black hair. His face was as swarthy, in its clean-shaven condition, as though the owner had spent all of his life under a hot sun. His clothing like that of all the rest of the engineers in camp was of khaki, his shirt of blue flannel, with a long, flowing black tie.
"Mr. Thurston," announced the assistant engineer, "I have