The Young Engineers on the Gulf | Page 4

offices. In the end, their mine,
which the young engineers had named "The Ambition," proved a
success. Thereupon they left their mining partner, Jim Ferrers, in
charge and went east to open their offices.
We next found the young engineers engaged to the south of the United
States border. These adventures were fully set forth in the preceding
volume in this series, entitled "The Young Engineers in Mexico." Tom
and Harry, engaged to solve some problems in a great Mexican mine,
found themselves the intended tools of a pair of mine swindlers of
wealth and influence. From their first realization of the swindle Tom
and Harry, even in the face of threats of assured death, held out for an
honest course. How they struggled to save a syndicate of American
investors from being swindled out of millions of dollars was splendidly
told in that fourth volume.
And now we find our young friends down at the gulf coast town of
Blixton, Alabama. Here they are engaged in a kind of engineering work
wholly unlike any they had hitherto undertaken. The owners of the
Melliston Steamship Line, with a fleet of twenty-two freight steamships
engaged in the West Indian and Central American trade, had looked in
vain for suitable dock accommodations for their vessels, worth a total
of more than six million dollars. In their efforts to improve their service
the Melliston owners had found at Blixton a harbor that would have
suited them excellently, but for one objection. The bay at Blixton was
too open to shelter vessels from the severity of some of the winter gales.
Up to the present time Blixton had not been used for harbor purposes.
But the Melliston owners had conceived the idea that a great
breakwater could be so built as to shelter the waters of the bay. They
had quietly bought up most of the shore front of the little town, which
had railway connection. Then they had searched about for engineers
capable of building the needed breakwater. Reade & Hazelton, hearing
of the project, had applied for the work. As the young men furnished
most excellent recommendations from former employers they had

finally secured the opportunity.
By no means was the task an easy one, as will presently be shown. It
was a work that would have to be carried on in the very teeth of jealous
Nature. Tom and Harry were fully aware of the great difficulties that
lay before them. What they did not know was that they would presently
have to contend, also, with forces set loose by wicked human minds.
What started these untoward forces in operation, and how the forces
worked out, will soon be seen.
Captain of a queer crew was Tom Reade, and Harry was his lieutenant.
Of the laborers, seven hundred in number, some four hundred were
negroes; there were also two hundred Italians and about a hundred
Portuguese. Many, of each race, were skilled masons; others were but
unskilled laborers. There were six foremen, all Americans, and a
superintendent, also American. There were a few more Americans and
two or three Scotchmen, employed as stationary engineers and in
similar lines of work.
A touch of the old Arizona trouble had invaded the camp. There had
recently been a pay-day, and gamblers had descended upon the camp of
tents and shanties. Once more Reade had driven off the gamblers,
though this time with less trouble than in Arizona. At Blixton, Tom had
merely sent for the four peace officers in the town of Blixton, and had
had the gamblers warned out of camp. They had gone, but there had
been wrathful mutterings among many of the workmen.
The camp was a half mile back from the water's edge, on a low hillside.
Here the men of the outfit were settled. There had been mutinous
mutterings among some of the men, but so far there had been no open
revolt.
Tom, however, who had had considerable experience in such matters,
looked for some form of trouble before the smouldering excitement
quieted. So did Harry.
On this dark night Tom had proposed that he and his chum take a stroll
down to the shore front to see whether all were well there. Soon after

leaving camp behind, the young engineers had started on a jog-trot. Just
before they reached the water's edge the wind had borne to their ears
the faint report of what must have been an explosion out over the
waters of the gulf.
"Trouble!" Tom whispered in his chum's ear. "Most likely some of the
rascals that we drove out of camp have been trying to set back our work
with dynamite. If they have done so we'll teach 'em a lesson if we can
catch them!"
So the young engineers had started out over