The Young Engineers in Arizona.

by H. Irving Hanc.o.c.k.

CHAPTER I. THE MAN OF "CARD HONOR"

"I'll wager you ten dollars that my fly gets off the mirror before yours does."

"I'll take that bet, friend."

The dozen or so of waiting customers lounging in Abe Morris's barber shop looked up with signs of renewed life.

"I'll make it twenty," continued the first speaker.

"I follow you," a.s.sented the second speaker.

*Truly, if men must do so trivial a thing as squander their money on idle bets, here was a novel enough contest.

Each of the bettors sat in a chair, tucked up in white to the chin. Each was having his hair cut.

At the same moment a fly had lighted on each of the mirrors before the two customers.

The man who had offered the bet was a well known local character--Jim Duff by name, by occupation one of the meanest and most dishonorable gamblers who had ever disgraced Arizona by his presence.

There is an old tradition about "honest gamblers" and "players of square games." The man who has been much about the world soon learns to understand that the really honest and "square" gambler is a creature of the imagination. The gambler makes his living by his wits, and he who lives by anything so intangible speedily finds the road to cheating and trickery.

Jim Duff had been no exception. His reputation was such that he could find few men among the residents of this part of Arizona who would meet him at the gaming table. He plied his trade mostly among simple-minded tourists from the east--the cla.s.s of men who are known in Arizona as "tenderfeet."

Rumor had it that Jim Duff, in addition to his many years of unblushing cheating for a living, had also shot and killed three men in the past on as many different occasions.

Yet he was a sleek, well-groomed fellow, tall and slim, and, in the matter of years, somewhere in his forties. Duff always dressed well--with a foundation of the late styles of the east, with something of the swagger of the plains added to his raiment.

"Stranger, you might as well hand me your money now," drawled Duff, after a few moments had pa.s.sed. "It'll save time."

"Your fly hasn't hopped yet," retorted the second man, with the air and tone of one who could afford to lose thousands on such stupid bets.

The second man was of the kind on which Jim Duff fattened his purse.

Clarence Farnsworth, about twenty-five years of age, was as verdant a "tenderfoot" as had lately graced Paloma, Arizona, with his presence.

Even the name of Clarence had moved so many men to laughter in this sweltering little desert town that Farnsworth had lately chopped his name to "Clare." Yet this latter had proved even worse; it sounded too nearly like a girl's name.

So far as his financial condition went, Clarence had the look of one who possessed money to spend. He was well-dressed, lived at the Mansion House, often hired automobiles, entertained his friends lavishly, and was voted a good enough fellow, though a simpleton.

"My fly's growing skittish, stranger," smiled Jim Duff. "He's on the point of moving. You'd better whisper to your fly."

"I believe, friend," rejoined Clarence, "that my fly is taking nap. He appears to be sound asleep. You certainly picked the more healthy fly."

Jim Duff gave his barber an all but imperceptible nudge in one elbow.

Though he gave no sign in return, that barber understood, and shifted his shears in a way that, even at distance, alarmed the fly on the mirror before Duff.

"Buzz-zz!" The fly in front of the gambler took wing and vanished toward the rear of the store.

Some of the Arizona men looking on smiled knowingly. They had realized from the start that young Farnsworth had stood no show of winning the stupid wager.

"You win," stated young Clarence, in a tone that betrayed no annoyance.

Drawing a roll of bills from his pocket, he fumbled until he found a twenty. This he pa.s.sed to Duff, sitting in the next chair.

"You're not playing in luck to-day," smiled Duff gently, as he tucked away the money in one of his coat pockets. "You're a good sportsman, Farnsworth, at any rate."

"I flatter myself that I am," replied Clarence, blushing slightly.

Jim Duff continued calmly puffing at the cigar that rested between his teeth. They were handsome teeth, though, in some way, they made one think of the teeth of a vicious dog.

"Coming over to the hotel this afternoon?" continued Duff.

"I--I--" hesitated Clarence.

"Coming, did you say?" persisted Duff gently.

"I shall have to see my mail first. There may be letters--"

"Oh," nodded Duff, with just a trace of irony as the younger man again hesitated.

"Life is not all playtime for me, you know," Farnsworth continued, looking rather shame-faced. "I--er--have some business affairs attention at times."

"Oh, don't try to join me at the hotel this if you have more interesting matters in prospect," smiled the gambler.

Again Clarence flushed. He looked up to Jim Duff as a thorough "man of the world," and wanted to stand well in the gambler's good opinion.

Clarence Farnsworth was, as yet, too green to know that, too often, the man who has seen much of the world has seen only its seamy and worthless side. Possibly Farnsworth was destined to learn this later on--after the gambler had coolly fleeced him.

"Before long," Farnsworth went on, changing the subject, "I must get out on the desert and take a look at the quicksand that the railroad folks are trying to cross."

"The railroad people will probably never cross that quicksand," remarked Jim Duff, the lids closing over his eyes for a moment.

"Oh, I don't know about that," continued Farnsworth argumentatively.

"I think I do," declared Jim Duff easily. "My belief, Farnsworth, is that the railroad people might dig up the whole of New Mexico, transport the dirt here and dump it on top of that quicksand, and still the quicksand would settle lower and lower and the tracks would still break up and disappear. There's no bottom to that quicksand."

"Of course you ought to know all about it, Duff," Clarence made haste to answer. "You've lived here for years, and you know all about this section of the country."

That didn't quite suit the gambler. What he sought to do was to raise an argument with the young man--who still had some money left.

"What makes you think, Farnsworth, that the railroad can win out with the desert and lay tracks across the quicksand? That's a bad quicksand, you know. It has been called the 'Man-killer.' Many a prospector or cow-puncher has lost his life in trying to get over that sand."

"The real Man-killer quicksand is a mile to the south of where the tracks go, isn't it?" asked Farnsworth.

"Yes; and the first party of railway surveyors who went over the line for their track thought they had dodged the Man-killer. Yet what they'll find, in the end, is that the Man-killer is a bad affair, and that it extends, under the earth, in many directions and for long distances. I am certain that railway tracks will never be laid over any part of the Man-killer."