The Young Engineers in Colorado.

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

CHAPTER I

THE CUB ENGINEERS REACH CAMP

"Look, Tom! There is a real westerner!" Harry Hazelton's eyes sparkled, his whole manner was one of intense interest.

"Eh?" queried Tom Reade, turning around from his distant view of a sharp, towering peak of the Rockies.

"There's the real thing in the way of a westerner," Harry Hazelton insisted in a voice in which there was some awe.

"I don't believe he is," retorted Tom skeptically.

"You're going to say, I suppose, that the man is just some freak escaped from the pages of a dime novel?" demanded Harry.

"No; he looks more like a hostler on a leave of absence from a stranded Wild West show," Tom replied slowly.

There was plenty of time for them to inspect the stranger in question.

Tom and Harry were seated on a mountain springboard wagon drawn by a pair of thin horses. Their driver, a boy of about eighteen, sat on a tiny make-believe seat almost over the traces. This youthful driver had been minding his own business so a.s.siduously during the past three hours that Harry had voted him a sullen fellow. This however, the driver was not.

"Where did that party ahead come from, driver?" murmured Tom, leaning forward. "Boston or Binghamton?"

"You mean the party ahead at the bend of the trail?" asked the driver.

"Yes; he's the only stranger in sight."

"I guess he's a westerner, all right," answered the driver, after a moment or two spent in thought.

"There! You see?" crowed Harry Hazelton triumphantly.

"If that fellow's a westerner, driver," Tom persisted, "have you any idea how many days he has been west?"

"He doesn't belong to this state," the youthful driver answered.

"I think he comes from Montana. His name is Bad Pete."

"Pete?" mused Tom Reade aloud. "That's short for Peter, I suppose; not a very interesting or romantic name. What's the hind-leg of his name?"

"Meaning his surnames" drawled the driver.

"Yes; to be sure."

"I don't know that he has any surname, friend," the Colorado boy rejoined.

"Why do they call him 'Bad'?" asked Harry, with a thrill of pleasurable expectation.

As the driver was slow in finding an answer, Tom Reade, after another look at the picturesque stranger, replied quizzically:

"I reckon they call him bad because he's counterfeit."

"There you go again," remonstrated Harry Hazelton. "You'd better be careful, or Bad Pete will hear you."

"I hope he doesn't," smiled Tom. "I don't want to change Bad Pete into Worse Pete."

There was little danger, however, that the picturesque-looking stranger would hear them. The axles and springs of the springboard wagon were making noise enough to keep their voices from reaching the ears of any human being more than a dozen feet away.

Bad Pete was still about two hundred and fifty feet ahead, nor did he, as yet, give any sign whatever of having noted the vehicle.

Instead, he was leaning against a boulder at the turn in the road. In his left hand he held a hand-rolled cigarette from which he took an occasional reflective puff as he looked straight ahead of him as though he were enjoying the scenery. The road---trail---ran close along the edge of a sloping precipice. Fully nine hundred feet below ran a thin line of silver, or so it appeared. In reality it was what was left of the Snake River now, in July, nearly dried out.

Over beyond the gulch, for a mile or more, extended a rather flat, rock-strewn valley. Beyond that were the mountains, 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, ma.s.sive 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 b.u.t.t 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.