CHAPTER X

THINGS BEGIN TO GO DOWN HILL

"I suppose I'm thick," Harry murmured. "How would Black, by turning in some wrong backsights and foresights, expect to delay the building of the road, even if he wanted to do it?"

"How?" repeated Tom Reade, showing an amount of heat and excitement that he rarely displayed. "Why, Harry, this same old Section Nineteen is one of the hard spots on the road. A lot of excavating has to be done before the tracks can be laid here. It's not a mere matter of scooping up dirt and removing it, either. A large amount of solid rock has to be blasted out here before the roadbed can be laid."

"I know it," Harry nodded.

"Well, then, at the present moment our chief, Mr. Thurston, is preparing the estimates for the work that must be done. On his estimates will be based the strength of the laboring gangs that must come forward to do the work."

"Yes."

"Then, suppose that Mr. Thurston has been misled into making a certain estimate as to the number of thousand cubic yards of stuff that must be taken out of the outs that are to be made. After he gets his laborers here, and at work, he finds that he has at least three times as much rock and dirt to get out-----"

"I see," cried Hazelton. "Before the chief could get men and wagons, and make all necessary changes in the work, the time would have slipped by so far that the finishing of the road would be blocked."

"And the S.B. & L. would lose its charter," finished Tom grimly.

"It's mighty lucky that we came out here today, then," exclaimed Hazelton, now fully alive to the danger that menaced their employers.

"Come, we must hustle back to camp and show Mr. Thurston how he has been imposed on. There can't be a doubt that 'Gene Black has been deliberately crooked."

"Go slowly," advised Tom. "Don't be in a rush to call any other man a crook. Mr. Thurston can hear our report. Then he can look into it himself and form his own opinion. That's as far as we have any right to go in the matter."

"Thurston is at fault in not having come out here himself," Harry continued. "The chief engineer in charge of a job should know every foot of the way."

"Thurston, from the nature of his own work, is obliged to leave much of the detail to his a.s.sistant, Mr. Blaisdell," Tom explained.

"Then why doesn't Blaisdell look out that no such treacherous work is done by any member of the engineer corps?" flared Harry.

"'Gene Black is plainly a very competent man," Reade argued.

"The work has had to be rushed of late, and, on so simple a matter as leveling, I don't suppose Blaisdell has thought it at all necessary to dig into Black's field notes."

"I hope Black is fired out of this outfit, neck and crop!" finished Hazelton.

"That's something with which we have nothing to do," Reade retorted.

"Harry, we'll confine ourselves to doing our work well and reporting our results. Mr. Thurston is intelligent enough to form all his own conclusions when he has our report. Come, it's high time for us to be putting the ponies to real speed on the trail back."

Not long afterwards the young engineers rode into the engineer camp. Harry dismounted, seating himself on the ground, while Tom hurried toward the chief's big tent.

It was Blaisdell who sat in the chief's chair when Tom entered.

"Oh, h.e.l.lo, Reade," was the a.s.sistant's pleasant greeting.

"Where's the chief?"

"Gone back to the track builders. You know, they're within fourteen miles of us now."

"When will Mr. Thurston be back?"

"I don't know," Blaisdell answered. "In the meantime, Reade, you know, I'm acting chief here."

"I beg your pardon," Tom murmured hastily.

"The chief told me, just before leaving, that you thought some of Black's sights on Section Nineteen are wrong," Blaisdell pursued.

"They're all wrong," Reade rejoined quietly.

"_All_?" echoed Blaisdell, opening his eyes very wide.

"Yes, sir; everyone of them."

"Come, come, Reade!" remonstrated the acting chief. "Don't try to amuse yourself with me. All of the sights can't be wrong."

"But they are, sir. Hazelton and I have been over them most carefully in the field. Here are _our_ notes, sir. Look them over and you'll find that Section Nineteen calls for three or four times as much excavating as Black's notes show."

"This is strange!" mused Blaisdell, after comparing the two sets of notes. "I can't credit it. Reade, you and Hazelton are very young---mere cubs, in fact. Are you sure that you know all you owlet to know about leveling?"

"Mr. Blaisdell, I'll answer you by saying, sir, that though Hazelton and I are nothing but cubs, we have the success of this railroad building game at heart. We're deeply in earnest. We'll work ourselves to our very bones in order to see this road get through in time. I don't ask you, sir, to take our word about these sights, but we both beg you, sir, to go out with a gang of men and go over some of the work yourself. Keep on surveying, sir, until you're satisfied that Black is wrong and that Hazelton and I are right. You know what it would mean, sir, if we're right and you don't find it out in time. Then you simply couldn't get the cut through Section Nineteen in time and the S.B. & L. would lose its charter."

"By Jove, you're right," muttered Blaisdell uneasily, as he slowly stood up. "Reade, I'm going to take men and go out, carrying your notes and Black's. Let me warn you, however, that if I find that Black is right and you're wrong, then it will give you two cubs such a black eye that the chief will run you out of camp."

"If we had made any such gigantic blunder as that," returned Tom firmly, "then we'd deserve to be run out. We wouldn't have the nerve to put in another night in camp."

"Hey, you, don't unsaddle those ponies. Hold yourselves ready to go out," called Blaisdell from the doorway of the tent.

"Will you give us our orders on drawing before you go, sir?" asked Reade.

"No," smiled Blaisdell. "If you've made a blunder out on Nineteen, then you're not to be trusted with drawing. Wait until I return.

Take it easy until then."

"Very good."

"And---Reade!"

"Yes, sir."

"Neither you nor Hazelton are to let a word cross your lips regarding the disagreement over Section Nineteen."

"You'll never have any trouble, sir, over our talking when we ought not to do it," promised Reade.

Two minutes later the a.s.sistant engineer rode out with a pair of rodmen whom he picked up on the way to Nineteen.

"What happened?" asked Harry, coming into the big tent.