Bang! Bang!

Nor was Reade's guess a wrong one. Not much time pa.s.sed before steps were heard hurrying in their direction.

"Here! This way!" summoned Tom.

"Are you hurt?" sounded Mr. Prenter's voice.

"No; but we have Sambo Ebony here, and he's going to be hurt if he tries to stir."

President and treasurer of the Melliston Company raced to the spot. Barely sixty seconds afterward Foreman Corbett, with four negroes and one Italian laborer, also came up.

"Corbett, you have the handcuffs I gave you the other night, haven't you?"

Tom asked.

"Yes, sir. Here they are."

Tom took the steel bracelets, ordering Mr. Sambo Ebony to turn over and lie face downward, with his hands behind his back. Then the handcuffs were slipped over the black wrists.

"Now, Sambo," called Tom laughingly, "we'll set you on your feet and whistle the rogues' march for you all the way."

"Yah, yah, yah!" jeered one of the negroes who had come up with Foreman Corbett, as he gazed contemptuously up and down the bulky figure of Mr.

Ebony. "Yo' done been tellin' us 'spectable cullud fo'ks dat de great way to injye life was to be tough an' smaht, lak yo'se'f. How ye' feel erbout it now? Doan' yo' wish yo' been mo' 'spectable yo'se'f? Doan' ye' done wish dat ye' had been to camp-meeting a few times in yo' life? Doan' yo'

wish ye' been honest most er de time, an' been a hahd-wo'kin', pay-ye'-bills n.i.g.g.ah lak some ob de rest oh us? Yo' fool lump er tar, yo' boun' ter go de way ob all de wicked---down to ye' grave in misery an'

sorrow. It's de way oh all ob yo' lazy, ugly, wuthless kind!"

"I've heard philosophers talk," laughed d.i.c.k, in an aside to Tom Reade, "but I can't say that I ever yet listened to a trained philosopher who had the truth of life down any more pat than the negro workman who just now gave his views."

"On all matters of good behavior wise men of all degrees hold about the same views," nodded Reade, "even though they may express their thoughts in differing grades of speech. This good negro knows just where the bad negro has failed in life."

Mr. Sambo Ebony was marched off to jail. Even up to the minute when he was sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment the big black stubbornly refused to give his real name. He was therefore taken away to prison under the name "Sambo Ebony."

Evarts got off with eight years and four months in prison. He is still serving that sentence.

Hawkins and his crew of gamblers and bootleggers were sentenced to two years apiece, as only misdemeanor charges could be preferred against them.

From the foregoing it will be inferred that the proposed jail delivery by other members of the gang from elsewhere did not come off according to plan. The truth was that the citizens of Blixton, when appealed to, organized a strong guard which was thrown around the jail. Doubtless the gang-members were warned in time, and so did not attempt to commit wholesale suicide by running against a citizens' posse.

Mr. Bas...o...b..is still president of the Melliston Company, and he is holding up his head. No further fear of blackmailers oppresses him.

d.i.c.k Prescott was able to remain several days longer---long enough, in fact, to see the more substantial structure of the million-dollar breakwater begin to go up just inside the completed retaining wall.

Then Lieutenant d.i.c.k was obliged to resume his journey on to Fort Clowdry, Colorado. What happened to Prescott, after joining the army as an officer, is told in "_Uncle Sam's Boys on Field Duty_," the second volume in the "_Boys of the Army Series_."

Though Harry Hazelton was disappointed in missing some of the excitement at Blixton, he had no occasion to complain in that respect when he and Tom entered upon the next great undertaking of the young engineer pair.

After the disappearance of the big black from the scene there was no further trouble at the breakwater.

Blixton is now an important though artificial harbor. With the completion of the breakwater, and the building of a lighthouse, the next work undertaken was the building of stone docks at which the steamships of the Melliston Line now dock.

The next adventures that befell Tom and Harry were destined to be the most wonderful and exciting of all. These adventures must be reserved for complete telling in the next volume in this series, which is published under the t.i.tle, "_The Young Engineers In The Lead; Or, The stroke That Made Them Masters of Their Field_."

It is a story of almost incredible efforts, backed by strong ambition, of two American youths who had both the desire and the will to toil unceasingly and at last reach their goal.

THE END