TWO VICTIMS OF ROSY THOUGHTS
"There is one thing about it," remarked Reade, as he rose and
stood at the doorway of the tent. "We're not being overworked."
"Nor are we getting awfully rich, as the weeks go by, either,"
smiled Harry.
"No; but we're puppets in a game that interests me about as much
as any that I ever saw played," Tom smiled back.
"This game--interests you?" queried Harry, looking astonished.
"That is a new idea to me, Tom. I never knew you to be interested,
before, in any game that wasn't directly connected with some great
ambition."
"We have a great ambition at present."
"I'd like to know what it is," grumbled Harry. "It's three weeks
since that scoundrel, Don Luis, brought us back in triumph. We
refused to enter his house as guests, and started to camp in the
open in these two old tents that Nicolas secured for us. In all
these three weeks we haven't done a tap of work. We haven't studied,
or read because we have no books. We sleep, eat, and then sleep
some more. When we get tired of everything else we go out and
trudge over the hills, being careful not to get too far, lest
we run into the guns of Gato and his comrades, for undoubtedly
Gato was turned loose as soon as he was lost to our sight. We
don't do anything like work, and we're not even arranging any
work for the future. Yet you say that you're boosting your ambitions."
"I am," Tom nodded solemnly. "Harry, isn't it just as great an
ambition to be an honest engineer as it is to be a highly capable
one?"
"Of course."
"Don't capitalists usually invest large sums on a favorable report
from engineers?"
"Often."
"And, if the engineers were dishonest the capitalists would lose
their money, wouldn't they?"
"Certainly."
"Then here's our ambition, and we're working it out--finely,
too," Tom went on, with much warmth. "Don Luis has a scheme to
rob some people of a large sum of money by selling them a worthless
mine in a country where there are several good ones. If he could
get us to help him, to our own dishonor, Don Luis Montez would
succeed in swindling this company of men. Harry, we're just lying
around here, day after day, doing no hard work, but we're blocking
Don Luis's game and saving money for honest men. Don Luis doesn't
care to have us assassinated, for he still hopes to break down
our resistance. He can't bring the capitalists here to meet us
until we do give in, and so the game lags for Don Luis. He can't
bring in other engineers, for they'd meet us and we would post
them. The American engineer must be a serious problem for Don
Luis. He thought he could buy almost any of us. Our conduct
has made him afraid that American engineers can't be bought.
Evidently he must have his report signed by American engineers
of repute, which means that he is trying to sell his worthless
mine to Americans. Harry, we're teaching Don Luis to respect
the honesty of American engineers; we're saving some of our countrymen
from being swindled, probably out of thousands of dollars; we're
proving that the American engineer is honest, and we're discouraging
rascals everywhere from employing us in crooked work. Now, honestly,
isn't all that ambition enough to hold us for a few weeks?"
"I suppose so," Harry agreed. "But what is the end of all this
to be. Won't Don Luis merely have us assassinated in the end,
if we go on proving stubborn?"
"He may," Tom answered, pressing his lips grimly. "But, if he
does, he'll pay heavily for his villainy."
"How?"
"Every man has to pay for his sins."
"That's what we were taught in Sunday school," Harry nodded, "and
I've always believed it. Yet here, in these remote mountains
of the state of Bonista, if anywhere, Don Luis would appear to
be safe. If a few of his men crept up here, late some night,
with pistols or knives, and finished us before we had time to
wake up, do you imagine that any one hereabouts would dare to
make any report of the matter? Would our fate ever reach the
outside world?"
"It would be sure to, in time, I believe," Tom answered, thoughtfully.
"How?"
"That I can't tell. But I believe in the invariable triumph of
right, no matter how great the odds against it may seem."
"Let right triumph, after we're buried," continued Harry, "and
what good would it do us?"
"None, in any ordinary material sense. Yet good would come to
the world through our fate, even if only in proclaiming, once
more, the sure defeat of all wicked plans in the end."
Harry said no more, just then. Tom Reade, who ordinarily was
intensely practical, was also the kind of young man who could
perish for an ideal, if need be. Tom went outside, stretching
himself on the grass under a tree. He sighed for a book, but
there was none, so he lay staring off over the valley below.
Twenty minutes later Harry, after trying vainly to take a nap
on a cot in the tent, followed his chum outside.
"Odd, isn't it, Tom?" questioned Hazelton. "We're living what
looks like a wholly free life. Nothing to prevent us from tramping
anywhere we please on these hills, and yet we know to a certainty
that we wouldn't be able to get twenty miles from here before
soldiers would have us nabbed, and marching away to a prison from
which, very likely, no one in the outside world would ever hear
of us again."
"It is queer," agreed Tom, nodding. "Oh, just for one glimpse
of Yankee soil!"
"Twice," went on Harry, "we've even persuaded Nicolas to bribe
some native to take a letter from us, to be mailed at some distant
point. After two or three days Don Luis, in each instance, has
come here, and, with a smile, has shown us our own intercepted
letter. Yet Nicolas has been honest in the matter, beyond a doubt.
It is equally past question that the native whom Nicolas has
trusted and paid has made an honest attempt to get away and post
our letter; but always the cunning of a Montez overtakes the trusted
messenger."
"And one can only guess what has happened to the messengers,"
Tom said, soberly. "Undoubtedly both of the two poor fellows
are now passing the days _incommunicado_. It makes a fellow a
bit heartsick, doesn't it, chum, to think of the probable fates
of two men who have tried to serve us. And what, in the end,
is to be the fate of poor little Nicolas? Don Luis Montez is
not the sort of man to forgive him his fidelity to us."
"And where's Nicolas, all this time?" suddenly demanded Harry,
glancing at his watch. "Why, the fellow hasn't been here for
three hours! Where can he be?"
"_Quien sabe_?" responded Reade, using the common Spanish question,
given with a shrug, which means, "Who knows! Who can guess?"
"Can Nicolas have fallen into any harm?" asked Hazelton, a new
note of alarm in his voice. "The poor, faithful little fellow!
It gives me a shiver to think of his suffering an injury just
because he serves us so truly."
"I shall be interested in seeing him get back," Tom nodded thoughtfully.
"And I'm beginning to have a creepy feeling that he won't come
back!" cried Harry. "He may at this moment be past human aid,
Tom, and that may be but the prelude to our own craftily-planned
destruction."
Tom Reade sat up, leaning on one elbow, as he regarded his chum with
an odd smile.
"Harry," Tom uttered, dryly, "we certainly have no excuse for being
blue when we have such rosy thoughts to cheer us up!"
"Hang Mexico!" grunted Hazelton.