TOM DOESN’T MIND “ARTILLERY”
“I give it up,” Reade replied.
“Well, it’s dinner time,” declared Rutter, displaying the face
of his watch.
“Do we have to walk all the way back to camp?” queried Harry,
who knew that no provisions had been brought with them.
“No; camp is going to be brought to us,” smiled Rutter. “At least,
a part of the camp will be brought here. Look up the trail there,
at that highest rise. Do you see dust near there?”
“Yes,” nodded Tom.
“A burro pack-train, conveying our food and that of the other
surveying parties ahead of us,” nodded Rutter. “You’ll find the
cook’s helper, Bob, in charge of it.”
“Is that the way the meals are brought out every day?” asked Hazelton.
“No; but now we’re getting pretty far from camp, and it would
waste a lot of our time to go back and forth. So our noon meals
will come by burro route. Tomorrow or the day after the camp
will be moved forward.”
“How long before that train will be here?” Tom wanted to know.
“Probably ten minutes,” guessed Rutter.
“Then I’m going to see if I can’t find some little stream such
as I’ve passed this morning,” Tom went on. “I want to wash before
I’m introduced to clean food.”
“I’ll go along presently,” nodded Harry to his chum. “There’s
something about the spirit level on this transit of mine that
I want to inspect.”
So Tom Reade trudged off into the brush alone. After a few minutes
he returned.
“That burro outfit in sight?” he called, as he neared the trail.
“No,” answered Rutter. “But it’s close. Once in a while I can
hear a burro clicking his hoofs against stones.”
Harry appeared two minutes later, just as the foremost burro,
with Bob by its head, put in an appearance about fifty yards away.
“All ready for you, Bob,” called Rutter good-humoredly.
“You gentlemen of the engineer corps are always ready,” grunted
the cook’s helper.
A quick stop was made, Bob unloading tin plates, bowls and cups.
“Soup!” cried Rutter in high glee. “This is fine living for buck
engineers, Bob!”
“There’s even dessert,” returned the cook’s helper gravely, exposing
an entire apple pie.
There was also meat, still fairly warm, as well as canned vegetables
in addition to potatoes. A pot of hot coffee finished the repast
that Bob unloaded at this point.
“Everything but napkins!” chuckled Rutter, as he and the boys
quickly “set table” on the ground.
“No; something else is missing,” answered Tom gravely. “Bob forgot
the finger-bowls.”
The helper, beginning to feel that he was being “guyed,” took
refuge in cold indifference.
“Just stack the things up at this point when you’re through,” directed
Bob. “I’ll pick ’em up when I come back on the trail.”
Rutter, like a good chief, saw to it that his two assistants and
the chainmen were started on their meal ere he himself began.
In half an hour every morsel of food and the final drop of coffee
had disappeared.
“Twenty minutes to loaf,” advised Rutter, throwing himself on
the ground and closing his eyes. “I’ll take a nap. You’d better
follow my example.”
“Then who’ll call us?” asked Tom.
“I will,” gaped Rutter.
“Without a clock to ring an alarm?”
“Humph! Any real backwoods engineer can wake up in twenty minutes
if he sets his mind on it,” retorted Jack.
This was a fact, though it was the first that Tom or Harry had
heard of it.
“See the time?” called Rutter, holding out his watch. “Twenty
minutes of one. I’ll call you at one o’clock---see if I don’t.”
In that fine air, with all the warmth of the noon hour, there
was no difficulty in going to sleep. Truth to tell, Tom and Harry
had tramped so far that forenoon that they were decidedly tired.
Within sixty seconds both “cubs” were sound asleep.
“One o’clock!” called Rutter, sitting up and consulting his watch.
“Fall to, slaves! There is a big batch of work awaiting us.
Hazelton, you can go right on where you left off. Survey along
carefully until you come upon a stake marked ‘Reade.’ Then come
forward until you find us. Reade, I’ll go along with you and
show you where to break in.”
Preceded by their chainmen, Rutter and Reade trudged along the
trail for something like a mile.
“Halt,” ordered Jack Rutter. “Reade, write your autograph on that
stake and begin.”
Tom stepped over to the transit, adjusting it carefully and setting
the hanging plummet on dead centre with the nail head in the top
of the short stake.
“Never set up a transit again,” directed Rutter, “without making
sure that your levels are absolutely true, and that your vernier
arrangement is in order.”
“I don’t believe you’ll ever catch me at that, Mr. Rutter,” Tom
answered, busying himself with the finer adjustments of the transit.
“Mr. Price pounded that into me every time that he took me out
in the field.”
“Nevertheless,” went on Rutter, “I have known older engineers
than you, Reade, who became careless, and their carelessness cost
their employers a lot of wasted time and money. Now, you-----”
At this juncture Jack Rutter suddenly crouched behind a low ledge
at the right.
“Get behind here, quickly, Reade!” called Rutter. “Bad Pete is
up the hillside, about two hundred yards from you-----”
“I haven’t time to bother with him, now,” Tom broke in composedly.
“Duck fast, boy! Pete has an ugly grin on his face, and he’s
reaching for his pistol. He’s got it out---he’s going to shoot!”
whispered Rutter, drawing his head down where it would be safe
from flying bullets.
The chainmen, lounging nearby, had wasted no time in getting safely
to cover.
“Going to shoot, is he?” murmured Tom, without glancing away from
the instrument. “Does Peter really know how to shoot,”
“You’ll find out! Jump---like a flash, boy!”
Tom went calmly on tinkering with the mechanism of his instrument.
Bang! sounded up the trail. Tom’s fingers didn’t falter as he
adjusted a small, brass screw.
Bang! came the second shot. Tom betrayed no more annoyance than
before. Bad Pete was aiming to drive bullets into the ground close
to the young engineer’s feet, making him skip about. The sixth shot
Pete was saving for clipping Reade’s hat from his head.
The shots continued to ring out. Tom, though he appeared to be
absorbed in his instrument, counted. When he had counted the
sixth shot Reade dropped suddenly, picked up a stone that lay
at his feet, and whirled about.
Tom Reade hadn’t devoted years to ball-playing without knowing
how to throw straight. The stone left his hand, arching upward,
and flew straight toward Bad Pete, who had advanced steadily as
he fired.
Whiff! Though Pete tried, too late, to dodge the stone, it landed
against his sombrero, carrying that away without injuring the
owner.
“Kindly clear out!” called Tom coolly. “You and your noise annoy me
when I’m trying to do a big afternoon’s work.”
Snatching up his sombrero, Bad Pete vanished into a clump of brush.
Jack Rutter leaped up from his haven of safety, advancing swiftly
to his cub assistant.
“Reade,” he exclaimed, with ungrudging admiration, “you’re the
coolest young fellow I ever met, without exception. But you’re
foolhardy, boy. Bad Pete is a real shot. One of these days,
when you’re just as cool, he’ll fill you full of lead!”
“If he does?” retorted Tom, again bending over his transit, “and
if I notice it, I’ll throw a bigger stone at him than I did that
time, and it’ll land on him a few inches lower down.”
“But, boy, don’t you understand that the days of David and Goliath
are gone by,” remonstrated Rutter. “It’s true you’re turned the
laugh on Pete, but that fellow won’t forgive you. He may open
on you again within two minutes.”
“I don’t believe he will,” replied Tom, with his quiet smile.
“At the same time, I’ll be prepared for him.”
Bending to the ground, and rummaging about a bit, Reade selected
three stones that would throw well. These he dropped into one
of his pockets.
“Now, let the bad man trot himself on, if he has to,” added the
cub engineer, waving a signal to the rodman, who had just halted
at the next stake.
“Well, of all the cool ones!” grunted Rutter, under his breath.
“But, then, Reade’s a tenderfoot. He doesn’t understand just
how dangerous a fellow like Pete can be.”
The chainman started away to measure the distance. From up the
hillside came sounds of smothered but very bad language.
“There’s our friend Peter again,” Tom chuckled to Rutter.
“Yes, and the ruffian may open on you again at any moment,” warned
Jack, keeping an anxious glance turned in the direction whence
came the disturbing voice of Bad Pete.
“Oh, I don’t think he will,” drawled Tom, making a hand signal
to the leading chainman to step a little more to the left. “I
hope not, anyway, for the noise of revolver shots takes my thoughts
away from my work.”
Jack Rutter said no more after that, though through the rest of
the afternoon he kept an alert lookout for signs of Pete. There
were none, however. Rather earlier than usual, on account of
the distance back to camp, Rutter knocked off work for the entire
party and the start on the return to camp was made.
Harry Hazelton was considerably excited when he heard the news
of the firing on his chum. Reade, however, appeared to be but
little interested in the subject.
Pete was not in camp that evening.
Rutter went at once to the tent of the chief, to tell him how
well the “cubs” had done during the day. Nor did Jack forget
to relate the encounter with Bad Pete.
Just as the underlings of the staff were seating themselves around
the table in their mess, Mr. Thurston thrust his head in at the
doorway.
“Reade,” called the chief engineer, “I have heard about your trouble
with Pete today.”
“There wasn’t any real trouble, sir,” Tom answered.
“Fortunately for you, Reade, Pete didn’t intend to hit you. If
he had meant to do so, he’d have done it. I’ve seen him shoot
all the spots out of a ten of clubs. Don’t provoke the fellow,
Reade, or he’ll shoot you full of fancy holes. Of course it showed
both grit and coolness on your part in keeping steadily on with
your work all the time the fellow was firing at you. Still, it
was unwise to expose yourself needlessly to danger.”
“I didn’t consider Bad Pete particularly dangerous,” Tom rejoined.
“A lawless man with a loaded revolver is hardly a safe person
to trifle with,” retorted Mr. Thurston dryly.
“I see that I shall have to make a confession,” smiled Tom. “It
was this way, sir. When Hazelton and I were on our way west Harry
insisted that we were coming into a dangerous country and that
we’d need firearms. So Harry bought two forty-five six-shooters
and several boxes of cartridges, too. I was provoked when I heard
about it, for we hadn’t any too much money, and Harry had bought
the revolvers out of our joint treasury.”
“I felt sure we’d need the pistols,” interrupted Hazelton. “Today’s
affair shows that I was right. Tom, you’ll have to carry one
of the revolvers after this.”
“I’m no gun-packer,” retorted Tom scornfully. “Young men have
no business carting firearms about unless they’re hunting or going
to war. Any fellow who carries a pistol as he would a lead pencil
is either a coward or a lunatic.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that, Reade,” nodded Mr. Thurston approvingly.
“Two of my staff carry pistols, but they do so under my orders.
In the first place they’re grown men, not boys. In the second
place, they’re working over a stretch of ground where rattlesnakes
are thick. Your coolness today served you better than a pistol
would have done. If you had had a revolver, and had drawn it,
Pete would have drilled you through the head.”
“Drilled me through the head---with what?” asked Tom, smiling.
“With a bullet, of course, young man,” retorted Mr. Thurston.
“I don’t believe he would have gone as far as that,” laughed Tom.
“You see, sir, it was like this: When I found Harry so set on
carrying a pistol, I went down deep in my own pocket and bought
two boxes of blank cartridges to fit the forty-fives. I thought
if Harry were going to do some shooting, it would be the part
of friendship to fix him so that he could do it in safety to himself
and others.”
Harry’s face turned decidedly red. He was beginning to feel foolish.
“Now, this morning,” Tom continued, “when I got the khaki out
of my dunnage, I ran across the blanks. I don’t know what made
me do it, but I dropped the box of blanks into one of my pockets.
This noon, when I went off to find a stream where I could wash
up, I almost stepped on our friend Peter, asleep under a bush.
For greater comfort he had taken off his belt and holster. Somehow,
I didn’t like the idea of his being there. As softly as I could
I crept close. I emptied his revolver and fitted in blanks from
my own box. Then I took about twenty cartridges out of Peter’s
belt and replaced them with blanks.”
“Do you mean to tell me,” broke in Rutter, “that Bad Pete, when
he turned his revolver loose on you, was shooting nothing but
blanks?”
“That was all he had to shoot,” Tom returned coolly. “And blanks
were all he had in his belt to reload with. Don’t you remember
when we heard him making a noise up the hillside, and talking
in dots and dashes!”
“I do,” nodded Rutter, looking half dazed.
“That,” grinned Reade, “was when he started in to reload? and
discovered that he had nothing on hand but temperance cartridges.
Here-----” Tom began to unload one of his pockets upon the wooden
table before the astonished eyes of the others. There was a mixture
of his own blank cartridges with the real ammunition that he had
stealthily abstracted from Bad Pete’s revolver and belt.
Such a whoop of glee ascended that the head chainman came running
from the other nearby mess tent to see what was up.
“Just a little joke among our youngsters, my man,” explained Mr.
Thurston. “The young gentlemen are going to keep the joke to
themselves for the present, though.”
So the mystified and disappointed chainman returned to his own
crowd.
“Let me see, Reade,” continued Mr. Thurston, turning once more
to Tom, “what is your salary?”
“I was taken on, sir, at forty dollars a month, as a starter,”
Tom replied.
“A young man with your size of head is worth more than that to
the company. We’ll call it fifty a month, Reade, and keep our
eyes on you for signs of further improvement,” said the chief
engineer, as he turned to go back to his own waiting dinner.