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The Young Engineers on the Gulf, a fiction by H. Irving Hancock |
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Chapter 4. Some One Calls Again |
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_ CHAPTER IV. SOME ONE CALLS AGAIN Half an hour later Tom Reade leaped ashore at the little pier. "My orders, Mr. Reade." "They're brief and concise," Tom rejoined. "You're to cruise the length of the wall, especially farther out from shore. Use your searchlight freely. Keep the wall so guarded that no rascal can slip out there, either over the wall or by boat, and do any damage. Mr. Evarts, the safety of the wall until daylight is your whole charge." "Very good, sir. But I'm sure that nothing more will happen to the wall." "If anything does it will be up to you, Mr. Evarts," Tom assured him grimly. "I'll hold you responsible." "I won't let anything happen, Mr. Reade. And I hope you find Mr. Hazelton all right." "He may be up at camp," Tom answered, though in his heart he did not believe it. Had Harry escaped whatever danger had menaced him, Tom knew very well that his chum, after appealing for help, would by some means have signaled his subsequent safety. However, Tom started toward camp at a run. He was wholly mystified. The search in the neighborhood of the breach in the wall had been continued until its hopelessness had been fully demonstrated. The search had also been continued over the water, for a possible clue to the mystery. Though Tom ran, he felt himself choking, stifling. Despite all his efforts to cheer himself the young chief engineer felt certain that his chum had mysteriously met his fate, and that brave, dependable Harry Hazelton was no more. Yet how could he have vanished so completely, and what possibly could have happened to his assailant or assailants? "It'll be an awful night, until daylight," Tom groaned inwardly, as he ran. "At daylight, of course, we can make a far better search, especially over the water. But in the hours that must elapse---! It's going to be a tough period of waiting!" Arrived at camp, Tom made straight for his own barracks, letting himself in with a latch-key as soon as he could control his shaking hand sufficiently to use the key. Tom bounded straight for the bed-room of the superintendent, at the rear of the little building. "Mr. Renshaw!" shouted the young chief, throwing open the bed-room door. The barrack was lighted by electricity. Tom threw on the light, then wheeled toward the bed, to find the superintendent sitting up, revolver in hand. "Oh, it's you, is it?" gasped the superintendent. "Mr. Reade, in my stupor from being aroused I was just on the point of shooting you for a burglar. It's awful!" "You ought to throw that revolver to the bottom of the gulf," Tom rasped out. "Not much!" retorted the superintendent. "Handling as mixed a crew as we have on this work I wouldn't think of going about unarmed. And you ought to go armed, too, Mr. Reade." "Bosh!" uttered Tom. He had a well-known objection to carrying a pistol. Reade always maintained that a pistol-carrying man was a coward. A coward is one who is afraid, and the man who is not afraid has no reason to carry a weapon. "Renshaw," added Tom, "there's just one circumstance in which I would carry a pistol---and that is, if I were carrying large sums of other people's money. If I were a pay-master, or a bank messenger, I'd carry a pistol, but under no other circumstances, outside of military service, would I carry a weapon. But---are you thoroughly awake, now?" "Yes, sir." "Then, Mr. Renshaw, get up and hide that pistol somewhere. While you're about it, listen to me. Some scoundrel has blown out a large portion of our retaining wall to-night. I left Hazelton on guard at the point and came ashore to get out the motor boat, 'Morton.' Before I could return I heard Hazelton's call for help, and---he has disappeared! There's wicked work on hand to-night. You'll have to get up and help me. Be quick with your dressing. We've work to do to-night, and all of it is man's work." Tom hastily added such other particulars as were needed. Renshaw, while he dressed hurriedly, listened with a horror that he took no pains to conceal. "Evarts claims that it's revenge work, on the part of some of our men, because Hazelton and I stopped gambling in the camp," Tom continued. "It might be," Renshaw admitted thoughtfully. "But to me it seems that there must be a lot more behind the whole terrible matter." "That's the way it strikes me, too," Tom nodded. "However, you're dressed, so now we can hurry out and get busy." "What shall we do first?" Superintendent Renshaw inquired. "That's what I've been thinking over while you were dressing," Tom replied. "Of course the one thing of real importance is to find Hazelton." "Killed, beyond a doubt," replied the older man. "I refuse to believe it," Tom retorted. "There's a mystery in his fate, but I simply won't believe that Harry has been killed." "Then why didn't you hear from him further?" "That's the mystery." Tom had shaped their course for the barracks occupied by the foremen. He bounded upon the little porch and began to hammer on the door with both fists. "Turn out, everybody!" Tom bellowed. "Every foreman is on duty to-night. Show a light, and let us in as soon as you can." Some one was heard stirring. Then Dill, one of the foremen, admitted the callers. "Are all the others up?" Reade asked, sharply. "Yes, sir." "Good! Tell your associates to finish dressing as quickly as possible and to meet me in the office." "The office" was a little room just inside the entrance to the building. It was a room where the foremen sat and chatted in the evenings. "Put a double-hustle on, everyone," Tom called after Dill. "Yes, sir." Barely three minutes had passed when all of the six remaining foremen had assembled. Tom plunged instantly into a brief account of what had happened. "It seems to me, sir---" Dill began. "Keep it to yourself, then, if you please," Tom interrupted him gently. "We haven't any time for opinions to-night. What we want is swift, intelligent work, and a lot of it." Tom thereupon gave each man his directions. "Now, each of you go to your own gangs in the camp," he added. "Wake what men you need and put 'em to work. If any of the men object to being taken from their cots in the night, just lift them out. Don't stand any nonsense. Let each foreman make it his business to know just what the men under him are doing." One foreman was to take men with lanterns and go out carefully over every foot of the seawall. Another was to organize a beach patrol. Still another, with but two men, was to go into the town of Blixton and see if any tidings of Hazelton could be obtained there. To one foreman fell the task of searching carefully through camp before going to other work assigned to him. "Now, get to work, all of you," Tom ordered. "As an extra inducement you can tell your men that the one who finds Hazelton, whether dead or alive, shall have a reward of one hundred dollars. Remember the watchword for to-night, which is, 'hustle!'" In all, some sixty men were pulled from their cots. Tom, having given the orders, walked down to the beach with his superintendent. "You've covered everything that's possible, I think, Mr. Reade," commented the foreman. "I think I have. But there won't be any rest for any one until we have found Hazelton." "Are you going to have the water dragged?" "Not before daylight---perhaps not then," Reade replied. "I can't bring myself to believe that Harry was thrown into the water and that he drowned there." "It'll take the chief a day or two to realize that," sighed the superintendent to himself. "Yet that is exactly what has happened. The chief won't believe it, though, until the body is found." Down on the beach there was really nothing for Tom and his head man to do after the arrival of the foremen and their gangs. Everything went ahead in an orderly manner. "I don't suppose you could get any rest, under the circumstances, Mr. Reade," hinted the superintendent, "yet that is just what you are going to need." "Rest?" echoed Tom, gazing at the man, in a strange, wide-eyed way, while a grim smile flickered around the corners of his mouth. "What have rest and I to do with each other just now?" "Yet there's nothing you can do here." "I am here, anyway," Reade retorted. "I'm on the spot---that's something." "Let me run back to the house and get you some blankets," urged the superintendent. "Then you can lie down on the sand and rest. Of course I know you can't sleep at present." "It is not necessary go back," volunteered a voice behind them. "I have the blankets." "Nicolas!" gasped Tom, in surprise. "How did you know I was here?" "I wake up when you talk to Meester Renshaw," replied the Mexican simply. "I listen. I know, now---poor Senor Hazelton!" Nicolas's voice broke, and, as he stepped closer, Tom beheld some large tears trickling down the little Mexican's face. "Nicolas, you're a good fellow!" cried Tom, impulsively, "but I don't want the blankets. Spread them on the sand, then lie down on them yourself until I need you." "What---me? I lie down?" demanded Nicolas. "No, no! That impossible is. I must walk, walk! Me? I am like the caged panther to-night. I want nothing but find the enemy who have hurt Senor Hazelton. Then I jump on the back of that enemy!" Saying which Nicolas saluted, and, as became his position of servant, fell back some yards. But first he had dropped the blankets to the beach. The light of lanterns showed that the men of one gang were searching thoroughly all along the top of the wall. Once in a while a man belonging to the beach patrol passed the chief engineer and the superintendent, reporting only that no signs of Harry had been found. An hour thus passed. Then, from over the water, as the lantern-bearing searchers were returning, a dull explosion boomed across the water. "Great Scott!" quivered Tom. "There they go at it again, Mr. Renshaw! Another section of the retaining wall has gone---blown up!" _ |
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