The Young Engineers on the Gulf Part 31

Lieutenant d.i.c.k demanded, indignantly. "Sleep? Can't I get enough of that when I go aboard a Pullman again and am riding out to Colorado? Of course I'm going to help---and I'm going to have my share of all the opportunities for excitement here---or else I'm going to cut your acquaintance."

"Why, of course we'll be delighted to have your help, d.i.c.k, if you want to stand the racket," Reade made haste to say. "It will surely seem like doubling---or trebling---our forces, to have d.i.c.k Prescott working hand in hand with us."

"Then that's settled," cried d.i.c.k, with an air of satisfaction.

"You haven't had any sleep lately, have you, d.i.c.k?" inquired Tom, after they had chatted a little longer.

"No; I haven't."

"Then you must turn in and get a few hours," proposed Reade. "I must have a little myself, as I shall have to be up and go into court during the coming forenoon."

"I'm wide awake now," said Harry. "So I'll sit right here on the porch and dream of d.i.c.k and Greg, and good old Dave Darrin and Danny Dalzell, and the good times we had in old Gridley. What time do you want to be up, Tom?"

"Not later than eight," Reade answered.

"Trust me," said Harry promptly. Harry went to his own bedroom, pulled his bed apart, remade it with fresh linen, and with a final grip of d.i.c.k's hand, he left the army officer to turn in there.

At eight o'clock Hazelton called both Tom and d.i.c.k. They turned out promptly, to find that Nicolas had laid an appetizing breakfast on the porch.

Then Tom had to hurry over to Blixton, d.i.c.k going with him, while Hazelton went down to the breakwater to superintend the day's work there.

Only a little time had to be spent in the justice's stuffy court. Hawkins and his fellow gamblers and bootleggers were arraigned and held in one thousand dollars' bail each for trial. As none of them had the money the eight men were sent to the county jail pending trial.

"That's queer," mused Tom, aloud, as he and d.i.c.k walked back to camp.

"You'd think that professional gamblers would have money enough to put up small bail."

"Not if they're working for other people," suggested d.i.c.k. "These men may be merely the agents of some larger crowd."

"Meaning that the larger crowd may be a sort of vice trust, operating in many fields at the same time?" queried Reade.

"Something of the sort," replied the young army officer. "To-day nearly everything has been capitalized on a large scale of combined capital. Why shouldn't vice be?"

"I begin to think you're more than half right in your guess," Tom admitted.

"Your explanation is about the only way to account for a fellow like Hawkins not having a thousand at his instant disposal. However, if these fellows represent a vice trust, then I suppose it will be a question of only a little time when the trust sends down money enough to put up the needed bail."

"That will undoubtedly happen," nodded d.i.c.k. "And then you'll have to look out for that fellow, Hawkins, and all the men he can command. Hawkins looked at you, in court, as though he'd enjoy pulverizing you."

"I'm ready, when he is," laughed Tom. "If he'd only fight in the open I wouldn't be at all afraid of him."

Tom now led the way down to the retaining wall. Prescott gazed with great interest at the signs of activity. On a closer inspection he was even more interested. He was capable of understanding very fully what was being done here, for every graduate of the United States Military Academy is supposed to be a capable engineer.

"You've a difficult task on hand, but your basic principle is sound, and you're doing the work finely and economically," d.i.c.k declared with emphasis.

Harry came in from the outer end of the wall and joined them. He listened with pride to the praises that the army officer showered on the engineers.

"I wish Mr. Bas...o...b.. the president of the company, could hear you," said Harry. "He isn't altogether sure that we know what we're about in anything that we're doing."

"Then I've a very good mental picture of Bas...o...b.." declared d.i.c.k, bluntly.

"Bas...o...b..is something of a chump. By the way, if you want to get square with Mr. Bas...o...b.. why don't you coax him down here to help you look out for the evil-doers who are combined against you?"

"He wouldn't be much use," sighed Tom. "He's an impossible sort of chap.

He wanted us to stop our crusade against camp vice. Said it was hurting business."

"What craft is that?" inquired d.i.c.k, looking toward a sailboat that was moving lazily along about a half-mile to the eastward.

"I don't know," Tom answered, after a look. "Never saw the boat before.

Regular cabin cruiser, isn't she, about forty feet long?"

"About that," nodded d.i.c.k. "What interested me in her was the fact that a fellow on board has been watching us with a marine gla.s.s. I caught the glint of the sun on the lenses."

"Why should he want to be watching us?" demanded Hazelton.

"That's just what made me curious," replied Prescott. "As an army officer, if this were a fort that I commanded in troublous times, I'd want to look into any strange craft that I caught cruising lazily in the offing and holding a marine gla.s.s on us."

"I wonder if that boat can be in the service of those who are annoying us?"

Tom muttered.

"It's an even chance that it is a 'hostile s.h.i.+p,'" Prescott suggested.

"You have a motor boat here. I'm inclined to think you ought to use it in overhauling that suspicious craft. Of course you'd have no right unless there was a police officer along. Can you get one?"

"The authorities in Blixton would send a policeman on request."

"Then send a messenger to request them to send over a policeman in citizen's clothes," proposed d.i.c.k.

Tom promptly despatched Foreman Dill on that errand.

"Now don't let the men on the boat see that you're paying any more attention," Prescott advised. "Leave it to me, and I'll contrive to keep the boat and its people under observation without looking too plainly in their direction."

In due time the plain clothes policeman arrived. He, the young engineers and the army lieutenant boarded the "Morton," which put out from the landing as though on a trip of inspection of the wall.

"Don't anyone look over at the sloop," Prescott urged. "I'll do the watching. A fellow on that craft is holding the gla.s.ses on us right now.

Officer, do you demand the a.s.sistance of all present in any police duty that may come up?"

"I do," replied the Blixton policeman, a man named Carnes, returning Prescott's wink.

"All right, then," laughed d.i.c.k. "That demand makes policemen of us all.

Tom, you can turn, now, when ready, and put on full speed in going after that craft."

Reade gave the order for full speed, then took the steering wheel himself.

"Guilty conscience!" laughed Prescott. "There's the sloop putting about at once and heading away from us."

"They can't get away from us, in this light wind," chuckled the young chief engineer.

A few minutes later the "Morton" came up within easy hailing distance of the sloop, aboard which only one man now appeared.

"Sloop ahoy!" called the policeman. "What are you doing in these waters?"

"Looking for a good fis.h.i.+ng ground," answered the dark-faced man at the tiller.