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Page 26
"I'll be thankful when the material gets here," sighed Tom. "I'm tired
of loafing."
"It seems to me that you have been doing anything but loafing," smiled
the general manager.
"I want to get to work on the Man-killer. Besides, idleness is costing
the road a lot of money in wages for these men."
"I wired this afternoon," stated Mr. Ellsworth, "to have the material
trains rushed forward on express schedule as soon as the stuff strikes
our lines."
"Then--" began Hawkins slowly.
His next words were drowned out by a booming explosion to the westward
of the camp.
"The scoundrels!" gasped Tom Reade, leaping up. "This is more of our
friends' work! They have dynamited the most ticklish part of the work
on the Man-killer!"
CHAPTER VII
A DYNAMITE PUZZLE
"The scoundrels!" cried General Manager Ellsworth.
He was a man who believed in working along easy lines when possible.
His career as a railroad man had taught him the value of meeting other
people half way. Now the general manager's white face and flashing eyes
revealed the fighter in him.
From off to the south, beyond the quicksand, came a chorus of sharp,
shrill, gleeful whoops.
"There go the curs!" flared Harry.
Another volley of jeers reached the camp officials.
"They are mounted on horses," spoke Tom judicially. "They couldn't
travel as fast on foot and yell at the same time."
A third taunting chorus traveled over the desert. But Tom and his
friends, in the darkness of the night, could not make out the horsemen
nor judge how many there were of them.
"You'd better turn out the camp, Mr. Hawkins," directed Tom in a calmer
voice.
The superintendent ran over to where a night engineer almost dozed at
his post beside a stationary engine.
Half a minute later a series of shrill blasts rang out over the camp.
Laborers came tumbling out of the tents. Many of them had slept so
soundly that even the noise of dynamiting they had regarded only as a
part of their dreams. But the whistle meant business.
"Get the torches out, Mr. Rivers," called Tom, as one of the foremen
reported on a run.
To Foreman Payson, Harry gave the order to marshal a hundred of the men
to remain in and around the camp, alertly watchful.
"That's a good idea," nodded Mr. Ellsworth. "The explosion may be only a
trick to, empty the camp, as a prelude to further mischief."
Scores of torches flared in the darkness as the workmen hurried
westward. At the head of all went Tom Reade and the general manager.
Less than half a mile away they came upon the scene of mischief.
"It's just what I expected," nodded Tom, as the leading party halted
under the flare of the torches. "You see, sir, here was the point of
greatest cave and drift in the quicksand. It's where your former
engineers found such a morass of the shifty stuff that they declared the
Man-killer never could have its appetite satisfied with dirt. There was
a good log and concrete foundation laid down there, and for thirty-six
hours the sand had not shifted a particle as far as the eye could
discover. Now, look at it!"
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