The Young Engineers in Nevada Part 24

"I cannot use any of them for a day or two."

"Then you might do us a great favor by sending a few of your men over here. I expect that Gage's absent comrade will return at any time. He will have his rifle, and one gun in the hands of a marksman, might be enough to make considerable trouble around here."

"You ask me a favor, and yet you won't work for me," complained their guest.

"I think we did you a favor, once upon a time, by helping to chase off the Gage crowd at a critical time for you," said Tom bluntly.

"However, if you don't wish-----"

"I'll send half a dozen men over here until Ferrers returns,"

interjected Mr. Dunlop hastily.

The men reported to Tom and Harry within half an hour. A few minutes after their arrival Harry espied Dolph Gage's absent man galloping over to the Gage claim.

"There would have been trouble, if we hadn't shown a few armed men here," muttered Hazelton.

"There's some excitement in that camp, as it is," exclaimed Tom, who had a pair of binoculars at his eyes. "Gage, Eb and Josh are crowding around the new arrival. Take the gla.s.ses, Harry.

Note how excited they are about something."

"Gage is stamping about and looking wild," Harry reported. "He looks as though, for two cents, he'd tear his hair out. And Eb has thrown his hat on the ground and is stamping on it. I wonder what the trouble can be?"

Two hours later Jim Ferrers rode into camp at the head of his new outfit. He had the two-mule team and wagon, and seven men, all miners and armed. Two of the men rode the ponies that Reade had instructed Jim to buy.

"Jim," called Tom, as he ran toward their mining party, "have you any idea what's wrong with the Gage crowd?"

"I've a small notion," grinned the guide. "The man who was sent over couldn't file their claim to the ridge."

"Couldn't file it! Why not?"

"Because every man in that crowd has exhausted his mineral land privileges taking up claims elsewhere."

"Why, then, man alive!" gasped Tom, halting, a look of wonder on his face, and then a grin of realization, "if they can't file the claim to that strip, why can't we!"

"We can, if we're quick enough," Ferrers answered. "I tried to file the claim while I was over in Dugout, but the clerk at the mining claim office said he 'lowed that we'd have to have our declaration tacked up on the ridge first of all."

"That'll take us a blessed short time," muttered Reade. "Harry and I have all the particulars we need for writing out the notice of claim. Get some breakfast on the jump, Jim, and we'll hustle over there."

"I had my breakfast before I rode in here," errors answered, his eyes shining. "I'd a-missed my guess, Mr. Reade, if you hadn't been ready for prompt action."

"Then there's no reason, Jim, under mining customs, why we shouldn't ride over there and stake out that claim?"

"Not a reason on earth, Mr. Reade, except that Gage will probably put up a big fight."

"Let him!" added Tom, in a lower voice. "Take it from me, Jim Ferrers, that claim on the ridge yonder is worth all kinds of fight. Here, get the horses saddled again, while Harry and I write our notice in record-breaking time for legible penmanship."

Tom's eyes were gleaming in a way that they had not done in months.

For, despite his former apparent indifference to the trick Gage had played on them, Tom Reade would have staked his professional reputation on the richness of the ridge claim.

"It's gold, Harry---gold!" he exclaimed, hoa.r.s.ely, in his chum's ear. "It's gold enough to last us through life if we work it hard from the start."

"We'll have to kill a few men before we can get Gage off that ridge, though," Hazelton predicted.

"It's gold, I tell you, Harry. When the gold-craze gets into a fellow's blood nothing but gold can cure it. We won't kill any one, and we'll hope not to be killed ourselves. But that claim was our discovery, and now the way is clear for us to own that strip of Nevada dirt. Gold, Harry, old chum---gold!"

Then they fell to writing. Harry did the pen work while Reade dictated rapidly.

If Engineer Tom Reade had been briefly excited he did not betray the fact when he stepped outside the tent.

"Horses saddled, Mr. Reade," announced Ferrers. "I s'pose you're going to take some of the boys over with us, in case Gage tries to put up any shooting bluff?"

"Yes," nodded Tom. "But don't take with us any fellow who is hot-blooded enough to do any real shooting."

"It'll take real shooting to get Gage's crew off that ridge,"

Ferrers warned the young engineer. "All men get gold crazy when they find their feet on a claim. Dolph Gage will fight while he has breath left. Don't try to go over there, sir, if you're not satisfied to have a little shooting done at need."

"We're going over," declared Tom, the lines about his mouth tightening, "and we're going to take the claim for our own, as long as we have the legal right to do so. But I hope there won't have to be any gun-powder burned. Killing belongs only to one line of business---war!"

CHAPTER XII

NEW OWNERS FILE A CLAIM

Dolph Gage, after his richly deserved battering of the day before, presented a sorry-looking sight as he stood near the notice of his claim location.

In his right hand he gripped the only rifle there now was in his outfit, the one brought back by the man who had been to Dugout.

Jim Ferrers, rifle resting across the front of his saddle, rode at the head of the Reade-Hazelton party as that outfit reached the edge of the claim.

On either side of the guide, just to the rear, rode Tom and Harry.

Behind them tramped four men armed with rides, the other two men carrying a board, stakes and a hammer.

"The first man who sets foot on this claim dies!" shouted Dolph Gage hoa.r.s.ely.

"Same thing for any man who raises a rifle against us," Ferrers called back. "Gage, I want only a good excuse for taking one honest shot at you!"

The moment was tense with danger. Heedless of the black looks of Dolph, Tom dug his heels into his pony's flanks, moving forward at a trot.

"Gage," called the young engineer, steadily, "I think you have been in wrong often enough. This time I am sure that you will want to keep on the right side."

"You keep on the right side by staying off the claim!" Gage ordered, but at that instant Reade rode over the boundary.

For an instant no man could guess who would fire the first shot.

Gage was angry and desperate enough to fire and take great chances.

Had he fired at that moment there was no doubt that he would have been killed at the next breath.

Something stuck in Gage's throat. He did not raise his rifle, but instead he growled: