The Young Engineers on the Gulf Part 7

"Good! Tell your a.s.sociates 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 pa.s.sed when all of the six remaining foremen had a.s.sembled. 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 a.s.signed 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 pa.s.sed the chief engineer and the superintendent, reporting only that no signs of Harry had been found.

An hour thus pa.s.sed. 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!"

CHAPTER V

WANTED---DAYLIGHT AND DIVERS

In a trice the foreman of the gang on the wall wheeled his men about, running them out seaward toward the scene of the latest explosion. That much was plain from the twinkling of the rapidly-moving lanterns.

"Come on, Renshaw!" Tom shouted. "You, too, Nicolas. You can pull an oar."

Reade was already racing out on to the small dock. He all but threw himself into a rowboat that lay tied alongside.

"Cast off and get in," Tom ordered his companions, as he pushed out a pair of oars. "Nicolas, you're also good with a pair of oars. Mr. Renshaw, you take the tiller. Inform me instantly when you see the first gleam of the 'Morton's' search-light. Evarts ought to have caught the scoundrels this time. Evidently he's been cruising softly without showing a light."

Mr. Renshaw gathered up the tiller ropes as Tom pushed off from the dock.

Then the chief engineer addressed himself to the task of rowing. His firm muscles, working at their best, shot the little craft ahead. Nicolas, at the bow oars, did his best to keep up with his chief in the matter of rowing, though the Mexican was neither an oarsman nor an athlete.

"Don't you make out the motor boat's lights yet?" Tom asked impatiently, after the first long spurt of rowing.

"Not yet, sir," replied the superintendent. "I shan't miss the light when it shows."

A few minutes later the superintendent announced in a low voice:

"There's some craft, motionless, just a bit ahead."