The Young Engineers on the Gulf Part 16

"Start?" scoffed the sallow-faced one. "Where to?"

"Anywhere, outside of this camp," Tom informed him. "You can't stay here any longer, and you can't come here again. If I catch you, again, on this company's property, I'll see to it that you're arrested, and locked up for trespa.s.s."

"That's the way to talk!" nodded Treasurer Prenter, approvingly.

"I guess I'll go when I get good and ready," a.s.serted the stranger.

In the front ranks of the crowd pressing around them, Reade now discerned the face of the Italian gang-master with whom he had talked recently.

"What's your name?" Tom demanded, turning about on the gang-master.

"Scipio, sir."

"Then, Scipio, take four men, and escort this fellow out of the camp.

Don't use any force unless you have to, but see to it that this fellow leaves camp as quickly as he can walk---or be dragged. Start him now."

Gang-master Scipio plainly didn't like the job, but he liked it better than he did the idea of being discharged. So he spoke to four Italians about him, and the five surrounded the man.

"Hol' on dar, Boss Reade!" spoke up a negro. "Ef yo' carry dis matter too far, den dere's gwine to be a strike on dis wohk. Jess ez dis gemman sez, we ain't no slaves. Yo' try to stop all our pleasures ebenings, an' dar's gwine be a strike---shuah!"

"You may strike right now, if you wish to," Tom retorted, facing the last speaker. "Mr. Renshaw will be prepared to pay you off within hour. Any other man in this camp who isn't content to get along without liquor and gambling may as well strike at the same time. Mr. Renshaw, it's half-past eight. At nine o'clock please be at the house ready to pay off any man who isn't satisfied to live and work in a camp where neither drinking nor gambling is allowed. Scipio, why haven't you started that fellow away from here?"

"Too bigga crowd in front of us," replied the Italian gang-master, shrugging his shoulders.

"Come on, Harry," Tom replied. "We'll see if we can't make a way through the crowd." The two young engineers placed themselves at the head of the squad, and succeeded quickly in opening up a pa.s.sage through a crowd that seemed to be at least half hostile.

Thus Tom found himself soon face to face with an American.

"Evarts!" Reade cried, angrily. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm here by permission," snarled the discharged foreman.

"Whose permission?" Tom insisted, briskly.

"Mr. Bas...o...b..s," replied Evarts, with a leer so full of satisfaction that Reade didn't doubt the truth of the statement.

"Mr. Bas...o...b.." Tom called, "did you tell Evarts that he might visit this camp?"

"Yes; I did," admitted the president of the company, stiffly.

"Then I'm sorry to say that Evarts has been misinformed," Tom went on.

"He _can't_ visit this camp. He's too much of a trouble-maker here."

"Shut up your talk!" jeered Evarts roughly. "Don't try to give orders to the president of the company that hires and pays you."

"Mr. Bas...o...b..is the head of the company that employs me," Tom a.s.sented.

"But I am in charge here, and am responsible, with Mr. Hazelton, for the good order of the camp and the success of the work. Therefore, Evarts, you'll leave camp now, and you won't come back again under pain of being punished for trespa.s.s."

"Oh, now see here, Reade---" began Mr. Bas...o...b..angrily, as he started forward. But Treasurer Prenter caught Bas...o...b..by the arm, whispering in his ear.

"Waiting for you, Mr. Bas...o...b.." called Evarts.

"I guess you'd better go," called the president, rather shamefacedly, after his talk with Mr. Prenter. "I guess maybe Reade is right. At all events his contract places him in charge of this camp."

"Humph, Evarts, a lot of good you can do us here, can't you?" sneered the sallow-faced fellow.

Tom looked first at one, and then at the other of the pair.

"So," guessed Reade shrewdly, "Evarts has been at the head of this game of unlawful liquor selling in this camp. There are other vendors here, too, are there?"

"You lie!" yelled the discharged foreman.

"You may prove that, at your convenience," Reade replied, without even a heightening of his color. "For the present, though, you're going to get out of camp and stay out."

"I called you a liar," sneered Evarts, "and you haven't the sand to fight about it."

"Fighting with one of your stripe isn't worth the while," Tom retorted, shortly. "Come along, Evarts. I'll show you the way out of camp."

As Reade spoke he took hold of the ex-foreman's arm gently.

"Leggo of me!" raged the foreman, clenching and raising one of his fists.

"Don't make the mistake of touching me," urged Tom, quietly, "but come along. This way out of camp!"

Evarts swung suddenly, driving a fist straight at Reade's face. But the young chief engineer was always alert at such times. One of his feet moved in between Evarts's feet, and the ex-foreman flopped down on his back.

"Come on, now!" commanded Tom, jerking the fallen foe to his feet. "This time you'll hurry out of camp."

"Are you going to stand for it, men?" yelled Evarts, his face aflame with anger. "Come on---all of you! Show that you're not a pack of cowards and slaves!"

From more than a hundred throats came an ominous yell. The crowd surged around Reade and Hazelton. Mr. Bas...o...b.. seeing his chance, dodged and ran out of the crowd. But Mr. Prenter, with a spring, placed himself at Tom Reade's side.

"Come on, men!" yelled the sallow-faced fellow.

"Run dem w'ite slave-drivers outah camp!" yelled a score of negroes. Yells in Italian and Portuguese also filled the air.

In an instant it was plain that Tom Reade had stirred up more than a hornet's nest.

"Come on, Harry," spoke Tom, firmly. "Let's run this pair out of camp.

Then we'll come back and look for more trouble-makers and trouble-hunters!

Make way there, men!"

One excitable Italian rushed through the crowd, brandis.h.i.+ng a revolver. As alarmed men fell back, the Italian confronted Reade, holding the revolver almost in the latter's face and firing.

CHAPTER X