ugly character, who carries all he knows of law in his holsters,
and we're a long way from the sheriff's officers."

"Is he really bad?" asked Tom innocently.

"Really bad?" laughed the man in khaki. "You'll find out if you
try to cross him. Are you visiting the camp?"

"Reade! Hazelton!" called a voice brusquely from the big tent.

"That's Mr. Thurston calling us, I guess," said Tom quickly.
"We'll have to excuse ourselves and go and report to him."

"Yes, that was Thurston," nodded the slim man. "And I'm Blaisdell,
the assistant engineer. I'll go along with you."

Throwing aside the canvas flap, Mr. Blaisdell led the boys inside
the big tent. At one end a portion of the tent was curtained
off, and this was presumably the chief engineer's bedroom. Near
the centre of the tent was a flat table about six by ten feet.
Just at present it held many drawings, all arranged in orderly
piles. Not far from the big table was a smaller one on which
a typewriting machine rested.

The man who sat at the large table, and who wheeled about in a
revolving chair as Tom and Harry entered, was perhaps forty-five
years of age. His head was covered with a mass of bushy black
hair. His face was as swarthy, in its clean-shaven condition,
as though the owner had spent all of his life under a hot sun.
His clothing like that of all the rest of the engineers in camp