in too thickly with the chief."

"If you folks don't come into supper soon," growled the voice
of the cook, Jake Wren, from the doorway of the engineer's mess
tent, "I'll eat your grub myself."

"He'd do it, too," groaned Slim Morris, a young man who nevertheless
weighed more than two hundred pounds. "Blaze, won't you take
us inside and put us in our high chairs?"

There was infinite good humor in this small force of field engineers.
As was afterwards learned, all of them were graduates either
of colleges or of scientific schools but not one of them affected
any superiority over the young newcomers.

Just as the party had seated themselves there was a step outside,
and Bad Pete stalked in looking decidedly sulky.

"Evening," he grunted, and helped himself to a seat at the table.

"Reade and Hazelton, you've had the pleasure of meeting Pete,
I believe?" asked Blaisdell, without the trace of a smile.

"Huh!" growled Pete, not looking up, for the first supply of food
was on the table.

"We've had the pleasure, twice today, of meeting Mr. Peter," replied
Tom, with equal gravity.

"See here, tenderfoot," scowled Bad Pete, looking up from his