"and quick to hand out the cash, at that."

"I took that for granted," smiled Duff, showing his white teeth. "Your
people, the Colthwaites, have always been accustomed to paying for
favors that require unusual talent, some courage-and perhaps a
persistency of the shooting kind."

Then the two rascals, who now thoroughly understood each other, fell to
plotting. An hour later the outlook was dark, indeed, for the success of
Tom Reade and Harry Hazelton.




CHAPTER II


DUFF ASSERTS HIS "RIGHTS"


"We've a hard afternoon ahead of us, Harry," remarked Tom Reade, as the
engineer chums finished the noonday meal in the public dining room of
the Mansion House.

"Pshaw! We'll have more real work to do after our material arrives,"
rejoined young Hazelton. "We're promised the material in four days. If
we get it in a fortnight we will be lucky."

"That might be true on some railroads," smiled Tom. "But Mr. Ellsworth,
the general manager of the A., G. & N. M., is a hustler, if I ever met