“I did. Mr. Watson sent a wire that you were coming, so the boss sent me here to get you, thinking you wouldn’t know the way. Porter and Morr, I believe––but which is which?”
“I am Dave Porter,” answered Dave, “and this is my chum, Roger Morr.”
“Glad to know you. My name is Frank Andrews. I am from Scranton, Pennsylvania. I suppose you can ride?”
“Oh, yes,” answered Roger. “We did more or less riding when we were out on Star Ranch.”
“Good enough! Some of the young fellows who come out here can’t ride at all, and they have some trouble getting around, believe me! This, you know, is the country of magnificent distances,” and Frank Andrews laughed.
“How many have you in the camp here?” questioned Dave, after he and Roger had mounted the two waiting burros and were riding off beside the man from the engineering camp.
“There are twenty of us in the engineering gang, and I think they have about seventy to eighty men in the construction camp, with forty or fifty more on the way. You see, they have been bothered a great deal for hired help lately on account of the trouble with the Mexican bandits and revolutionists. Lots of men are afraid to come down here to work for fear some bandits will make a raid across the border and shoot them down.”
“Have you had any trouble lately?” questioned Roger, quickly.
“We had trouble about two weeks ago. A couple of dirty Mexicans came into camp and were caught trying to steal away that night with some of our belongings. One of the fellows got a crack on the head with a club, and the other we think was shot in the side. But both of them got away in the darkness.”