In the meantime, Dave’s sister had gone to the West, to visit her intimate friend, Belle Endicott, who lived on Star Ranch in Montana. Later still, Laura, Dave and some of his chums visited the ranch and there had “the time of their lives,” as they afterward declared.
Coming back from the West, Dave supposed that matters would flow along smoothly, but such was not the case. At Christmas time came a startling robbery of the Wadsworth jewelry works, and Dave and his chums discovered that the crime had been committed by two of the former bullies of Oak Hall. After a voyage to Cave Island one of the rascals was captured and the stolen goods recovered.
The trip to Cave Island was later on followed by another to the great West, where Dave aided Roger Morr in relocating a gold mine which had been inherited by Mrs. Morr and lost through a landslide.
After this our hero went to Bear Camp in the Adirondack Mountains. There he had a most unusual experience, falling in with a young man who was almost his double in appearance.
Dave had now graduated from Oak Hall, and he and Roger Morr had taken up the profession of civil engineering. This work at first took them to Texas, and then to the wilds of Montana. They had positions with the Mentor Construction Company, and their camp was under the general management of Mr. Ralph Obray, assisted by a number of others, including a middle-aged engineer, Frank Andrews, who speedily became a warm friend of the youths.
It was a great day for the young civil engineers when they set sail for Central America to assist in the work of building a railroad in Costa Rica. This was at the time when the World War was in progress in Europe, but before the United States had entered the conflict. They were in the midst of some exciting happenings in the Central American republic when word came that the United States had joined with the Allies “to make the world safe for democracy.”
“Roger, how would you like to become an army engineer?” Dave had asked of his chum. And then he had spoken of how the United States Government would probably need hundreds of army engineers to assist the soldiers in their battles with the Central Powers.
Mr. Ralph Obray had once been a major in the State militia, and on returning to the United States he became a captain of a unit of the engineers raised by the Engineering Society. He was very anxious to have Dave and Roger join this unit, and after consulting with their folks, the two young civil engineers were sworn into the service. With them went Ben Basswood, and also Phil Lawrence, Shadow Hamilton, and Buster Beggs.
Before the boys left home to go to Camp Hickory, as the cantonment was called, several interesting events took place. As my old readers know, to Dave there was no girl in the world quite so nice as Jessie Wadsworth, and the pair had a very definite understanding regarding what they intended to do when Dave returned from the war.
Roger had always been very attentive to Laura Porter, and just before leaving for camp their engagement was announced.