Dick Maxwell, watching with all his eyes, presently saw an arm reach out of the shadows toward the sleeper, and then saw, or thought he could see, a cap replace the battered hat that lay beside the water boy. A minute later the hat, with a shuffling figure under it, came in sight, and the figure was reaching for the empty water bucket.
It was at this climaxing instant that a shout went up—“Water boy!” The sleeper under the trees never stirred, but the figure with the bucket, stumbling along so exactly like the real owner of the hat that Dick, himself, could hardly realize that it was Larry, answered the call.
The shouter was one of the assistant engineers, and he was standing within a few yards of Dick’s hiding place. As Larry, bucket in hand, and with the borrowed hat pulled down over his eyes, came up, the engineer scribbled a line on a leaf of his pocket note-book, tore the leaf out and thrust it at Larry with a crisp order.
“Here, boy; drop that bucket and run up to the office with this. Bring the blue-print they’ll give you back to me. Chase your feet now, and don’t be all night about it!”
Dick held his breath while the transfer of the bit of paper was being made. It didn’t seem possible that Larry could go unrecognized. But the flare lights were a bit uncertain, and before the anxious watcher could do more than gasp, Larry had turned and was running up the track.
Larry, himself, cool, collected, and holding his excitement down with a firm grip, was none too sure he could carry it off until he had the piece of paper safely in hand and was hurrying away with it. But with the one risk left behind, there was a sharper one on ahead. The field office would be well lighted, and, worse than that, the fierce-eyed chief might be there. Also, in the interval the real water boy might wake up and show himself. It was a moment for quick work, and for nothing else.
Running like a sprinter trying to break a record, Larry soon reached the camp. A passing teamster directed him and he stumbled into the engineers’ office and gave the note to the first man he came to; a draftsman working over a trestle-board table. There were three other men in the office and the big chief was one of them. They were talking, and they paid no attention to a mere messenger boy standing aside while the draftsman hunted for the required blue-print. All ears for the hoped-for information, this is what Larry heard.
“Well, it’s just as I’ve been sayin’; we’re all handing it to you, Chief. If you hadn’t made that second survey on the north side of the canyon, this quick move of Ackerman’s would have blocked us,”—this from one of the three whom Larry recognized as the boss bridge builder. “And your scheme of getting around the cliffs with a temporary trestle in the bed of the river is all right. We can do it, using the timbers and steel we were going to use in the bridge.”
“That’s all right for you, Sedgwick,” was the growling answer, “but I’m still sore about letting those kids get away last night. That was a bonehead trick, and it’s what did us up. The next time I get hold of any of Ackerman’s spies, kids or no kids, they’ll go to jail!”
Larry didn’t wait to hear any more. He grabbed the blue-print the draftsman had found for him and ran with it as if all the gray timber wolves in the Timanyonis were at his heels. Almost by a miracle, as it seemed, he had got the needed information. The rival railroad was abandoning its original plan of usurping the Short Line’s right-of-way, and was preparing to build a paralleling line on the other side of the canyon!