“I suppose I’m thick,” Harry murmured. “How would Black, by turning in some wrong backsights and foresights, expect to delay the building of the road, even if he wanted to do it?”
“How?” repeated Tom Reade, showing an amount of heat and excitement that he rarely displayed. “Why, Harry, this same old Section Nineteen is one of the hard spots on the road. A lot of excavating has to be done before the tracks can be laid here. It’s not a mere matter of scooping up dirt and removing it, either. A large amount of solid rock has to be blasted out here before the roadbed can be laid.”
“I know it,” Harry nodded.
“Well, then, at the present moment our chief, Mr. Thurston, is preparing the estimates for the work that must be done. On his estimates will be based the strength of the laboring gangs that must come forward to do the work.”
“Yes.”
“Then, suppose that Mr. Thurston has been misled into making a certain estimate as to the number of thousand cubic yards of stuff that must be taken out of the outs that are to be made. After he gets his laborers here, and at work, he finds that he has at least three times as much rock and dirt to get out——-”
“I see,” cried Hazelton. “Before the chief could get men and wagons, and make all necessary changes in the work, the time would have slipped by so far that the finishing of the road would be blocked.”
“And the S.B. & L. would lose its charter,” finished Tom grimly.
“It’s mighty lucky that we came out here today, then,” exclaimed Hazelton, now fully alive to the danger that menaced their employers. “Come, we must hustle back to camp and show Mr. Thurston how he has been imposed on. There can’t be a doubt that ’Gene Black has been deliberately crooked.”
“Go slowly,” advised Tom. “Don’t be in a rush to call any other man a crook. Mr. Thurston can hear our report. Then he can look into it himself and form his own opinion. That’s as far as we have any right to go in the matter.”