Charley strolled over to the little tent and entered it. It was small and dirty, and the dirt floor was littered with whiskey bottles, all empty. Charley viewed them with a grim smile. "No wonder Murphy lost out," he murmured. "A man cannot put up a good fight and entertain John Barleycorn at the same time." There was a rude box desk in one corner of the tent, littered with letters and papers. Charley seated himself beside it and overhauled its contents quickly. This done, he walked out of the tent's squalor into the open air once more. He next drew back the flap of the first engineer's tent, and peeped inside, but the tent was deserted, as was also the second, save for disordered cots and black, greasy clothing, flung here and there. In the third tent, however, he found a young man, stretched out on a cot reading a magazine. Unlike the other tents, this was neat and cleanly, and the dirty working clothes of its occupants were hung up on a line stretching across the tent. "Hello," he greeted Charley boyishly. "Back again are you?"
"Yes," agreed Charley, as he noted the other's self-reliant, boyish face. "I ought to have to apologize for not ringing your bell, or knocking at your front door, but I didn't see either."
"That's all right," laughed the youth, as he sat up on the end of his cot. "Take a seat on the other end. That's my seat of honor for my visitors."
"What's your name?" Charley inquired.
"C. P. McCarty," replied the youth, with a grin. "I'm ashamed to confess that the C. P. stands for Clarence Percy, but don't call me either, for I see red when I get good and mad."
"One of the engineers?"
"Oh, we get called that sometimes by courtesy. Really, we are what you might term runners. No one of us three is really a licensed engineer. Say, what might your name be?"
"Charley West, one of the new owners of this business."
McCarty threw back his head and chuckled. "Whew!" he whistled, "just to think I've been talking flippant to a new boss for the last ten minutes."
"Never mind that," Charley grinned. "What I want to know is what's the matter here? Why is the steam shovel not running? Where are the other two runners?"