"I wish you would all come over to my tent," Charley requested, when the meal was over. "I want to say a few words to you before we start work."
When they had all collected in the little tent, the lad spoke out frankly. "This is rather an uncertain piece of work we are on, friends," he said; "and it largely depends upon you whether we can carry it through. We are pressed for time to complete it, and we have pretty nearly reached the end of our capital. Some unknown enemy is trying to stop or delay the work, for some reason I do not understand. If you will all do your best, I believe we will pull out all right, but it's going to be close work. Two things we must do: keep the machine running, and beware of all strangers. Allow no stranger to come near the machine. McCarty has been longest on this job, so when you are in doubt about anything you can consult him. Now you can fix the watches to suit yourselves and pick your crews."
The question of shifts and crews was quickly settled between the engineers, Bob Bratton taking the first watch, from 12:00 o'clock until 8:00 o'clock at night. From 8:00 P. M. until 4:00 A. M. would be Will Kitchner's watch, while McCarty's trick would be from 4:00 A. M. until noon. This order, they agreed, should be changed each week, so that one man would not have to do all the night work. Each engineer understood some Spanish, and they soon picked out experienced firemen and ground men from among the Spaniards. As soon as all was settled, Bratton, with his crew, left for the machine, and the rest dispersed, to get things settled in their tents and to gain a little rest before it came their turn to go on duty.
As soon as our little party was alone, Walter related to the others the finding of the dynamite under the machine, and the presence of the four convicts in the near neighborhood.
"There's something big going on, but I can't imagine what it is," Charley said gravely.
"I reckon this road building is interfering with someone's plans, or they wouldn't be wanting to stop it," Captain Westfield observed.
"Sure," Walter agreed, "but who is this somebody, and what is his plan that we are interfering with?"
"I expect we will get a clew to that before long," Charley said thoughtfully. "As soon as they see we are going to push things they will likely try to stop us. They got at Murphy through his engineers, apparently. But they can't get at us in that way. In fact, I don't see any way they can get at us, if we are careful and keep a sharp lookout. We've got good engineers, and a good crew, now, and I brought out two extra men, so as to have plenty of help in case of sickness or accident."
"How about those convicts?" Walter asked.