"How's McCarty?" Walter asked, anxiously.
"Oh, he's come too, all right," answered the other carelessly. "He got a pretty good crack over the head, but it didn't break the skull any. He'll be all right in a couple of days. Meanwhile," he added, with a sigh, "Will and I will have to work twelve-hour shifts."
"Are you not afraid to work nights, with all the queer things that are going on around us?" Walter asked curiously.
The other laughed frankly. "Thunder, no," he said. "Dredge men get used to danger. It's around them all the time. Why, kid, when we are working in the Everglades, it is often impossible to hire men to work in the rotten mud, and then we have to go to the jails and convict camps to get our labor. I've worked on jobs there that there were no free men on the payroll but the engineers. All the rest were men working out their fines, and every last one of them eager to crack the engineers over the head and get away. Bosh! This job is a cinch compared with some jobs we have all worked on."
The sun was rising when Walter started back to camp. He had only gone a few steps when he stopped and waited. From the direction of Indiantown, a horseman was approaching the machine. The waiting lad recognized the pony and its rider. It was the little man whom he had escorted past the machine a couple of days before.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE CONVICTS.
Walter stepped back of the machine, where he could not be seen, and watched the little man approach. He was curious to see if Mr. Jones would attempt to speak to the engineer after the warning he had given him.
Just before he reached the machine the little man turned off the road and rode along the other side of the ditch. When opposite the machine, he reined in his pony and hailed the engineer. Bratton stopped the machine for a second. "Go on," he shouted. "No strangers are allowed near this machine."