The Young Engineers on the Gulf - Or, The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater

H. Irving (Harrie Irving) Hancock

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• Publié par: urra
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 43
• Langue: English

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Project Gutenberg's The Young Engineers on the
Gulf, by H. Irving Hancock
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Title: The Young Engineers on the Gulf The Dread
Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater
Author: H. Irving Hancock
Release Date: December 16, 2004 [EBook #14369]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG
EBOOK THE YOUNG ENGINEERS ON THE
GULF ***
Produced by Jim Ludwig
The Young Engineers on the Gulf
orThe Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater
By H. Irving HancockCONTENTS
CHAPTERS
I. The Mystery of a Black Night
II. The Call of One in Trouble
III. Vanishing into Thin Air
IV. Some One Calls Again
V. Wanted—-Daylight and Divers
VI. Mr. Bascomb is Peevish
VII. Tom Isn't as Easy as He Looks
VIII. Mr. Prenter Investigates
IX. Invited To Leave Camp
X. The Night is Not Over
XI. A Message from a Coward
XII. An Engineer's Fighting Blood
XIII. Wishing It on Mr. Sambo
XIV. The Black Man's Turn
XV. A David for a Goliath
XVI. A Test of Real Nerve
XVII. Tom Makes an Unexpected Capture
XVIII. The Army "On the Job"
XIX. A New Mystery Peeps In
XX. A Secret in Sight
XXI. Evarts Hears a Noise
XXII. Mr. Bascomb Hears Bad News
XXIII. Ebony Says "Thumbs Up"
XXIV. ConclusionCHAPTER I
THE MYSTERY OF A BLACK NIGHT
"I wish I had brought my electric flash out here with
me," muttered Harry
Hazelton uneasily.
"I told you that you'd better do it," chuckled Tom
Reade.
"But how could I know that the night would be pitch
dark?" Harry demanded. "I don't know this gulf
weather yet, and fifteen minutes ago the stars
were out in full force. Now look at them!"
"How can I look at them?" demanded Tom, halting.
"My flashlight won't pierce the clouds."
Reade halted on his dark, dangerous footway, and
Harry, just behind him, uttered a sigh of relief and
halted also.
"I never was in such a place as this before."
"You've been in many a worse place, though,"
rejoined Tom. "I never heard you make half as
much fuss, either."
"I think something must be wrong with my head,"
ventured Harry."Undoubtedly," Tom Reade agreed cheerily.
"Hear that water," Harry went on, in a voice
scarcely less disconsolate than before.
"Of course," nodded Tom. "But the water can
hardly be termed a surprise. We both knew that
the Gulf of Mexico is here. We saw it several times
to-day."
The two young men stood on a narrow ledge of
stone that jutted out of the water. This wall of stone
was the first, outer or retaining wall of masonry—-
the first work of constructing a great breakwater.
At high tide, this ledge was just fourteen inches
above the level surface of the Gulf of Mexico, and
at the time of the above conversation it was within
twenty minutes of high tide. The top of this wall of
masonry was thirty inches wide, which made but a
narrow footway for the two youths who, on a pitch
black night, were more than half a mile out from
shore.
On a pleasant night, for a young man with a steady
head, the top of this breakwater wall did not offer a
troublesome footpath. In broad daylight hundreds
of laborers and masons swarmed over it, working
side by side, or on scows and dredges alongside.
"Wait, and I'll show a light," volunteered Tom
raising his foot-long flashlight.
Some seventy-five yards behind them a crawling
snake-like figure flattened itself out on the top of
the rock wall."Don't show the light just yet," pleaded Harry. "It
might only make me more dizzy."
The flattened figure behind them wriggled
noiselessly along.
"Just listen to the water," continued Hazelton.
"Tom, I'm half-inclined to think that the water is
roughening."
"I believe it is," agreed Tom.
"Fine time we'll have getting back, if a gale springs
up from the southward," muttered Harry.
"See here, old fellow," interposed Tom vigorously,
"you're not up to concert pitch to-night. Now, I'll tell
you what I'll do—-first of all, what you'll do. You sit
right down flat on the top of the wall. Then I'll move
on up forward and see what has been happening
out there that should boom shoreward with such a
racket. You stay right here, and I'll be back as
soon as I've looked into the face of the mystery."
"What do you take me for?" Harry asked almost
fiercely. "A baby? Or a cold-foot?"
"Nothing like it," answered Tom Reade with
reassuring positiveness. "You're out of sorts, to-
night. Your head, or your nerves, or some thing,
has gone back on you, and you walk through this
blackness with half a notion that you're going to
walk over a precipice, or drop head-first into some
danger. With such a feeling it would be cruelty tolet you go forward, chum, and I'm not going to do
it. I'll go alone."
The crouching figure to the rear of the young
engineers quivered as though this separation of the
two engineers on this black night was a thing
devoutly to be desired.
"You're not going to do anything of the sort,"
retorted Harry Hazelton. "I'm going forward with
you. I'm going to stick to you. All I wanted was a
minute in which to brace myself. I've had that
minute. Now get forward with you. I'm on your
heels!"
Tom Reade shrugged his shoulders slightly.
However, he did not object or argue, for he
realized that his chum was sensitive over any
circumstance that seemed to point to sudden
failure of his courage.
"Come along, then," urged Tom. "Wait just a
second, though. I'll flash the light ahead along the
wall, to show you that it's all there, and just where
it lies."
A narrow beam of light shot ahead as Tom pressed
the spring of his pocket flash lamp.
A weird enough scene the night betrayed. In
perspective the wall ahead narrowed, until the two
sides seemed to come to a point. Back of all was
the thick curtain of black that had settled down
over the gulf. A little farther out, too, the water
seemed rougher. There would seem to be hardly adoubt that a gale was brewing.
"Shut that light off!" Hazelton commanded, fighting
to repress a shudder.
"I can do better in the darkness. Now, go ahead,
and I'll follow."
Tom started, but he went slowly now, feeling that
this pace was more suited to the condition of his
chum's nerves. Harry followed resolutely, though
none but himself knew how much effort it took for
him to keep on in the face of such a nameless yet
terrible dread as now assailed him.
To the rear a bulky, hulking figure rose and stood
erect. With the softest of steps this apparition of
the night followed after them, until it stole along,
ghost-like, just behind Hazelton. Then a huge arm
was raised, threateningly, over Harry's head.
At that particular moment, as though insensibly
warned, Hazelton stopped, half-wheeling. In the
next second Harry bounded back just out of reach
of the descending arm, the hand of which held
something. But in that backward spring Harry, in
order to save himself from pitching into the water,
was oblige to turn toward Reade.
"Tom!" exploded the young engineer. "Flash the
light here quickly!"
In the instant, however, that Harry had sprung
backward the figure had slipped noiselessly into the
water to the left. As Reade wheeled about,
throwing on the light, he let the ray fall in the waterto the right of the wall. But no sign of the intruder
appeared; the water had closed noiselessly over
the now vanished figure.
"What's the matter?" asked Reade, as he stood
looking, then finally flashed his light over to the
other side of the wall.
"I saw—-" began Hazelton. Then changed to: "I
thought—-er—-I saw—-oh, nonsense! You'll josh
the life out of me!"
"Not I," Tom affirmed gravely, as a thrill of pity, for
what he deemed his friend's unfortunate "nervous
condition," shook him. "Tell me what you saw,
Harry."
"Why, I thought I saw a big fellow—-a black man,
too—-right behind me, arm upraised, just ready to
strike me."
"Well, where is he?" Tom demanded blankly,
flashing the light on either side of the narrow wall-
top. "See him anywhere now, chum?"
Harry didn't. In fact, he hardly more than
pretended to look. The thing that had been so real
a moment before was now utterly invisible.
Hazelton began to share his chum's suspicion as to
the utter breakdown of his nerves and powers of
vision.
"It was nothing, of course," said Harry,
shamefacedly, but Tom vigorously took the other
side of the question.