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Updated: May 1, 2025
Prenter continued. "What we want to do is to solve this mystery. You stay here, Hazelton. I'll go back alone and find a 'bus or a carriage. Then we'll go back to camp and hold a council of war. Something must be done, and we'll decide how it's to be done." Mr. Prenter, though no longer a young man, proved that he carried both speed and agility in his feet.
"Every time that one of us opens his mouth," laughed Mr. Prenter, "I am expecting to hear a big bang down by the breakwater to punctuate the speaker's sentence. I wonder whether the scoundrels back of Sambo have any more novel ways for setting off their big firecrackers around our wall?" "It might not be a bad idea for me to get out on the watch again," Tom suggested, rising.
Bascomb ordered me to stop my crusade against the gamblers who had tried to invade the camp and rob the men of their earnings. Hazelton and I had that sort of row once out in Arizona -and we won out." "You deserve to win out here, too," remarked Mr. Prenter. "I have no patience with anything but straight, uncompromising right.
As for me, Reade, and as far as I can speak for my fellow directors, go ahead, just the way you've started. If you can find any way to hammer camp vice harder than you've been hammering it, then go ahead and do some harder work with your little hammer." "I'll do it," promised Tom. "Now, Mr. Prenter, I don't believe anything more will happen here to-night -perhaps not for two or three nights.
Tom covertly signaled his chum to pay no heed to this remark. Within a quarter of an hour Treasurer Prenter returned in a stage drawn by two sorry looking horses. "This will carry us up to the house, if the affair doesn't break down," Mr. Prenter called cheerily. "Come along, folks." Soon afterwards the four were back on the porch.
Bascomb walking back and forth on the porch of the engineers' house. "You're up late, sir," was Tom's friendly greeting to the president. "Yes, Reade; I can't sleep to-night," said Mr. Bascomb wearily. "I came over here to talk with Prenter. Where is he?" "Asleep, I imagine, sir," Tom answered. "Wrong," replied President Bascomb. "I've already been inside, but Prenter isn't in the house."
"Oh, there are some real detectives in this country," contended Mr. Prenter. "We'll engage some of them, too." "The expense of hiring detectives will be very large," murmured Mr. Bascomb uneasily. "Yes, it will," agreed the treasurer with a laugh. "But never mind. It's always my task to find funds for the company, you know." "Harry," Tom broke in, "just what did that negro look like?"
"Now, what is the nature and extent of the mutiny?" asked Mr. Prenter. "First of all, eight thousand dollars' damage has been done to the retaining wall of the breakwater," replied Mr. Bascomb. "That is, according to Mr. Reade's figures, which very likely may prove to be too low. Also, Mr. Hazelton has been murdered." "Hazelton -killed?" gasped Mr. Prenter showing genuine concern.
That big negro is the key to the mystery. We must catch him if it costs us a thousand dollars." "Oh, well," assented President Bascomb, reluctantly. "I -I guess I'm all right to start in to work now," Harry suggested, trying to rise. "Sit down -you're not!" replied Tom and Treasurer Prenter, in the same breath, as both pressed Harry back to the wall. "We don't need work so much to-day," Mr.
"Oh, I sincerely hope that Hazelton hasn't lost his life here!" cried Mr. Prenter. "Reade, aren't you going to take us down to the water front and show us the extent of the damage?" "I shall be only too glad to do so, sir," Tom agreed. Even Mr. Bascomb consented at last to go. As they gained the porch Nicolas rushed up with the cigars for which the president had sent him. While Mr.
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