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Reade proposed to join with him in writing a novel, as Warner had done. Lewis Carroll did not call, being too timid, but they met the author of "Alice in Wonderland" one night at a dinner, "the shyest full-grown man, except Uncle Remiss, I ever saw," Mark Twain once declared. Little Sissy and her father thrived on London life, but it wore on Mrs. Clemens.
Instantly the young engineer's gaze turned toward the lately filled-in edge of the big sink. A hundred feet beyond the light platform where some laborers had been working Reade beheld only the head and shoulders of one of the workmen. "The foolish fellow to go out so far beyond where the men are allowed to go!" gasped the young chief engineer, setting spurs to his horse.
"That's why you can never hope to come out on top in a row with Mr. Reade. While you may be a bad man, he's a good man -and ALL MAN! You don't stand any show with that kind. Hang up your hat, Leon. Here's your apron. Put it on and stay with us. When you cool down you can stay right along here and take lessons in the art of being a real man!"
"I don't know," returned Reade. "I don't even know to whose gang he belongs, though I think he's one of Payson's men." Late the following afternoon the laborer was brought back to camp. The following morning he returned to his work as usual.
The contrast between bulky Sambo and little Nicolas and the big negro's comic fear of the slim little fellow kept Reade laughing. "But where on earth did Nicolas learn that trick?" Tom wondered. "I shall have to get him to show it to me. Plainly that trick is worth more than all the muscle that I spent so many years in piling on." Tom headed his course for the shore end of the wall.
"What are we going to have to eat this morning, and when?" Hen wanted to know. "I guess we'll have a light breakfast this morning," hinted Reade. "Why?" demanded Dutcher, his jaw dropping. "So we can have a better appetite for the turkey we brought along. Fellows, don't you think we'd better eat that turkey to-day? It may not keep."
But if we plug along in this deliberate fashion, and get over fifteen, eighteen or twenty miles a day, and keep it up, I don't believe any one of you fellows will complain, September first, that he isn't as hard and solid as he wants to be -even for bucking the football lines, of other high schools." "I know that I can be satisfied with this gait," murmured Reade.
"Do you mean to tell me," demanded Tom, astonished, "that you could go openly and safely to Gato?" "Assuredly," declared Nicolas, composedly. "Gato would not harm me. I am one of his own people, a Mexican, and have not the courage to fight. So he would only disgrace himself in the eyes of his countrymen if he tried to do me harm." "Is that the truth?" Reade persisted. "Certainly, Senor Reade.
"He has had his rub-down, got his clothing on and is now at work frying bacon and eggs." "Then don't disturb him," begged Reade, "or he might fry short of the quantity of food that is really going to be required." Five minutes more, however, saw the last of the boys out of water and rapidly getting themselves in shape to perform their own required duties.
"But there is one big drawback about having this canoe," Greg remarked one day. "What's that?" asked Dave. "There are no canoes to race with." "There are up at Lake Pleasant," Dick replied. "But we can't take the canoe up there," Tom Reade objected. "It's twenty-four miles from Gridley." "Couldn't we walk there and carry the canoe on our shoulders?" suggested Dave.
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