Produced by Jim Ludwig
The Young Engineers on the Gulf
or
The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater
By H. Irving Hancock
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. Conclusion
"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 wereout in full force. Now look at them!"
"How can I look at them?" demanded Tom, halting. "My flashlight won'tpierce 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 heardyou 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 disconsolatethan 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 timesto-day."
The two young men stood on a narrow ledge of stone that jutted out of thewater. This wall of stone was the first, outer or retaining wall ofmasonry—-the first work of constructing a great breakwater. At high tide,this ledge was just fourteen inches above the level surface of the Gulf ofMexico, and at the time of the above conversation it was within twentyminutes of high tide. The top of this wall of masonry was thirty incheswide, which made but a narrow footway for the two youths who, on a pitchblack 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 thisbreakwater wall did not offer a troublesome footpath. In broad daylighthundreds of laborers and masons swarmed over it, working side by side, oron scows and dredges alongside.
"Wait, and I'll show a light," volunteered Tom raising his foot-longflashlight.
Some seventy-five yards behind them a crawling snake-like figure flatteneditself out on the top of the rock wall.
"Don't show the light just yet," pleaded Harry. "It might only make memore dizzy."
The flattened figure behind them wriggled noiselessl