ds that held them behind his back.
"You're not talking quite the way you did a few minutes ago, Gage,"
Harry put in dryly.

"You'll see---both of you young pups!" moaned the battered wretch.
"Ask any one, and they'll tell you that Dolph Gage never overlooks
a pounding such as I've had."

"And you got it from the boy that you were going to teach something,"
jeered Hazelton, "Gage, you know a little more about Tom Reade, now,
don't your?"

Then Harry straightened up, as he caught sight of moving objects
in the distance.

"Get through with him, Tom" advised the other young engineer.
"I see Eb and Josh coming on the run. They'll have the guns.
We've got to look out for ourselves."

Tom flung the badly beaten man from him where he lay on the ground
moaning over his hurts and vowing vengeance on Tom.

"Stand still, Harry, and I'll have you free in a jiffy," Tom
proposed, hauling out his pocket knife.

"It won't do for us to stand still too long," urged Hazelton,
as his chum began to slash at the cords. "The other scoundrels
will kill us when they see what's been going on here."

"No, they won't," Tom promised calmly. "We'll take care of 'em
both. You wait and see which one I take. Then you take the other.
We'll handle 'em to the finish."

This seemed like foolhardy talk when it was considered that the
other two men would return armed. But Harry had unlimited confidence
in his friend, and so followed Tom, crouching, until they had
hidden behind bushes along the trail.

"Where be you, Dolph?" called the voice of Eb, as the pair drew
near.

"He's over there," spoke Reade, springing out of the bushes.
"You'll join him after a bit."

Neither Eb nor Josh was armed. Tom sailed into Eb, while Harry
sprang at Josh. For a few minutes the trail was a scene of swift
action, indeed. Shortly Eb and Josh tried to run away, as Gage
had done, but each time the young engineers caught them and compelled
them to renew the fight.

"My man's going to sleep, now, Harry!" Tom called, and drove in
a knockout blow with his left.

Josh swiftly followed Eb to the ground.

"They'll keep quiet for a little while," declared Tom, after a look
at each.

Dolph Gage had by this time painfully risen to his feet and came
limping slowly down the trail.

"You might look after your friends, Gage," Tom called, pointing.
"They need attention."

"How did they come to be here?" gasped Dolph.

"They'll give you full particulars when