so determined to protect the camp from
questionable strangers," Tom continued, "I don't know that it
will do any harm to inform you that we are two greenhorns---tenderfeet,
I believe, is your more elegant word---who have been engaged to
join the engineers' crowd and break in at the business."

"Cub engineers, eh, tenderfoot?"

"That's the full size of our pretensions, sir," Tom admitted.

"Rich men's sons, coming out to learn the ways of the Rookies?"
questioned Bad Pete, showing his first sign of interest in them.

"Not quite as bad as that," Tom Reade urged. "We're wholly respectable,
sir. We have even had to work hard in order to raise money for
our railway fare out to Colorado."

Bad Pete's look of interest in them faded.

"Huh!" he remarked. "Then you're no good either why."

"That's true, I'm afraid," sighed Tom. "However, can you tell
us the way to the camp?"

From one pocket Bad Pete produced a cigarette paper and from another
tobacco. Slowly he rolled and lighted a cigarette, in the meantime
seeming hardly aware of the existence of the tenderfeet. At last,
however, he turned to the Colorado boy and observed:

"Pardner, I reckon you'd better drive on with these tenderfeet
before I drop them over the cliff. They spoil the view. Ye know
where Bandy's Gulch is?"

"Sure," nodded the Colorado boy.

"Ye'll find the railroad outfit jest about a mile west o' there,
camped close to the main trail."

"I'm sure obliged to you," nodded the Colorado boy, stepping up
to his seat and gathering in the reins.

"And so are we, sir," added Tom politely.

"Hold your blizzard in until I ask ye to talk," retorted Bad Pete
haughtily. "Drive on with your cheap baggage, pardner."

"Cheap baggage, are we?" mused Tom, when the wagon had left Bad
Pete some two hundred feet to the rear. "My, but I feel properly
humiliated!"

"How many men has Bad Pete killed?" inquired Harry in an awed
voice.

"Don't know as he ever killed any," replied the Colorado boy,
"but I'm not looking for trouble with any man that always carries
a revolver at his belt and goes around looking for someone to
give him an excuse to shoot. The pistol might go off, even by
accident."

"Are there many like Mr. Peter Bad in these hills nowadays?" Tom
inquired.

"You'll find the foothills back near Denver or Pueblo," replied
the Colorado youth coldly "You're up in the mountains now."

"Well, are there many like Peter Bad in these mounta