being swindled out
of millions of dollars was splendidly told in that fourth volume.

And now we find our young friends down at the gulf coast town of Blixton,
Alabama. Here they are engaged in a kind of engineering work wholly unlike
any they had hitherto undertaken. The owners of the Melliston Steamship
Line, with a fleet of twenty-two freight steamships engaged in the West
Indian and Central American trade, had looked in vain for suitable dock
accommodations for their vessels, worth a total of more than six million
dollars. In their efforts to improve their service the Melliston owners
had found at Blixton a harbor that would have suited them excellently, but
for one objection. The bay at Blixton was too open to shelter vessels from
the severity of some of the winter gales. Up to the present time Blixton
had not been used for harbor purposes. But the Melliston owners had
conceived the idea that a great breakwater could be so built as to shelter
the waters of the bay. They had quietly bought up most of the shore front
of the little town, which had railway connection. Then they had searched
about for engineers capable of building the needed breakwater. Reade &
Hazelton, hearing of the project, had applied for the work. As the young
men furnished most excellent recommendations from former employers they had
finally secured the opportunity.

By no means was the task an easy one, as will presently be shown. It was
a work that would have to be carried on in the very teeth of jealous
Nature. Tom and Harry were fully aware of the great difficulties that lay
before them. What they did not know was that they would presently have to
contend, also, with forces set loose by wicked human minds. What started
these untoward forces in operation, and how the forces worked out, will
soon be seen.

Captain of a queer crew was Tom Reade, and Harry was his lieutenant. Of
the laborers, seven hundred in number, some four hundred were negroes;
there were also two hundred Italians and about a hundred Portuguese. Many,
of each race, were skilled masons; others were but unskilled laborers.
There were six foremen, all Americans, and a superintendent, also American.
There were a few more Americans and two or three Scotchmen, employed as
stationary engineers and in similar lines of work.

A touch of the old Arizona trouble had invaded the camp. There had
recently been a pay-day, and gamblers had descended upon the camp of tents