The Young Engineers on the Gulf

"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 times to-day."

The two young men stood on a narrow ledge of stone that jutted out of the water. This wall of stone was the first, outer or retaining wall of masonry---the first work of constructing a great breakwater. At high tide, this ledge was just fourteen inches above the level surface of the Gulf of Mexico, and at the time of the above conversation it was within twenty minutes of high tide. The top of this wall of masonry was thirty inches wide, which made but a narrow footway for the two youths who, on a pitch black 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 this breakwater wall did not offer a troublesome footpath. In broad daylight hundreds of laborers and masons swarmed over it, working side by side, or on scows and dredges alongside.

"Wait, and I'll show a light," volunteered Tom raising his foot-long flashlight.

Some seventy-five yards behind them a crawling snake-like figure flattened itself out on the top of the rock wall.

"Don't show the light just yet," pleaded Harry. "It might only make me more dizzy."

The flattened figure behind them wriggled noiselessly along.

"Just listen to the water," continued Hazelton. "Tom, I'm half-inclined to think that the water is roughening."

"I believe it is," agreed Tom.

"Fine time we'll have getting back, if a gale springs up from the southward," muttered Harry.

"See here, old fellow," interposed Tom vigorously, "you're not up to concert pitch to-night. Now, I'll tell you what I'll do---first of all, what you'll do. You sit right down flat on the top of the wall. Then I'll move on up forward and see what has been happening out there that should boom shoreward with such a racket. You stay right here, and I'll be back as soon as I've looked into the face of the mystery."

"What do you take me for?" Harry asked almost fiercely. "A baby? Or a cold-foot?"

"Nothing like it," answered Tom Reade with reassuring positiveness. "You're out of sorts, to-night. Your head, or your nerves, or some thing, has gone back on you, and you walk through this blackness with half a notion that you're going to walk over a precipice, or drop head-first into some danger. With such a feeling it would be cruelty to let you go forward, chum, and I'm not going to do it. I'll go alone."

The crouching figure to the rear of the young engineers quivered as though this separation of the two engineers on this black night was a thing devoutly to be desired.

"You're not going to do anything of the sort," retorted Harry Hazelton. "I'm going forward with you. I'm going to stick to you. All I wanted was a minute in which to brace myself. I've had that minute. Now get forward with you. I'm on your heels!"

Tom Reade shrugged his shoulders slightly. However, he did not object or argue, for he realized that his chum was sensitive over any circumstance that seemed to point to sudden failure of his courage.

"Come along, then," urged Tom. "Wait just a second, though. I'll flash the light ahead along the wall, to show you that it's all there, and just where it lies."

A narrow beam of light shot ahead as Tom pressed the spring of his pocket flash lamp.

A weird enough scene the night betrayed. In perspective the wall ahead narrowed, until the two sides seemed to come to a point. Back of all was the thick curtain of black that had settled down over the gulf. A little farther out, too, the water seemed rougher. There would seem to be hardly a doubt that a gale was brewing.