By the time they had all pocketed their weapons they came in full sight of the camp. Charley stood up and viewed it with a puzzled frown on his face. "Something's gone wrong," he announced. CHAPTER V. THE STRIKE. THE camp was soon plainly in view of all, and the reason for Charley's exclamation apparent. Although it was not nearly noon, groups of negroes were gathered around the various tents, and the big steam shovel lay far ahead, motionless and deserted, with no hint of smoke trailing from its smokestack. The only sign of activity about the camp was the sweaty cook, once more engaged in the seemingly endless process of molding bread on the dirty bench outside the tent. Walter stopped the car, and Charley jumped out nimbly. None of his anxiety showed in his manner. He strode up to the negro. "Do you make bread every day?" he inquired lightly. "Sho', Cap," responded the big negro. "De niggers want hit fresh every day." "Humph," commented the lad. "If I were you, I'd bake up enough at a time to last two or three days. Then you would have more time to keep things neat and clean, as they should be in a camp of this kind." "Massa Murphy nebber found no fault wid my way ob doing things," objected the negro. "Well, we are not Mr. Murphy," Charley said curtly. "We have bought him out. We are the owners of this thing now, and we want our food clean. Remember that. Now, tell me, which are Mr. Murphy's and the engineers' tents?" "Right ober dar 'mongst dat little clump of pines. De furst one is Mr. Murphy's." Charley strolled over to the little tent and entered it. It was small and dirty, and the dirt floor was littered with whiskey bottles, all empty. Charley viewed them with a grim smile. "No wonder Murphy lost out," he murmured. "A man cannot put up a good fight and entertain John Barleycorn at the same time." There was a rude box desk in one corner of the tent, littered with letters and papers. Charley seated himself beside it and overhauled its contents quickly. This done, he walked out of the tent's squalor into the open air once more. He next drew back the flap of the first engineer's tent, and peeped inside, but the tent was deserted, as was also the second, save for disordered cots and black, greasy clothing, flung here and there. In the third tent, however, he found a young man, stretched out on a cot reading a magazine. Unlike the other tents, this was neat and cleanly, and the dirty working clothes of its occupants were hung up on a line stretching across the tent. "Hello," he greeted Charley boyishly. "Back again are you?" "Yes," agreed Charley, as he noted the other's self-reliant, boyish face. "I ought to have to apologize for not ringing your bell, or knocking at your front door, but I didn't see either." "That's all right," laughed the youth, as he sat up on the end of his cot. "Take a seat on the other end. That's my seat of honor for my visitors." "What's your name?" Charley inquired.