Two hours later Reade came back over the trail, at a slow jog. The young chief engineer looked more worried than Hazelton had ever seen his chum look before. CHAPTER XXI THE TRAP AT THE FINISH A number of days passed, days full of worry for the young chief engineer. Yet, outwardly, Tom Reade was as good-humored and cheery as ever. He was sure that his eyes had played him no trick, and that he really had seen ’Gene Black in the brush. The presence of that scoundrel persuaded Tom that someone working in the interests of the W.C. & A. Railroad Company was still employing Black in an attempt to block the successful completion of the S.B. & L. Moreover, the news that Dave Fulsbee received from Denver showed that two of the officials of the W.C. & A. were in that city, apparently ready to proceed to get possession of the rival road. Politicians asserted that it was a “cinch” that the new road would fall short of the charter requirement in the matter of time. “All this confidence on the part of the enemy is pretty fair proof that the scoundrels are up to something,” Tom told Mr. Newnham. “Or else they’re trying to break down our nerve so that we’ll fail through sheer collapse,” replied the president of the S.B. & L., rubbing his hands nervously. “Reade, why should there be such scoundrels in the world?” “The president is all but completely gone to pieces,” Reade confided to his chum. “Say, but I’m glad Mr. Newnham himself isn’t the one who has to get the road through in time. If it rested with him I’m afraid he’d fizzle. But we’ll pull it through, Harry, old chum---we’ll pull it through.” “If this thing had to last a month more I’m afraid good old Tom would go to pieces himself,” thought Harry, as he watched his friend stride away. “Tom never gets to his cot now before eleven at night, and four thirty in the morning always finds him astir again. I wonder if he thinks he’s fooling me by looking so blamed cheerful and talking so confidently. Whew! I’d be afraid for poor old Tom’s brain if anything should happen to trip us up.” Harry himself was anxious, but he was not downright nervous. He did not feel things as keenly as did his chum; neither was Hazelton directly responsible for the success of the big undertaking. Mile after mile the construction work stretched. Trains were running now for work purposes, nearly as far as the line extended. The telegraph wires ran into the temporary station building at Lineville, and the several operators along the line were busy carrying orders through the length of the wire service. Back at Stormburg, where the railroad line began, three trains lay on side tracks. These were passenger trains that were to run the entire length of the road as soon as it was opened. Back at Stormburg, also, the new general superintendent slept at his office that he might receive messages from President Newnham the more quickly. At Bakerstown a division superintendent was stationed, he, too, sleeping at his office.