mong the boys and a number of them
had musical instruments, banjos, guitars and mandolins, so that it
was an easy matter to get up a concert at any time, the boys whiling
away many an hour in this fashion.

Some of the musicians had already begun to play when the three boys
arrived, their absence not having been noticed, and now Arthur, who
played the banjo, called upon a number of the boys to join in a
plantation melody and later a number of the old and new college songs.

Blaisdell had a good voice and he started the songs, the others
quickly joining him, till there were a dozen or more and fifty for
the chorus, the woods fairly ringing with the melody, which could be
heard a mile away by the men who had tried to stop the boys from
surveying.

"Huh! they're singin' up there!" growled the big man. "We hain't
got nothin' yet, an' that young feller said he was goin' to pay us."

"We orter got pay afore we done anythin', that's the trouble,"
growled Jenkins. "He was a sneak. Arter promisin' to pay us for
makin' trouble, he run away an' left us." "Mebby if we tell
the ingineers who he is they'll pay us," suggested one of the men.
"We gotter get something out o' this."

"That's true enough," echoed Calthorpe. "We can't do things for
nothing. We gotter make something."

"I guess if we tell the young feller that we know who it was what
sot us ag'in' him he'll pay us something," added Jenkins. "It don't
make no difference to me where I get money, so long as I get it."

"O' course not," said a number of the men in a breath. "One feller's
money is as good as another feller's."

"Let's go down there and see 'em," suggested Calthorpe. "If the
feller what hired us won't pay up, we'll get it from some other
feller. That's all right enough, I guess."

Half an hour later Bucephalus called Percival to the edge of the camp,
telling him that he was wanted, Jack and Billy going with Dick.

"Did you want to see me?" he asked, seeing Jenkins and Calthorpe.

"Yes, I guess so," stammered Jenkins. "You're at the head of the
ingineers, ain't ye?"

"I am with them," Percival replied. "You are one of the men who
tried to stop us, aren't you? You are Jenkins, I believe?"

"Yes, that's me. What I wanted to say is this. I know who the
feller was what told us we'd be hurt ef the road went through, and
mebby you'd like to know who he is. I kin tell ye, for I know his
name an' he's one of-----"

"We know who he is,"