He uttered an almost inaudible "humph!" then passed on outside.
Neither Tom Reade nor Harry Hazelton heard this exclamation, nor would they have paid any heed to it if they had.
Yes; the two young men were our friends of old, the young engineers.
Our readers are wholly familiar with Tom and Harry as far back as their grammar school days in the good old town of Gridley.

Tom and Harry were members of that famous sextet of schoolboy athletes known at home as Dick & Co.

The exploits of Tom Reade and Harry Hazelton, as of Dick Prescott, Dave Darrin, Greg Holmes and Dan Dalzell, have been fully told, first in the "Grammar School Boys Series," and then in the "High School Boys Series." After the close of the "High School Boys Series" the further adventures of Dick Prescott and Greg Holmes are told in the "West Point Series," while all that befell Dave Darrin and Dan Dalzell has already been found in the pages of the "Annapolis Series." In the preceding volume of this series, "The Young Engineers in Colorado," our readers were made familiar with the real start in working life made by Tom Reade and Harry Hazelton.

Back in the old High School days Reade and Hazelton had been fitting themselves to become civil engineers.

They began their real work in the east, and had made good in sterner work in the mountains in Colorado.
Our readers all know how Tom and Harry opened their careers in Colorado by becoming "cub engineers" with one of the field camps of the S.B.& L.railroad.Taken only on trial, they had rapidly made good, and had earned the confidence of the chief engineer in charge of the work.