In “The Young Engineers In Nevada” we found our young friends under changed conditions.  While at work in Colorado and in Arizona Tom and Harry had studied the occurrence of precious ores, and also the methods of assaying and extracting ores.  Having their time wholly to themselves after finishing in Arizona the dauntless young pair went to Nevada, there to study mining at first hand.  In time they located a mining claim, though there were other claimants, and around this latter fact hung an extremely exciting story.  Both young engineers nearly lost their lives in Nevada, and met with many strenuous situations.  Their sole idea in pushing their mine forward to success was that the money so earned would enable them to further their greatest ambition; they longed to have their own engineering offices.  In the end, their mine, which the young engineers had named “The Ambition,” proved a success.  Thereupon they left their mining partner, Jim Ferrers, in charge and went east to open their offices.

We next found the young engineers engaged to the south of the United States border.  These adventures were fully set forth in the preceding volume in this series, entitled “The Young Engineers in Mexico.”  Tom and Harry, engaged to solve some problems in a great Mexican mine, found themselves the intended tools of a pair of mine swindlers of wealth and influence.  From their first realization of the swindle Tom and Harry, even in the face of threats of assured death, held out for an honest course.  How they struggled to save a syndicate of American investors from being swindled out of millions of dollars was splendidly told in that fourth volume.

And now we find our young friends down at the gulf coast town of Blixton, Alabama.  Here they are engaged in a kind of engineering work wholly unlike any they had hitherto undertaken.  The owners of the Melliston Steamship Line, with a fleet of twenty-two freight steamships engaged in the West Indian and Central American trade, had looked in vain for suitable dock accommodations for their vessels, worth a total of more than six million dollars.  In their efforts to improve their service the Melliston owners had found at Blixton a harbor that would have suited them excellently, but for one objection.  The bay at Blixton was too open to shelter vessels from the severity of some of the winter gales.  Up to the present time Blixton had not been used for harbor purposes.  But the Melliston owners had conceived the idea that a great breakwater could be so built as to shelter the waters of the bay.  They had quietly bought up most of the shore front of the little town, which had railway connection.  Then they had searched about for engineers capable of building the needed breakwater.  Reade & Hazelton, hearing of the project, had applied for the work.  As the young men furnished most excellent recommendations from former employers they had finally secured the opportunity.