THE NEW VENTURE.
FOR a few minutes there was entire silence while the four devoted their
whole attention to the delicious meal Chris had prepared, and, during
this lull, the reader has time to observe and note more carefully
this little band of old friends, whom he has doubtless met amid many
adventures in the Boy Chum Series. They have changed but little since
he met them last in "The Young Net Fishermen." Charley West, the
strapping young fellow, who now sits on one side of the fire eagerly
devouring piping hot omelette and rich oyster stew, is the same old
Charley of yore, his face a trifle older and more alert, perhaps,
from the dangers and hardships through which he has passed, but with
the same old merry twinkle in his eyes. Walter Hazard, now grown
almost as husky as his chum, sits next to him, and close beside Walt
is gray-haired Captain Westfield, a sort of guardian father to them
both, a master of the sea, but rather helpless on land. He, too, is
little changed, while Chris, the little ebony darkey, wears the same
broad, good-natured smile as ever. But we must stop and listen to the
conversation now starting up, for upon it depends the future of our
four friends.
"Tell us what our next move is to be," Walter demanded.
"It rests with the rest of you as much as with me," Charley smiled.
"All I am going to do is to make the suggestion."
"Go ahead," said the captain impatiently, "we're waiting to hear it."
"Well," said Charley, "West of Jupiter about forty miles lays the great
lake Okeechobee. It's reported by explorers that there's a ten-mile
belt clear around the lake of the richest land in the world. Between
the lake and Jupiter there is only one little trading-post, called
Indiantown. All the way leads through swamps, prairies, and pine
barrens. There is a sort of road, but it is under water for about six
months in the year."
"All that's interesting, but what has it got to do with us?" said
Waiter impatiently.
"I'm coming to that in a minute," said Charley placidly. "Last year the
county commissioners passed a law for the building of a dirt road from
Jupiter to the lake, and a man named Murphy made a bid of 17½ cents a
yard for the dirt handled and he got the contract. He bought a steam
shovel with a 1½-yard bucket. He went to work and has got about ten
miles of the road completed. Now he wants to sell out his machine and
contract. Says his wife in Connecticut is sick, and he's got to go back
and stay with her. I saw him in Jupiter to-day, and he told me he would
sell machine, tents, a team of mules, and the contract for one-third of
what the machine alone cost him, $3,000. I didn't promise him anything,
but said we would ride out and look at it in the morning. It looks to
me like a good chance to establish ourselves in a good steady business.
There's about thirty miles of the road yet to build. And he says there
are plenty more contracts to be had for the asking. The machine can dig
one and one-half cubic yards of earth per minute, and, at 17½ cents per
yard, that's some money, I'm thinking. Besides it works nights as well
as days. Well, what do you think about it?"
Walter looked rather disappointed. "That sounds all right," he
admitted, "but there doesn't seem much chance of having any fun,
adventure or excitement out of such a job."
"Adventure, excitement!" echoed Charley. "Why, I don't know where
you'd be more likely to find both. Remember, we are going through an
almost unknown country. Right through the Indians' hunting grounds, and
through a country alive with snakes and game."
"Good," exclaimed Walter, with eyes shining. "I vote yes for the steam
shovel."
"I don't know about it," said the Captain doubtfully. "It ain't a good
plan generally to go into a business that you don't know anything
about."
"But we will soon learn," protested Charley vigorously. "If we buy,
Murphy has agreed to stay on for a couple of weeks until we get on to
the run of things."
"Well," consented the old sailor reluctantly. "It won't do any harm to
look at the critter, though I guess I won't be able to tell as much
about her as I would about a sea-going craft."
"Well, how about you, Chris?" Charley inquired.
The little negro grinned. "Golly, Massa Charley, I reckon I'm pretty
well satisfied as I is. Don't reckon you-alls ebber seed a nigger but
was willing to lay around in de sun all day an' do nothin' but eat an'
fish, but if you-alls are goin' into any foolish projectin's, I reckon
dis nigger will hab to go along to keep you outer trouble."
"Then it's settled," Charley declared with satisfaction. "We will get
an early start in the morning and drive out and see just how things are
going."
Thus settled, an early hour next morning found them on the way, drawn
in a rickety wagon behind a lean mule with a wicked-looking eye. There
was no danger of their losing their way for the machine-made road
stretched out before them a smoothed mound of earth flanked on each
side by deep ditches made by the removed dirt. At places the road was
raised a full four feet above the surrounding land, while at other
places it descended gradually to a mere two feet.
Charley viewed it with satisfaction. "That's the kind of work I want
to do," he said. "The kind of work that creates something, that helps
people, gives them employment, and makes them happy. Take that road,
for instance," he continued dreamily, "of course it is only a road, but
it will open up the way to thousands of acres of rich land, and give
thousands of people a chance to own a home and farm."
"Yes," agreed the Captain testily, who was hot and sweating under
the blazing sun, "and it will drive away the Indians from their last
hunting ground, and the people who will flock in will be Huns, Polacks
and Japs, and most of them will die off with the malaria, and the rest,
after they have raised their crops, will find it costs them more to get
them to market than they are worth. Say, Chris, can't you spread more
sail on that craft of yours? I allow that there ain't much breeze, but
surely it can do more than a mile an hour."
Chris, who was driving the melancholy beast, obediently leaned forward
and brought his tattered hat down on the mule's flank. "Get up, you
Clarence; wake up, you mule," he shouted--and Clarence woke up. What
had simply been before a saddened, downcast, plodding mule, became a
marvel of upstanding ears, bared teeth and flying hoofs. Charley landed
with a bump on the side of the road. Walter, close beside him, and the
Captain not far away, while Chris, disdaining solid ground, lit far
over in the ditch of stagnant water and mud. The cart, a battered wreck
in front, with one thill gone, still remained, while Clarence, still
enveloped in his harness and dragging the other thill behind him, with
leaping bounds was headed back for home.
Captain Westfield arose slowly and painfully, and felt gently of his
trousers' seat. "I reckon Chris crowded on a wee bit too much sail," he
said mildly.
Chris crawled out of the ditch, spitting out mud and water. "Golly,
dat Clarence sho' can move some," he exclaimed admiringly, as he gazed
after the vanishing mule. "Who would hab thought dat a little slap of
the hat could liven him up so?"
"I don't think it was that, at all," laughed Walter, as he regained
his feet. "I believe he took offense at being called Clarence, as any
self-respecting mule would--probably his real name is Maud."
"You fellows can laugh, if you see anything funny in it," stated
Charley reproachfully. "You wouldn't if you were me. You lit on the
sand or water, but I landed broadside on a slab of rock. Well, there's
no use trying to catch Clarence. He's singing 'Home, Sweet Home,' with
four feet. I guess we are as near the camp as we are Jupiter, so we
might as well go ahead."
So ahead they marched, looking more like a trio of hoboes than possible
investors in a big enterprise. A walk of a few miles brought them in
sight of a cluster of white tents, and they hastened their steps,
knowing that their destination was not far ahead. They paused at the
first tent, the largest of the cluster, and evidently the eating tent,
for they could see through the open flap two long tables with rude
seating benches running down the middle, and a heap of tin dishes
on a table in one corner. Outside a big, powerful, sweating negro
was kneading bread on a dirty-looking bench, upon which a protruding
stove-pipe from the tent was sending down fine flakes of soot.
"Mister Murphy's dun fudder up the road apiece by the machine," he
informed them in reply to their questions. "Be you gentlemen going to
stay for dinner?"
They told him that they were not sure as yet, and hurried up the road,
eager to be away from the odors of the camp.
"Golly," exclaimed Chris, "did you-alls notice de bench dat nigger
was makin' bread on? I'll bet dar was a solid inch ob dirt on de top
ob hit. Dat nigger's been scaling fish, chopping up meat, and making
bread on dat same bench for de past six months widout washin' hit up
once. Huh, if I was his boss I'd give him a licking for sho'."
A few minutes' walk brought them in sight of the big steam shovel,
which was doing the work of two hundred men with wheelbarrows. It
looked simple enough, a kind of short steel car, resting upon sections
of railroad track. Upon the car was mounted, on a kind of ratchet work
of iron, a swinging steel platform, from which projected out a long
tapering steel boom, at the end of which dangled from wire ropes a huge
steel bucket with wicked looking big teeth. Wire ropes an inch and a
half thick led down the boom and wound, coil upon coil, around the
big controlling drums on the platform below. Two gigantic cog-wheels
controlled the lowering and raising of the huge boom in front. Just
back of the big revolving drums and cog-wheels a second little platform
arose from the first. It was iron-hooded overhead, but in front it was
open, and behind the opening, with before him six huge brass levers,
stood a man controlling the movements of this mighty worker. Even as
the little party watched, the great shovel plunged down, straight down,
burying its great teeth in the rooty ground. The drag rope pulled it
in until it had gathered up a full load of earth. The boom lifted
slightly, the platform swung around, and the bucket dropped its load.
For five minutes Charley watched the operation repeated, with his
watch in his hand. "Murphy hasn't lied about that," he said. "They are
digging a bucket a minute, all right. Let's figure it out: One and
one-half yards a minute, that's 26 cents a minute; multiplying that by
60 minutes in the hour, makes $15.60 per hour, and 24 hours in the day,
makes $374.40 per day. That's going some, I guess."
"Whew," whistled Walter, "that's just like finding money."