BLACK BEARS ON THE AMAZON
The handsome club room of the Black Bear Patrol, in the city of New
York, was situated on the top floor of the magnificent residence of
Attorney Bosworth, one of the leading corporation lawyers in the
country. Jack Bosworth, the lawyer's only son, was a member of the
Black Bear Patrol, and the club room had been fitted up at his
request.
It was in this room that Ned Nestor, Jimmie McGraw, Jack Bosworth,
Harry Stevens, and Frank Shaw had planned their motor-boat trip down
the Columbia river, as described in the first volume of this series.
Jack, Harry and Frank had returned to New York from San Francisco
when Ned had decided to accept the Secret Service mission to
Paraguay, at the conclusion of the motor-boat vacation on the
Columbia, leaving the two boats, the Black Bear and the Wolf, stored
at Portland, Oregon.
One evening--the evening of the 1st of August, to be exact--while
Ned, Sam, and Jimmie were still in San Francisco, awaiting the slow
action of the State department at Washington, Jack, Frank and Harry
met in the club room for the purpose of "sobbing together," as they
expressed it. They had left their friends in San Francisco
reluctantly because of orders from home, and now they understood
that they might have gone with Ned and Jimmie if they had only
explained to their parents the purpose of the mission.
"I suppose," Frank Shaw said, at the end of a long pause in the
conversation, "I suppose Ned and the others are out over the Andes
by this time."
"No," replied Jack. "I heard from Jimmie by wire today, and they
are still in Frisco, and likely to remain there nearly a week
longer."
"If the airship was only large enough!" sighed Harry.
"We might still get there in time!" Frank suggested, eagerly.
"The Nelson wouldn't carry us if we were there," Jack exclaimed, in
a disgusted tone. "I wish the Black Bear had wings! Say, wouldn't
that be a peach? We could run over to Paraguay and scare the life
out of the boys!"
"What good would it do if she had wings?" demanded Frank. "She is
in storage at Portland, Oregon."
"No," replied Harry Stevens, whose father, a noted maker of
automobiles, had presented the motor-boats to his son, "I ordered
the boats sent on here the day after we left the coast. We can
take a trip up the Hudson, anyway."
Jack walked thoughtfully around the room for a moment and then
turned back to the others, looking moodily out of a window.
"I've got it!" he shouted, slapping Frank on the back.
"I should say you had!" remarked Frank. "What do you take for it?"
"I say I've got an idea!" Jack explained, jumping up and down and
swinging his hands over his head. "A peach of an idea!"
"Does it hurt?" asked Harry.
"Oh, cut out that funny stuff!" Jack cried. "When will the two
motor-boats be here?"
Harry counted on the fingers of his left hand.
"We've been home two days," he said, "and we were four days getting
to Chicago. There we laid over a day, and came on here in twenty
hours. We are eight days from the Pacific coast. That right?"
"It seems to be."
"Well, then, it is seven days since I ordered the Black Bear and the
Wolf sent on here in a special express car. They ought to be here
now."
"Then," shouted Jack, pulling Harry around the room, "we're all
right--fit as a brass band at a free lunch! Whoo-pee!"
"It must be hungry," Frank exclaimed, regarding Jack with seeming
terror. "Does it ever bite when it puts out these signals of
distress?"
"Don't get too funny!" Jack warned.
"Then loosen up on this alleged idea!" Frank replied.
Jack rushed across the room and brought out an atlas of the world,
which he dumped on the floor and opened.
"Look here, fellows!" he said, squatting over the map of South
America, his chin almost on his knees.
"We're looking," grinned Frank. "What about it?"
"Here we are in New York," Jack went on. "Here they are in San
Francisco. Now, they've got to sail to Paraguay, which is just
about twice as far from San Francisco as is New York. Anyway,
that's the way it looks on the map."
"It is all of that distance," Harry put in.
"Well," Jack continued, "as I said before, here we are in New York,
with the mouth of the Amazon river about as far away as San
Francisco, perhaps a little farther."
"Well?" demanded Harry.
"I begin to see the point!" Frank admitted. "But will the folks
stand for it?"
"Mine will," Harry answered. "Dad didn't make the Black Bear to lie
in storage. He'll stand for it, all right."
"So will mine," Frank said, then. "I'll tell him I'll send him a
lot of news for his paper."
Frank's father was owner and editor of the Planet, one of the
leading morning newspapers in the big city, and it was always a
fiction of the boy's that he was going out in the interest of the
paper when he wandered off on a trip with the Boy Scouts.
"I'm afraid you can't make that work again," laughed Jack. "Ned
says that you sent only four postal cards and six letters back from
Panama."
"Well, wasn't that going some?" asked Frank.
"Of course, only Ned says the postal cards carried the
correspondence for the Planet, and the letters carried requests for
more money!"
"Anyway," Frank insisted, "Dad will stand for it. What is it?"
"Well," Jack went on, "I'm sure my Dad will let me go. He wants me
to go about all I can. Says it brightens a fellow to rub up against
the rough places of the world."
"There's rough corners enough in South America," laughed Harry.
"Now, let us get down to figures," Jack continued. "We ought to be
able to get to the mouth of the Amazon on a fast boat, with the
Black Bear and the Wolf on board, in a week or ten days-say ten
days. About that time they will be getting into Paraguay. What do
you think of it?"
"Fine!" cried Harry.
"The best ever!" Frank responded. "But what then? We can't run up
to Paraguay in the Black Bear."
"We can get away up in the Andes," answered Jack, with the map of
Brazil before him. "See these crooked little lines? Well, those
are rivers. Just see how far we can go in a motor boat."
"But that won't bring us to the aeroplane," Frank objected.
"Yes, it will," Harry answered. "They are coming back by way of the
Amazon valley, and we can't miss them. Oh, what's the use? Suppose
we begin packing?"
"Well, I don't know exactly what we are to do after we get up the
Amazon," Harry laughed, "but I'm game to go. There are head-hunters
and cannibals up there, and we may find a little amusement."
"We're going after Ned and Jimmie," Jack explained. "This is a
relief expedition! After they get to Paraguay they'll snatch that
Lyman person out of the cold, damp dungeon keep he is supposed to be
in and then sail off over the Amazon valley. There's where we catch
up with them. Do you suppose we can find a ship going to the mouth
of the Amazon early in the morning?"
"You certainly are fierce when you get started!" laughed Harry.
"Well," he added, "you can't get ready any too soon to please me."
It was two days before the boys found a vessel going their way, and
even then Jack insisted that his father bribed the owners to run off
their course in order to set the boys and their motorboats down at
the mouth of the Amazon river. The boat, however, was a fast one,
equal in speed to a modern ocean liner; and in ten days from the
time of starting from New York--on the 12th of August--the boys were
stemming the current of the great river--more like a shoreless sea
there at the mouth than a river!
"Huh!" Frank exclaimed, as they left the island of Joannes to the
south, "this is no river! It is a blooming sea!"
"Pretty near three hundred miles wide at the delta, including that
big island," Harry said. "It is some river, eh?"
"Four thousand miles long!" Jack contributed. "It is navigable for
commercial purposes for 2,200 miles, and our boats can go up clear
to the foot of the Andes."
"Boats went there in the days of Columbus," Frank said. "A
companion of Columbus first discovered this great delta. The river
fertilizes two million square miles of territory, and is the
greatest water system in the world."
"Why," Harry observed, desiring to contribute something startling to
the discussion of the river, "the current is so strong that it
carries fresh water and sand five hundred miles out into the
Atlantic Ocean. It is just a fresh water river in a salt water sea
for five hundred miles!"
That night the boys kept the engines of the Black Bear going, one
remaining on watch all through the dark hours. They had plenty of
gasoline in the tank, and the tender, the Wolf, was carrying a load
of fuel which Jack declared would last them until the end of the
year!
It may be well to state here that the Black Bear, the Boy Scout
motorboat, was a specially constructed vessel, built by Harry's
father for river work. The materials were light yet strong, and the
boat could easily be taken apart and put together again when
occasion required. Between the cross-grained slices of tough wood
of which the craft was built were plates of steel, thus rendering
the boat virtually bullet proof.
The Black Bear was constructed so that it could be almost entirely
thrown open to the sunshine when so desired or closed tightly
against cold or rain. The roof could be rolled up in a bundle in
the middle like the curtain of a modern desk. The sides were
composed of oblong panels which could be inserted in grooved steel
uprights when it was desired to close in the interior of the boat.
The motors were very powerful.
In fact, it was just such a boat as was needed on the trip the boys
had in mind. It had done excellent service on the Columbia, and
nothing less could be expected of it on the Amazon. The Wolf, which
was merely a tender, was watertight in construction, being shaped
like a banana, and was towed by the motor-boat. Here the extra
stocks of gasoline, provisions, and ammunition were packed. The
interior of the Wolf was about six feet by eighteen in size, while
the distance from rounded floor to convex roof was about four feet.
On both sides of the interior were gasoline tanks, which also
extended under the floor, lifting the bottom of the interior space
three feet. Above the tanks were spaces for provisions and
ammunition. The space between the tanks and the lockers was about
two feet, and here one might ride in comfort, after getting used to
the rolling of the boat. There were tight glass panels of thick
plate glass at the ends and the top.
Ventilators and loopholes, controlled by wires from the center, were
cut in the ends and protected by sliding covers. Lying in the
passageway, one might look out at either end, and shoot out, too, if
occasion required. When fully loaded, the Wolf was submerged about
half its height. On the top was a staff from which floated an
American flag. The boys were very proud of the Wolf, and Jimmie had
often declared, on the Columbia river trip, that he would some day
take an exciting ride in it.
During their passage up the river the boys were often hailed from
passing craft, but they took little heed, as they did not care to
lose time gratifying the curiosity of those they met. Indeed, if
they had stopped to talk with all who hailed them, they would have
made slow progress. Up to about sixty years ago the Amazon was
closed to all save Brazilian vessels, but now it is open to the
commerce of the world.
There are now vessels coming from and going to all parts of Europe
and America from Amazon ports. There are lines of great steamers on
the main stream, lines of smaller steamers on the big tributaries,
and launches and small craft of all sizes on the affluent branches.
Often the passing ships, steamers, launches, etc., almost took the
form of a procession on the lower waters.
Everywhere the smaller ships were gathering the products of the
great Amazon basin-rubber, cocoanuts, hardwoods, dyewoods, pelts,
tropical fruits and other commodities. Every year over three
million tons of products come down the great river. The Amazon
drains a country as large as the United States east of the
Mississippi. Its feeders reach the Andes, draining watersheds
within a hundred miles of the Pacific ocean. It has tributaries
fifteen hundred miles long.
It did not take the Black Bear very long to pass the green islands
near the delta. The river there looks like an ocean. In fact, the
main branch of the Amazon is from fifty miles to two hundred miles
in width. Some of the tributaries are a hundred miles wide. It is
from fifty to two hundred feet deep. The water is always dark
colored because of the wash brought down from the uplands. For a
long time it did not seem possible to the boys that they were
sailing on a river instead of an ocean.
"Ned and the boys must be over Paraguay now," Jack said, one day,
after they had been on the river nearly a week without accident or
important incident of any kind.
"Yes," Frank replied, "they must be there by this time. Jimmie said
they were to leave San Francisco on the 7th, or about that time. It
would take a week or more to get to Lima, for they couldn't remain
in the air long at a time, and the resting spells would set them
back a little. Suppose they got to Lima on the 14th, which was last
Monday, they could rest up and go prowling over that dirty little
republic--which is not a republic at all, but a despotism tempered
by revolution."
"I'd like to know just what course Ned has decided on," Harry said.
"I don't see how he's going to get to Mr. Lyman."
"He'll find a way," Jack insisted. "He always has, and he always
will."
It will be seen that the boys were tolerably accurate in their
estimates of the speed of the Nelson. On the day they were
discussing the possible location of the big airship, which was the
18th of August, the Nelson was in the center of as pretty a muss as
Ned had ever mixed with.
The boys in the Black Bear put on all speed, traveling nights as
well as days, and before long began watching the heavens, for an
aeroplane. But the lads on the Nelson were not looking for a boat
poking her nose toward the Andes--"a relief expedition," as Jack
called it!