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[Illustration: FRONTISPIECE. Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone;
or The Plot Against Uncle Sam.]
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Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone
Or
The Plot Against Uncle Sam
By
Scout Master, G. Harvey Ralphson
Author of
"Boy Scouts in Mexico; or On Guard with Uncle Sam."
"Boy Scouts in the Philippines; or The Key to the Treaty Box."
"Boy Scouts in the Northwest; or Fighting Forest Fires."
Embellished with full page and other illustrations.
M. A. Donohue & Company, Chicago
------------------------------------------------------------------------
COPYRIGHT 1911.
M. A. DONOHUE & COMPANY.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Made in U. S. A.
Electrotyped, Printed and Bound by
M. A. Donohue & Co.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Plot Against the Gatun Dam. 7
II. Theft of the Emerald Necklace. 19
III. How the Trick was Turned. 31
IV. The Man in the Closet. 43
V. At the Great Gatun Dam. 55
VI. A Bomb and a Ruined Temple. 67
VII. Working on Ned's Theory. 79
VIII. Explosives for the Gatun Dam. 93
IX. A Fasting Stunt is Suggested. 105
X. A Delegation of Boy Scouts. 116
XI. Jack and His Friend Gastong. 127
XII. Lost in the Jungle at Night. 139
XIII. Boy Scouts to the Rescue. 150
XIV. The Kill in the Jungle. 161
XV. Signal Fires in the Jungle. 172
XVI. A Mighty Jar in the Jungle. 183
XVII. The Watcher in the Thicket. 194
XVIII. Jimmie Releases a Prisoner. 207
XIX. A Guardian Needing Guarding. 220
XX. The Spoil of the Locks. 233
XXI. The Tangle Straightened Out. 245
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BOY SCOUTS IN THE CANAL ZONE
or
THE PLOT AGAINST UNCLE SAM
CHAPTER I
THE PLOT AGAINST THE GATUN DAM.
"Five Black Bears, two Wolves, and a Panther. That would be a choice
collection of wild animals to take to the Canal Zone."
The remark was greeted with shouts of laughter, and then the boys in the
handsome clubroom of the Black Bear Patrol, in the city of New York,
settled down to a serious discussion of the topic of the evening. There
were seven present, Ned Nestor and Jimmie McGraw, of the Wolf Patrol;
George Tolford, Harry Stevens, Glen Howard, and Jack Bosworth, of the
famous Black Bear Patrol; and Peter Fenton, of the Panther Patrol. They
ranged in age from thirteen to seventeen, Jimmie being the youngest and
Ned Nestor the oldest of the group.
They were all enthusiastic Boy Scouts, and their clubrooms were well
supplied with boxing gloves, foils, and footballs, as well as weapons and
articles necessary on camping expeditions. The clubroom in which the boys
were assembled on this gusty night in early April was situated in the
upper part of the fine residence of Jack's father, on Fifth avenue. The
Black Bear Patrol was composed almost entirely of the sons of very wealthy
parents, and the boys were off to the woods and waters whenever
opportunity offered.
In company with Lieutenant Gordon, of the United States Secret Service,
and Frank Shaw, a member of the Black Bear Patrol, whose arrival was
momentarily expected, the boys present had, on the previous day, returned
from a series of unusual and exciting experiences in Mexico, and now they
were discussing a proposed plan for an excursion to the Canal Zone. Of
course they could make the trip if they desired, but what they wanted was
to go in the company of Lieutenant Gordon, sent there on a secret mission
by the Secretary of War.
"Aw, come on, Ned, an' be a good feller," Jimmie McGraw urged, as Nestor
expressed a doubt as to the advisability of taking the boys on the Canal
Zone trip, to which he had been invited by the lieutenant, both as
assistant and companion. "Let us go! We'll talk the lieutenant into
letting us go along if you'll say a good word for us."
During the trip to Mexico to which reference has been made, Ned Nestor had
succeeded in averting serious complications between the government of that
rebellious republic and the government of the United States. Through his
efforts a threatened raid across the Rio Grande from the Mexican side had
been checked on the very border, and the secret service men associated
with him did not hesitate to declare that his tact and activity had done
much to prevent a war between the two countries.
Before leaving the scene of their operations in Mexico, Lieutenant Gordon
had been ordered to New York on important official business. Only an
inkling of what that official business was contained in his letter of
instructions. Only the bare fact that complications in the Canal Zone were
placing the Panama Canal in danger was conveyed to him. Later, after his
arrival in New York, he had learned that the government suspected plots to
destroy the great Gatun dam by the use of explosives.
Only a hint of the threatened danger had been conveyed to the War
department, but that was enough to set on foot the investigation of which
Lieutenant Gordon was to be the head. One of the lieutenant's first acts
after receiving his instructions was to secure the services of Ned Nestor,
being guided in this by the wonderful success of the boy's efforts in
Mexico.
Thus it chanced that on this night every boy who had had the good fortune
to share in the Mexican adventures was importuning Nestor to use his
influence with the lieutenant in order that they might all be taken into
the party. They had already gained the consent of their parents, Nestor,
individually, was willing, and it only remained to convince Lieutenant
Gordon that they could be of use to him and the government on the Canal
Zone.
"If you don't loosen up and take us with you," Harry Stevens declared,
with a grin in the direction of his companions, "we'll give you a chase to
the equator. You know how you found Jimmie in George's bed? Well, if you
don't take us along with you, you'll find us all in your bed before you
get to Panama."
"It seems a pity to unload such a mess of wild animals on the people of
the Zone," laughed Nestor, "but we'll leave it all to Lieutenant Gordon.
Lavish your honeyed words and smiles on him!"
"What's it all about, anyway?" demanded Jimmie. "It's something concerning
the big canal, I know, for I heard you two talking of explosives at the
Gatun dam."
"We all heard that," cried Jack Bosworth. "You can't keep secrets from us.
What is it all about? Is some one trying to blow up the big dam?"
Nestor looked into the faces of the boys with serious eyes. He had not
suspected that they knew anything definite regarding the secret mission,
and was annoyed to think that he in part might be to blame for the leak
which had been discovered.
"Is that what you're going for?" asked Harry Stevens. "Are you going to
mix with governmental affairs again? Because we've got to go if you are.
Honest, now, we won't say a word if you tell us."
"Do you all promise that?" asked Nestor.
"Sure we do," came in chorus.
"Well, then," Nestor went on, "we don't know much about the matter, except
that there are hostile influences at work down there, directed against the
canal. We do not know the proposed point of attack, but presume that the
big dam is in the greatest danger. We do not even know where to look for
the plotters, or whether they are Americans or of foreign birth. The
motive for the contemplated destruction of the great waterway is not even
surmised. In fact, for all we know, this may be a scare, but the thing is
serious enough to call for rigid investigation, so down there we go."
"Sure you can't get along without us!" cried Jimmie. "If you want to know
who is at the bottom of it all, just ask me. It's the railroads. I've
heard men say the canal would have been finished years ago only for the
determined opposition of the transcontinental lines."
"Much you know about it!" cried Harry Stevens. "If anybody should ask you
where to look for the trouble, put your finger on the map of Japan. The
little brown men are digging under the Gatun dam if any one is."
"It does not seem possible that either the Japanese government or the
railroad interests would descend to such despicable work," Nestor said. "I
won't believe it of either of them until I have absolute proof."
"It would be going some to blow up the Gatun dam," Peter Fenton cut in.
"Why, when finished, that dam will be more than a hundred feet high, and
will cover one hundred and sixty-four square miles with water. Its purpose
is to huddle the highland streams into a lake which will become a part of
the canal. This lake will cover plantations, small farms, villages, and
even the present right of way of the Panama railroad."
"If they succeed in blowing up the Gatun dam," Jack said, "there will be
no Canal Completion Exposition in San Francisco in four years. That would
be a shame, for we were all going."
"Think of all that land being put down in the bed of a lake!" Harry
Stevens exclaimed. "We ought to have taken a tip when the canal was first
talked about and bought up that property. Uncle Sam would have bought it
of us at a fancy price. Just think of a sure-thing speculation like
that."
Peter Fenton, known as the Encyclopedia, sat back in his chair and laughed
until his face was as red as the painted snout of the black bear which
looked down from a shield on the wall. The boys shook him up until he
regained the power of speech.
"If you boys had been one year old when the Panama Canal was first
mentioned," he managed to say, choking back his laughter, "you would now
stand at the venerable age of four hundred and sixteen years."
"I guess you get your history in the dream book," Jimmie cried.
"Nixy dream book," declared Peter, with the dignity which comes of much
knowledge. "The Spaniards who lived in the Province of New Granada, on the
Isthmus of Darien, as it was then called, planned a ship canal across the
neck in the year 1518, and there has been talk of the big ditch ever
since."
"Then it takes a long time to get at the job," suggested Jimmie. "The
trench could have been scooped out with a teaspoon in less than four
hundred years."
"Wait until you get down there! You'll see what impression your teaspoon
would make. I've been reading up since I've returned to New York, and know
something about the size of the job. The canal will cost millions more
than Congress figured on, and the job is going ahead without graft, at
that."
"Still," Harry Stevens interrupted, "it would have been a wise move to
have annexed a lot of that land."
"If your speculation had developed when the first talk of the canal was
heard," Peter went on, "you would have had to do business with King
Ferdinand, of Spain. He would have put the soil on the bargain counter for
you one day and shot you up the next. That wouldn't have been so
cheerful."
"Nice party to do business with," laughed Harry.
"He was next to his king job, all right," Peter continued. "He was there
with the gunpowder when any subject stood to put anything over on him. He
caused Columbus to be returned to Spain in chains, and permitted one of
his officials to shoot up the first white man who ever looked out on the
Pacific from the divide of the Isthmus. He carried things by a large
majority, did Ferdinand."
"It was his queen who put her jewels in soak to buy a ship for Columbus,"
commented Jack Bosworth. "I read about it when I was laid up with my
broken arm. You remember the time the horse climbed into my motor car?"
"The police say you never stopped running until you bumped against one of
the White Mountains," laughed Harry. "Who was this white man who first
climbed the divide?" he asked; "as I'm going down there, I want to know. I
may set up a monument to his memory."
"Don't be too sure about going," warned Glen Howard. "Lieutenant Gordon
may kick on the whole bunch of us."
"Then we'll all go down in my motor boat," replied Harry. "You can't keep
me out of the Canal Zone when there's things doing."
"The man's name was Balboa," said Peter, in answer to the question, as he
smiled at this tardy recognition of the services of the explorer. "He went
broke at St. Domingo, one day in the year 1510, and hired a fellow to head
him up in a wine cask and put the cask on board a ship bound for Darien.
He made the trip, all right, and landed broke, but in three years he was
captain of the precinct, as they say in Manhattan, and on his way to the
Pacific. He looked out on the big ocean for the first time on the 26th of
September, 1513. Some say it was the 25th. I don't know which is right."
The door of the clubroom now opened and Lieutenant Gordon entered. He was
a man of not more than thirty, with a stern though not forbidding face and
an alert military figure. His brown eyes lighted up with sudden humor as
he dodged the clamorous boys, and dropped into a chair.
"What about it?" asked Jimmie, who seemed to be a favorite with the
officer. "Do we go with you, or do we trail along in the motor boat?"
"The man higher up," began the lieutenant, "says you may go with me if you
will try to--"
There was no necessity for the lieutenant going on with the sentence. He
had warned the boys so many times as to their conduct on the Isthmus, if
permitted to go with the secret service men, that they now knew in advance
what he was going to say, and they repeated his former admonitions with
shouts of laughter.
"All right," said the lieutenant, trying to look dignified, "if you won't
listen you can't go."
"Go on an' talk your chin off," shouted Jimmie. "We'll listen to every
word until our arms drop to the floor."
"Never mind that now," laughed the officer. "I'm too busy at present to
speak the advice you'll all forget before I'm out of the room. Where is
Frank Shaw? I came here to see him."
"He was coming down to-night," George Tolford replied, "but it is so late
now that he may not be here. Anything special?"
"Why, yes," was the reply. "I want to know what he has been saying to his
father about the difficulty in the Canal Zone."
"Why, he doesn't know anything to tell," said Nestor, "not even as much as
the boys here now know, for I have talked the situation over with them but
not with him."
"What do they know regarding the situation?" asked the lieutenant,
apprehensively.
"Nothing except that the Panama canal is threatened by some unknown
influence."
"Well," said the lieutenant, thoughtfully, "some one has been leaking, and
it seems as if our first move in the game must be made right here in New
York."
"It wasn't Frank that leaked," Jimmie asserted, in defense of his friend.
"He wouldn't do such a thing, and he couldn't tell what he didn't know,
anyway," with which logical conclusion the boy turned his back to the
group.
"There is something wrong somewhere," Lieutenant Gordon said. "Wait until
I tell you what took place this afternoon and you will agree with me."