AT THE GREAT GATUN DAM.
"Over there is the oldest country on this side of the world," said Peter
Fenton, pointing over the rail of the vessel and across the smooth waters
of the Caribbean sea. "We are now on the famous Spanish Main," he
continued, "where adventurers from the Windward Islands laid in wait for
the galleons of Spain. Just ahead, rising out of the sea, is the Isthmus
of Panama. Down there to the left is the continent of South America, where
there were cathedrals and palaces when Manhattan Island was still
populated by native Indians."
The minds of the Boy Scouts were filled with splendid dreams as they
followed with their eyes the directions indicated by the pointing hand. It
was all a fairyland to them. Peter talked for some time on the causes
which had brought the scum of the seven seas to the Isthmus, and then Ned
Nestor interrupted the talk by inviting them all to the stateroom he
occupied in common with Frank Shaw.
When all were seated on chairs and bunks Ned opened the door and looked
out on the passage which ran along in front of the apartment. When he
turned back into the room there was a humorous twinkle in his eyes.
"His Nobbs is in sight," he said.
"The same party?" asked Frank.
"The same dusky gentleman who has followed us since the night of the theft
of the emerald necklace," Ned replied.
"He ought to receive a Carnegie medal for always being on the spot," Frank
said.
"We ought to turn the hose on him," Jimmie corrected.
"We should feel lost without him," laughed George Tolford. "When I first
saw him in the newspaper building, while you were investigating the chaos
of papers in Mr. Shaw's rooms," he went on, "I had a hunch that we
shouldn't be able to lose him."
"Well, we haven't been able to lose him," Peter Fenton said. "He reminds
me, the way he floats about, of the ghost of some pirate who sailed about
the Spanish Main four hundred years ago in a long, low, rakish craft
adorned with a black flag."
"I saw him in the newspaper building that night," Jimmie said, "an' he
looked glad because we got no clues there."
"Why didn't Ned have him arrested in New York?" asked Jack Bosworth.
"What for?" demanded Jimmie.
"For making a nuisance of himself. Then he couldn't have followed us on
board the ship. Also, he might have been able to get a little sleep
nights."
"I reckon we have kept him going," Frank observed, with a laugh.
Ever since the night of the robbery the man called "His Nobbs" for want of
a better name had kept Ned Nestor in sight most of the time. He had
followed him home after the profitless visit to the newspaper office on
the night of the theft, had chased about after him while the details of
the trip to Panama were arranged the next day, and had turned up on the
ship after she was under way.
The fellow did not seem to be overly anxious to keep his watchfulness a
secret. He acted like any first cabin passenger on the ship. But, somehow,
he managed to keep Ned in view most of the time. Now and then he was
caught watching the door of Ned's stateroom. He never spoke to the boy,
and never even looked at him when the two passed one another.
Taking advantage of this preference for Ned's company, the boys had put up
all sorts of jobs on the fellow, and some of their pranks had kept him
watching Ned's odd moves all night. It was a new and strange experience to
Ned, this being spied upon so openly, and he was at a loss to account for
the mental processes which inspired the strange surveillance.
"Well," said Ned presently, "let him watch outside if he wants to. We came
in here to talk about something else. I have just been talking with
Lieutenant Gordon, and he says we are to go into camp in the jungle not
far from the Gatun dam. He will stop at the Tivoli, at Ancon, adjoining
Panama. When we have anything to communicate to him, one of us can go down
to Panama after supplies and leave word at an office where one of the
lieutenant's associates in the case will always be in waiting. We are not
to know the lieutenant if we meet him in our soup."
"We'll be eaten alive out there in the jungle," protested Jimmie.
"Besides, it would be more natural for us to go to Gatun for our
supplies," Peter Fenton said.
"There are reasons why he wants us to remain in the jungle near Gatun for
a time," Ned replied, and the boys separated, Jimmie strolling off in the
wake of "His Nobbs," "just to see if he couldn't make him cough up
something," as he expressed it.
The mystery of the theft of the emerald necklace was still unsolved, the
man whose picture Ned carried in his brain had not been found, Pedro had
been among the missing ever since he had walked out of the Shaw residence
on the morning after the robbery. When the boys landed at Colon the next
morning the case upon which they were engaged was still new ground before
them.
Frank Shaw continued to take the loss of his emeralds very seriously, and
at no time during the trip to Colon had he failed to keep an eye out for
Pedro, whom he suspected of having admitted the thief to the house.
"His name isn't Pedro at all," he said, as the train sped out of the
network of tracks behind Colon, "but Pedrarias. That was the name of the
robber who succeeded Balboa as governor of New Granada, the pirate who
stood Balboa up against a wall and shot him. Pedro, as I call him for
short, declares that he is a direct descendant of that old stiff. He says
the Spanish blood in his veins is pure. Great Scott! if I had such a
pirate for an ancestor, I'd keep mighty still about it."
Peter Fenton was in his element now. As the train moved away from Colon he
pointed out various points of interest, and supplied such information
about them as he had gleaned from the maps and books he had consulted. The
ruins of the old French workings were soon in sight, the locality where
millions had been squandered in graft. And there was Mount Hope Cemetery,
where thousands who had perished from fever had been buried.
"The doctors have cleaned out the fever now," he said, "by cleaning out
the mosquitoes--the poison kind with the long name," he added. "The Canal
Zone is about as healthy now as the city of New York."
Then came thickets where the trees were tied together with vines and
creepers, all in gorgeous bloom. The great trees lifting their heads out
of the jungle reminded the boys of the electric towers of New York, the
twists of vines resembling the mighty cables which convey light, heat and
power to the inhabitants of Manhattan.
As if in rivalry of the wealth of blossoms, bright-plumaged birds darted
about like butterflies of unnatural growth. Now and then they saw evil
looking lizards, some of them a yard in length, scuttling off through the
marshes or looking down from high limbs. There was a swampy atmosphere
over all the landscape.
Then, as the Boy Scouts looked, thinking of the glory of a camp in the
thicket--of a retired nook on some dry knoll--the jungle disappeared as if
by magic, and the train was winding up grassy hills. Beyond, higher up,
the scattered houses of a city of fair size came into view.
"That's Gatun," cried Fenton. "I've read half a dozen descriptions of it
lately. Great town, that."
"The houses look like boxes from here," Jimmie observed.
"Of course," Peter replied, "they are all two-story houses, square, with
double balconies all screened in. Might be Philadelphia, eh?"
There were smooth roads in front of the houses, and there were yards where
flowers were growing, and where neatly dressed children were playing.
Jimmie turned from the homelike scene to Frank.
"I thought there would be something new down here," he complained. "This
is just like a town up the Hudson."
"Jimmie expected to find people living in tents made out of animal skins,"
laughed George. "He thinks the natives eat folks alive."
"You wait until you get out of the country," Frank said, "before you talk
of cottages up the Hudson. There will be something stirring before we get
off the Isthmus."
"I hope so," Jimmie replied. "There surely will be if we camp back there
in the jungle, among the snakes and lizards."
"Why not camp on the hills back there?" asked Jack.
"We may soon camp anywhere we like," said Ned. "The Zone government
understands that we are a lot of kids out after specimens."
"Specimens of what?" asked Jimmie.
"Tall, slender men with black hair turning gray," replied Frank.
"Quit your kiddin'," grinned Jimmie.
The boys left the train at a modern depot, passed through the train-shed,
crossed a level sward, and looked down into a mighty chasm.
"Great Scott!" cried Frank. "Is that the bottom of the world?"
He pointed below as he spoke.
"There seems to be a thin crust of rock between the bottom and the other
side of the world," laughed George. "See! There are tunnels and pits down
there. The men are still digging. Look like ants, don't they?"
It was a wonderful sight, and the Boy Scouts gazed long at the scene of
activity before turning away toward the Gatun dam itself. This, Peter
Fenton explained, was one of the big cuts of the canal, and ran from the
marshy valley above down through the rocky ridge which held the rains in
check and made a swamp of the upland.
Along the margins of the excavation ran shining steel rails upon which
were mounted tapering structures of steel, from which cables crossed the
gorge, carrying great buckets of concrete for the work below. Heavy walls
were growing out of the depths.
"The ships will come up out of the sea through this cut," Peter
explained.
"Then they'll climb the hill," scorned Jimmie.
"They will stop down there," said Peter, "and the lock gates will be
closed, and the water will lift them to the level of the lake."
"I don't see no lake," observed the skeptical Jimmie.
"The lake will lie where the low land is, over there," replied Peter,
pointing. "The Gatun dam will block the water and make a lake 85 feet
above sea level, covering one hundred and sixty-four square miles of
earth."
"So the most of the canal will be lake?" asked the boy.
"Quite a lot of it," was the reply.
"And if any one should blow up the dam, after it gets on its job, the
ships would have to climb a ladder if they got over to Panama," he
exclaimed.
"Something like that," Peter said.
"Where is the Gatun dam?" asked Jack.
"It is going up over there," Peter replied, pointing out a low, broad
ridge which appeared to link two hills together. "That is what will make
the inland sea, and that is the lump of earth we came here to look
after."
"It is a busy place night and day," Ned said. "See the electric towers and
wires? Work never stops."
"Something like His Nobbs," grinned Jimmie. "I wonder if he has had any
sleep since he struck our trail?"
"I haven't seen him since we left the train," Jack said. "Perhaps he has
delivered us over to the Panama division of the Anti-Canal Benevolent
Society. In that case, we shall see no more of him."
After a time the boys strolled over to a neat little hotel on the
principal street of the town, and there saw Lieutenant Gordon, who
strolled up to Ned, just as any two Americans meeting there might have
affiliated.
"Your camp in the jungle is ready for you," the officer said, as the two
walked about the lobby of the hotel. "You will find a movable cottage
there, all furnished, and a good cook. Until further orders you are all to
remain there."
"Pretty quick work," said Ned.
"The orders for the cottage camp were sent over by wire before we left New
York," the lieutenant replied. "You are at liberty to roam about the works
at will, only you ought to leave some one at the cottage always."
"As I understand it, we are boys looking for adventure?" asked Ned.
"Exactly."
"And an emerald necklace," added the boy with a laugh.
"I have a notion that if you find Pedro you will find the necklace, unless
you find him too late--after he has disposed of it."
"That may be," Ned replied, doubtingly, "but we are not likely to run
across Pedro over here. Neither shall we see His Nobbs. They have played
their roles, and we shall have new ones to contend with now."
That night the boys took possession of the cottage in the jungle, dancing
and prancing about it like wild Indians. It all seemed to them to be too
good to be true. Here they were, at last, on the Canal Zone, and, in a
way, in the secret service of the government. It was late when they
retired, and no guard was set.
This Ned regretted, after the others were asleep, and so lay awake a long
time, watching. Then, about midnight, he saw some one looking in at the
porch door.