JOE’S PLIGHT
From outside the cabin of the tug came a confused series of sounds.
First there was the swish and pelt of the rain, varied as the wind blew
the sheets of water across the deck. But, above it all, was a deep,
ominous note--a grinding, crushing noise, as of giant rocks piling one
on top of the other, smashing to powder between them the lighter stones.
“What will happen?” asked Mr. Alcando, as he watched Joe and Blake
making ready. They seemed to work mechanically--slipping into rubber
boots and rain coats, and, all the while, seeing that the cameras and
films were in readiness. They had brought some waterproof boxes to be
used in case of rain--some they had found of service during the flood
on the Mississippi.
“No one knows what will happen,” said Blake grimly. “But we’re going to
get some pictures before too much happens.”
“Out there?” asked the Spaniard, with a motion of his hand toward the
side of the big hill through which the Canal had been cut.
“Out there--of course!” cried Joe. “We can’t get moving pictures of the
slide in here.”
He did not intend to speak shortly, but it sounded so in the stress of
his hurry.
“Then I’m coming!” said Mr. Alcando quietly. “If I’m to do this sort
of work in the jungle, along our railroad, I’ll need to have my nerve
stiffened.”
“This will stiffen it all right,” returned Blake, sternly, as a louder
sound from without told of a larger mass of the earth sliding into the
waters of the Canal, whence the drift had been excavated with so much
labor.
It was a bad slide--the worst in the history of the undertaking--and
the limit of it was not reached when Joe and Blake, with their cameras
and spare boxes of film, went out on deck.
The brown-red earth, the great rocks and the little stones, masses of
gravel, shale, schist, cobbles, fine sand--all in one intermingled mass
was slipping, sliding, rolling, tumbling, falling and fairly leaping
down the side of Gold Hill.
“Come on!” cried Blake to Joe.
“I’m with you,” was the reply.
“And I, also,” said Mr. Alcando with set teeth.
Fortunately for them the tug was tied to a temporary dock on the side
of the hill where the slide had started, so they did not have to take a
boat across, but could at once start for the scene of the disaster.
“We may not be here when you come back!” called Captain Wiltsey after
the boys.
“Why not?” asked Joe.
“I may have to go above or below. I don’t want to take any chances of
being caught by a blockade.”
“All right. We’ll find you wherever you are,” said Blake.
As yet the mass of slipping and sliding earth was falling into the
waters of the Canal some distance from the moored tug. But there was
no telling when the slide might take in a larger area, and extend both
east and west.
Up a rude trail ran Blake and Joe, making their way toward where the
movement of earth was most pronounced. The light was not very good
on account of the rain, but they slipped into the cameras the most
sensitive film, to insure good pictures even when light conditions were
most unsatisfactory.
The moving picture boys paused for only a glance behind them. They had
heard the emergency orders being given. Soon they would be flashed
along the whole length of the Canal, bringing to the scene the scows,
the dredges, the centrifugal pumps--the men and the machinery that
would tear out the earth that had no right to be where it had slid.
Then, seeing that the work of remedying the accident was under way,
almost as soon as the accident had occurred, Blake and Joe, followed
by Mr. Alcando, hurried on through the rain, up to their ankles in red
mud, for the rain was heavy. It was this same rain that had so loosened
the earth that the slide was caused.
“Here’s a good place!” cried Blake, as he came to a little eminence
that gave a good view of the slipping, sliding earth and stones.
“I’ll go on a little farther,” said Joe. “We’ll get views from two
different places.”
“What can I do?” asked the Spaniard, anxious not only to help his
friends, but to learn as much as he could of how moving pictures are
taken under adverse circumstances.
“You stay with Blake,” suggested Joe. “I’ve got the little camera and
I can handle that, and my extra films, alone and with ease. Stay with
Blake.”
It was well the Spaniard did.
With a rush and roar, a grinding, crashing sound a large mass of earth,
greater in extent than any that had preceded, slipped from the side of
the hill.
“Oh, what a picture this will make!” cried Blake, enthusiastically.
He had his camera in place, and was grinding away at the crank, Mr.
Alcando standing ready to assist when necessary.
“Take her a while,” suggested Blake, who was “winded” from his run, and
carrying the heavy apparatus.
The big portion of the slide seemed to have subsided, at least
momentarily. Blake gave a look toward where Joe had gone. At that
moment, with a roar like a blast of dynamite, a whole section of the
hill seemed to slip away, and then, with a grinding crash the slanting
earth on which Joe stood, and where he had planted the tripod of his
camera, went out from under him.
Joe and his camera disappeared from sight.