THE BIG SLIDE
For a short space there was a calm that seemed more thrilling than
the wildest confusion. It took a few seconds for the rush of water
to reach the _Bohio_, and when it did the tug began to sway and
tug at the mooring cables, for they had not yet been cast off to
enable it to be towed.
Blake rushed toward the lower cabin.
"Where are you going?" cried Joe.
"To get the cameras," replied his chum, not pausing. "This is a
chance we mustn't miss."
"But we must escape! We must look to ourselves!" shouted Mr.
Alcando. "This is not time for making moving pictures."
"We've got to make it this time!" Joe said, falling in with Blake.
"You'll find you've got to make moving pictures when you _can_,
not when you _want_ to!"
To do justice to Mr. Alcando he was not a coward, but this was
very unusual for him, to make pictures in the face of a great
danger--to stand calmly with a camera, turning the crank and
getting view after view on the strip of celluloid film, while a
flood of water rushed down on you. It was something he never
dreamed of.
But he was not a "quitter," which word, though objectionable as
slang, is most satisfactorily descriptive.
"I'll help!" the young Spaniard cried, as he followed Blake and
Joe down to where the cameras and films were kept.
On came the rush of water, released by the accidental opening of
the upper lock gates before the lower ones were closed. The waters
of Gatun Lake were rushing to regain the freedom denied them by
the building of the locks.
But they were not to have their own way for long. Even this
emergency, great as it was, unlikely as it was to happen, had been
foreseen by those who built the Canal.
"The dam! Swing over the emergency dam!" came the cry.
The _Bohio_ was now straining and pulling at her cables.
Fortunately they were long enough to enable her to rise on the
flood of the rushing water, or she might have been held down, and
so overwhelmed. But she rose like a cork, though she plunged and
swayed under the influence of the terrible current, which was like
a mill race.
"Use both cameras!" cried Blake, as he and Joe each came on deck
bearing one, while Mr. Alcando followed with spare reels of film.
"We'll both take pictures," Blake went on. "One set may be
spoiled!"
Then he and his chum, setting up their cameras on the tripods,
aimed the lenses at the advancing flood, at the swung-back gates
and at the men on top of the concrete walls, endeavoring to bring
into place the emergency dam.
It was a risky thing to do, but then Blake and Joe were used to
doing risky things, and this was no more dangerous than the
chances they had taken in the jungle, or in earthquake land.
On rushed the water. The tug rose and fell on the bosom of the
flood, unconfined as it was by the restraining gates. And as the
sturdy vessel swayed this way and that, rolling at her moorings
and threatening every moment to break and rush down the Canal,
Blake and Joe stood at their posts, turning the cranks. And beside
them stood Mr. Alcando, if not as calm as the boys, at least as
indifferent to impending fate.
Captain Wiltsey of the _Bohio_ had given orders to run the engine
at full speed, hoping by the use of the propeller to offset
somewhat the powerful current. But the rush of water was too great
to allow of much relief.
"There goes the emergency dam!" suddenly cried Blake.
"Gone out, you mean?" yelled Joe above the roar of waters.
"No, it's being swung into place. It'll be all over in a few
minutes. Good thing we got the pictures when we did."
Across the lock, about two hundred feet above the upper gate, was
being swung into place the steel emergency dam, designed to meet
and overcome just such an accident as had occurred.
These dams were worked by electricity, and could be put in place
in two minutes; or, if the machinery failed, they could be worked
by hand, though taking nearly half an hour, during which time much
damage might be done. But in this case the electrical machinery
worked perfectly, and the dam, which when not in use rested
against the side of the lock wall, and parallel with it, was swung
across.
Almost at once the rush of water stopped, gradually subsiding
until the tug swung easily at her mooring cables.
"Whew!" whistled Blake in relief, as he ceased grinding at the
crank of his moving picture camera. "That was going some!"
"That's what!" agreed Joe. "But I guess we got some good films."
"You certainly deserved to!" exclaimed Mr. Alcando, with shining
eyes. "You are very brave!"
"Oh, it's all in the day's work," spoke Blake. "Now I wonder how
that happened?"
"That's what I'd like to know," said Captain Wiltsey. "I must look
into this."
An inquiry developed the fact that a misplaced switch in some
newly installed electrical machinery that controlled the upper
lock gate was to blame. The lock machinery was designed to be
automatic, and as nearly "error proof" as anything controlled by
human beings can be. That is to say it was planned that no vessel
could proceed into a lock until the fender chain was lowered, and
that an upper gate could not be opened until a lower one was
closed. But in this case something went wrong, and the two gates
were opened at once, letting out the flood.
This, however, had been foreseen, and the emergency dam provided,
and it was this solid steel wall that had saved the lock from
serious damage, and the _Bohio_ from being overwhelmed.
As it was no harm had been done and, when the excitement had
calmed down, and an inspection made to ascertain that the gates
would now work perfectly, the tug was allowed to proceed.
"Well, what are your plans now, boys?" asked Mr. Alcando on the
day after the lock accident.
"Back to Culebra Cut," answered Blake. "We have orders to get a
picture of a big slide there, and we're going to do it."
"Even if you have to make the slide yourself?" asked the Spaniard
with a short laugh.
"Not much!" exclaimed Blake. "I'd do a good deal to get the kind
of moving pictures they want, but nothing like that. There have
been some rains of late, however, and if things happen as they
often have before in the Cut there may be a slide."
"Yes, they do follow rains, so I am told," went on the Spaniard.
"Well, I do not wish your Canal any bad luck, but if a slide does
occur I hope it will come when you can get views of it."
"In the daytime, and not at night," suggested Joe.
For several days nothing of interest occurred. Blake and Joe sent
back to New York the films of the mad rush of waters through the
lock, and also dispatched other views they had taken. They had
gone to Culebra Cut and there tied up, waiting for a slide that
might come at any time, and yet which might never occur. Naturally
if the canal engineers could have had their way they would have
preferred never to see another avalanche of earth descend.
Mr. Alcando had by this time proved that he could take moving
pictures almost as well as could the boys. Of course this filming
of nature was not all there was to the business. It was quite
another matter to make views of theatrical scenes, or to film the
scene of an indoor and outdoor drama.
"But I do not need any of that for my purpose," explained Mr.
Alcando. "I just want to know how to get pictures that will help
develope our railroad business."
"You know that pretty well now," said Blake. "I suppose you will
soon be leaving the Canal--and us."
"Not until I see you film the big slide," he replied. "I wish you
all success."
"To say nothing of the Canal," put in Joe.
"To say nothing of the Canal," repeated the Spaniard, and he
looked at the boys in what Blake said afterward he thought was a
strange manner.
"Then you haven't altogether gotten over your suspicions of him?"
asked Joe.
"No, and yet I don't know why either of us should hold any against
him," went on Joe's chum. "Certainly he has been a good friend
and companion to us, and he has learned quickly."
"Oh, yes, he's smart enough. Well, we haven't much more to do
here. A slide, if we can get one, and some pictures below Gatun
Dam, and we can go back North."
"Yes," agreed Blake.
"Seen anything of Alcando's alarm clock model lately?" asked Joe,
after a pause.
"Not a thing, and I haven't heard it tick. Either he has given up
working on it, or he's so interested in the pictures that he has
forgotten it."
Several more days passed, gloomy, unpleasant days, for it rained
nearly all the time. Then one morning, sitting in the cabin of the
tug anchored near Gold Hill, there came an alarm.
"A land slide! A big slide in Culebra Cut! Emergency orders!"
"That means us!" cried Blake, springing to his feet, and getting
out a camera. "It's our chance, Joe."
"Yes! Too bad, but it had to be, I suppose," agreed his chum, as
he slipped into a mackintosh, for it was raining hard.