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.