THE FLASHLIGHT
For an instant the moving picture boys could hardly grasp the
meaning of the fateful words spoken by Captain Wiltsey. But it
needed only a look at his face to tell that he was laboring under
great excitement.
"The Gatun Dam to be destroyed," repeated Joe. "Then we'd better
get--"
"Do you mean by an earthquake?" asked Blake, breaking in on his
chum's words.
"No, I don't take any stock in their earthquake theories," the
captain answered. "That's all bosh! It's dynamite."
"Dynamite!" cried Joe and Blake in a breath.
"Yes, there are rumors, so persistent that they cannot be denied,
to the effect that the dam is to be blown up some night."
"Blown up!" cried Blake and Joe again.
"That's the rumor," continued Captain Wiltsey. "I don't wonder you
are astonished. I was myself when I heard it. But I've come to get
you boys to help us out."
"How can we help?" asked Blake. "Not that we won't do all we can,"
he added hastily, "but I should think you'd need Secret Service
men, detectives, and all that sort of help."
"We'll have enough of that help," went on the tug boat commander,
who was also an employee of the commission that built the Canal.
"But we need the peculiar help you boys can give us with your
cameras."
"You mean to take moving pictures of the blowing up of the dam?"
asked Joe.
"Well, there won't be any blowing up, if we can help it," spoke
the captain, grimly. "But we want to photograph the attempt if it
goes that far. Have you any flashlight powder?"
"Yes," Blake answered. "Or, if not, we can make some with
materials we can easily get. But you can't make more than a
picture or two by flashlight."
"Couldn't you if you had a very big flashlight that would last for
several minutes?"
"Yes, I suppose so."
"Well, then, figure on that."
"But I don't understand it all," objected Blake, and Joe, too,
looked his wonder. Both were seeking a reason why the captain had
said he was glad Mr. Alcando had gone out to get the camera he had
forgotten.
"I'll explain," said Mr. Wiltsey. "You have no doubt heard, as we
all have down here, the stories of fear of an earthquake shock. As
I said, I think they're all bosh. But of late there have been
persistent rumors that a more serious menace is at hand. And that
is dynamite.
"In fact the rumors have gotten down to a definite date, and it is
said to-night is the time picked out for the destruction of the
dam. The water of the Chagres River is exceptionally high, owing
to the rains, and if a breach were blown in the dam now it would
mean the letting loose of a destructive flood."
"But who would want to blow up the dam?" asked Blake.
"Enemies of the United States," was the captain's answer. "I don't
know who they are, nor why they should be our enemies, but you
know several nations are jealous of Uncle Sam, that he possesses
such a vitally strategic waterway as the Panama Canal.
"But we don't need to discuss all that now. The point is that we
are going to try to prevent this thing and we want you boys to
help."
"With a flashlight?" asked Blake, wondering whether the captain
depended on scaring those who would dare to plant a charge of
dynamite near the great dam.
"With a flashlight, or, rather, with a series of them, and your
moving picture cameras," the captain went on. "We want you boys to
get photographic views of those who will try to destroy the dam,
so that we will have indisputable evidence against them. Will you
do it?"
"Of course we will!" cried Blake. "Only how can it be done? We
don't know where the attempt will be made, nor when, and
flashlight powder doesn't burn very long, you know."
"Yes, I know all that," the captain answered. "And we have made a
plan. We have a pretty good idea where the attempt will be
made--near the spillway, and as to the time, we can only guess at
that.
"But it will be some time to-night, almost certainly, and we will
have a sufficient guard to prevent it. Some one of this guard can
give you boys warning, and you can do the rest--with your
cameras."
"Yes, I suppose so," agreed Blake.
"It will be something like taking the pictures of the wild animals
in the jungle," Joe said. "We did some of them by flashlight, you
remember, Blake."
"Yes, so we did. And I brought the apparatus with us, though we
haven't used it this trip. Now let's get down to business. But
we'll need help in this, Joe. I wonder where Alcando--?"
"You don't need him," declared the captain.
"Why not?" asked Joe. "He knows enough about the cameras now,
and--"
"He's a foreigner--a Spaniard," objected the captain.
"I see," spoke Blake. "You don't want it to go any farther than
can be helped."
"No," agreed the captain.
"But how did you and the other officials hear all this?" Joe
wanted to know.
"In a dozen different ways," was the answer. "Rumors came to us,
we traced them, and got--more rumors. There has been some
disaffection among the foreign laborers. Men with fancied, but not
real grievances, have talked and muttered against the United
States. Then, in a manner I cannot disclose, word came to us that
the discontent had culminated in a well-plotted plan to destroy
the dam, and to-night is the time set.
"Just who they are who will try the desperate work I do not know.
I fancy no one does. But we may soon know if you boys can
successfully work the cameras and flashlights."
"And we'll do our part!" exclaimed Blake. "Tell us where to set
the cameras."
"We can use that automatic camera, too; can't we?" asked Joe.
"Yes, that will be the very thing!" cried Blake. They had found,
when making views of wild animals in the jungle, as I have
explained in the book of that title, that to be successful in some
cases required them to be absent from the drinking holes, where
the beasts came nightly to slake their thirst.
So they had developed a combined automatic flashlight and camera,
that would, when set, take pictures of the animals as they came to
the watering-place. The beasts themselves would, by breaking a
thread, set the mechanism in motion.
"The flashlight powder--I wonder if we can get enough of that?"
spoke Joe. "It'll take quite a lot."
"We must get it--somehow," declared the captain. "I fancy we have
some on hand, and perhaps you can make more. There is quite a
chemical laboratory here at the dam. But we've got to hustle. The
attempt is to be made some time after midnight."
"Hustle it is!" cried Blake. "Come on, Joe."