The Boy Scouts at the Panama Canal

When this had been done, Mr. Mainwaring decided that before blowing the whistle to summon back the young hunters they would give the machinery a test. Accordingly, when the canoes had been secured to the shore, Rob reversed the engine and started it up.

For a moment it whirled and chugged away, straining to back the launch off the muddy shallows in which she had grounded. The lightly built craft trembled under the effort. The engine snorted and puffed as more power was applied.

“Hooray! We’re afloat once more!” cried Merritt triumphantly, as the launch was caught in the current and swung free. But at the same instant came an ominous cracking sound. The engine raced wildly and then stopped as Rob shut off the power.

“What’s the matter now?” cried Mr. Raynor apprehensively, as the launch began to drift downstream in a helpless way.

“Wait a minute. I’ll see,” cried Rob, and then the next instant, “The driving chain has snapped!”

“Throw out the anchor before we drift any more,” cried Mr. Mainwaring.

This was done and then Rob set about making an investigation. As he had declared, the driving chain, which drove the stern wheel just as a bicycle sprocket is revolved, had parted in the middle. Undoubtedly the strain that had been placed on it when they were backing the launch off had proved too much for its strength.

They regarded the accident with some dismay.

“Great Scotland! That means we are stuck,” exclaimed Merritt.

“Unquestionably, unless we can make some repairs,” admitted Mr. Mainwaring.

“Do you think you can fix it, Rob?” asked Mr. Raynor.

“I might manage to make a temporary link out of wire,” replied Rob, “but I’m afraid it wouldn’t hold long against the current.”

“Isn’t there a spare chain in the tool locker?” asked Merritt.

Mr. Mainwaring shook his head.

“There’s nothing for it but to turn back and get a new link forged,” he said. “Too bad!”

“It is indeed,” agreed Rob. “Shall I make a link out of steel wire? I guess that would be strong enough to carry us down with the stream if we go slowly.”

“Yes, do so,” was the reply. “Merritt, will you sound the return whistle for Bob Hopkins and Fred?”

Merritt pulled the cord connecting with the compressed air whistle and tugged it lustily. Then he paused and blew again, keeping this up for some time. No reply had come; but as yet they felt no anxiety. It was likely that the boys would take some time in returning, and the possibility of their being out of ear-shot of the whistle did not occur to any of the party.

But when an hour had passed and then another dragged its slow length away without bringing any signs of the absentees, anxiety gave place to alarm and alarm to genuine fear that harm might have overtaken them. They looked blankly at each other. For a time no one spoke.

Suddenly, from a great distance as it seemed, there came the sound of a rifle shot.

Had they but known it, the sound was caused by Tubby’s shot at the band of monkeys. Although ignorant of its cause, it made the dismayed little party’s spirits pick up a bit to hear at least some sound of the two young hunters, even though they knew that they must be some distance off.

“Raynor,” ordered Mr. Mainwaring, “I don’t know whether that shot was merely a signal that they are coming, or a signal of distress. In any event I am going ashore. Rob, you may come with me if you like. Bring your rifle. Merritt, you keep guard with Mr. Raynor.”

The engineer merely nodded in answer to his chief’s orders. Merritt looked rather disappointed. He would have liked to accompany the searchers, but as he knew that was impossible he put the best face possible on the matter and helped Rob and Mr. Mainwaring to get ashore by means of the plank.

Almost instantly the jungle swallowed them up. As they vanished from sight, Raynor sighed. Merritt looking up saw that he looked distressed. He ventured to ask him what was the matter.

“I don’t just know why, my boy, but I’ve got an idea that the lads are in trouble in the woods yonder,” he said. “I don’t like the idea of that distant shot.”

“You – you don’t think that there are any Indians off in the forest, do you?” asked Merritt, turning a shade paler.

“I don’t think anything. I don’t want to say anything till I’m sure; but we’re not so far from San Blas country that a wandering hunting party might not happen along through the forest. They have the jungle honeycombed with paths known only to themselves.”

“But supposing – just supposing that the boys did fall in with them, would the Indians do them any harm?”

“Impossible to say, Merritt. This I do know, however, that the Indians’ minds have been worked on by those who are opposed to the canal until they have been taught to regard all white men as their enemies. They have been told that the making of the canal will flood out their hunting grounds and drive them into remoter parts of the country. Naturally, they regard white men with suspicion and hatred.”

While this conversation was going on, Mr. Mainwaring, whose face was sadly troubled, and his young companion, had been pushing their way through the jungle. Fortunately the trail of Tubby and Fred was pretty well marked where they had shoved their way through the underbrush. Finally they came to the spot where the two boys had met with the serpent. Rob examined the ground with the instinct of a true scout and skillful trapper. Traces of a sudden stoppage and a precipitate flight off into the jungle were plainly visible.

But what had caused the boys to beat such a rapid retreat was by no means so plain.

“Can you make out anything, Rob?” asked Mr. Mainwaring, after a pause.

“No, sir,” said Rob perplexedly, “except that something appears to have frightened them just at this point. You can see by their footmarks in this soft mud that they were running fast when they made off. And see here, sir, where one of them fell and scrambled up again, going on as quickly as before.”

“Jove, you can read all that in those tracks?”

“That’s part of the Boy Scout training, sir,” rejoined Rob modestly.

“It’s wonderful! Wonderful! But tell me, can you see the signs of any wild beasts?”

“Not one. That’s what makes it so mysterious. It is plain that something was after them and yet there are no tracks.”

“Well, we had better follow up the trail they have left through the jungle. That is our only course, in fact.”

On and on they pursued the trail, going slowly of necessity. Here they would lose the trail for a time and then again in a few minutes Rob’s cleverness as a Scout would pick it up again by means of a broken blade of grass or a creeper that had been brushed aside. Never had the young leader’s well-trained faculties been more on the alert than now as he followed his chum’s trail through the trackless jungle.

And all the while poor Tubby and Fred were wandering further and further from them. At length they reached the open space where the boys had paused a while and Tubby had shot at the monkeys overhead. All at once Rob darted forward. On the ground he had spied a brass shell. They examined it and found that it tallied with the caliber of Tubby’s rifle, but beyond this there was no further clue.

Suddenly Rob gave a cry of delight. He eagerly examined what appeared to Mr. Mainwaring to be nothing more than a clump of pampas grass slightly bent over to the left. But Rob’s quick eye had caught sight of a band of grass tied round its top just below the bend. To an ordinary person’s eye this would have meant nothing. But to Rob, trained in scouting, it meant that the two lads they were pursuing had turned to the left.

On they went again, never flagging through the hot noonday, but patiently picking up the trail as they went along. Now a scratch on the bark of a limb would show Rob the direction, presently some trampled grass or flowers led him on, again he would stumble on one of Tubby’s stone or grass signs.

All the time the trail kept getting fresher. Their hopes rose high.

“We’re catching up on them,” cried Rob. “It’s slow but sure; we’re catching up.”

Presently they stood in the space under the tall trees where Tubby and Fred had paused and where the San Blas Indians had surprised them. Rob, like a pointer dog, went rapidly hither and thither, crouched low, looking for the tiny signs which mean so little to an untrained and so much to a carefully educated eye.

Suddenly he gave a sharp cry. It brought Mr. Mainwaring to his side in an instant.

“Look, sir! Here in this soft earth! The print of bare feet! Very small bare feet! What does it mean?”

“Indians!” exclaimed Mr. Mainwaring, his face working. “The trail ends here, Rob. Oh, my poor boy! My poor boy!”

And, quite overcome, Mr. Mainwaring sank down on the same log on which, had he but known it, his son Fred had collapsed but a short time before. It was a long time that he sat there with his head buried in his hands, and when he raised his face Rob saw that it was white and strangely drawn, but full of determination.

“What are we to do, sir?” demanded Rob. “I’m afraid that, as you say, there is no doubt they have been carried off; but luckily, I see no signs of a struggle. Perhaps there is hope.”

Mr. Mainwaring had said nothing and Rob had not told him of his discovery of a spear that still stuck in the tree into which it had darted quivering above Tubby’s head. He could not find it in his heart to increase Mr. Mainwaring’s distress, and, agitated as he himself was, Rob had still thoughtfulness enough not to add to another’s burdens.

Presently he repeated his question.

“Have you any plan, sir?”

Mr. Mainwaring sprang to his feet; his eyes had a hard glint in them.

“Yes, I have a plan,” he exclaimed, “the only plan that can save them. We must return at once, get a powerful force and ransack this forest from end to end. Perhaps if the Indians learn of this, and learn of it they will quick enough, they will give the boys up.”

Slowly, each busied with his own thoughts, they made their way back toward the river. But before they reached it, it began to grow dusk. An uneasy wind sighed in the tops of the forest trees. But for this a death-like stillness prevailed.

“We must hurry. A storm is coming on,” said Mr. Mainwaring looking upward.

Before long they could catch the glint of the river through the trees. But here a fresh surprise awaited them. There lay the canoes, just as they had left them; everything looked the same, but of the launch there was not a sign!

They could hardly believe their eyes, but the fact remained that the Pathfinder had vanished; nor was there any trace of its two occupants. It was at this moment that Rob noticed that the river seemed to be flowing more swiftly and that its level had risen.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE RUINED CITY

It would have been worse than useless for Tubby or Fred to have attempted flight, as the stout youth had rightly conjectured. Resistance would have been equally foolhardy. This would have been so in any case, but any move against the Indians was now rendered doubly dangerous by the fact that two of the odd-looking little natives had picked up the two rifles the boys had so foolishly forgotten and were examining them in a way that showed that they had knowledge enough of the white man’s weapons to use them, should occasion offer.

After a vast deal of jabbering in their unknown tongue, two of the Indians bound Tubby’s hands behind his back while the others stood guard to protect their companions against any sudden move. Then came Fred’s turn. This done, the boys were led across the open space to a clump of trees from amidst which the Indians had first appeared.

To Tubby’s astonishment he saw that a narrow, but well beaten trail ran through the jungle from this point. But in what direction it led he was, of course, ignorant. He guessed, however, that it must be one of the secret Indian paths to which Mr. Raynor had referred. On either side of the narrow trail the jungle grew up thick and impenetrable. Two Indians walked in front, then came the boys, behind marched the other Indians.

“W-w-w-w-what is going to become of us?” quavered Fred as they moved along at a swift though steady pace.

“I don’t know. I guess we are bound for some village or other back in the San Blas country. It’s a good sign though that they haven’t offered us any violence.”

Fred could not but agree that this was so. But little more talk was indulged in between the two captives. It was not a situation that adapted itself to conversation. Hour after hour they trudged along through the tropical forest until at last they came upon something startling.

In front of them, as they rounded a curve in the crooked trail, there suddenly rose up something that seemed menacingly to dispute their further passage through the forest.

There, facing them, was a hideous monster carved out of a white stone or marble, they could not be sure which. The thing loomed ghastly white against a background of dark trees. Spots of rank moss grew on its glaring stone face. Its stumpy hands were folded and tucked up on its breast; its legs and feet, shaped like a water creature’s, were drawn up under its belly. But it was the awful face with its sinister glare that gave the boys a start that quivered through their frames. As if in proof of its antiquity the statue was broken in places and leaned slightly to one side. Through the cracks in the white stone, great, twisted, gnarled tree trunks, like serpents, writhed in and out. Altogether it was as horrible an object to come upon in the depths of a great forest as the mind could conceive. Small wonder the boys shuddered at it. The Indians, however, did not appear to regard it with much awe.

“What an awful looking thing!” shuddered Fred, who had turned pale.

“Pshaw! It’s only an old idol,” Tubby scoffed, assuming a bold air for Fred’s comfort. “Lots of ’em in this part of the world. Crackers! Fred, I shouldn’t wonder but what we are coming to one of those ancient cities that have long been supposed to exist in this part of the world. I think – Great Cæsar! Look there, will you?”

A wilderness of ruins suddenly opened before them as they topped a small rise. Everywhere was a confusion of tumbled idols, pillars, blocks of stone, heavy walls, flights of steps, some whole, some tumbling with decay, others still upright. Roots, branches and curling vines writhed in and out of the scene of desolation like great snakes. Here and there trees shot up from the empty walls of roofless palaces. Their restless shadows waved mournfully above the ruins. Further back stood a building that surmounted a sort of platform of white stone. It was reached by a flight of steps on one side. On the other the walls towered up steep and slippery. They would not have afforded foothold to a fly.

The Indians marched the boys up the steps leading to this dismal palace. From the top of the platform they could see over the ruined city in all directions. And off to one side was a sight that made Tubby’s heart beat more quickly. He had caught the glint of a river, and on its banks he had seen three canoes drawn up. If only they could reach that stream they might still escape. But such a prospect appeared to be remote in the extreme.

They were marshaled into the chamber within the walls they had noticed from below. It was of massive but rude architecture and was roofless, but the walls sloped inward, making any idea of climbing them out of the question. From cracks in the walls grew tropic plants and creepers. To the boys’ surprise, once within this place, their hands were untied. But this in itself was a bad sign so far as hope of escape went. It meant that the Indians knew there was no hope of their captives getting away.

Two guards were set to watch them at the door, and then the others left. The guards took up their station at the door with their wicked-looking spears all ready for instant action. Tubby, with his ruling passion still strong – and as a matter of fact he was fearfully hungry and faint after their long march – eyed longingly some red fruit that grew on one of the shrubs clinging to the wall. He was about to pluck some when Fred drew him back.

“Don’t touch those, Tubby, they’re not good to eat,” he exclaimed. “I recognize the leaf. It’s just like a deadly nightshade leaf at home. I guess they are a giant variety of that poisonous plant.”

“Phew! I’m glad I didn’t touch ’em. Would they kill you?”

“If you ate many. A few would only put you to sleep. They contain a drug called bella-donna which is a narcotic.”

Just then one of the natives appeared with two earthenware bowls full of half raw meat. The boys were hungry or they could not have touched the stuff. As it was, they ate all they could, but left quite a quantity. As they ate their guards eyed them in an odd way. It looked as if they were hungry, too, and would have liked to eat.

The boys could see out through the door, and, after eating all they could, they amused themselves by looking over the ruined city. They could see smoke rising some distance off among the trees, and guessed that the main camp of the Indians was there. Probably, they guessed – and in this they were right – the superstitious Indians did not like to camp among the ruins of the lost race, although they had no objection to jailing their prisoners there.

As it grew dusk, the sky clouded over. Thunder began to rumble in the distance and the wind moaned in a most melancholy way among the trees that overshadowed the ruins. Far off they could hear the Indians shouting and singing in a coarse, unmusical way. Seemingly they were celebrating the success of their chase and capture of the two white boys.

At any rate, they appeared to forget the two guards utterly. It grew dark and the men still sat there. They had lighted a small fire outside the ruined temple, or whatever it had been, and the glow of it revealed their still and silent figures to the boy captives. One of them took some kind of cake from his girdle presently and took a bite of it. Then he offered it to his companion who bit into it hungrily. It was plain that the two Indians were getting hungry.

Tubby was about to try to conciliate them by offering them what the boys had left in their bowls, when he had a sudden inspiration. He went to the wall and began picking some of the berries Fred had told him not to touch. Fred, who had fallen into a fitful slumber, did not notice him, and Tubby proceeded uninterruptedly with what he was about.

It was about a quarter of an hour later and the rumble of the approaching storm was growing nearer and nearer when Tubby arose and, picking up the two bowls, approached the guards. Instantly they sprang to their feet and presented their spear blades at him. But Tubby, by signs, explained that he and his companion had not been able to eat all their rations and wanted to give them the rest.

As Tubby’s shrewd mind had guessed from what he had seen, the two guards were famished. They saw no harm in taking the meat from the prisoner who was kind enough to offer it. They grabbed the bowls and in a minute, as it appeared to the astonished fat boy, they had emptied them. Tubby regarded the two Indians admiringly. He had never seen edibles disposed of so swiftly.

When they had eaten, the guards became stern again. They motioned Tubby back to the interior of the ruinous structure. The stout boy obeyed and sank down on the floor apparently composing himself to sleep, but in reality he was watching the two guards with intent eyes. Suddenly he gave a grunt of satisfaction. The guards began to nod sleepily. One almost fell over. He recovered himself, but in an instant he was off to sleep again; as for his companion, after an ineffectual effort to awaken his comrade, he too sank into a deep slumber, falling across the threshold of the place.

Instantly Tubby was all activity. Quickly he aroused Fred.

“Wake up! Quick! Don’t ask questions. Follow me.”

“Why? What?” began Fred sleepily.

“Not a word. We’ve got to move quick. I squeezed the juice of those berries you told me about into the remains of our supper. The guards ate it. They’re fast asleep. It’s up to us to cut and run for those canoes on the river bank.”

Fred was alert in an instant. As he rose softly to his feet a vivid flash of lightning illumined his face. Tubby saw that it was set and determined as became a Black Wolf Scout. He gripped Fred’s hand tightly.

“Whatever happens, keep your nerve,” he enjoined.

Then, hand in hand and on tiptoe, the two boys crept toward the doorway. As they were stepping over one of the sleeping guards Tubby, by the glow of the fire, saw that a small bag that the fellow had had tied at his waist had burst as he fell headlong in his slumber, and that a lot of odd-looking pebbles lay scattered about near it. Yielding to he knew not what impulse, he stooped and stuffed a handful of the rocks into the pocket of his Scout coat.

It was work to bring the lads’ hearts into their mouths, this advance out upon the open platform with the firelight on them to betray their every movement. Far off they could catch the glow of the Indians’ campfire; but for all they knew other guards might be about and at any minute they expected to hear a spear or an arrow whiz by them. But nothing of the sort happened. They reached the river bank in safety.

The lightning was now flashing incessantly. By its gleam they saw the canoes, with their paddles alongside, lying as they had last seen them. Tubby advanced, and, catching hold of one, turned it over. The next instant he gave a terrified yell. As he had turned it, there had leaped from under it, where he had evidently been sleeping, an Indian armed with a spear.

Before he could cast it, Tubby ducked low and rushed in on the man like a young bullock. The little San Blas native went down in the mud with a splash. Tubby wrested the spear from him and sent it flying. As the Indian struggled to his feet Fred gave him a blow on the mouth that must have driven some of his teeth in, to judge by the sound.

“Quick!” ordered Tubby in a tense undertone, “into the water with those other canoes now.”

“But we only want one.”

“We don’t want ’em to chase us, do we?” exclaimed the fat boy sharply. “Over with ’em I say.”

Fred shoved the two dugouts off. In a jiffy the current caught them and they went sailing out of sight. At the same instant there came another flash of lightning. It showed the river, swollen and angry, racing furiously along.

“Can you handle a paddle, Fred?” asked Tubby.

“Yes; I had a canoe on the Hudson,” was the reply.

“Well, this is going to beat any Hudson you ever saw. There’s a storm in the mountains evidently, and the river is rising every minute. It can’t be helped, though. Take a paddle and shove off.”

Luckily both boys knew something about canoes or the start of that dugout would likewise have been its finish. But they saved it by skillful, swift handling from a capsize. The next instant they were in it, being hurled off at a dizzy pace down the rushing current. Behind them came yells and savage shouts. Their escape had evidently been discovered, probably when a change of guards was made.

“Whoop!” shouted Tubby back defiantly. “We’re off on the Chagres Limited, you shirtless sons of iniquity; it’ll take better men than you to catch us now!”

The cranky canoe rocked wildly, and then shot off into the darkness, hurtled along by the sweeping current of an unknown river.

CHAPTER XXVII

“BE PREPARED.”

We must now go back to Mr. Raynor and Merritt whom we left in the launch, a prey to no very enviable thoughts. As the sound of Rob’s and Mr. Mainwaring’s footsteps died away in the forest, they fell to speculating on the fate of their young comrades. All at once Merritt turned to his companion with an exclamation.

“Isn’t the river current flowing more swiftly?” he asked.

Mr. Raynor gazed over the side at the muddy stream.

“It surely is,” he decided. “I shouldn’t wonder but there’s a storm back in the mountains.”

As the stream flowed more swiftly and with greater volume Merritt looked with some anxiety at their anchor rope. It was not a particularly thick one and the stream was tugging frantically at the launch. Suddenly, without the slightest warning, there was a sharp snapping sound and the rope parted. Before they had time to exchange a word, the launch was a hundred yards down stream. It was almost impossible to turn her about or direct her course, but accident accomplished for them what they had not been able to do for themselves. The Pathfinder suddenly struck a sand bank, gave a giddy sort of yaw and swung round, heading bow on down the stream.