The Boy Scouts at the Panama Canal

“Well, after various schemes had been gotten up and had fallen through, a French company, backed by the money of almost everyone in France who could by hook or crook secure stock, in 1882 turned the first shovelful of earth for a canal. It was to have been a sea-level one, that is, one without locks, and was projected and engineered by Ferdinand De Lesseps, the aged builder of the Suez canal.

“We know now that a sea-level canal would not be feasible on the Isthmus. It would take too long to build and cost a prohibitive sum, almost double what a lock canal costs. For seven years digging went on, with fearful loss of life among the laborers and engineers from yellow fever. Then, in 1899, it was discovered that almost half of the $400,000,000 raised had been squandered in mismanagement and waste, and by far the larger part had gone in what we should nowadays call ‘graft’. An investigation was made. Several of the promoters of the canal committed suicide, and De Lesseps went mad and died in an asylum. Such was the tragic history of the French era; but brighter days were to come.

“It was in 1898 when the Oregon made her record run from San Francisco to join the Atlantic fleet in the West Indies and fight the Spaniards off Cuba, that Americans began to think that a short cut was needed. With our acquisition of the Philippines, a ‘door’ between the Pacific and Atlantic was declared to be almost a necessity. There was much discussion at Washington, but finally in 1903 President Roosevelt and Congress decided that if we could purchase from the French all they had left at Panama and could, in addition, buy a strip or ‘zone’ across the Isthmus for canal building purposes, it would be fitting and right for the United States to take up the work.

“After some dickering, the French company, took $40,000,000 for what they owned, and, in 1904, the Panama Republic, a newly created nation, sold the United States for $10,000,000 a strip of land ten miles wide and fifty miles long, which strip of land is now known as the Canal Zone.

“The first thing that the Americans did after they took hold was to start a campaign against disease. No canal could be dug while yellow fever had to be reckoned with. Under the masterly hand of Col. W. C. Gorgas, the Zone has been cleaned up till disease is almost rarer than in cities of the north. Mosquitoes have been wiped out, streets paved, filth and garbage, which used to lie and rot under the hot sun, all swept away, and good comfortable houses put up for workmen and their bosses. The men who stand the climate best among the laborers are Jamaican negroes. Hindus, Italians and Spaniards are also employed for lighter work, but for ‘making the dirt fly’ the Sambo is the real thing.

“Anything else you’d like to know?”

“Well, yes,” said Merritt. “Just why is this Chagres River such an important part of the canal?”

“Well, it’s this way, as I understand it,” said Rob. “In the first place, the canal is fifty miles long, – forty-one miles through the land and nine miles of channel dredged out in the harbors of Colon and Panama. From Colon to Bah Bohia the route passes for twelve miles through low, swampy ground not much above sea level. Then it cuts into the hills and is practically a more or less shallow ditch as far as a place called Miraflores, nine miles away. The highest point of land that the canal must traverse is Gold Hill, at the famous Culebra, where it is 662 feet above the sea level.

“But right here occurs a ‘saddle’ through which the canal must run. This, at its lowest point, is 312 feet above sea level. Right here is the notorious Culebra Cut, which is an immense excavation nine miles long and, in places, more than three hundred feet deep in solid rock, – think of that!

“Bad as Culebra has been as an obstacle, however, the Chagres River is worse. For 23 miles the canal must follow the valley of this river and cross and recross its bed. The Chagres is an unruly stream. At times it is small, and then again it swells to tremendous size, sweeping all before it and causing great floods. To build the canal the problem was to turn the Chagres into a friend, instead of an enemy, and that, it is believed, has been done in an unique way.

“You must now roughly picture a cross section of the canal route as a flat-topped pyramid. Suppose the top of the pyramid to be hollow and that through that hollow flows the Chagres River. Well, on one side of your cup or hollow is the famous Gatun Dam, in the construction of which 2,250,000 barrels of cement have been used. Below the Gatun Dam is a ‘flight,’ just like a succession of steps of locks. These will be used to lower vessels from the ‘cup’ at the top to the Atlantic level, – or to raise them, as the case may be.

“On the other end of the cup, on the Pacific end that is, will be another flight of locks, the Pedro Miguel and Miraflores locks, which will raise or lower vessels from and to the Pacific. Is that clear? There’s a big cup at the top of our pyramid, and steps, or ‘locks,’ lead down to the levels of the oceans on each side.”

“Oh, it’s as clear as mud,” muttered Tubby, “go on.”

“Now, then, we get to the Chagres and the part it plays,” went on Rob serenely. “That whole ‘cup’ at the top of our pyramid is actually an artificial lake of vast size. As a matter of fact, it will be 165 square miles in area. At Gatun a great dam will hold it in, and at Pedro Miguel the locks will perform the same office. This lake is the valley of Chagres, and the Chagres will be relied on to keep it filled. This immense Gatun Lake, as it is called, is the ‘keystone’ of the canal. Any weakness in the Gatun Dam would ruin the whole project. You can see, of course, why this is so, because the water in that Gatun Lake will be relied upon to fill the locks which will raise vessels up or down.”

“But suppose the Chagres River cuts up ugly, as you said it does sometimes?” asked Merritt.

“Well,” said Rob, “I heard Mr. Mainwaring say that the great lake will be so big that a flood would affect its level no more than a cup of water poured into a bath tub. The river will merely serve to keep the lake filled and supply the water needed to work the locks.”

“That’s a very good description, Master Rob,” said a voice at their elbows.

They started and looked up, and there was Mr. Mainwaring himself looking down at them.

“We have changed the Chagres from a dangerous enemy into an excellent friend,” he said, “but, as Rob pointed out, the Gatun is unavoidably the spot at which an enemy who wished to harm us could do almost irretrievable damage at the expenditure of a few dollars’ worth of dynamite, if,” he paused for an instant, “if he knew just where to place it.”

“Does anyone possess such knowledge?” asked Rob.

“Yes, anyone possessing a duplicate of my plans would know just how to set about dealing the canal a fearful blow,” was the slow response.

Rob’s pulses beat fast and thick. He caught his breath. Jared had such duplicate plans, and was in the hands of men who could work on his weak nature to give them up. He glanced up at Mr. Mainwaring, expecting to see signs of anxiety on his face. But the engineer was perfectly calm.

“After all that ‘dry history,’ as Tubby called it,” said he, with a smile, “let’s go and play shuffle board. Fred is waiting for us.”

CHAPTER XVII

AT OLD PANAMA

The week following the conversation recorded in the last chapter found the travelers located at the Hotel Grand Central, in Panama City. Colon, although the Americans have done much to clean it up and make it more presentable than in former days, does not hold much of interest. Besides, Mr. Mainwaring’s offices were at Panama, which made his presence there a necessity.

The boys had passed a busy time sight-seeing in the old city. They had climbed the Cathedral towers, gazing out over the glittering bay dotted with small but beautiful islands, where the wealthy Panamans spent the heated months. They had explored nooks and corners and inspected the oldest church on the continent.

On the particular day on which this chapter opens they had planned an expedition to Old Panama city, which lies about five miles from the present town. Mr. Mainwaring was busy, but Fred had obtained leave to accompany the boys, his duties as his father’s secretary not being very onerous. They set out in high spirits along the road leading to the ruins of the golden city sacked by Morgan and his buccaneers.

The drive was made in an aged hack, and hardly had the boys left the outskirts of the town before they were exclaiming over the luxuriant tropical vegetation and the odd sights that met their eyes on every side. Once or twice they crossed small streams, and laughed at the sight of native women pounding clothes on rocks at the water side with big, flat clubs.

“Heaven help the buttons!” cried Merritt. “This must be a paradise for button manufacturers.”

“I guess they don’t bother much with them, at least not the natives that we’ve passed,” chuckled Fred.

“Oh, look at that bunch of bananas!” cried Tubby presently, as they passed by a clump of green banana plants laden with fruit. “Let’s hop out and get some.”

But the fruit was green and uneatable. Bananas, as Tubby did not know, are picked and shipped while green, and grow yellow and ripe on the voyage north in the holds of the fruit steamers, which are kept carefully at a uniform temperature.

“It’s odd that we’ve seen nothing of Jared or his friends,” remarked Rob, as, after the discovery of Tubby’s mistake, they drove on again. “Has your dad notified the police?”

“Yes, indeed,” rejoined Fred Mainwaring, “but nothing has come of it as yet. Of course, a careful lookout is being kept. Say, fellows,” he exclaimed in a cautious tone, “do you know I believe that some plot is on foot to injure the great Gatun Dam and delay the opening of the canal? At least, I’m pretty sure, from things I’ve heard dad say, that such is the case.”

“And you think, or rather he thinks, that Jared is mixed up in it?” asked Tubby breathlessly.

“That’s what. At least he is mixed up in it to this extent, that he is supplying the plotters with plans of the dam and so on in order that they can strike their blow at the weakest part of it.”

“Gee whiz! I’d like to get my hands on that Jared just once,” exclaimed Merritt angrily. “What a skunk he is.”

“It’s a pity we ever let him get away from Hampton,” muttered Merritt. “Of course, we found out that he and the man with him bought tickets for New York, but that was only a blind clew at best.”

“Well, we don’t actually know that he is on the Zone at all,” struck in Rob; “although all the steamship offices were quizzed, we couldn’t find out that anybody answering Jared’s description had taken passage for the Isthmus.”

“So far as that is concerned,” remarked Fred, “dad says that that proves nothing. He might have shipped from San Francisco or New Orleans, or even from some Canadian port for some other destination, and then worked his way up here on a sailing vessel or coasting steamer.”

“And that’s just about what he would have done,” cried Rob. “Both Alverado and Estrada have plenty of sympathizers in Bogota who would help them in any plot against Uncle Sam. But, after all, the whole thing may be a false alarm.”

“You wouldn’t think so if you could have heard what dad said at that meeting of the Canal heads the other day,” rejoined Fred. “Of course I can’t tell you what took place, although I was present in my capacity as secretary; but from what I heard a strict watch is to be kept and the guards doubled.”

“If Estrada and Alverado know the country well, it’s quite likely that they aren’t in the city at all,” struck in Merritt. “The country outside the actual Canal Zone is a trackless jungle. They may be hiding up in there some place.”

“That’s quite likely, too,” rejoined Fred. “I heard dad saying something about that the other day. By the way, we are going to start up the Chagres day after to-morrow; won’t that be bully? That’s my idea of sport, – following up a tropic river looking for a tributary.”

“What’s your dad going to do with the tributary when he finds it?” asked the practical Tubby.

“That hasn’t been settled yet,” was the rejoinder. “Of course, if it proves to be the branch that feeds the Chagres and causes all the trouble in flood time, it will be dammed or something so as to make it harmless.”

“Say, don’t talk so loud,” whispered Rob in a cautious tone, for the boys from their first low tones had gradually drifted into louder talk, “that driver is listening to every word we’re saying.”

“Just like an inquisitive nigger,” growled Fred resentfully.

“He’s not a nigger,” declared Rob; “he looks to me more like a Latin-American of some sort. He may be a fellow countryman of this Estrada. In that case, I hope he didn’t overhear anything.”

“Well, you were talking as loud as any of us,” declared Tubby.

“Yes, that’s so. I kind of wish I hadn’t.”

“Look!” cried Merritt suddenly.

He had good reason to exclaim. Ahead of them, rising majestically above the brilliant-hued tropical greenery, was a vast gray tower, square and massive, and pierced with square windows. At its summit it was overgrown with mosses, lichens and many-hued flowers of gorgeous coloring. But for this, it might have seemed anything but a ruin.

“The ruined tower of the old cathedral church of St. Augustin!” cried Rob.

“And that’s all that remains of the city from which Morgan took so much plunder that it required seventy-five mules and six hundred prisoners to pack it across the Isthmus to Porto Bello,” chimed in Merritt, who, it will be seen from this remark, had been reading up on Panama.

Leaving the rig behind them, the four lads made their way to the foot of the tower. They elected to push their way through a tangle of brush instead of following the regular footpath. As Tubby said, it seemed more like coming to a ruin than by strolling up to it on a beaten track. Their tough khaki uniforms resisted the thorns and brambles valiantly, and they arrived at the foot of the massive old tower out of breath but undamaged, except for sundry scratches on their hands.

They entered the old tower through a tumble-down doorway. The walls, they noticed as they passed through, were three feet or more thick, which perhaps accounted for the sturdy piles standing so long after the rest of the city had vanished. Inside was a crumbled stairway of stone up which the four Scouts were soon scrambling. They clambered to the very top and then Rob and Fred drew from their pockets two pennants. One bore the “totem” of the Eagles; the other was emblazoned with the Patrol emblem of the Black Wolves.

“I thought of this just before we left,” said Rob, as he drew out the Eagle flag; “I guess we’re the first Boy Scouts on the Isthmus and so we’ll be the first to unfurl our totems above old Panama.”

“But how are you going to make the flag fast?” asked Tubby.

“See that prickly branch growing right out from the edge of the tower? I guess I’ll make mine fast to that,” said Rob, “it’ll be as good as a flag pole.”

“Look out you don’t slip,” warned Merritt, as Rob made his way over roughly piled stones that had crumbled from the parapet and gained the edge of the tower. At that point a staff-like thorn bush raised one bare arm aloft. As Rob had said, it did indeed make a regular flag pole.

Balancing himself carefully, the leader of the Eagle Patrol reached out and peered over the edge.

“Wow, fellows, but it looks a long way to the ground!” he exclaimed. “If I ever fell, I’d land with a bump all right.”

Clasping the flag in one hand, he leaned out and laid hold of the upright branch. There was a sudden cracking sound. The horrified Scouts, who were watching Rob, saw him make a desperate grab at the wall to recover himself as the branch snapped.

But Rob’s effort came too late.

“He’s gone!” yelled Tubby, turning as white as a ghost as Rob, without a sound, plunged over the parapet and out of sight.

His chums turned sick and faint. They dared not go to the edge to gaze upon what they knew must lie at the foot of the tower. They simply stood like figures carved out of wood waiting for the sound of Rob’s crashing fall.

CHAPTER XVIII

BETWEEN EARTH AND SKY

But no such sound came. Instead they heard something that brought them instantly to the alert.

“Hey, fellows! Come quick!”

It was Rob’s voice, coming up to them over the edge of that dizzy height.

In three bounds, careless of the consequences of a false step, they were on the parapet of the tower where they had last seen Rob, as he reached out for the treacherous “flag pole.”

“Look, boys! Look! There he is! Hold on, Rob, old fellow. Hold on, for heaven’s sake,” cried Merritt.

Rob, his feet dug into the rough interstices of the old ruinous wall, was clinging to a stoutly rooted bush that had broken his fall and given him one second in which to stay his awful plunge into space. But his position even now was bad enough.

His face was as white as chalk, and the sweat streamed down it in rivers as he gazed up at his comrades above. He was fully thirty feet below them, and they had no rope, no means of saving him from his fearful position! In the very nature of things his muscles, strong as they were, were bound to give out before long. It was not in flesh and blood to endure such a tension long; and then – But they dared not think of that.

It was a moment for quick action and nimble wits. The shrub to which Rob was clinging appeared to be firmly rooted. In fact, it must have been, to have withstood the strain of his crashing fall. Then, too, his toes were driven home into a crack of the wall, relieving to some extent the weight brought to bear on the shrub. But this could not last indefinitely.

Suddenly Merritt noticed something. Just above the place where Rob clung to the wall, a hundred feet above the waving banana fronds, was an opening. As he saw this a sudden idea struck him. He thought he saw a way, a desperate way, it is true, but still a way to rescue Rob from his perilous position.

“How long can you hold on, Rob?” he called down.

“Not much longer I’m afraid,” came back in a voice that could hardly have been recognized as Rob’s, “can’t you get a rope?”

Merritt shook his head. He knew that a search for such an article would take too much precious time.

“No; but you hold on, old chap. Keep up a good heart and we’ll get you out of that, never fear.”

Turning to his companions he hastily explained his plan. An instant later the three Scouts were rushing down the crazy stone staircase headed for the opening above Rob. As soon as they reached it Merritt peered out. Rob was still there, but he looked up appealingly at his chum. Merritt knew what the look meant. Rob couldn’t hold on much longer, but dared not waste breath in speaking.

“Now, then, fellows,” spoke Merritt, turning to his chums, “what we’re going to do is easy enough if you keep cool; but if you get rattled it may fail.”

“We’ll keep cool all right, Merritt,” Fred assured him, though his breath was coming fast.

As for Tubby, his countenance did not betray the flicker of a muscle. Merritt knew he could rely on the fat boy, but of Fred’s more emotional nature he had not been quite so sure.

Suddenly his eye caught sight of something that would make his task easier. In the wall of the opening was a big, rusty iron staple. What its former use had been there was no means of guessing; but Merritt regarded it with delight. It made the daring thing he was about to attempt a little more certain of success.

“Tubby, you just hook your belt through that staple,” he ordered, “and then hang on to Fred’s feet for all you are worth. Fred, you lie down right here, – with your hands just at the edge, – that’s right.”

The boys obeyed Merritt’s orders, but Tubby looked at him with apprehension.

“You’ll never do it,” he quavered.

“Nonsense, of course I will, if you fellows carry out your part. It’s nothing more than wall scaling, only we’re doing it the other way round.”

When all was ready Tubby was lying flat with his belt hooked through the iron staple. He had fast hold of Fred’s ankles, while the latter’s hands came just to the edge of the opening. Merritt was to form the last link in this human chain that was to rescue Rob Blake, if such a thing was possible.

Merritt had already seen that the bush to which Rob clung was not more than four feet below the opening. His daring plan was to lower himself, – with Fred clinging to his ankles, – till he could reach Rob’s hands and help him up to safety.

Without a word Merritt threw himself on his stomach, after taking off his coat and hat, and wriggled to the edge. One look at Rob’s upturned face told him that he had no time to lose. Seconds, yes, fractions of seconds, would count now.

“Catch hold, Fred!”

Fred gripped the daring Scout’s ankles tightly.

“Now hang on like grim death.”

Merritt clenched his teeth and slowly wriggled his way over the edge. Hanging head downward he extended his hands toward the shrub where Rob was clinging.

“Hold on for your lives!” he shouted to those above, and then to Rob: —

“Let go with one hand and grab my right wrist, Rob.”

For an instant Rob hesitated. He dared not let go. But again came Merritt’s voice. This time it was sharp and imperative.

“Let go and grab me!”

Rob’s grip with his left was relaxed and he seized Merritt’s wrist, giving it a jerk that almost pulled his arm out of the socket. For an instant his heart was in his mouth. If the boys above weren’t strong enough to hold them, they would both be dashed downward to the ground that looked so fearfully far below. But both Tubby and Fred were heavy youths, and then, too, the belt that was looped through that accommodating iron staple was an anchor in itself.

There was a slight give and a sag, but the “human chain” held.

“Now the other hand,” ordered Merritt, drawing a breath of relief.

Rob obeyed instantly this time. But he was a fairly heavy youth and it was a good thing that he could take part of the weight off his rescuer’s arms by digging his toes into the cracks of the ruinous tower. Otherwise this story might have had a different ending.

“Now, Rob, use me as a ladder. Don’t look down for heaven’s sake, but reach up and grab my belt. Use the cracks in the wall like the rungs of a ladder and clamber up.”

“Let me rest a minute. I’m winded and dizzy,” breathed Rob, whose nerve was badly shaken.

“Not a minute. Go on now!”

Merritt spoke sharply purposely. Rob rallied and did as he was told. He seized Merritt’s belt as the other boy hung head downward, and, digging his toes into the cracks of the wall, he drew himself up till he could, with his other hand, lay hold of the edge of the opening. After this it was an easy matter, thanks to the ruinous condition of the wall which offered plenty of foothold, to clamber to safety. Reaching it, Rob lay back white and panting.

But in a few seconds he was able to help his chums haul the courageous Merritt out of danger.

It was some time before they felt able to leave the ruined tower, such a bad shaking up had all their nerves received; but at last a move was made. Needless to say, the Scout totems were not flung to the breeze that day.

“I don’t see how we ever did it,” exclaimed Fred, as they reached the ground and Tubby began taking pictures of the tower while the others looked up at the spot where Rob had clung in such dire peril.

“I guess ‘being prepared,’ having good, healthy muscles and all that had a whole heap to do with it,” said Tubby, snapping his shutter; “and now let’s get a move on and get back to dinner, or second breakfast, as they call it here. I don’t know how you fellows feel, but I’m one aching void.”

CHAPTER XIX

THE GATUN DAM

The scene changes to a day when the boys had their first view of the mighty Gatun Dam, a work that, as President Taft said, is “as solid as the everlasting hills.” Picture a vast valley hemmed in by hills heavily timbered with tropical growth. Across the valley floor the current of the muddy Chagres slowly serpentines, with workmen’s huts clustered along its sides, and everywhere preparations being made to hem it in, much as the Liliputians set about harnessing Gulliver, a giant to them.

The floor of the valley, once a trackless jungle and destined within a short time from the moment that the Boy Scouts gazed upon it to become a mighty lake, was crisscrossed in every direction by lines of railroad along which contractors’ engines were puffing and hauling long winding trains of dirt cars. In places, great steam shovels were at work eating out whole hillsides, taking great mouthfuls at a time.