Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone: or, The Plot Against Uncle Sam

“What is wrong?” a voice asked. “There has been no explosion.”

“The fuse was wet,” was the reply.

“Then why didn’t you go back and fix it?” demanded the first speaker. “The sooner the job is done the better.”

“I heard some one stirring in the jungle,” was the reply.

“A nice man to be given such a task,” roared another voice. “You must go back.”

“You’ve landed the plotters, all right,” whispered Jimmie. “I’ll bet there’s plenty more bombs like the one you have, waiting to be tucked under the Gatun dam. Gee! I’d like to take a shot at them gazabos.”

Still standing in the moonlight, only a short distance from the listening boys, the three men argued in low tones for a moment. It was clear that the man who had placed the bomb was refusing to obey the orders given by the others.

“I’m not in love with the job, anyway,” the fellow snarled, “and you may do it yourselves if you want it done to-night.”

The others did not appear to relish the murderous job they were urging the speaker to undertake, and in a few moments the party moved around the base of the hill and then struck for the higher ground by way of a gully which cut between two elevations.

When the boys, mounting the breast of the hill and crouching at the summit, saw the men again, two were making for the cloud of light which lay over the workings while the other was following the crest of the hill toward the east.

Presently the two swung down into a valley, and then twin lights like those of a great touring car showed over a rise.

“What do you think of that?” asked Jimmie. “There must be a good road there.”

The car came on a few yards after the lamp showed, and the two men clambered aboard. In five minutes the motor car was speeding toward Gatun.

“Two for the city and one for the tall timber,” Jimmie snickered, as the car moved out of view. “There’s the solitary individual watching them from the summit.”

As the boy spoke the man who had laid the bomb so unsuccessfully faced away to the east and disappeared down the slope. It was not difficult to keep track of him, although the necessity for concealment was imperative, and the fellow proceeded at a swift pace for an hour.

At the end of that time he was in a lonely section of country, where rounded knolls were surrounded by the dense growth of the jungle. In spite of the wildness of the spot, however, Ned saw that civilization had at some distant time made its mark there. Here and there low, broken walls of brick lifted from the grass, and the vegetation was not quite so luxuriant. In numerous places, as they advanced, the boys saw that the ground had once been leveled off as if to make way for a building, the ruins of which were still to be seen.

“One of the ruined cities of the Isthmus,” Jimmie whispered. “If Peter could see this he would know all about it.”

“It wasn’t a very large city,” laughed Ned.

“There’s the ruins of a temple over there,” insisted the boy. “There’s a wall standing yet. And there’s the man we want going into it.”

As the boy spoke the man they were following disappeared behind the wall. Before he could be restrained Jimmie wiggled forward to the foot of the ruin. Nestor saw him peering around the end of the line of brick and hastened forward.

The man they had followed was nowhere in sight when Ned turned the angle, and Jimmie lay on the ground in the shadows, kicking up his heels.

“He went down through the earth,” the boy giggled, regardless of the danger of the situation. “He went right down through the ground. Say, but he’s a corker, to get out of sight like that.”

Ned caught the lad by the arm, to silence him, and listened. A steady click-click came from the ground beneath their feet. The sounds came continuously, almost with the regularity of the ticking of a clock.

“Where was he when he disappeared?” asked Ned.

“Over there in the corner,” was the reply. “He walked up to the wall and stepped out of sight. What’s that queer smell?” he added, sniffing the air.

“There must be a fire down there in the vaults of the old temple,” replied Ned. “They must have a fire, for the smoke is coming out of a crevice at the top of that wall, and they are working on metal.”

“Yes,” said Jimmie, “an’ I’ll bet they’re makin’ more bombs – bombs for the dam.”

CHAPTER VII.

WORKING ON NED’S THEORY

At daybreak Frank Shaw stood in the screened porch facing west, watching and waiting for the return of Nestor and Jimmie. It had been a long night for him, but he had kept his vigil alone, knowing that his chums needed all the rest they could get.

Many times between midnight and morning the noises of the tropical forest had taken on the semblance of human voices, and then he had crept out from the screens to listen intently for some indication of the approach of his friends. But they had not come, and now he was anxious to set out in search of them.

While he stood there with his brain filled with forebodings of evil, he heard a step in the cottage, and then Jack Bosworth stood by his side, bright and exuberant of spirit after his long sleep. He stood silent for a moment, looking out into the wonderful jungle and then turned to Frank.

“Great country,” he exclaimed, sweeping a hand toward the gorgeous thickets.

“A dangerous country,” Frank said.

“And a country for an appetite,” cried Jack. “I’ll get the boys up and we’ll have breakfast. Why,” he added, turning back to the porch after glancing over the row of bunks, “where’s Ned?”

“He went away at midnight,” was the reply, “and hasn’t returned. I’m afraid something serious has happened to him.”

“And you have been watching for him all night?” asked Jack. “Why didn’t you waken me? I reckon I’m entitled to a fair share of what’s going on here, be it good or bad.”

Frank told the story of the night briefly and Jack listened with a frown on his brow. His fingers clenched at mention of the bomb which had been placed under the floor of the cottage.

“We’re spotted, of course,” he said, when Frank concluded the story. “If we had only tipped His Nobbs off the ship on the way over.”

“I suggested that to Ned,” Frank answered, “but he only laughed at me. He declared the fellow to be the missing link between himself and the principals in the Gatun dam plot.”

“What’s the answer?” demanded Jack, with a puzzled air.

“Why, it is his theory that half of the criminals of the world would escape punishment if they could only learn to lie quiet until they were looked up.”

“I see. His notion was that the plotters, guided by His Nobbs, would visit us with hostile intentions, and that they might leave a trail back to their own camp.”

“That is about it.”

“Well, they seem to have looked us up all right.”

The other boys now came tumbling out of the cottage, shouting their greetings to Frank and Jack and the golden morning, and clamoring for breakfast. Five minutes later, when the events of the night had been explained, their healthy appetites had vanished. Even when the cook began preparations for the morning meal, filling the air with tantalizing odors of cooking food, they sat in serious consultation with no thought of breakfast in their minds.

“What ought we to do?” asked Jack.

“Go and look him up,” suggested George Tolford.

“He may have become lost in the jungle,” Peter Fenton remarked. “Suppose we go out into the jungle and fire our guns?”

“I’m afraid it is worse than that,” Glen Howard remarked. “We ought to let Lieutenant Gordon know about it.”