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

When the story of the drawings was told the boys gathered about Ned while he pointed out the lines drawn in what purported to be a sketch of the basement of the Daily Planet building. Frank declared that the dots made in the drawing were located exactly at steel and concrete foundation points. The plan of destruction had evidently been prepared by some one familiar with the structure.

“It strikes me,” Frank said, after a moment’s inspection of the drawings, “that we’d better get out of here and reach a cable office. One of the plotters was kind enough to tell me what they were about to do, and this looks like they mean to keep their word, for once in their lives, at least.”

“We’d better be getting out of this, anyway,” Jack put in, “for those chaps are sure to come back and bring a gang with them. Suppose we go back to the cottage and see what has been doing there?”

“I thought you came from the cottage here,” Ned said.

“No,” was the reply. “We left the road leading from Gatun at the point where you two left it last night.”

“I’ll bet you saw my signs in twigs,” Jimmie said.

“We sure did,” was the reply, “and we found your signs in stone out there on the stone pavement, and Jack bunted one of the guards in the head with the third rock.”

“But I don’t understand this,” Ned said. “Where have you boys been this morning?”

“This morning,” declared Frank. “It is most night now.”

“I’ll tell you,” grinned Jack, “they went and got taken prisoners by a martinet of a fellow and a dwarf, and I had to go and get them out. Say! But you wait a second, and I’ll produce my modest assistant.”

He stepped to the edge of the jungle and whistled shrilly, and the next moment a slender boy of perhaps fifteen stood by his side, gazing at the group, now on the pavement of what had at one time been the court of the temple, with something of fear in his dark eyes. He was dressed in clothes which were much too large for him, and his manner indicated that he was not at ease in the company of the well-dressed Boy Scouts.

“This is Gastong,” Jack explained. “He’s capable of doing a running stunt that would make an express train look like it was hitched to the scenery. Gastong,” he added, turning the boy around so that he faced the others, “this is the company of bold, bad men you’ve enlisted in. What patrol did you say you belonged to?”

“The Owl, Philadelphia,” was the reply.

“Gee,” cried Jimmie. “Looks to me like he was a piece of the Isthmus.”

“This,” explained Jack, with the voice and manner of one standing on a box before a tent and touting for a curiosity, “is Gastong, the boy tramp of the Isthmus. If he had a place to sleep he would run away from it before night. If he went to bed with a dime in his pocket he’d dream it was there and get up and spend it. If he was set to digging in a mine he’d chop his way through and come out on the other side and run away. If he was – ”

Frank clapped a hand over the speaker’s mouth and marched him away.

“We’ve got no time for stump speeches,” he said. “The gazabos we drove off when we arrived will come back with reinforcements, and – and there you are.”

“I’m dying to know what has been happening,” Ned said, with a laugh. “It looks to me as if you boys had been in something of a mess yourselves.”

“Time enough for that when we get back to the cottage,” Jack said. “Come on, Gastong, and we’ll lead the bunch to the festive board. I hope the cook will be there. Say, but why don’t you fellows compliment me on me fine appearance in this menial rig?”

“You haven’t given us time to say a word,” laughed Jimmie. “You look like the cook, indeed, you do; and you make me hungry.”

“That is another story for the cottage,” Jack said, and the boys hastened off toward the camp which had proved such a source of danger to them.

When they came in sight of the place they were astonished at seeing Lieutenant Gordon and the cook sitting side by side on the screened porch. The cook was still dressed in Jack’s clothes, and the lieutenant, who had evidently just arrived, was speaking rapidly, as if laboring under great excitement.

CHAPTER XI.

JACK AND HIS FRIEND GASTONG

Lieutenant Gordon sprang to his feet when he saw the boys emerging from the jungle, and stood waiting, his hand on the porch door, while they entered.

“You’ve given me a good scare,” he said.

“There’s been a scare comin’ to everybody to-day,” grinned Jimmie, “even to the dagoes in the bomb chamber.”

“The bomb chamber,” repeated the lieutenant. “What have you youngsters been up to? Where did you find a bomb room?”

“Back here in the cellar of a ruined temple,” Jimmie started to explain, but the lieutenant stopped him.

“Suppose we begin at the beginning,” he suggested.

“That is the beginning,” Ned replied, “the beginning of the story after we left the cottage in the night.”

Then Ned related the story of the finding of the ruined temple and what had taken place there.

“But how did you boys get to the temple?” asked the lieutenant, then. “The last I heard of you one of the plotters had you in tow, and Jack was running off after you in the cook’s clothing. Where did you boys connect with each other?”

“Hold on!” Jack broke in. “Where did the cook connect with you? I presume he is the boy that brought you here?”

“Sure,” said the cook. “I had no intention of remaining here. I knew about what would happen to you boys, and so started on a run for a ’phone, the idea being to reach the lieutenant. I was mistaken for Jack, and held up by a man who must have been left to spy about the cottage, but I got a chance to hand him one and got to a ’phone. Since then the lieutenant has melted a thousand miles of wire making inquiries for you.”

“I’m glad we all got out before the lieutenant got to us,” Jimmie cut in. “I guess this bunch of Boy Scouts don’t need any United States army to pry us out of our troubles. We almost got here first,” he added, with a provoking grin.

“When you get done congratulating yourselves,” laughed the lieutenant, “perhaps you will tell me how you boys got to the ruined temple.”

“I cannot tell a lie,” cried Jack, “I did it. While I was chasing myself along through the dust kicked up by the choo-choo car the boys rolled away in, I came upon a youth who held me up in the middle of the road and asked how I’d like to continue my run against time in an airship. He was a cheeky looking chap, and I felt like giving him a poke in the breather, when he grinned and gave me the Boy Scout high sign.”

“You never found a Boy Scout out here in the jungle?” exclaimed Gordon.

“You bet I did,” Jack continued. “If you don’t believe it, go back there to the cookerie. He’s filling up on the beans I was expecting to get myself. Call him my dear Gastong, and he’ll come.”

“Cripes!” cried Jimmie, and he was away in a second, attacking the great dish of pork and beans which stood on the table in the cookroom.

“Gastong,” continued Jack, looking longingly into the cook room, “was born on the Isthmus, and knows all about conditions here, but he’s too aristocratic to mix with the inhabitants for any great length of time. He’s got the highfaluting blood all right, but he is shy of the skads, so he protects his dignity and pride of race by bumming his way over the world, like an English milord with a ruined castle and an overdraft at the bank. He learned to talk United States in New York, and got to be a Boy Scout in Philadelphia.”

“Details of pedigree and biography later,” said Ned. “Did he have an airship?”

“He had the next best thing to it,” Jack replied. “He had a motor car which he was running for some gazabo over in Gatun. He was out for his health when he saw the boys shooting by in a car with a man he knew to be a crook, and was about to follow on and see what was doing when he saw me speeding up the right of way, looking as if I was obliged to catch the machine ahead.

“He left his car around the corner of the hill and met me on foot, with about a dozen Boy Scout signs on tap and a score of badges of honor hidden away in his ragged clothes. He told me what he thought of the man who was running the car ahead, and I told him how he would be patrol leader on the Golden Streets just because he was a Boy Scout and was there at that time, so we got into his machine and followed the crook in the lead.”

“What about the tramps?” laughed Frank.

“When we saw the boys go into that old house, we knew there was something crooked going on, and Gastong said to me that if I wouldn’t give him away he would put me wise to a bunch of hoboes that were camping out in the jungle, too lazy to work, and just about ripe for a scrap. So we rounded up the hoboes and made a break for the old house.”

“That’s all,” cried Frank.

“And got there just in time to see Frank and his friends going to the floor with a lot of has-been wrestlers the man in charge of the house had precipitated on them,” Jack went on.

“Where are the people who were in the house?” asked Ned.