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

And the cat’s mate was there. Not looking in their direction, but sitting up like a house cat, watching the swaying body of the serpent. Her nose was pushed out a trifle, as if scenting supper in the dangling horror.

“The mate is here, all right,” Peter said, in a whisper. “We’re between the two of them. What is the first one doing?”

“Coming on,” whispered Jimmie, “and I’ve got only three shots in my gun.”

“That’s all you will have time to use if you miss the first one,” Peter said.

“That’s right,” Jimmie returned.

“And we’ll have to shoot together,” Peter went on.

“Is your hand steady?” asked Jimmie.

“As a rock,” was the reply. “Good-bye to little old New York if it wasn’t. Funny notion that a jaguar should be trying to eat a Wolf and a Black Bear.”

“And a baby Wolf, too,” added Jimmie. “My beast is coming on, bound to investigate this tree. When he gets so close that he can spring I’ll give the word, and we’ll shoot together.”

The cat approached slowly. At first it did not seem to catch the scent of prey in the neighborhood of the tree. It came on with cautious steps, crouching low, as if ready to leap.

Then the female caught sight and scent of the boys and uttered a low cry of warning which the male appeared to understand, for in a second its ears were laid down on its neck and the belly touched the ground.

“When you shoot keep the lead going,” advised Jimmy. “Now!”

Again, in that splendid tropical scene, there was a puff of smoke, one, two, three, four. Again the odor of burned powder attacked the nostrils and clouded the heavy air. Again there was a great floundering in the thicket.

The boys stood waiting for the snarling impact, but none came.

CHAPTER XV.

SIGNAL FIRES IN THE JUNGLE

“I guess we got ’em,” Jimmie cried, as the smoke drifted away.

“I got mine.”

Peter spoke proudly, just as if there had been no fear of the result a moment before.

“Mine’s lying down to rest,” Jimmie went on. “I’m goin’ up to feel his pulse.”

“If he gets a swipe at you, you’ll wish you hadn’t been so curious about his old pulse,” Peter observed.

But Jimmie did not at once go toward the wounded beast. The great cat lifted its head, gave a cry that echoed and re-echoed through the forest, and sprang for the tree. The boy’s revolver spoke again, and the long hours of practice with the weapon in the shooting galleries of New York told. The beast dropped to the ground with a bullet in the brain, sent in exactly between the eyes.

The female lifted her head at the cry and tried to regain her feet, but was not strong enough to do so. With a turn of her pretty head in the direction of her mate, she fell back dead.

“It’s almost a shame,” Peter said.

“You wouldn’t be so sorry for the cats if they had got a claw into you,” Jimmie observed. “Just one claw in the flesh and it would have been all off.”

Peter turned away from the dead animals.

“Come on,” he said, “it seems like a slaughter house here.”

“Wait,” Jimmie cried. “I want to swing the cats up so they won’t be devoured by their friends of the jungle. I want the skins for rugs. Guess they will look pretty poor in our patrol room. What?”

“I’ll come back with you in the daylight,” Peter said, “if you’ll come away now.”

Leaving the glade where they had encountered such dangers, the boys moved toward the canal line, keeping the moon, now well toward the horizon, at their back.

“If we had done this before,” Jimmie said, as they forced their way through clusters of clinging vines, “we would be at home in bed now.”

“But we wouldn’t have had the jaguar rugs coming to us,” answered Peter. “Glad I didn’t think of it before.”

Presently they came to the top of a little hill in the jungle and looked out over the country ahead. There were no canal lights in the distance. Afar off they could see a faint streak of dawn.

“I don’t believe we’re going right, after all,” Jimmie said.

“We must keep a little more to the left,” Peter replied. “The line of the canal runs almost southeast here, and we are going east. We’ll strike it quicker if we turn to the north.”

“This ain’t much like the Great White Way at daylight,” commented Jimmie, as a great creeper settled about his neck, having been pulled from a tree by his companion.

“I don’t see what we’re doing in here in the night, anyway,” Peter observed. “We didn’t come down here to get big game, but to prevent enemies of the government getting gay and blowing up the Gatun dam. Whew! They might have blowed it up while we’ve been shooting snakes and cats. Guess there’s one of the explosions now.”

A rumbling came toward them from the east. It was such a rumbling as one hears when great masses of fireworks are set off at once. Such a rumbling as one hears in war, when the rifles are speaking along a line of infantry and cannons are roaring out above their patter. The ground shook, and birds, frightened, fled from tree boughs with strange cries.

“Something has gone up,” Jimmie said. “I wish we could see over the tops of that next line of trees.”

“Sounds like the crack of doom,” Peter observed. “I wish we could get out of the tall timber and see what’s going on.”

“There’s a white light,” Jimmie cried, excitedly. “That must be the workings.”

“That’s a cloud, just touched with dawn,” Peter replied. “There’s no sight of the canal yet. If we could only get out to the cut we’d soon be home.”

“Home?” repeated Jimmie, in disgust, “we’re more’n fifty miles from camp, the way the roads run. If we can get a train at Culebra, we may be able to get home by dark. You must remember that we rode a long way with the lieutenant. Culebra is almost to the Pacific. The locks are there, or near there.”

“We can get a train, I guess,” Peter said, sleepily. “I wonder if any of the boys are sitting up for us?”

“You bet they’re out hunting for the two of us,” Jimmie said. “It takes one half of our party to keep the other half from getting killed,” he added.

There were still no signs of the canal line. The jungle was as dense as ever, and seemed more desolate and uncanny than ever under the growing light of day. As the sun arose and looked down into the green pools vapors arose, vapors unpleasant to the nostrils and bewildering to the sight.

Presently the boys came to a little knoll from which they could look a long way into the jungle stretching around them. Below were slimy thickets, tangles of creepers and vines which seemed to be sentient, but no signs of the work of man. It was now eight o’clock in the morning, and the boys were worn out and hungry.

“If they’re out lookin’ for us,” Jimmie said, “I’ll give ’em somethin’ to follow. Watch me.”

“But they won’t be anywhere around here,” Peter said, as Jimmie began gathering dry twigs and branches from the ground.

“They’ll begin where Lieutenant Gordon left us,” insisted the boy. “Now you see if I don’t wake some Boy Scout up. Here, you carry this bunch of wood over to that other knoll.”