Polly's Southern Cruise

The girls were eager to get into the aeroplane and take their trip, but the pilot looked troubled and shook his head.

“What is the matter, Bill?” asked his companion.

“I don’t like the looks of the sky – we’re not through with the squall, I’m thinking.”

“I think it would be heaps of fun to be above the clouds when it rains down here,” ventured Eleanor, coaxingly, to Mr. Dalken.

“You wouldn’t say that if you ever went up while a tropical squall twisted the plane this way and that,” remarked Bob, who had heard her speech.

“I’m afraid we shall have to call it off for today, ladies,” announced the pilot, with evident regret in his tone.

“Well, then, we shall have all the more to look forward to to-morrow,” returned Polly, pleasantly, but Eleanor was annoyed at the delay.

“I don’t see why the nasty old weather had to come just now and spoil all the fun!” pouted she.

“As long as we do not advise taking the ladies up to-day, why not come with us for a visit to our sugar plantation,” suggested Bob.

“What is there to see there?” pouted Eleanor, still angry.

“Well, Bill and I have staked a little cane plantation over there and we haven’t inspected our property for two weeks. We were so busy practicing for the ball game, and then you came on the scene. If you’ve never visited a sugarcane plantation it will prove to be interesting, I’m sure.”

As nothing else had been planned to take the place of the aeroplane trip that day, the girls accepted the offer to inspect the small plantation.

Having traveled swiftly over the rich country where so little farming was done because of the exhausting heat, and the prolific crops of nature-grown fruits and herbs, the two seven-passenger cars came to a very pretty place. Bill and Bob who were driving, turned in to a rough road more like a country lane, and passed acres of cane sugar. The two young owners pointed with pride to their property, and well they might.

“The man of whom we leased this acreage said he had a yield of from six to eight tons of sucrose an acre every year. But he had more land than he could cultivate, hence he leased us this acreage and agreed to keep an eye on our men and the work, whenever he could. The richness of the soil and the climate gives the cane grown here an unusual amount of saccharine to the acre,” Bill explained, as his hearers looked over the vast fields of cane and admired his ambitions.

“Gee, Bill! I don’t know but that I’ll go in with you boys on sugar raising. I’m sure I’d like it down here,” said Jack Baxter. “How about it, Ray, want to go fifty-fifty in this?”

Mr. Dalken laughed heartily. “If Ray knows you as well as I do, he’ll understand that you fall for every new project placed before you. If some one caught you in the right mood and told you that your fortune was to be had in digging a Canal through South America, from the Pacific to the Atlantic, you’d agree with them and start in to dig. But you’d get tired of it in a week and shirk the work.”

“Why, Dalky, you slander my ideals!” declared Jack.

“Do I? What about Grizzly Slide and your determination to take up mining out on the peaks of the Rockies? Then in New York you went so far as to furnish an apartment for the sake of studying interior decorating,” said Mr. Dalken.

“Oh, no, Dalky!” laughed Eleanor, quickly. “He never furnished that apartment for the study of furniture, but only for the study of Polly.”

As this temporary infatuation of Jack’s for Polly had been one of the amusing incidents of the past year, his friends all laughed merrily.

“Well, Mr. Dalken, no need to worry lest Jack buy out a partnership share with us, because we haven’t anything to sell. We leased the plantation on a basis which forbids any one sinking money in the scheme. If this year’s cane turns out well, and we reap any profits, then we shall feel like moneyed men – not now.”

As the cars drove on to visit the large plantation of the man who had leased the small one to the soldier boys, the latter explained that cane took about twelve months to mature; then after the first cutting another crop came on; the second crop was called ratoons. Sometimes it was possible, weather and cane both agreeing, to cut a third crop.

From the plantations Bill and Bob drove their guests to the big mills where the grinding was done. The cars passed several huge stand-pipes which were filled with water from artesian wells. This water was carried over the plantations in pipes and at regular intervals there was an open flume. Into the conduit the water was emptied daily and this form of trough carried the necessary moisture down the rows of cane to which it gave the stipulated quantity of water. All this work was regulated by automatic appliances easily handled and kept in order.

Bob now explained the method of planting cane. “They do not use seed, you know. The stalk is cut into sections of about two feet in length and these pieces are dropped into furrows and covered with soil.”

At the mill the visitors saw great piles of cane: some being cut, some being stripped, and some being piled upon great flat trucks all waiting to be taken to the freight cars which would carry them to the boats at Panama or at Colon.

The noise made by the great machines as they crushed, rolled, or poured the sugar from the cane, made conversation impossible. Bill next led his friends along beside the carrier which constantly moved the cane through the trough to feed the crushing machine. At the other side of this great machine the sweet juice poured forth in torrents.

The next process was that of pumping the cold juice into hot pans and then boiling the contents by steam. The skimming and liming work, and finally the feeding into the drying pans by means of coils of pipes, proved interesting but very tiresome because the heat of the mill was suffocating to the Northerners. Late in the afternoon the cars sped back to Colon and the two young planters were induced to stay to dinner on the White Crest.

“To-morrow we will take you up in the ’planes and have you enjoy a long ride, your last day at our Post,” remarked Bob at dinner.

“I feel perfectly safe in permitting the girls to go after having been up and seeing for myself how careful you boys are,” replied Mr. Dalken, graciously.

“I never thought I would enjoy a ride in the air, as I have always felt timid about going up in a ’plane,” said Mr. Fabian. “But I am so thrilled by the trial that I want Mrs. Fabian to try it.”

“No, thank you, sir! I am quite satisfied with good old Mother Earth,” laughed his wife.

Thus it happened on the following day that the two older ladies in the party preferred to stay down, but Mrs. Courtney and the girls, together with Jack and Ray, went forth to meet the aviators on the plain where the government hangars stood. They had two ’planes waiting and ready for the sail. A large seven-passenger machine and a smaller one which held the pilot and two others.

Into the large ’plane went Mrs. Courtney and Nancy Fabian and Ruth Ashby, after them went the two young men, Jack and Ray. At last the pilot Bob and his mechanician got in. Bill with Polly and Eleanor got in the small ’plane.

As the two aeroplanes began to ascend, Mr. Dalken called out: “Don’t go far! And don’t remain away more than half an hour!”

Those left behind stood and talked with a few of the army men who had accompanied Bill and Ray to the field. But after waiting for half an hour and no signs of returning ’planes could be seen or heard, the men said they thought Bill and Bob had descended near Panama in order to treat their company to afternoon tea.

Soon after this Mr. Dalken heard the faint far-off sound of a motor in the air, but no sight of it could be seen. Finally a speck was visible in the sky and in a short time the large ’plane descended upon the field, but not one vestige of the smaller one.

“Why!” exclaimed Bob, after he had assisted the ladies to get out of his ’plane. “Aren’t the others back yet?”

“No, did you miss them?” asked Mr. Dalken.

“I don’t know which direction Bill went. We tried to keep up with them, but that little ’plane is a hum-dinger for speed and it soon outstripped us. The last we saw of it was when it was speeding over Miraflores lock – right after that it disappeared and we saw no more of it. I flew over the same place but it was not there.”

“I hope nothing happened to them!” ventured Mrs. Courtney anxiously.

Before the group could decide upon any action, the sky suddenly clouded over again and the rain began to empty the rest of its water upon the section where the most damage might be done. Hence the aeroplane was rushed into its hangar and the storm-stayed visitors hurried into the empty hangar usually occupied by the small ’plane.

It was almost six o’clock when the rain ceased and permitted the tourists to return to their vessel. Jack and Ray went to the barracks with Bob because they were invited guests to dinner that evening.

Seven o’clock rang and darkness began to fall, yet no word had come from the absent aviators and every one began to worry over what might have befallen them.

“If we do not hear from them within the hour I shall go after them. The trains will probably run to Panama all night, and I will go there first and start a general search,” said Mr. Dalken.

The rain had ceased entirely now, and the night settled down, but no word or return of the absent girls. Then Mrs. Courtney took Mr. Dalken aside and made a suggestion.

“Suppose you accompany me to the telegraph station at Colon? From there we will send out wires to all the small and large stations on the line of the Canal. We may hear from some one in that way, and should we not get any favorable report you can go on to Panama.”

With a few words of explanation the two then left the White Crest and made their way to the station at Colon. Here they asked many questions of the telegraph operator and found out that there were many places all along the Canal where the stranded aviators might have secured shelter during the storm and also for the night.

But Mrs. Courtney said she would feel better if the messages were sent broadcast in order to reach some one who would reply. Hence they began to fill out the blanks for the man to use. Just as they had decided what to write, the instrument in the office began to click.

“I think this wire is from your two girls; is your name Mr. Dalken, from the yacht called the White Crest?” asked the man.

“Yes, yes! what do they say?” exclaimed Mr. Dalken anxiously.