CHAPTER XII.
LOST IN THE JUNGLE AT NIGHT.
"Just look at it!"
The lieutenant, after many warnings against getting in the way, andagainst getting lost in the jungle, had just left Peter and Jimmie, andthe boys stood at the verge of the great Culebra cut, taking in the wonderand the force of the marvelous scene.
Night and day, under the great white lights, the work went forward,cutting a way for the commerce of the world. Night and day the human antsbored into the earth. Continuously the blasting and scraping, the puffingand the roaring, went on. Always the great steam shovels were biting intothe soil and the rock.
"That doesn't look like the deep blue sea down there, does it?" Peter wenton, "yet the largest vessels in the world will be sailing over here infour years, sailing through this cut, and over a forest beyond the risethere. It looks big, doesn't it? And it sounds big, too."
From where the boys stood there seemed to be a hopeless confusion of menand machines, but they knew that back of all the hurry, and bustle, andnoise, was a great machine, a wonderful system, born in a human brain andreaching its lines out to the smallest detail.
"When you sit on a fire-escape balcony, or in a park," Jimmie said, hismind going back to the New York lounging places he knew best, "and readabout how many tons of earth have been removed during the week, you don'tsense it, do you? You've got to come down here and catch Uncle Sam at hisjob."
While the boys talked of the marvelous thing before them a stranger ofquiet mien stood watching them from an elevation a few yards away. He wasa man of middle age, with brilliant black eyes, long, like those of anOriental, and a figure almost boyish in its proportions. He was neatlydressed in a dark suit of some soft, expensive material, his linen wasspotless, and a diamond of great value and brilliancy glimmered in hispure white tie.
He stood watching the boys for a moment listening to their talk, and thenapproached them, softly, deferentially, yet with an air of frankness.
"It is a wonderful sight," he said, as he came to the edge of the cutwhere the lads stood. "In all the world's life there has never beenanything like it."
The boys turned and looked the man over modestly, yet with sharp eyes. Itis not to be wondered at, after their experiences there, that they weresuspicious of all strangers. They both at first rather liked the looks ofthe man.
"It is worth coming a long way to see," Peter observed.
"Yes," was the reply, "it is wonderful, even to those who are small cogsin the great machine, and so it must seem almost supernatural in itsshowing of strength to those who look upon it for the first time."
"You belong on the works?" asked Jimmie, gazing at the man with a sort ofawe, as one might look at a man of mighty deeds.
"Yes, I have my part in the work," was the reply, "though it is only amodest part. I am in the office of the engineer, and frequently come outat night to note the progress of the big cut."
"It must make a man feel a mile high, to be part of a thing like this,"Jimmie said, sweeping a hand over the scene. "It makes little old New Yorklook like thirty cents," he added, with a laugh.
"The work," the stranger said, in a pleasant tone, which gave noindication of foreign birth "has progressed beyond the expectations of themost enthusiastic advocate of the canal. When we came here we found aboutseven miles of waterway bored into the side of the Isthmus, reaching,well, about up to the rising slope of Gatun. Beyond this there werescratches in the soil for about forty miles. There was a notch nicked inthe hills of Culebra--just a nick bearing no resemblance to what you seebefore you at this time."
"That was over there where the hills rise up like men watching the lightsand listening to the noise?" asked Jimmie, his imagination thoroughlystirred by the scene.
"Yes, over there. It would have taken the Frenchmen a century to dig downto the level where those shovels are working, where those tracks lie. I'mafraid it took the men they brought here most of the time to bury thedead. But, after all, they never got in touch with the really big thing."
"I guess that was the Chagres river," Peter said; "I've read somethingabout that, about the trouble it makes."
"Yes, that was the river," the stranger went on, by this time pretty deepin the confidence and admiration of the boys. "They found the Chagreshaving everything its own way on the uplands, over to the north, there. Itambled along like a perfect lady in spots, then it twisted its water intowhirling ropes which pulled at the banks and toppled cliffs into thecurrent."
"Freshets?" asked Jimmie.
"Exactly. When the engineers came they found something worth while. Theyfound a dismal, soggy-looking ditch which could do things in a singlenight. They found crumbling and shaling cliffs which showed the bite ofthe waters. Time and again they had to do their work all over again. Thenthey decided to take the Chagres by the neck and choke it intosubjection."
"I'd like to see some one choke a river," Jimmie laughed. "You try tochoke a river and you'll find that the harder you clutch it the moretrouble it will make you."
"But they not only choked the Chagres," the stranger said, with acaptivating smile which went far toward giving him the complete confidenceof the boys, "they put it in chains. If you look on a detail map of theIsthmus, you will see a white band stretching from Limon Bay to La Boca,just below the hill of Ancon. That is the line of the canal. Then, acrossthis white band, you will see a crooked line, a turning and twisting line.That is the river, which seems to change its mind about general directionevery few minutes. The engineers found this river in the habit of gettingup in the night and tearing their work in pieces."
"Why didn't they cut a straight channel for it?" asked Jimmie.
"That was tried, but finally the engineers decided to stop trying to makethe river behave itself, as a river, and turned their attention tosquelching it. They are going to turn it into a lake--the Lake of Gatun."
"I've heard something about that," Jimmie said. "Go on and tell us moreabout it."
The stranger smiled pleasantly, but there was a sudden quickening of theflame in his brilliant eyes which the boys did not notice.
"The upland portion of the Isthmus, the plateau, as it would be called inMexico, is fairly level from Gatun to the Culebra hills. It might, infact, be called a shallow basin, with hills shutting it in. Now do you seewhat the Gatun dam is for?"
"Sure. To flood that basin and turn the Chagres into a lake," criedJimmie.
"That is just what will be done. The Panama canal will be a lake most ofthe way. The locks will float the vessels up to the lake and down to thecanal again. The hills, and forests, and farms of the basin will be underwater."
"And the mines," Jimmie said, thinking of the talk he had had with Peterconcerning the emerald mines. "The lake will flood them, too."
"There are no mines there any more," the stranger said, lightly, but therewas a quality in his voice which almost asked a question instead of makinga statement of fact.
"I've been wondering if there wasn't mines down there," Jimmie added, in amoment.
"What kind of mines?" asked the stranger.
Jimmie was about to say "Emerald mines," but Peter's anxious face warnedhim to check the words on his lips.
"Oh, I've heard of all kinds of mines about there," he said, instead.
"The mines are farther south," said the stranger. "Are you boys with aparty?" he added, in a moment. "If not, I would like to have you spend thenight as my guests."
"We've got a camp back here," Peter said, "and the others will beexpecting us."
"I see," said the other. "You are the boys who are here in search ofspecimens. I recall something Lieutenant Gordon said about you. But youare a long way from the cottage in the jungle near Gatun."
"When did you see Lieutenant Gordon last?" asked Peter, suspiciously.
"I met him something over half an hour ago," was the reply, "on his wayback to the Tivoli at Ancon. You came here in his machine?"
"Yes," was the reply.
"Well, I'm goin
g to Gatun to-night, and you may ride with me."
The stranger turned away, as if to get his motor car, and Peter nudgedJimmie in the ribs with his elbow.
"Now we've done it," he whispered.
"Done what?"
"Got a man after us."
"Do you think he is one of the men we came here to look up?" asked Jimmie."I've been thinking he looks like a Jap. Perhaps he's one of the men atthe bottom of that bomb business. Well, we don't have to go with him."
"I'd like to see where he would take us," Peter whispered.
"Not for your uncle," Jimmie replied. "It is me for the jungle. This thingis gettin' worse 'n' a Bowery drama. The villain comes on in every scenehere. Say! Suppose we take a run into the woods before he gets back?"
"I'm not in love with the jungle at night," Peter said. "Besides, I'd liketo know what this Jap has in mind."
The chug-chug of the stranger's motor was now heard, and, without waitingfor further discussion, the boys ducked away into the jungle, whichcrowded close on the cut at this point.
They heard the car stop at the point where they had been standing, andheard a low exclamation of impatience, indicative of disappointment, fromthe lips of the driver, and then crept farther into the tangle of vines.
Finally Peter stopped and faced toward Gatun.
"We'd better be working toward home," he said. "This thicket is no placefor a civilized human being at night."
Although there was a moon, and the sky showed great constellations withwhich the boys were unfamiliar, the jungle was dark and creepy. Keepingthe lights from the workings on their left, the boys pushed their waythrough the undergrowth for some distance without resting, and then pausedin a little glade and listened.
"Gee," cried Jimmie, after standing at attention for a moment, "there'ssome one following us. We'd better dig in a little deeper."
"It may be a wild animal," said Peter, who, while ready to face whatsoeverperil might come in the company of the man they were running away from,was in mortal terror of the jungle.
"There are no man-eaters here," Jimmie replied, unwinding a snake-likecreeper from his neck and pushing on.
"I can feel snakes crawling up my legs now," complained Peter, with ashiver.
The noise in the rear came on about as fast as they could move, and atlast Jimmie sat down on a fallen tree.
"He can hear us," he said. "We might as well be hiding with a brassband."
"Then we'll keep quiet until he passes," Peter trembled out. "I'm afraidto go plunging through here in the dark, anyway."
Making as little noise as possible, the boys crept into a particularlydense thicket and crouched down. Almost as soon as they were at rest thenoise behind ceased. In five minutes it began again, but the sounds grewfainter and fainter and finally died out.
"He was followin' us all right," Jimmie said. "Now we'll dig in a littledeeper, so as not to come out anywhere near him, and then go back tocamp."
They walked, or crept, rather, until they were tired out and then lookedabout.
There were giant ceiba trees, with trunks as smooth as if they had beenpolished by human hands, tremendous cotton-trees, their branches boweddown with air plants, palms, to which clung clusters of wild nuts, thick,bulbous trees, taller trees with buttressed roots, as if Nature knew thestrain that was to be placed upon them and braced them up accordingly,trees with bark like mirrors, and trees with six-inch spike growing fromthe bark.
And through this thicket of trees ran creepers resembling pythons, smallervines which tore at the boughs of the trees, and a mass of running thingson the ground which caught the foot and seemed to crawl up toward thethroat. By daylight it would have been weird and beautiful. At night itwas uncanny and fearsome.
"We ought to be in sight of the lights by this time," Peter said, afterthey had crept on and rested again and again.
"Yes," said Jimmie, "but we ain't. We're lost in the jungle, if you wantto know."