The Moving Picture Boys at Panama; Or, Stirring Adventures Along the Great Canal

by Victor Appleton

  CHAPTER XX

  AT GATUN DAM

  "Look!" cried Mr. Alcando. He would have said more--have utteredsome of the expressions of fear and terror that raced through hismind, but he could not speak the words. He could only look andpoint.

  But Blake, as well as the Spaniard, had seen what had happened,and with Blake to see was to act.

  "Quick!" he cried. "We've got to get him out before he smothers!Pack up this stuff!"

  As he spoke he folded the tripod legs of his camera, and laid iton top of a big rock, that seemed firmly enough imbedded in thesoil not to slip from its place. Then, placing beside it the spareboxes of film, and throwing over them a rubber covering he hadbrought, Blake began to run across the side of the hill toward theplace where Joe had last been seen.

  "Come on!" cried Blake to Mr. Alcando, but the Spaniard needed nourging. He had laid with Blake's the boxes of film he carried, andthe two were now speeding to the rescue.

  "Go get help!" cried Joe to an Indian worker from the tug, who hadfollowed to help carry things if needed. "Go quick! Bringmen--shovels! We may have to dig him out," he added to Mr.Alcando.

  "If--if we can find him," replied the other in low tones.

  "Go on--run!" cried Joe, for the Indian did not seem tounderstand. Then the meaning and need of haste occurred to him.

  "_Si, senor_, I go--_pronto_!" he exclaimed, and he was off on arun.

  Fortunately for Blake and Mr. Alcando, the worst of the slideseemed to be over. A big mass of the hill below them, and off totheir right, had slid down into the Canal. It was the outer edgeof this that had engulfed Joe and his camera. Had he been directlyin the path of the avalanche, nothing could have saved him. As itwas, Blake felt a deadly fear gripping at his heart that, afterall, it might be impossible to rescue his chum.

  "But I'll get him! I'll get him!" he said fiercely to himself,over and over again. "I'll get him!"

  Slipping, sliding, now being buried up to their knees in the softmud and sand, again finding some harder ground, or shelf of shale,that offered good footing, Blake and the Spaniard struggled onthrough the rain. It was still coming down, but not as hard asbefore.

  "Here's the place!" cried Blake, coming to a halt in front ofwhere several stones formed a rough circle. "He's under here."

  "No, farther on, I think," said the Spaniard.

  Blake looked about him. His mind was in a turmoil. He could not becertain as to the exact spot where Joe had been engulfed in theslide, and yet he must know to a certainty. There was no time todig in many places, one after the other, to find his chum. Everysecond was vital.

  "Don't you think it's here?" Blake asked, "Try to think!"

  "I am!" the Spaniard replied. "And it seems to me that it wasfarther on. If there was only some way we could tell--"

  The sentence trailed off into nothingness. There was really no wayof telling. All about them was a dreary waste of mud, sand,boulders, smaller stones, gravel and more mud--mud was overeverything. And more mud was constantly being made, for the rainhad not ceased.

  "I'm going to dig here!" decided Blake in desperation, as with hisbare hands he began throwing aside the dirt and stones. Mr.Alcando watched him for a moment, and then, as though giving uphis idea as to where Joe lay beneath the dirt, he, too, startedthrowing on either side the clay and soil.

  Blake glanced down the hill. The Indian messenger had disappeared,and, presumably, had reached the tug, and was giving the messagefor help. Then Blake bent to his Herculean task again. When nexthe looked up, having scooped a slight hole in the side of thehill, he saw a procession of men running up--men with picks andshovels over their shoulders. He saw, too, a big slice of the hillin the Canal. The wonderful waterway was blocked at Culebra Cut.

  Blake thought little of that then. His one idea and frantic desirewas to get Joe out.

  "They'll never get here in time," said Mr. Alcando in a low voice."We'll never get him out in time."

  "We--we must!" cried Blake, as again he began digging.

  Mr. Alcando had spoken the truth. The men could not get there intime--Joe could not be dug out in time--if it had depended onhuman agencies. For not only was Blake unaware of the exact spotwhere his chum lay buried, but, at least so it seemed, there hadbeen such a mass of earth precipitated over him that it wouldmean hours before he could be gotten out.

  However, fate, luck, Providence, or whatever you choose to callit, had not altogether deserted the moving picture boys. The verynature of the slide, and the hill on which it had occurred, was inJoe's favor. For as Blake, after a despairing glance at theapproaching column of men, bent again to his hopeless task, therewas a movement of the earth.

  "Look out!" cried Mr. Alcando.

  He would have spoken too late had what happened been of greatermagnitude. As it was Blake felt the earth slipping from beneathhis feet, and jumped back instinctively. But there was no need.

  Beyond him another big slide had occurred, and between him and Mr.Alcando, and this last shift of the soil, was a ridge of rocksthat held them to their places.

  Down in a mass of mud went another portion of the hill, and whenit had ceased moving Blake gave a cry of joy. For there, lying ina mass of red sand, was Joe himself, and beside him was thecamera, the tripod legs sticking out at grotesque angles.

  "Joe! Joe!" yelled Blake, preparing to leap toward his chum.

  "Be careful!" warned Mr. Alcando. "There may be danger--"

  But no known danger could have held Blake back.

  "He is there!" Blake cried. "We were digging in the wrong place."

  "I thought so," said the Spaniard. But Blake did not stay tolisten to him. Now he was at Joe's side. The slide had laid bare aledge of rock which seemed firm enough to remain solid for sometime.

  "Joe! Joe!" cried Blake, bending over his chum. And then he sawwhat it was that had probably saved Joe's life. The boy's bigrubber coat had been turned up and wound around his head and facein such a manner as to keep the sand and dirt out of his eyes,nose and mouth. And, also wrapped up in the folds of the garment,was the camera.

  Rapidly Blake pulled the coat aside. Joe's pale face looked up athim. There was a little blood on the forehead, from a small cut.The boy was unconscious.

  "Joe! Joe!" begged Blake. "Speak to me! Are you all right?"

  He bared his chum's face to the pelting rain--the best thing hecould have done, for it brought Joe back to consciousness--slowlyat first, but with the returning tide of blood the fainting spellpassed.

  "We must get him to the boat," said Mr. Alcando, coming up now.

  "Are you hurt? Can you walk?" asked Blake.

  Joe found his voice--though a faint voice it was.

  "Yes--yes," he said, slowly. "I--I guess I'm all right."

  There seemed to be no broken bones. Mr. Alcando took charge of thecamera. It was not damaged except as to the tripod.

  "What happened?" asked Joe, his voice stronger now.

  "You were caught in the slide," Blake informed him. "Don't thinkabout it now. We'll have you taken care of."

  "I--I guess I'm all right," Joe said, standing upright. "That coatgot wound around my face, and kept the dirt away. I got a badwhack on the head, though, and then I seemed to go to sleep. Did Iget any pictures?"

  "I don't know. Don't worry about them now."

  "We--we missed the best part of the slide, I guess," Joe went on."Too bad."

  "It's all right!" his chum insisted. "I was filming away up to thetime you went under. Now, let's get back."

  By this time the crowd of men, including Captain Wiltsey, hadarrived. But there was nothing for them to do. The slide hadburied Joe, and another slide had uncovered him, leaving himlittle the worse, save for a much-muddied suit of clothes, and abad headache, to say nothing of several minor cuts and bruises. Itwas a lucky escape.

  Back to the tug they went, taking the cameras with them. Joe wasgiven such rough and ready surgery and medical treatment as wasavailable, and Captain Wiltsey said he would leave at once forGa
tun, where a doctor could be obtained.

  Fortunately the blockading of the Canal by the slide did not stopthe _Bohio_ from continuing her journey. The slide was north ofher position.

  "I do hope we got some good films," said Joe, when he had beenmade as comfortable as possible in his berth.

  "I think we did," Blake said. "Your camera was protected by therubber coat, and mine wasn't hurt at all."

  Later the boys learned that though they had missed the very best,or rather the biggest, part of the slide, still they had on theirfilms enough of it to make a most interesting series of views.

  Late that afternoon Joe was in the care of a physician, whoordered him to stay in bed a couple of days. Which Joe was verywilling to do. For, after the first excitement wore off, he foundhimself much more sore and stiff than he had realized.

  They were at Gatun now, and there Blake planned to get some viewsof the big dam from the lower, or spillway side.

  "But first I'm going back to the slide," he said. "I want to getsome views of the dredgers getting rid of the dirt."