Boy Scouts in an Airship; Or, The Warning from the Sky

by G. Harvey Ralphson

  CHAPTER III

  BLACK BEARS ON THE AMAZON

  The handsome club room of the Black Bear Patrol, in the city of NewYork, was situated on the top floor of the magnificent residence ofAttorney Bosworth, one of the leading corporation lawyers in thecountry. Jack Bosworth, the lawyer's only son, was a member of theBlack Bear Patrol, and the club room had been fitted up at hisrequest.

  It was in this room that Ned Nestor, Jimmie McGraw, Jack Bosworth,Harry Stevens, and Frank Shaw had planned their motor-boat trip downthe Columbia river, as described in the first volume of this series.Jack, Harry and Frank had returned to New York from San Franciscowhen Ned had decided to accept the Secret Service mission toParaguay, at the conclusion of the motor-boat vacation on theColumbia, leaving the two boats, the Black Bear and the Wolf, storedat Portland, Oregon.

  One evening--the evening of the 1st of August, to be exact--whileNed, Sam, and Jimmie were still in San Francisco, awaiting the slowaction of the State department at Washington, Jack, Frank and Harrymet in the club room for the purpose of "sobbing together," as theyexpressed it. They had left their friends in San Franciscoreluctantly because of orders from home, and now they understoodthat they might have gone with Ned and Jimmie if they had onlyexplained to their parents the purpose of the mission.

  "I suppose," Frank Shaw said, at the end of a long pause in theconversation, "I suppose Ned and the others are out over the Andesby this time."

  "No," replied Jack. "I heard from Jimmie by wire today, and theyare still in Frisco, and likely to remain there nearly a weeklonger."

  "If the airship was only large enough!" sighed Harry.

  "We might still get there in time!" Frank suggested, eagerly.

  "The Nelson wouldn't carry us if we were there," Jack exclaimed, ina disgusted tone. "I wish the Black Bear had wings! Say, wouldn'tthat be a peach? We could run over to Paraguay and scare the lifeout of the boys!"

  "What good would it do if she had wings?" demanded Frank. "She isin storage at Portland, Oregon."

  "No," replied Harry Stevens, whose father, a noted maker ofautomobiles, had presented the motor-boats to his son, "I orderedthe boats sent on here the day after we left the coast. We cantake a trip up the Hudson, anyway."

  Jack walked thoughtfully around the room for a moment and thenturned back to the others, looking moodily out of a window.

  "I've got it!" he shouted, slapping Frank on the back.

  "I should say you had!" remarked Frank. "What do you take for it?"

  "I say I've got an idea!" Jack explained, jumping up and down andswinging his hands over his head. "A peach of an idea!"

  "Does it hurt?" asked Harry.

  "Oh, cut out that funny stuff!" Jack cried. "When will the twomotor-boats be here?"

  Harry counted on the fingers of his left hand.

  "We've been home two days," he said, "and we were four days gettingto Chicago. There we laid over a day, and came on here in twentyhours. We are eight days from the Pacific coast. That right?"

  "It seems to be."

  "Well, then, it is seven days since I ordered the Black Bear and theWolf sent on here in a special express car. They ought to be herenow."

  "Then," shouted Jack, pulling Harry around the room, "we're allright--fit as a brass band at a free lunch! Whoo-pee!"

  "It must be hungry," Frank exclaimed, regarding Jack with seemingterror. "Does it ever bite when it puts out these signals ofdistress?"

  "Don't get too funny!" Jack warned.

  "Then loosen up on this alleged idea!" Frank replied.

  Jack rushed across the room and brought out an atlas of the world,which he dumped on the floor and opened.

  "Look here, fellows!" he said, squatting over the map of SouthAmerica, his chin almost on his knees.

  "We're looking," grinned Frank. "What about it?"

  "Here we are in New York," Jack went on. "Here they are in SanFrancisco. Now, they've got to sail to Paraguay, which is justabout twice as far from San Francisco as is New York. Anyway,that's the way it looks on the map."

  "It is all of that distance," Harry put in.

  "Well," Jack continued, "as I said before, here we are in New York,with the mouth of the Amazon river about as far away as SanFrancisco, perhaps a little farther."

  "Well?" demanded Harry.

  "I begin to see the point!" Frank admitted. "But will the folksstand for it?"

  "Mine will," Harry answered. "Dad didn't make the Black Bear to liein storage. He'll stand for it, all right."

  "So will mine," Frank said, then. "I'll tell him I'll send him alot of news for his paper."

  Frank's father was owner and editor of the Planet, one of theleading morning newspapers in the big city, and it was always afiction of the boy's that he was going out in the interest of thepaper when he wandered off on a trip with the Boy Scouts.

  "I'm afraid you can't make that work again," laughed Jack. "Nedsays that you sent only four postal cards and six letters back fromPanama."

  "Well, wasn't that going some?" asked Frank.

  "Of course, only Ned says the postal cards carried thecorrespondence for the Planet, and the letters carried requests formore money!"

  "Anyway," Frank insisted, "Dad will stand for it. What is it?"

  "Well," Jack went on, "I'm sure my Dad will let me go. He wants meto go about all I can. Says it brightens a fellow to rub up againstthe rough places of the world."

  "There's rough corners enough in South America," laughed Harry.

  "Now, let us get down to figures," Jack continued. "We ought to beable to get to the mouth of the Amazon on a fast boat, with theBlack Bear and the Wolf on board, in a week or ten days-say tendays. About that time they will be getting into Paraguay. What doyou think of it?"

  "Fine!" cried Harry.

  "The best ever!" Frank responded. "But what then? We can't run upto Paraguay in the Black Bear."

  "We can get away up in the Andes," answered Jack, with the map ofBrazil before him. "See these crooked little lines? Well, thoseare rivers. Just see how far we can go in a motor boat."

  "But that won't bring us to the aeroplane," Frank objected.

  "Yes, it will," Harry answered. "They are coming back by way of theAmazon valley, and we can't miss them. Oh, what's the use? Supposewe begin packing?"

  "Well, I don't know exactly what we are to do after we get up theAmazon," Harry laughed, "but I'm game to go. There are head-huntersand cannibals up there, and we may find a little amusement."

  "We're going after Ned and Jimmie," Jack explained. "This is arelief expedition! After they get to Paraguay they'll snatch thatLyman person out of the cold, damp dungeon keep he is supposed to bein and then sail off over the Amazon valley. There's where we catchup with them. Do you suppose we can find a ship going to the mouthof the Amazon early in the morning?"

  "You certainly are fierce when you get started!" laughed Harry."Well," he added, "you can't get ready any too soon to please me."

  It was two days before the boys found a vessel going their way, andeven then Jack insisted that his father bribed the owners to run offtheir course in order to set the boys and their motorboats down atthe mouth of the Amazon river. The boat, however, was a fast one,equal in speed to a modern ocean liner; and in ten days from thetime of starting from New York--on the 12th of August--the boys werestemming the current of the great river--more like a shoreless seathere at the mouth than a river!

  "Huh!" Frank exclaimed, as they left the island of Joannes to thesouth, "this is no river! It is a blooming sea!"

  "Pretty near three hundred miles wide at the delta, including thatbig island," Harry said. "It is some river, eh?"

  "Four thousand miles long!" Jack contributed. "It is navigable forcommercial purposes for 2,200 miles, and our boats can go up clearto the foot of the Andes."

  "Boats went there in the days of Columbus," Frank said. "Acompanion of Columbus first discovered this great delta. The riverfertilizes two million sq
uare miles of territory, and is thegreatest water system in the world."

  "Why," Harry observed, desiring to contribute something startling tothe discussion of the river, "the current is so strong that itcarries fresh water and sand five hundred miles out into theAtlantic Ocean. It is just a fresh water river in a salt water seafor five hundred miles!"

  That night the boys kept the engines of the Black Bear going, oneremaining on watch all through the dark hours. They had plenty ofgasoline in the tank, and the tender, the Wolf, was carrying a loadof fuel which Jack declared would last them until the end of theyear!

  It may be well to state here that the Black Bear, the Boy Scoutmotorboat, was a specially constructed vessel, built by Harry'sfather for river work. The materials were light yet strong, and theboat could easily be taken apart and put together again whenoccasion required. Between the cross-grained slices of tough woodof which the craft was built were plates of steel, thus renderingthe boat virtually bullet proof.

  The Black Bear was constructed so that it could be almost entirelythrown open to the sunshine when so desired or closed tightlyagainst cold or rain. The roof could be rolled up in a bundle inthe middle like the curtain of a modern desk. The sides werecomposed of oblong panels which could be inserted in grooved steeluprights when it was desired to close in the interior of the boat.The motors were very powerful.

  In fact, it was just such a boat as was needed on the trip the boyshad in mind. It had done excellent service on the Columbia, andnothing less could be expected of it on the Amazon. The Wolf, whichwas merely a tender, was watertight in construction, being shapedlike a banana, and was towed by the motor-boat. Here the extrastocks of gasoline, provisions, and ammunition were packed. Theinterior of the Wolf was about six feet by eighteen in size, whilethe distance from rounded floor to convex roof was about four feet.

  On both sides of the interior were gasoline tanks, which alsoextended under the floor, lifting the bottom of the interior spacethree feet. Above the tanks were spaces for provisions andammunition. The space between the tanks and the lockers was abouttwo feet, and here one might ride in comfort, after getting used tothe rolling of the boat. There were tight glass panels of thickplate glass at the ends and the top.

  Ventilators and loopholes, controlled by wires from the center, werecut in the ends and protected by sliding covers. Lying in thepassageway, one might look out at either end, and shoot out, too, ifoccasion required. When fully loaded, the Wolf was submerged abouthalf its height. On the top was a staff from which floated anAmerican flag. The boys were very proud of the Wolf, and Jimmie hadoften declared, on the Columbia river trip, that he would some daytake an exciting ride in it.

  During their passage up the river the boys were often hailed frompassing craft, but they took little heed, as they did not care tolose time gratifying the curiosity of those they met. Indeed, ifthey had stopped to talk with all who hailed them, they would havemade slow progress. Up to about sixty years ago the Amazon wasclosed to all save Brazilian vessels, but now it is open to thecommerce of the world.

  There are now vessels coming from and going to all parts of Europeand America from Amazon ports. There are lines of great steamers onthe main stream, lines of smaller steamers on the big tributaries,and launches and small craft of all sizes on the affluent branches.Often the passing ships, steamers, launches, etc., almost took theform of a procession on the lower waters.

  Everywhere the smaller ships were gathering the products of thegreat Amazon basin-rubber, cocoanuts, hardwoods, dyewoods, pelts,tropical fruits and other commodities. Every year over threemillion tons of products come down the great river. The Amazondrains a country as large as the United States east of theMississippi. Its feeders reach the Andes, draining watershedswithin a hundred miles of the Pacific ocean. It has tributariesfifteen hundred miles long.

  It did not take the Black Bear very long to pass the green islandsnear the delta. The river there looks like an ocean. In fact, themain branch of the Amazon is from fifty miles to two hundred milesin width. Some of the tributaries are a hundred miles wide. It isfrom fifty to two hundred feet deep. The water is always darkcolored because of the wash brought down from the uplands. For along time it did not seem possible to the boys that they weresailing on a river instead of an ocean.

  "Ned and the boys must be over Paraguay now," Jack said, one day,after they had been on the river nearly a week without accident orimportant incident of any kind.

  "Yes," Frank replied, "they must be there by this time. Jimmie saidthey were to leave San Francisco on the 7th, or about that time. Itwould take a week or more to get to Lima, for they couldn't remainin the air long at a time, and the resting spells would set themback a little. Suppose they got to Lima on the 14th, which was lastMonday, they could rest up and go prowling over that dirty littlerepublic--which is not a republic at all, but a despotism temperedby revolution."

  "I'd like to know just what course Ned has decided on," Harry said."I don't see how he's going to get to Mr. Lyman."

  "He'll find a way," Jack insisted. "He always has, and he alwayswill."

  It will be seen that the boys were tolerably accurate in theirestimates of the speed of the Nelson. On the day they werediscussing the possible location of the big airship, which was the18th of August, the Nelson was in the center of as pretty a muss asNed had ever mixed with.

  The boys in the Black Bear put on all speed, traveling nights aswell as days, and before long began watching the heavens, for anaeroplane. But the lads on the Nelson were not looking for a boatpoking her nose toward the Andes--"a relief expedition," as Jackcalled it!