The sequestered men, taken completely by surprise, tried to bolt when they saw that they were discovered, and then, shamefacedly enough, admitted their part in the trick.
They would not, however, reveal who had helped them escape from the tunnel. Threats and promises of rewards were alike unavailing, but Tom and his employers knew well enough who it was. The tunnel workers seemed rather tired of living in comparative luxury and idleness, and agreed to come back to their labors.
They packed up their few belongings, mostly cooking pots and pans, and marched out of the valley to the village at Rimac.
And so the strike was broken.
The reappearance of the missing men, in better health and spirits than when they went away, acted like magic. The other men, who had missed their wages, crowded back into the shaft, and the sounds of picks and shovels were heard again in the tunnel.
Whether the missing ones told the real story, or whether they made up some tale to account for their absence, Tom and his friends could not learn. Nor did the bearded man (if he it were who had helped in the plot), nor any representative of Blakeson & Grinder appear. The work on the tunnel was resumed as if nothing had happened. But Tom arranged a bright light so it would reflect on the spot in the roof where the moving rock was, so that if the evil face of the bearded man, or of Waddington, appeared there again, it would quickly be seen. A search of the neighborhood, and diligent inquiries, failed to disclose the presence of any of the plotters.
And then, as if Fate was not making it hard enough for the tunnel contractors, they encountered more trouble. It was after Tom had set off a big blast that Tim Sullivan, after inspecting what had happened, came out to ask.
“I soy, Mr. Swift, why didn’t yez use more powder?”
“More powder!” cried Tom. “Why, this is the most I have ever set off.”
“Then somethin’s wrong, sor. Fer there’s only a little rock down. Come an’ see fer yersilf.”
Tom hastened in. As the foreman had said, the effect of the blast was small indeed. Only a little rock had been shaled off. Tom picked up some of this and took it outside for examination.
“Why, it’s harder than the hardest flint we’ve found yet,” he said. “The powder didn’t make any impression on it at all. I’ll have to use terrific charges.”
This was done, but with little better effect. The explosive, powerful as it was, ate only a little way into the rock. Blast after blast had the same poor effect.
“This won’t do,” said Job Titus, despairingly, one day. “We aren’t making any progress at all. There’s a half mile of this rock, according to my calculations, and at this rate we’ll be six months getting through it. By that time our limit will be up, and we’ll be forced to give up the contract What can we do, Tom Swift?”
CHAPTER XXI
A NEW EXPLOSIVE
The young inventor was idly handling some pieces of the very hard rock that had cropped out in the tunnel cut Tom had tested it, he had pulverized it (as well as he was able), he had examined it under the microscope, and he had taken great slabs of it and set off under it, or on top of it, charges of explosive of various power to note the effect. But the results had not been at all what he had hoped for.
“What’s to be done, Tom?” repeated the contractor.
“Well, Mr. Titus,” was the answer, “the only thing I see to do is to make a new explosive.”
“Can you do it, Tom?”
The reply was characteristic.
“I can try.”
And in the days that followed, Tom began work on a new line. He had brought from Shopton with him much of the needful apparatus, and he found he could obtain in Lima what he lacked.
A message to his father brought the reply that the new ingredients Tom needed would be shipped.
“The kind of explosive we need to rend that very hard rock,” the young inventor explained to the Titus brothers, “is one that works slowly.”
“I thought all explosions had to be as quick as a flash,” said Walter.
“Well, in a sense, they do. Yet we have quick burning and slow-burning powders, the same as we have fuses. A quick-burning explosive is all right in soft rock, or in soil with rock and earth mingled. But in rock that is harder than flint if you use a quick explosive, only the outer surface of the rock will be scaled off.
“If you take a hammer and bring it down with all your force on a hard rock you may chip off a lot of little pieces, or you may crack the rock, but you won’t, under ordinary circumstances, pulverize it as we want to do in the tunnel.
“On the other hand, if you take a smaller hammer, and keep tapping the rock with comparatively gentle blows, you will set up a series of vibrations, that, in time, will cause the hard rock to break up into any number of small pieces.
“Now that is the kind of explosive I want one that will deal a succession of constant blows at the hard rock instead of one great big blast.”
“Can you make it, Tom?”
“Well, I don’t know. I’ll do the best I can.”
From then on Tom was busy with his experiments.
Work on the tunnel did not cease while he was searching for a new explosive. There was plenty of the old explosive left and charges of this were set off as fast as holes could be drilled to receive it. But comparatively little was accomplished. Sometimes more rock would be loosed than at others, and the native laborers, now seemingly perfectly contented, would be kept busy. Again, when a heavy blast would be set off hardly a dozen dump cars could be filled.
But the work must go on. Already the time limit was getting perilously close, and the contractors did not doubt that their rivals were only waiting for a chance to step in and take their places.
Nothing more had been seen or heard of the bearded man, Waddington, or Blakeson & Grinder. But that the rival firm had not given up was evidenced by the efforts made in New York to cripple, financially, the firm in which Tom was interested. In fact, at one time the Titus brothers were so tied up that they could not get money enough to pay their men. But Tom cabled his father, who was quite wealthy, and Mr. Swift loaned the contractors enough to proceed with until they could dispose of some securities.
It might be mentioned that Tom was to get a large sum if the tunnel were completed on time, so it was to his interest and his father’s, to bring this about if he could.
Tom kept on with his powder experiments. Mr. Damon helped him, for that gentleman had succeeded in putting the affairs of the wholesale drug business on a firm foundation, and there was no more trouble about getting the supplies of cinchona bark to market. The natives seemed to have taken kindly to the eccentric man, or perhaps it was the reputation of Tom Swift and his electric rifle that induced them to work hard.
It must not be supposed that Professor Bumper was idle all this while.
He came and went at odd times, accompanied by his little retinue of Indians, a guide and a native cook. He would come back to the tunnel camp, where he made his headquarters, travel stained, worn and weary, with disappointment showing on his face.
“No luck,” he would report. “The hidden city of Pelone is still lost.”
Then he would retire to his tent, to pour over his note-books, and make a new translation of the inscription on the golden plates. In a day or so, refreshed and rested, he would prepare for another start.
“I’ll find it this time, surely!” he would exclaim, as he marched off up the mountain trail. “I have heard of a new valley, never before visited by a white man, in which there are some old ruins. I’m sure they must be those of Pelone.”
But in a week or so he would come back, worn out and discouraged again.
“The ruins were only those of a native village,” he would say. “No trace of an ancient civilization there.”
The professor took little or no interest in the tunnel, though he expressed the hope that Tom and his friends would be successful. But industrial pursuits had no charm for the scientist. He only lived to find the hidden ci
ty which was to make him famous.
He heard the story of the queer shaft leading down into the bore under the mountain, and, for a time, hoped that might be some clue to the lost Pelone. But, after an examination, he decided it was but the shaft to some ancient mine which had not panned out, and so had been abandoned after having been fitted with a balanced rocky door, perhaps for some heathen religious rite.
There seemed to be no further trouble among the Indian tunnel workers. Those who had disappeared—who had, seemingly, gone willingly up the knotted rope to hide themselves in the valley—kept on with their work. If they told their fellows why and where they had gone, the others gave no sign. The evil spirits of the tunnel had been exorcised, and there was now peace, save for the blasts that were set off every so often.
Tom tried combination after combination, testing them inside and outside the tunnel, always seeking for an explosive that would give a slow, rending effect instead of a quick blow, the power of which was soon lost. And at last he announced:
“I think I have it!”
“Have you? Good!” cried Job Titus.
“Yes,” Tom went on, “I’ve got a mixture here that seems to give just the effect I want. I tried it on some small pieces of rock, and now I want to test it on some large chunks. Have you brought any down lately?”
“Yes, we have some big slabs in there.”
Some large pieces of the hard rock, which had been brought down in a recent blast, were taken outside the tunnel, and in them one afternoon Tom placed, in holes drilled to receive it, some of his new explosive. The rocks were set some distance away from the tunnel camp, and Tom attached the electric wires that were to detonate the charge.
“Well, I guess we’re ready,” announced the young inventor, as he looked about him.
The tunnel workers had been allowed to go for the day, and in a log shack, where they would be safe from flying pieces of rock, were Tom, Mr. Damon and the two Titus brothers.
Tom held the electric switch in his hand, and was about to press it.
“This explosive works differently from any other,” he explained. “When the charge is fired there is not instantly a detonation and a bursting. The powder burns slowly and generates an immense amount of gas. It is this gas, accumulating in the cracks and crevices of the rock, that I hope will burst and disintegrate it. Of course, an explosion eventually follows, as you will see. Here she goes!”
Tom pressed the switch and, as he did so, there was a cry of alarm from Mr. Damon.
“Bless my safety match, Tom!” cried the old man. “Look! Koku!”
For, as the charge was fired, the giant emerged from the woods and calmly took a seat on the rock that was about to be broken up into fragments by Tom’s new explosive.
CHAPTER XXII
THE FIGHT
“Get off there, Koku!”
“Stand up!”
“Run!”
“Get out uf the way! That’s going up!”
Thus cried Tom and his friends to the big, good-natured, but somewhat stupid, giant who had sat down in the dangerous spot. Koku looked toward the hut, in front of which the young inventor and the others stood, waving their hands to him and shouting.
“Get up! Get up!” cried Tom, frantically. The powder is going off, Koku!”
“Can’t you stop it?” asked Job Titus.
“No!” answered Tom. “The electric current has already ignited the charge. Only that it’s slow-burning it would have been fired long ago. Get up, Koku!”
But the giant did not seem to understand. He waved his hand in friendly greeting to Tom and the others, who dared not approach closer to warn him, for the explosion would occur any second now.
Then Mr. Damon had an inspiration.
“Call him to come to you, Tom!” shouted the odd man. “He always comes to you in a hurry, you know. Call him!”
Tom acted on the suggestion at once.
“Here, Koku!” he cried. “Come here, I want you! Kelos!”
This last was a word in the giant’s own language, meaning “hurry.” And Koku knew when Tom used that word that there was need of haste. So, though he had sat down, evidently to take his ease after a long tramp through the woods, Koku sprang up to obey his master’s bidding.
And, as he did so, something happened. The first spark from the fuse, ignited by the electric current, had reached the slow-burning powder. There was a crackle of flame, and a dull rumble. Koku sprang up from the big stone as though shot. What he saw and heard must have alarmed him, for he gave a mighty jump and started to run, at the same time shouting:
“Me come, Master!”
“You’d better!” cried the young inventor.
Koku got away only just in time, for when he was half way between the group of his friends and the big rock, the utmost force of the explosion was felt. It was not so very loud, but the power of it made the earth tremble.
The rock seemed to heave itself into the air, and when it settled back it was seen to be broken up into many pieces. Koku looked back over his shoulder and gave another tremendous leap, which carried him out of the way of the flying fragments, some of which rattled on the roof of the log hut.
“There!” cried Tom. “I guess something happened that time! The rock is broken up finer than any like it we tried to shatter before. I think I’ve got the mixture just right!”
“Bless my handkerchief!” cried Mr. Damon. “Think of what might have happened to Koku if he had been sitting there.”
“Well,” said Tom, “he might not have been killed, for he would probably have been tossed well out of the way at the first slow explosion, but afterward—well, he might have been pretty well shaken up. He got away just in time.”
The giant looked thoughtfully back toward the place of the experimental blast.
“Master, him do that?” he asked.
“I did,” Tom replied. “But I didn’t think you’d walk out of the woods, just at the wrong time, and sit down on that rock.”
“Um,” murmured the giant. “Koku—he—he—Oh, by golly!” he yelled. And then, as if realizing what he had escaped, and being incapable of expressing it, the giant with a yell ran into the tunnel and stayed there for some time.
The experiment was pronounced a great success and, now that Tom had discovered the right kind of explosive to rend the very hard rock, he proceeded to have it made in sufficiently large quantities to be used in the tunnel.
“We’ll have to hustle,” said Job Titus. “We haven’t much of our contract time left, and I have reason to believe the Peruvian government will not give any extension. It is to their interest to have us fail, for they will profit by all the work we have done, even if they have to pay our rivals a higher price than we contracted for. It is our firm that will pocket the loss.”
“Well, we’ll try not to have that happen,” said Tom, with a smile.
“If you’re going to use bigger charges of this new explosive, Tom, won’t more rock be brought down?” asked Walter Titus.
“That’s what I hope.”
“Then we’ll need more laborers to bring it out of the tunnel.”
“Yes, we could use more I guess. The faster the blasted rock is removed, the quicker I can put in new charges.”
“I’ll get more men,” decided the contractor. “There won’t be any trouble now that the hoodoo of the missing workers is solved. I’ll tell Serato to scare up all his dusky brethren he can find, and we’ll offer a bonus for good work.”
The Indian foreman readily agreed to get more laborers.
“And get some big ones, Serato,” urged Job Titus. “Get some fellows like Koku,” for the giant did the work of three men in the tunnel, not because he was obliged to, but because his enormous strength must find an outlet in action.
“Um want mans like him?” asked the Indian, nodding toward the giant. He and Koku were not on good terms, for once, when Koku was a hurry, he had picked up the Indian (no mean sized man himself) and had calmly set him to one si
de. Serato never forgave that.
“Sure, get all the giants you can,” Tom said. “But I guess there aren’t any in Peru.”
Where Serato found his man, no one knew, and the foreman would not tell; but a day or so later he appeared at the tunnel camp with an Indian so large in size that he made the others look like pygmies, and many of them were above the average in height, too.
“Say, he’s a whopper all right!” exclaimed Tom. “But he isn’t as big or as strong as Koku.”
“He comes pretty near it,” said Job Titus. “With a dozen like him we’d finish the tunnel on time, thanks to your explosive.”
Lamos, the Indian giant, was not quite as large as Koku. That is, he was not as tall, but he was broader of shoulder. And as to the strength of the two, well, it was destined to be tried out in a startling fashion.
In about a week Tom was ready with his first charges of the new explosive. The extra Indians were on hand, including Lamos, and great hopes of fast progress were held by the contractors.
The charge was fired and a great mass of broken rock brought down inside the tunnel.
“That’s tearing it up!” cried Job Titus, when the fumes had blown away, the secret shaft having been opened to facilitate this. “A few more shots like that and we’ll be through the strata of hard rock.”
The Indians, Koku and Lamos doing their share of the work, were rushed in to clear away the debris, so another charge might be fired as soon as possible. This would be in a day or so. The contract time was getting uncomfortably close.
Blast after blast was set off, and good progress was made. But instead of half a mile of the extra hard rock the contractors found it would be nearer three quarters.
“It’s going to be touch and go, whether or not we finish on time,” said Mr. Job Titus one afternoon, when a clearance had been made and the men had filed out to give the drillers a chance to make holes for a new blast.
Tom was about to make a remark when Tim Sullivan came running out of the tunnel, his face showing fright and wonder.
The Tom Swift Megapack Page 242