The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Steam-Shovel Man, by Ralph Delahaye
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Title: The Steam-Shovel Man
Author: Ralph Delahaye Paine
Release Date: November 19, 2019 [eBook #60740]
Language: English
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THE STEAM-SHOVEL MAN
* * * * * *
BOOKS BY RALPH D. PAINE
PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
CAMPUS DAYS. Illustrated. 12mo $1.50
SANDY SAWYER, SOPHOMORE. Illustrated.
12mo $1.50
THE STROKE OAR. Illustrated, 12mo $1.50
THE FUGITIVE FRESHMAN. Illustrated.
12mo $1.50
THE HEAD COACH. Illustrated. 12mo $1.50
COLLEGE YEARS. Illustrated. 12mo $1.50
* * * * *
THE STEAM-SHOVEL MAN. Illustrated.
12mo _net_ $1.00
THE DRAGON AND THE CROSS. Illustrated
12mo $1.25
THE WRECKING MASTER. Illustrated.
12mo $1.25
A CADET OF THE BLACK STAR LINE.
Illustrated. 12mo $1.25
* * * * *
THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN O'SHEA.
12mo _net_ $1.35
* * * * * *
[Illustration: He stood at the brink of this tremendous chasm]
THE STEAM-SHOVEL MAN
by
RALPH D. PAINE
Author of "A Cadet of the Black Star Line,"
"The Wrecking Master," etc.
Illustrated by B. J. Rosenmeyer
New York
Charles Scribner's Sons
1913
Copyright, 1913, by
Charles Scribner's Sons
Published September, 1913
[Illustration: Logo]
CONTENTS
Chapter Page
I. Walter Goodwin's Quest 3
II. The Parrot and the Broomstick 24
III. With the Dynamite Gang 44
IV. A Landslide in the Cut 66
V. Trapped in Old Panama 91
VI. Jack Devlin in Action 112
VII. A Fat Rascal Comes to Grief 132
VIII. Walter Squares an Account 152
IX. A Parent's Anxious Pilgrimage 172
X. Base-Ball and a Happy Family 193
ILLUSTRATIONS
He stood at the brink of this tremendous chasm _Frontispiece_
Facing
Page
Lifting his feet very high and setting them down
with the greatest caution 50
"_Viva Panama! Pobre Colombia! Ha! Ha! Ha!_" 108
"Report to me as soon as you come back. And bring
Goodwin with you" 144
THE STEAM-SHOVEL MAN
CHAPTER I
WALTER GOODWIN'S QUEST
A stout, elderly man stepped from a streetcar on the water-front of New
York and hastened toward the nearest wharf at a lumbering trot. He held
in one hand a large suit-case which must have been insecurely fastened,
for, as he dodged to avoid collision with other wayfarers, the lid flew
open and all sorts of things began to spill out.
The weather-beaten gentleman was in such a violent hurry and his
mind was so preoccupied that he failed to notice the disaster, and
was leaving in his wake a trail of slippers, shirts, hair-brushes,
underwear, collars, and what not, that suggested a game of
hare-and-hounds. In fact, the treacherous suit-case had almost emptied
itself before he paid heed to the shouts of uproarious laughter from
the delighted teamsters, roustabouts, and idlers. With a snort, he
fetched up to glare behind him, and his expression conveyed wrath and
dismay.
This kind of misfortune, like the case of the man who sits down on his
own hat, excites boundless mirth but no sympathy whatever. The victim
stood stock-still and continued to glare and sputter as if here was a
situation totally beyond him.
A tall lad, passing that way, jumped to the rescue and began to gather
up the scattered wreckage. He was laughing as heartily as the rest of
them--for the life of him he couldn't help it--but the instincts of a
gentleman prompted him to undertake the work of salvage. As fast as an
armful was collected, the owner savagely rammed it into the suit-case,
and when this young friend in need, Walter Goodwin by name, came
running up with the last consignment he growled, after fumbling in his
pockets:
"Not a blessed cent of change left! Come aboard my ship and I'll square
it with you. If I had time, I'd punch the heads of a few of those
loafing swabs who stood and laughed at me."
"But I don't want to be paid for doing a little favor like that," said
Goodwin. "And I am afraid I laughed, too. It did look funny, honestly."
"You come along and do as I tell you," rumbled the heated mariner,
who had paid not the least attention to these remarks. "Do you
mind shouldering this confounded bag? I am getting short-winded,
and it may fly open again. Had two nights ashore with my family in
Baltimore--train held up by a wreck last night--must have had a poor
navigator--made me six hours late--ought to have been aboard ship this
morning--I sail at five this afternoon."
He appeared to be talking to himself rather than to Walter Goodwin,
who could not refuse further aid. His burly captor was heading in the
direction of a black-hulled ocean-steamer which flew the bluepeter
at her mast-head. Even the wit of a landsman could not go wrong in
surmising that this domineering person was her commander. And for all
his blustering manner, Captain Martin Bradshaw had a trick of pulling
down one corner of his mouth in a half smile as if he had a genial
heart and, given time to cool off and reflect, could perceive the humor
of a situation.
He charged full-tilt along the wharf, and Walter Goodwin meekly
followed with the sensation of being yanked at the end of a tow-rope.
At the gangway a uniformed officer sang out for a steward, who touched
his cap and took charge of the troublesome piece of luggage. Walter
hesitated, but as the skipper pounded along the deck toward the bridge
he called back:
"Make yourself at home and look about the ship, my lad. I'll see you as
soon as I overhaul my papers."
The tall youth had no intention of waiting to be paid for his services,
but he lived in an inland town and the deck of a ship was a strange and
fascinating place. The _Saragossa_ was almost ready to sail, bound out
to the Spanish Main. Many passengers were on board. Among them were
several tanned, robust men who looked as if they were used to hard
work out-of-doors. As Goodwin lingered to watch the pleasant stir and
bustle, one of these rugged voyagers was saying to a friend who had
come to bid him good-by:
"It's sure the great place for a husky young fellow with the right
stuff in him. There are five thousand of us Americans on the job, and
you bet we're making the dirt fly. I was glad to get back to God's
country for my six weeks' leave, but I won't be a bit sorry to see the
Big Ditch again."
The other man replied with a shrug and a careless laugh:
"The United States is plenty good enough for me, Jack. I don't yearn to
work in any pest-hole of a tropical climate with yellow-fever and all
that. It's no place for a white man."
"Oh, you make me tired," good-naturedly retorted the sunburnt
giant of a fellow. "You are just plain ignorant. Do I look like a
fever-stricken wreck? High wages? Well, I guess. We are picked men. I
am a steam-shovel man, as you know, and Uncle Sam pays me two hundred
gold a month and gives me living quarters."
"You are welcome to it, Jack. It may look good to you, but you will
have to dig the Panama Canal without me."
Walter Goodwin had pricked up his ears. The Panama Canal had seemed so
remote that it might have belonged in another world, but here were men
who were actually helping to dig it. And this steam-shovel man looked
so self-reliant and capable and proud of his task that he made one feel
proud of his breed of Americans in exile. And that was a most alluring
phrase of his, "a great place for a husky young fellow."
After some hesitation the lad timidly accosted him:
"I overheard enough to make me very much interested in what you are
doing. Do you think I would stand any show of getting a job on the
Panama Canal?"
The stranger's eyes twinkled as he scanned Goodwin and amiably answered:
"As a rule, they don't catch 'em quite as young as you are, my son.
What makes you think of taking such a long jump from home?"
"I need the money," firmly announced the youth. "And when it comes to
size and strength I'm not exactly a light-weight."
"I'll not dispute it," cheerily returned the steam-shovel man. "I am
a man of peace except when I'm hunting trouble. But they don't hire
Americans on the Isthmus for their muscle. The Colonel--he's the big
boss--has thirty thousand West Indian negroes and Spaniards on the
pay-rolls to sweat with the picks and shovels. Are you really looking
for a job, my boy? Tell me about it."
Walter blushed and felt reluctant to tell his troubles to a stranger.
All he could bring himself to say was:
"Well, you see, I simply must pitch in and give my father a lift
somehow."
"And you're not old enough to vote!" heartily exclaimed the other.
"There's many a grown man that thinks himself lucky if he can buy his
own meal-ticket, much less give his father a lift."
"I don't mean to talk big--" began Walter.
"It does you credit, my son. I like to see a lad carry a full head of
steam. You look good to me. I size you up as our kind of folks. Yes,
there are various jobs down there you might get away with. And the
lowest wages paid an American employee is seventy-five dollars a month.
But remember, it's a long, wet walk back from the Isthmus for a man
that goes broke."
"Oh, I don't even know how I could get there. I am just dreaming about
it," smiled Goodwin.
"If you do ever drift down that way, be sure to look me up,
understand--Jack Devlin, engineer of steam-shovel 'Twenty-six' in
Culebra Cut, and she broke all records for excavating last month."
He crossed the deck with a jaunty swagger, as if there was no finer
thing in the world than to command a monster of a steam-shovel eating
its way into the slope of Culebra Cut. Walter Goodwin concluded that
he had been forgotten by the busy captain of the _Saragossa_, but just
then the steward came with a summons to the breezy quarters abaft the
wheel-house and chart-room. That august personage, Captain Martin
Bradshaw, had removed his coat and collar, and a pair of gold-rimmed
spectacles adorned his ruddy beak of a nose. Running his hands through
his mop of iron-gray hair, he swung round in his chair and said, with
the twist of the mouth that was like an unfinished smile:
"I think I owe you an apology. I failed to take a square look at you
until we came aboard. You are not the kind of a youngster who expects
a tip for doing a man a good turn. I was so flustered and stood on my
beam-ends that I made a mistake."
That this seasoned old mariner could have been in such a helpless state
of mind over a mishap so trifling as the emptied suit-case made Walter
grin in spite of himself. At this Captain Bradshaw beamed through his
spectacles and explained:
"I am afraid of my life every minute I'm ashore--what with the infernal
fleets of automobiles and trolley-cars and wagons, and the crowds of
people in the fairway. A ship at sea is the only safe place for a man,
after all. Have a cup of tea or a bottle of ginger-ale?"
"No, thank you, sir. All I want is some information," boldly declared
Walter Goodwin, turning very red, but determined to strike while the
iron was hot. "Is there any way, if a fellow can't afford to pay his
passage, for him to get to the Isthmus of Panama?"
"And for what?" was the surprised query. "You look as if you had a
good home and a mother to sew on your buttons. Have you been reading
sea-stories, or are you a young muck-raker in disguise, with orders to
show the American people that the Canal is being dug all wrong?"
"No, I am thinking of trying to find a good job down there," Walter
gravely declared. "I can't eat my folks out of house and home any
longer. The Isthmus is a great place for a husky young fellow with the
right stuff in him. I got it straight from a man who knows."
Captain Martin Bradshaw, who was a shrewd judge of manhood, replied in
singularly gentle tones, as if he were thinking aloud:
"I did pretty much the same thing when I was in my teens. And I had
the same reasons. I suppose if you broke the news to the folks they
wouldn't be exactly enthusiastic."
"I am afraid it would take a lot of argument to convince them that I
am sane and sensible," dubiously agreed Walter. "My father isn't used
to taking chances, and--well, you know what mothers are, sir. Does it
sound crazy to you?"
"No; just a trifle rash," and the wise skipper shook his head. "How old
are you?"
"Seventeen and big for my age."
"I thought you were a year or two older. Well, you are as bold and
foolish as a strapping lad of seventeen ought to be, if he has red
blood in him. I'll not encourage you to run away from home. Maybe you
can find a paying berth on the Isthmus, and maybe not. But it will do
you no harm to try. Talk it over at home. If the bee is still in your
bonnet a month from now, come to the ship and I'll give you a chance to
work your passage to Colon on my next voyage."
Walter stammered his thanks, but the captain turned to rummage among
the papers on his desk, as if he could give no more time to the
interview. As the youth walked away from the ship, his thoughts were
buzzing and his pulse beat faster than usual. The unexpected visit
aboard the _Saragossa_ had thrilled him like the song of bugles. It
awakened a spirit of adventurous enterprise which had hitherto been
dormant. It was calling him away to the world's frontier. Jack Devlin,
the steam-shovel man, and the captain of the _Saragossa_ had whirled
him out of his accustomed orbit with a velocity that made him dizzy.
They were men of action, trained in a rough school, and if Walter
wished to follow the same road they were ready to lend him a hand.
He had spent three days in New York, seeking a situation at living
wages. His father had given him letters to several business
acquaintances, besides which he had investigated such advertisements in
the newspapers as sounded promising. He discovered that boys in their
teens, no matter how tall and manly they might be, were expected to
sell their brains and muscle for so few dollars a week that his boyish
hopes of supporting himself were clouded. The city was overcrowded,
underpaid.
From the ship he went to the house in which he had lodged, and then
straightway to the railroad station to return to his home town of
Wolverton. His high-hearted pilgrimage to New York had been a failure
in one way, but he was braced and comforted by the bright dream of
winning his fortune on the far-away Isthmus. It all sounded too good to
be true.
Mr. Horatio Goodwin, the father of this young knight-errant, was a
book-keeper who had toiled at the same desk for twenty years in
the offices of the Wolverton Mills. When a trust gained control of
the plant it was promptly closed and dismantled in order to keep up
prices by cutting down production. This modern instance of knocking
competition on the head was satisfactory to the stockholders, but it
brought desolation to the small city of Wolverton, of which the vast
mills had been the industrial blood and sinews. The operatives drifted
elsewhere, hopeful of finding work, but a middle-aged book-keeper,
grown gray and round-shouldered before his time, is likely to find
himself stranded in a business age which demands hustling young men of
the brand known as "live-wires."
The Goodwins' cottage was pleasantly situated on a slope overlooking
the town, but, alas, the streets no longer swarmed with tired, noisy
people during the leisure hour after supper; many of the stores were
untenanted behind their shuttered fronts; and the myriad windows of the
mills stared blank and dead instead of twinkling like rows of jewels
to greet the industrious army of the night shift. Discouragement was
in the very aspect of the stagnant town, and it had begun to grip the
heart of anxious Mr. Goodwin. For the present, or until he might find
something better, he had taken a small position with a coal-dealer in
Wolverton.
He had great possessions, however, which were not to be measured in
terms of hard cash--to wit, a wife who thought him the finest, bravest
gentleman in the world, and a son and daughter who held the same
opinion and were desperately in earnest about trying to mend the family
fortunes. Walter was half-way through his senior year in high-school
and was chiefly notable for a rugged physique, a brilliant record as
a base-ball pitcher, and an alarming appetite which threatened to
sweep the cupboard bare. His sister Eleanor, three years younger, was
inclined to be absent-minded and wrote reams of what she called poetry,
a form of industry which could hardly be considered useful in a tight
financial pinch.
It was in the evening of a winter's day when Walter came homing back
from New York. The other Goodwins were holding a family conference,
and it was like Eleanor to kiss her father's bald head and pat his
cheek with such a protecting, comforting air that her mother found a
glimmer of fond amusement in the midst of her worry. The affectionate
lass dwelt in a world of romance and her father was a true knight daily
faring forth on a quest in which she was serenely confident that he
would conquer all the dragons of misfortune.
Walter had wisely concluded that the rash scheme of working his way
to the Isthmus should be explained to the family with a good deal of
care and tact. To break it to them suddenly would be too much like an
explosion. When he tramped into the sitting-room, the welcome was as
ardent as if he had been absent for months instead of days. Eleanor and
her mother fluttered about him. Supper had been kept warm for him. Was
he quite sure the melting snow had not wet his feet?
His father asked, when the excitement had subsided: "Well, what luck,
my son?"
Assuming his best bass voice, as man to man, Walter answered: "New York
is chuck-full of strong and willing lads anxious to run their legs off
for four or five dollars a week. Without throwing any bouquets at
myself, I think I ought to be worth more than that to somebody. You
see, I couldn't pay for my board and washing, much less give the family
income a boost."
"Did my letters help you?"
"Yes, I had an offer of four per from the hardware man. I told him I
should have to think it over. Wolverton is as dead as a doornail, but I
can do better than that as a day laborer."
"I hate to think of your quitting school," sighed his father; "but
perhaps you can graduate next year." He tried to hide his anxiety by
adding quite briskly: "We have a great deal to be thankful for, and
this--er--this period of business depression is only temporary, I am
sure."
"I seem to be so perfectly useless," pensively murmured Eleanor.
"Poetry doesn't pay at all well, even if you are a genius, and then you
are supposed to starve to death in a garret."
Walter grinned and pulled her flaxen braid as a token of his high
esteem.
"You are mother's little bunch of sunshine," said he, "and as first
assistant house-keeper you play an errorless game."
With what was meant to be a careless manner, Walter turned to his
father and exclaimed:
"Oh, by the way, I heard of something that sounded pretty good. It
isn't in New York----"
"I certainly hope it is no farther away," broke in Mrs. Goodwin. "I
can't bear to think of your leaving home at all."
Walter coughed rather nervously and assured her:
"Oh, I should take good care of myself and brush my teeth twice a day
and say my prayers ditto, so you wouldn't have the slightest reason to
worry about me. And I'd write home every week, sure."
"But couldn't you come home every week?" asked Eleanor.
"Well, hardly, sis. I have heard of the greatest place in the world for
a husky young fellow with the right stuff in him. Seventy-five dollars
a month, and there are various jobs I am capable of filling----"
"Is this a fairy story?" and Mr. Goodwin gazed over his glasses with a
perplexed expression.
"No, sir, and the climate is healthy nowadays, and the men on the job
look as fit as can be, and they are just the bulliest-looking lot you
ever saw and----"
"Oh, Walter, tell us the answer. What _is it_ all about?" implored
Eleanor.
"I'll send you a monkey and a string of pearls, Sis. Say, father, we
Americans ought to be proud of the Panama Canal, don't you think?"
"The Panama Canal!" and Mr. Horatio Goodwin fairly jumped from his
chair. "Is this what you have been leading up to?"
"Yes, I want to go there."
"Dear me, why did we let him make the trip to New York alone?" lamented
Mrs. Goodwin. "He wants to go to the Panama Canal! Why, it is thousands
of miles from home!"
Her agitation might have led one to suppose that Walter had announced
his intention of taking up his residence in the moon. But Mr. Goodwin
was regarding the ruddy, eager face of his son with a certain
wistfulness. Walter was undismayed, unscarred by the rough world. Ah,
youth might win where plodding middle age had failed. The opportunities
were for those who were not old enough to be afraid.
"Tell me about it, Walt," said he, and his voice was kindly and
interested.
With bright eyes and animated gestures Walter told them of his
acquaintance with Jack Devlin and the master of the _Saragossa_, and
how the Panama Canal had been made to seem so near and real. Eleanor
promptly soared on rosy wings of fancy and breathlessly interrupted:
"It is of such stuff that heroes are made! I shall never call life
humdrum again. Gracious, to think of my big brother actually sailing
away to help build the Panama Canal! I have a great deal of confidence
in you, Walt, and I'm sure you will succeed, though you are inclined to
be careless and you never would keep your bureau drawers in order. I
suppose I shall have to write a poem, 'Lines to a Wandering Brother.'
It must not be mournful, must it? I will cling to the lofty idea that
you have gone to serve your country in peace instead of war."
"That will do for you," was Walter's laughing comment. "Please let
mother and father have the floor."
"It sounds fantastic, but--" doubtfully began Mr. Goodwin.
"But it is utterly out of the question," his wife emphatically
concluded. "Why, this working his way in a ship sounds dreadfully
rough and dangerous. The captain may intend to kidnap him. What is it
they do to sailors, Horatio? Something horrid and Chinese--shanghai or
hong-kong them, or whatever it is."
Not in the least perturbed by this harrowing suggestion, Eleanor
excitedly announced:
"I have seven dollars of my own saved up, Walt. I was planning to take
a correspondence course in the art of writing perfectly good poetry,
but I'd rather invest it in you. We women must arm our heroes for the
fray."
"I am afraid I could not give you the funds you would need," soberly
observed Mr. Goodwin. "You must not find yourself adrift in a strange
land."
Walter walked across the room, a fine, athletic figure, almost a
six-footer. He felt sure that he could fight his way on the wonderful
Isthmus, where there were quick promotion and high wages and a square
deal for every man.
"If I can work my passage down there, I can work it home again," he
cried. "But I'm not worrying about that."
"Wolverton is no place for you," declared his father. "Mother and I
will talk it over, Walter, and I shall find out what I can. You have
made us feel rather dizzy. We can't realize that you are no longer a
little boy."
"My Salem great-grandfather went to sea when he was fourteen and was
mate of an East-Indiaman at my age, and captain of her at twenty-one,"
stoutly quoth Walter.
"And be sure to write just how the Southern Cross looks to you,"
earnestly put in Eleanor.
CHAPTER II
THE PARROT AND THE BROOMSTICK
The steamer _Saragossa_ was sliding across a tropic sea where the
trade-wind blew cool and steady to temper the blazing sun, the
flying-fish skittered from the lazy swells like flights of silver
arrows, and the stars by night seemed very bright and near. On the
shady side of the promenade deck a boyish-looking member of the crew
was scrubbing rust spots from the planking with a certain gusto which
distinguished him from the so-called seamen, who were a sorry lot. The
rough company and bullying usages of the forecastle had not dismayed
Walter Goodwin, who forgot discomfort in the thought that, day by day,
he was nearing the magical Isthmus. His parents' consent had been won
and this was his great chance.
By far the most interesting passenger was the soldierly gentleman with
the close-cropped white hair, the quiet voice, and pleasant smile who
walked the deck with the vigor of youth. This was actually Colonel
Gunther himself, chief engineer of the Canal, chairman of the Isthmian
Commission, master of forty thousand workers, the man who had made a
success of the gigantic task after others had failed.
"We folks think he is the biggest man in the world," a quarter-master's
clerk told Walter. "He just holds the whole job together. You can
_feel_ him from one end of the Zone to the other. Whenever he goes to
the States, it seems as if the organization began to wobble a mite."
"But he is as courteous and kind to everybody on board as if he
didn't amount to shucks," was Walter's comment. "Why, he even says
'Good-morning' to me!"
It happened on this day that Colonel Gunther halted near the
industrious Walter and his scrubbing-brush. Several children tagged
after him, and he was telling them a most fascinating story about a
giant so enormous that he could dig a Panama Canal with a poke of
his finger and then drink it dry at one gulp. Presently the audience
scampered off to view a distant ship, and Colonel Gunther conversed
with one of his staff. They discussed problems of their work, and
Walter was guilty of dawdling, but, alas, what he overheard came as a
shock that filled him with uneasy forebodings.
"The organization has been at last recruited to its full working
strength," said the Colonel. "It begins to look as if the hardest part
of the job had been accomplished--to get enough good men and keep them."
"I presume the news will be published in the States," observed the
other. "It would be a pity to have any more Americans coming down on
the chance of finding places."
"Yes, notification was to be sent out from Washington this week. There
are plenty of tropical tramps and beach-combers in Colon and Panama
without adding to the number."
With a most melancholy demeanor, Walter Goodwin, ordinary seaman, went
forward as eight bells struck the dinner-hour. His excellent appetite
had vanished. The opportunity for a "husky young fellow" seemed to
have been knocked into a cocked hat. Because he was such a very young
man, his emotions were apt to veer from one extreme to the other. He
was ready to believe the worst, nor did he dream of accosting Colonel
Gunther and pleading his own special case. A fellow couldn't help
standing in awe of one whom the whole Isthmus regarded as "the biggest
man in the world." The enchanted land of Panama had suddenly become
unfriendly and forbidding. He feared that he was about to become that
dismal derelict, a "tropical tramp."
"This is the toughest kind of luck," he said to himself. "They are
actually warning Americans away from the place."
Captain Bradshaw, strolling through the ship on a tour of inspection,
noticed the gloomy young seaman and kindly inquired:
"Lost anything? You can't be sea-sick in weather like this."
"I have lost my job," mournfully answered Walter.
"Lost it before you found it, eh? What kind of a riddle is that?"
Walter briefly and bitterly explained, at which Captain Bradshaw was
moved to suggest:
"If I could shove Colonel Gunther overboard, accidentally on purpose,
and you hopped after him and saved him from a watery grave, what? He
would simply have to offer you a good position."
"But I can't swim well enough. You will have to think of something
else."
"Well, you can stay in the ship, and I will try to make an able seaman
of you."
With a flash of his former determination Walter flung back: "Thank you,
sir, but if I don't go ashore and try my luck, I shall feel like a
yellow pup, whipped before I start."
At the boyish bravado of this speech Captain Bradshaw replied, with an
air of fatherly pride:
"I should think less of you if you decided to stick in the ship, my
lad. But if you find yourself flying distress signals, you are welcome
to work your passage home with me."
Walter nodded and swallowed hard. He saw that if he whimpered or
hung back he would lose the respect of this indomitable old sea-dog.
Homesickness afflicted him for the first time, and now and then he
regretted having met the persuasive Jack Devlin.
Perhaps because he was unhappy himself Walter felt sympathy for
the young man from the republic of Colombia whose name was on
the passenger list as Señor Fernandez Garcia Alfaro. He had often
lingered near the forecastle, as if disliking the company of his
fellow-voyagers, and seemed to enjoy chatting with Walter, who found
him rather puzzling. The South-American temperament was new to the
sturdy young Anglo-Saxon from Wolverton, who had been trained to hide
his feelings.
Señor Fernandez Garcia Alfaro wore his emotions on his sleeve. He was
easily excited and his outbursts of temper seemed childish, although he
had been to school and college in the United States and was now in the
diplomatic service of Colombia, attached to the legation at Washington.
To Walter he seemed much younger than his years. He had found much to
annoy him during the voyage of the _Saragossa_, but Walter refused to
take his troubles seriously until matters suddenly came to a head.
It was early in the morning, and Walter had finished his share of
washing down decks under the critical eye of the Norwegian boatswain.
Alfaro came out of his state-room and paced the wide promenade. His
demeanor was cheerful and he appeared to have forgotten his irritation.
As he halted to greet Walter, there came from an open window near by
the harsh, screaming accents of a parrot which cried jeeringly:
"_Viva Roosevelt! Viva Panama! Pobre Colombia! Pobre Colombia! Ha! Ha!
Ha!_"
Fernandez Garcia Alfaro spun round to glare at the disreputable bunch
of green feathers which, from its gilded cage, continued to cackle
its sentiments concerning "Poor Colombia" with diabolical energy. The
young man's black eyes flashed astonishing wrath and hatred, and Walter
Goodwin, watching the tableau with a perplexed air, said laughingly:
"Anything personal in the parrot's remarks?"
Alfaro shook both fists at the offending bird and passionately answered
in his fluent English:
"It is an insult to me and my country. It is meant to be the worst kind
of an insult. I will kill the cursed parrot before I leave this ship. I
am a Colombian, as you know. My father is a minister of the government.
Panama was stolen from my country to be made into a republic. It was a
revolution? Bah! Nonsense! The soldiers of Colombia could have stopped
that little revolution, quick. It was your Teddy Roosevelt, it was your
Uncle Sam with the Big Stick that prevented us. Colombia weeps, she is
disgraced, when she thinks of Panama."
"But you ought not to be sore on the silly parrot," sagely replied
Walter, trying to fathom what appeared to him as an absurd situation.
"I never happened to read much about Colombia's side of the story, but
the Panama Canal had to be built, you know, and I guess your country
was like the grasshopper that sat on the railroad track."
"Grasshopper!" and Alfaro was in more violent eruption than ever as he
strode hastily aft to get away from the parrot. "You do not understand,
Goodwin. You Yankees can never, never understand. That parrot belongs
to a Panamanian--to General Quesada, the big, yellow, fat man whom
you have seen on deck. He made himself prominent in the revolution
against Colombia, but he is no good. He is a tin soldier. He had taught
his parrot to insult my country, to have fun with my honor. He has
laughed at me all the voyage. He had made the others laugh at me. It is
dangerous to make me so mad."
Walter began to comprehend. He had heartily disliked General Quesada on
sight, and he had heard something of the coarse teasing to which Alfaro
had been subjected.
"I suppose that is why you have flocked by yourself," he replied. "But
you ought not to be so touchy."
At this moment General Quesada himself came waddling on deck,
parrot-cage in hand, evidently intending to give his accomplished
pet an early morning airing. He was a gross, ungainly man, heavy of
countenance. At sight of the indignant Alfaro he shook with laughter
and prodded the bird with his finger, which prompted it to screech:
"_Viva Panama! Pobre Colombia! Ha! Ha! Ha!_"
The young man whom he had enjoyed taunting as a diversion of the voyage
retorted with fiery Spanish abuse, which made the Panamanian scowl as
if he had been stung by something sharp enough to penetrate his thick
hide. He uttered a volley of guttural maledictions in his turn, and
was echoed by the blackguardly parrot. For Fernandez Garcia Alfaro this
was the last straw. His inflammable temper was ablaze. He rushed at
the corpulent general and let his fists fly against the full moon of a
countenance.
Before Walter Goodwin could interfere, the Panamanian had found room
to jerk a small automatic revolver from a pocket of his trousers.
Alfaro caught a glimpse of the weapon and tried to grip the arm that
flourished it. The decks were otherwise deserted at this early hour
and duty called Walter to attempt the rôle of peacemaker. This was a
difficult undertaking, for Alfaro, active as an angry jaguar, persisted
in fighting at close range with hands and feet, while the bulky
Panamanian twisted and wrenched him this way and that, and vainly tried
to use his weapon.
There was no pulling them apart, and the swaying revolver was a menace
which made Walter dive for a deck-broom left against the rail. The
heavy handle was of hickory. Swinging it with all his might, Walter
brought it down with a terrific thump across the knuckles of General
Quesada, who instantly dropped the revolver. Walter's blood was up and
he intended to deal thoroughly with this would-be murderer. Whacking
him with the broom-handle, he drove him, bellowing, toward the nearest
saloon entrance, while Alfaro danced behind them, shouting approval.
By now the first mate came charging down from the bridge. Captain
Bradshaw arrived a moment later, clad in sky-blue pajamas, his bare
feet pattering along the deck. He picked up the revolver, eyed Walter
and the broom-handle with a comical air of surprise, and inquired:
"Who started this circus? Is it a revolution? I shall have to put a few
of you fire-eaters in irons."
The parrot had rolled into the scuppers, cage and all, and its nerves
were so shaken that it twisted its favorite oration wrong end to, and
dolefully and quite appropriately chanted at intervals:
"_Viva Colombia! Pobre Panama!_"
Captain Bradshaw aimed an accusing finger at the bird and exclaimed:
"Shut up! You talk too much."
"That was the whole trouble, sir," said Walter, wondering whether he
was to be punished or commended. "General Quesada brought this--this
broom-handle on himself. He was trying to shoot Señor Alfaro."
"I need no diagrams to tell me that Señor Alfaro sailed into him
first," said the captain. "This had been brewing for some time. I shall
have to investigate after breakfast."
A little later Walter discovered Fernandez Garcia Alfaro seated upon
a hatch-cover forward. At sight of his Anglo-Saxon ally the impulsive
Colombian sprang to his feet and cried, with outstretched hands:
"You have saved my life! I shall never forget it, _mi amigo_. I have
hated the North Americans, but my heart is full of affection for you."
Rather taken aback by this tribute, Walter said in a matter-of-fact
manner:
"You surely piled into that fat general like a West India hurricane.
I'm glad I spoiled his programme."
Alfaro's expressive face was vindictive as he exclaimed: "I have not
finished with him and his infernal parrot!"
"Pooh, forget him," carelessly advised Walter, to whom this threat
of vengeance sounded theatrical. "Better steer clear of this Quesada
person. He looks to me like an ugly customer."
Alfaro smiled rather sheepishly as he remarked:
"It was not very diplomatic? You must think I am a funny diplomat,
Goodwin."
"Well, I never happened to meet one before," confessed Walter,
returning the smile, "and I had an idea that diplomats were not quite
so violent and sudden in their methods."
"It was that beastly parrot," began Alfaro in a quick gust of anger;
but he checked himself with a shrug and asked a question which led
Walter to reply:
"Oh, no, I am not a real sailor. I am going to the Isthmus to work in
the Canal Zone."
Boyish pride made him reluctant to confess how dubious he was of
finding work. Alfaro was so full of affectionate admiration that he was
ready to believe great things of Walter, and he exclaimed:
"I am sure you will have a fine position. I knew you were not a common
sailor. You are working your passage as a lark? I have been wishing
landslides and yellow-fever and all kinds of bad luck to the Yankees so
they could never finish the canal. But now, for your sake, my feelings
are different."
Walter had begun to be fond of the fiery Colombian who was so quick to
express his likes and dislikes.
"Thank you," he replied. "I hope we shall run across each other on
shore."
"I must wait a week for my steamer from Panama down the west coast,"
said Alfaro. "I am going home on leave of absence from the legation to
see my father and mother. I will say nothing about the row with General
Quesada. My father would not think it diplomatic. I will find you at
your office in the Zone?"
"I certainly hope so," gravely answered Walter, but for reasons known
to himself he failed to mention his address.
The interview was cut short by a summons from Captain Bradshaw, who
wished to see Goodwin at once. He climbed to the bridge-deck and
entered the captain's room, cap in hand.
"Don't look so scared, young man. I'm not going to eat you alive,"
was the good-humored reassurance. "General Quesada came boiling up
here just now and demanded that I lock you up and turn you over to the
Panamanian police when we dock at Colon. Of course I told him that the
deck of this ship is American territory and he was talking foolishness."
"But _he_ is the man who ought to be locked up," protested Walter.
"What about his trying to shoot Señor Alfaro?"
"I said as much, but he didn't listen. He swore he pulled the revolver
merely to frighten the Colombian. And then he says you whanged daylight
out of him with a club. I had to talk Spanish with him and I missed
some of his red-hot language."
"Yes, sir, I whanged him good and plenty," declared Walter, "and he
yelled and ran for all he was worth."
"The ship's doctor had to bandage his knuckles," resumed Captain
Bradshaw with a chuckle, "and there is a welt on his jaw, and he is
marked in various other places. What hurts him worst is that a common
sailor, and a boy at that, chased him from the deck with a broomstick
and battered him all up. This Quesada poses as a military hero in
Panama, you understand, and plays a strong hand in the politics of that
funny little republic."
"Perhaps I ought not to have hit him so hard," and Walter looked solemn.
"You were a bit overzealous, but he deserved a drubbing. I just want
to give you a bit of friendly advice. Don't let this General Quesada
catch you up a dark alley. His vanity is mortally wounded, and he
carries a deck-load of it. A Spanish-American might as well be dead as
ridiculous. And it makes Quesada squirm to think how he will be laughed
at if this story gets afloat in Panama. He doesn't love you, Goodwin."
"But the Canal Zone is part of the United States. He can't do anything
to me," said Walter.
"Not in the Zone, but it is the easiest thing in the world to drift
across the line into Colon or Panama before you know it. And the
Spiggoty police, as they call 'em, like nothing better than an excuse
to put a Yankee in jail."
Elated that Captain Bradshaw's attitude should be so friendly, and
flattering himself that with so humble a weapon as a broomstick he had
vanquished a real live general, Walter was inclined to make light of
the warning. In fact, he forgot all about the humiliated warrior a day
or so later when far ahead of the _Saragossa_ a broken line of hills
lifted blue and misty. Yonder was the Isthmus which Balboa had crossed
to gaze upon the unknown Pacific, where Drake and Morgan had raided
and plundered the Spanish treasure towns, and where in a later century
thousands of brave Frenchmen had perished in their futile tragedy of an
attempt to dig a canal between the two oceans.
Soon the low-roofed city of Colon was revealed behind the flashing
surf, the white ribbon of beach, and the clusters of tall palms.
From the opposite shore of the bay stretched the immensely long arm
of the new breakwater, on top of which crawled toy-like engines and
work-trains. What looked like a spacious, sluggish river extended
straight inland toward the distant ramparts of the hills. On its
surface were noisy dredges, deep-laden steamers, and tow-boats dragging
seaward strings of barges heaped high with rock and dirt. This was
part of the Panama Canal itself, the finished section leading from
the Atlantic, and where the hills began to rise a great cloud of
smoke indicated the activities of steam-shovels, locomotives, and
construction plants.
Walter Goodwin, no longer brooding over his fear of becoming a
"tropical tramp," was impatient to see the wonderful spectacle at close
range. After the steamer had been moored at one end of the government
docks of Cristobal, he was assigned to duty at the gangway while the
passengers filed ashore. Conspicuous among them was General Quesada,
his right hand bandaged, his surly face partly eclipsed by strips of
plaster, his gait that of one who was stiff and sore.
He balked at sight of the steep runway from the deck to the wharf, and
Walter offered him a helping hand. The general angrily waved him aside
and muttered something in Spanish which sounded venomously hostile.
Fernandez Garcia Alfaro, who was within ear-shot, explained to Walter:
"He says he will find you again, and he swears it in very bad
language."
"Pooh! I'm not afraid of the fat rascal," carelessly returned Walter.
"I guess Uncle Sam is strong enough to look after me."
Before noon he found himself in the modern American settlement of
Cristobal, among clean, paved streets whose palm-shaded houses, with
wide, screened porches, were of uniform color and design. Boys and
girls were coming home from school, as happy and noisy as Walter was
used to meeting them in Wolverton. As he wisely observed to himself,
this agreeable place was where the Americans lived, not where they
worked, and a fellow had to find work before he could live anywhere. He
was among his own countrymen, but where was there any place for him? He
felt friendless and forlorn.
Strolling at random, he was unaware that he had crossed the boundary
line into the Panamanian city of Colon until the streets became a
wonderfully picturesque jumble of Spanish-speaking natives clad in
white duck and linen, chattering West India negroes, idling Americans
in khaki, and sailors from every clime.
Passing the city market, he thriftily bought his supper--bananas,
mangoes, and peppery tamales--at cost of a few cents, and pursued his
entertaining tour of sight-seeing. It was all strange and fascinating
and romantic to his untutored eyes. His wanderings were cut short at
sight of General Quesada, who was seated at a table in front of a café
with several friends. Two of these were in uniform adorned with gold
lace and buttons.
Walter wasted no time in wondering whether these were officers of the
army or the police. The battered general was pointing him out to them
with a gesture of his bandaged hand. The officers stared as if to be
sure they would know him again. Hastily deciding that the climate
of Cristobal might be healthier, Walter retreated toward the Canal
Zone and the shelter of the stars and stripes. As he glanced over his
shoulder, the three men at the café table appeared to be discussing
him with a lively interest which made him feel uneasier than ever.
Perhaps the warning of Captain Bradshaw had not been all moonshine. It
looked as if General Quesada were still thinking about that terrible
broom-handle which had bruised his pompous pride as severely as his
knuckles.
CHAPTER III
WITH THE DYNAMITE GANG
What he had heard Colonel Gunther say on shipboard made Walter think it
useless to apply for one of those wonderful positions at seventy-five
dollars a month on the "gold roll," which the steam-shovel man, Jack
Devlin, had painted in such glowing colors. He must try to get a
foothold somewhere, no matter how humble it might be, and hope to win
promotion. It was really a case of jumping at the first chance to earn
a dollar. Without employment what money he had would soon be spent, and
then he must slink home in the _Saragossa_.
He picked his way through a net-work of tracks, switches, and sidings
among the busy wharves and warehouses of Cristobal. This was the
nearest scene of activity, although it seemed to have very little to
do with digging the Panama Canal. There were railroad yards at home,
reflected Walter, and he had seen miles of warehouses and wharves
along the water-front of New York. He walked rather aimlessly beyond
the crowded part of Cristobal, hoping to find steam-shovels and
construction gangs.
At length his progress was blocked by the wreckage of several
freight-cars which were strewn across the tracks in shattered
fragments. Negro laborers were clearing away this amazing disorder,
which could have been caused by no ordinary collision. In answer to
Walter's questions one of them said:
"Dynamite, boss. A car got afire down by de ship, sah, an' de mens tuk
all de dynamite out 'cept two boxes. An' when dey was runnin' de car
up here in de yard to fotch it away from de wharf, she done 'splode
herself to glory."
"Anybody killed?"
"Two mens, sah, an' some more is in de hospitubble."
"Too bad, but there is something doing here," said Walter to himself.
"This is a hurry-up job, and perhaps they can use another man."
Climbing over the débris, he accosted a lean, brick-red American with
a fighting jaw who was driving the wrecking-crews at top speed.
"I am not the superintendent," was the impatient reply, "but I'll save
you the trouble of looking him up. He is taking no more men on the gold
roll. The railroad has been laying people off."
"But I am not looking for a job on the gold roll," stubbornly returned
Walter. "I am ready to pitch in with your laborers. Can't you take me
on to help clear this mess?"
"For twenty cents an hour? You're joking," snapped the foreman. "White
men don't do this kind of work down here."
Walter was for continuing the argument, but the other jumped to adjust
the chains of a wrecking-crane. Just then there appeared a man of
such a calm, unhurried manner that he seemed oddly out of place in
this noisy, perspiring throng. As Walter brushed past him the placid
stranger drawled:
"These tracks will be cleared by night. The job won't last long enough
for you to make a start at it. Are you really looking for hard work at
silver wages?"
"Please lead me to it," gratefully cried Walter. "I guess I can live on
twenty cents an hour until something better turns up."
"Good for you," said the unruffled gentleman. "I am Mr. Naughton, in
charge of the dynamite. We use eight hundred thousand pounds a month on
the canal. I have a ship to unload, and the negroes have been panicky
since the explosion this morning. Several of them quit me, and I guess
they are running yet."
Walter shied like a frightened colt, and stammered with sudden loss of
enthusiasm:
"A whole s-ship-load of d-dynamite? You w-want me to help handle it?"
Then he grinned as his sense of humor overtook his fright. He had just
fled from Colon at sight of General Quesada and his friends. This was
hopping from the frying-pan into the fire with a vengeance.
"What if I drop a box of it?" he asked.
"I am not hiring you to drop it," was the pensive answer of Mr.
Naughton, as he flicked a bit of soot from his white serge coat and
caressed his neatly trimmed brown beard. "I wish I had something
better to offer you. I like your pluck."
"I am not showing any pluck so far," confessed Walter. "You have scared
me out of a year's growth. But I'm willing to take a chance if you are."
"Then come along with me to the Mount Hope wharf, and I'll put you on
my pay-roll."
The weather was wiltingly hot for one fresh from a northern winter, but
as Walter followed his imperturbable employer he felt the chills run
up and down his spine. The sight of the havoc wrought by two boxes of
dynamite was not in the least reassuring.
"Here is where I get scattered all over the tropical landscape," he
said to himself. "A greenhorn like me is sure to do something foolish,
and if I stub my toe just once, I vanish with a large bang."
He might have taken to his heels but for the soothing companionship of
Mr. Naughton, who was humming the air of a popular song and seemed to
have not a care in the world. Ahead of them lay a rusty tramp steamer
flying a red powder-flag in her rigging. A few laborers and sailors
were loafing in the shade of the warehouse. At a word from Mr. Naughton
they filed on board, some to climb down into the hold, others to range
themselves between an open hatch and the empty freight-cars on the
wharf.
Walter pulled off his shirt, gingerly tightened his belt, and took the
station assigned him on deck. Presently the men below began to pass up
the heavy wooden boxes from one to another until the dangerous packages
came to Walter, who was instructed to help carry them to the ship's
side.
He eyed the first of them dubiously for a moment, took a long breath,
and clasped the box to his breast, squeezing it so tightly that he was
red in the face. Lifting his feet very high and setting them down with
the greatest caution, he advanced with the knee action of a blue-ribbon
winner in a horse-show. Quaking lest he trip or stumble, he delivered
the box to the man at the gangway. The seasoned handlers chuckled, and
Mr. Naughton said to the American who was checking the cargo:
"I took no risks in picking up that youngster, even if he is a new
hand with the powder. His nerves haven't been spoiled by rum or
cigarettes. Nice, clean-built chap, isn't he? What do you think of him?"
[Illustration: Lifting his feet very high and setting them down with
the greatest caution]
"He is no stranded loafer or he would sponge on the Americans in Colon
sooner than work on the silver roll."
"I shall ask him a few questions when we knock off," returned Naughton.
After Walter had safely handled a score of boxes, he gained confidence
and worried less about "'splodin' himself to glory," as he toiled to
keep pace with the other men. The humid heat was exhausting, but as the
afternoon wore on his efficiency steadily increased. When the quitting
hour came, Mr. Naughton told him:
"I'll be glad to keep you on until the cargo is out. Where are you
living?"
"Nowhere at present. I can't afford to go to a hotel, and even if I had
the price I am afraid Colon might disagree with me."
"Oh, it is a healthy town nowadays. Our people have cleaned it up like
a new parlor."
"I mean the police--" began Walter, but this sounded so suspicious that
he blushed, thought it hardly worth while explaining, and concluded,
"I guess I can find a bed somewhere."
Mr. Naughton whistled, cocked a scrutinizing eye, and observed:
"So you got into trouble with the Spiggoty police? Anything serious? I
won't give you away."
"Nothing against my morals," smiled Walter. "My manners were disliked."
"I'll take your word for it. One of my minor ambitions has been to
punch the head of a Panamanian policeman. The chesty little beggars!"
drawled Mr. Naughton. "You don't belong with the laborers, Goodwin, and
you wouldn't like their quarters. I can find you a place to sleep at
our bachelor hotel, and you can get commissary meals at thirty cents
each. Uncle Sam is a pretty good landlord."
Cordially thanking him, Walter exclaimed as he straightened his aching
back:
"I haven't been as lame and tired since I pitched a twelve-inning game
for the high-school championship of the State. Phew! I must have moved
enough dynamite already to blow Colon off the map. But I'll be glad to
report in the morning, sir."
This casual reference to base-ball had a most surprising effect upon
the placid Mr. Naughton, who had seemed proof against excitement.
He jumped as if he had been shot at, grasped Walter by the arm, and
shouted eagerly:
"Say that again. Can you pitch? Are you a real ball-player? Man alive,
tell me all about it!"
Walter stared at the "powder man" as if suspecting him of mild insanity.
"We have a crack nine in Wolverton for a high-school," he replied. "It
is a mill town, you see, and most of the fellows begin playing ball on
the open lots as soon as they can walk. We were good enough last season
to beat two or three of the smaller college teams."
"And you were the regular pitcher?" breathlessly demanded Mr. Naughton,
as he backed away and surveyed the broad-shouldered youth from head to
foot.
"Yes, I pitched in all the games."
"Well, you handle yourself like a ball-player, and I believe you are
one. You come along to supper with me."
"But what in the world--" began the bewildered Walter.
"Leave it to me. Your destiny is in my hands," was the mysterious
utterance of Mr. Naughton.
In the cool of the evening they sat and ate at their leisure on the
breezy piazza of the "gold employees'" hotel. From other small tables
near by several men called out greetings to Naughton, who beckoned them
over to be presented to his protégé. No sooner had they learned that
the tall lad was a base-ball pitcher of proven prowess than they became
effusively, admiringly cordial. In fact, Walter held a sort of court.
"Goodwin is one of my unloading gang on the dynamite steamer,"
explained Naughton.
At this there arose a fiercely protesting chorus. One might have
thought they were about to mob the "powder man."
"How careless, Naughton! It makes no difference about you, but we can't
afford to risk having a ball-player blown up."
"A real pitcher is worth his weight in gold just now."
"It won't do, Naughton, old man. If you permit this valuable person
to be destroyed, the Cristobal Baseball Association will hold you
responsible."
"Don't you dare let him go near your confounded dynamite ship again."
Thanks to the magic of base-ball, although he could not understand the
why and wherefore of it, Walter found himself no longer a friendless
waif of fortune, but regarded as something too rare and precious to
be risked with a dynamite gang. It seemed rather absurd that these
transplanted Americans should have any surplus energy for athletics
after the day's work in the steaming climate of the Isthmus. But his
new friends proceeded to enlighten him, led by Naughton, who exclaimed
with much gusto:
"My son, we _eat_ base-ball. The Isthmian League is beginning its third
season, and you have alighted among the choicest collection of fans,
cranks, and rooters that ever adorned the bleachers. Mr. Harrison here
is captain of the Cristobal nine. Our best pitcher went back to the
States last week."
"But I'm afraid I shall have no time to play," said Walter. "I didn't
come down here for base-ball."
"Oh, we all work for a living. Don't get a wrong impression of us," put
in Harrison, a young man of chunky, bow-legged type of architecture
whom nature had obviously designed for a short-stop. "I am a civil
engineer, Atlantic Division. I used to play at Cornell. We can't
practise much, but if you want to see some snappy games----"
"I would rather handle the dynamite than umpire when you play Culebra
or Ancon," broke in Naughton, who showed signs of renewed excitement as
he went on to say to Harrison:
"If I bring Goodwin to the field at five o'clock to-morrow afternoon,
will you furnish a catcher and give him a chance to limber up? Better
lay off and take it easy for the day, hadn't you?" he added, turning to
Walter.
"No, the hard work will take the kinks out of my muscles, and I can't
afford to lose any time on my first job."
"Oh, hang his tuppenny job!" spoke up one of the company. "He doesn't
understand how important he is. Enlighten him, Harrison."
"This frenzied person on my right means to convey that a young man with
a first-class pitching arm will have the inside track with the powers
that be," explained the Cristobal captain. "There is Major Glendinning,
for instance----"
"He is head of the Department of Commissary and Subsistence," chimed in
Naughton. "He feeds and clothes the whole Canal Zone. When Cristobal
makes a three-bagger he jumps up and down and yells himself hoarse."
"But I heard Colonel Gunther himself say that no more Americans were
needed down here," said Walter.
"That doesn't mean there is to be no more weeding out of undesirables,"
Naughton explained. "There is still room on our happy little Isthmus
for a man who can deliver the goods. I don't want you to infer that the
government is hiring ball-players. But as an introduction, Goodwin,
you couldn't beat it if you brought letters from eleven United States
senators."
"Now let's talk base-ball," impatiently interjected a lathy individual
in riding breeches and puttees, who had come in from a construction
camp somewhere off in the jungle.
"We ought to tuck our prize package in bed very early," objected
Naughton. "He is as sleepy as a tree full of owls."
"Juggling dynamite is no picnic!" and Walter struggled with a yawn. His
friends good-naturedly escorted him to the bachelor quarters, where
he speedily rolled into his cot and dreamed of fighting a duel with
General Quesada, the weapons being base-ball bats.
When he reported on board the dynamite ship next morning, Naughton
greeted him with a slightly worried air and declared:
"I have been thinking it over and perhaps those chaps were right. We
have very few accidents with the stuff, but we ought not to run the
slightest risk of losing the league championship to Culebra or Ancon."
Walter laughed and replied:
"This is the best kind of practice for me. If I can keep my nerve and
make no errors, I am not likely to be rattled when the bases are full."
This argument had weight, although Naughton was still anxious as he
strolled to his office. By noon the stiffness had been sweated out
of Walter's back and shoulders, and the supple vigor was returning
to his good right arm. Shortly before five o'clock the inconsistent
Naughton, who lived in daily peril of his life with all the composure
in the world, was fairly fidgeting to be off to the base-ball field. A
battered victoria and a rat of a Panama pony hurried them thither, and
they found Harrison and several other players busy at practice against
a background of cocoanut palms and bread-fruit trees.
The Cristobal catcher trotted up looking immensely pleased:
"Hello, Goodwin, you don't know me," said he, "but my kid brother was
on that Elmsford freshman team that you trounced so unmercifully last
season. I saw the game. Brewster is my name. When Harrison told me he
had been lucky enough to discover you, I chortled for joy."
This was a cheering indorsement for the others to hear and it gave
Walter the confidence of which he stood in need. A great deal appeared
to depend on his pitching ability, and this test was more trying to the
nerves than handling dynamite or dodging General Quesada.
The catcher tossed him a ball and they moved to one side of the field.
At first Walter pitched with caution, but as he warmed to his work the
ball sped into Brewster's glove with a wicked thud.
"Send 'em along easy to-day. Better not overdo it," the catcher warned
him. Walter smiled and swung his arm with a trifle more steam in the
delivery. He felt that he must show these friendly critics what he had
in him, wherefore the solid Brewster withstood a bombardment that made
him grunt and perspire. The other players looked and whispered among
themselves with evident approval.
"What did I tell you?" proudly exclaimed Naughton. "Am I a good scout?
I unearthed this boy phenomenon."
The battery had paused to cool off when a big-boned American
saddle-horse came across the field at an easy canter. The rider sat
as erect as a cavalryman, although he was old enough to be Walter's
grandfather. Halting beside the group, he said:
"I rode out this way on the chance of seeing a bit of practice. Do you
expect to whip those hard-hitting rascals from Culebra?"
"Good afternoon, Major Glendinning," replied Naughton, with a wink at
the others. "Harrison has been feeling very gloomy over the prospects.
We lost our only first-class pitcher, you know."
"What an outrageous shame it was!" earnestly ejaculated the head of the
Department of Commissary and Subsistence.
Harrison nudged Naughton. Major Glendinning had come upon the scene
at precisely the right moment. Here was the employer who, above all
others, must be made to take an interest in Goodwin's welfare if these
amiable conspirators could bring it about. Noting that Walter was
beyond ear-shot, Harrison spoke up.
"Sorry you couldn't arrive a little sooner, Major. We are inclined to
think we have found a better pitcher, though I'm not at all sure that
we can keep him at Cristobal."
The elderly gentleman leaned forward in the saddle and eagerly inquired:
"Bless me, is that true? I swear you don't look at all gloomy,
Harrison. Who is he? Where is he? And you think he can pitch winning
ball for Cristobal?"
"Yes, sir. Brewster has seen him play at home. He is one of your born
pitchers. He is a wonder."
"What do you mean by saying we can't keep him?" demanded the major.
"He is working for me--on the silver roll," vouchsafed Naughton, with a
hopeless kind of sigh. "He hasn't been able to find anything better to
do. But I can't hold him, of course. He is a first-class man in every
way. He is likely to quit almost any day and drift over to Culebra or
Ancon, where he will be sure to land a position on the gold roll, as
foreman, clerk, or time-keeper. And then he will be pitching for our
hated rivals."
"Um-m, he will, will he?" and Major Glendinning fairly bristled. "I am
not letting any good men get away from my department. Show him to me."
Naughton nodded in the direction of Walter, who was deep in a
discussion of signals with his catcher. Then the "powder man," with
Harrison as fluent ally, paid tribute to the manly qualities of the
young pitcher, nor were their motives wholly selfish. The major
listened attentively, chewing his gray mustache, and now and then
glancing at Walter with keen appraisement. At length he exclaimed:
"You chaps know how to get on my blind side. I have had my eye on a
cheerful young loafer in the Cristobal commissary who is not earning
his salary. If he should--er--resign, there might be a vacancy. I like
Goodwin's looks. Fetch him over here, if you please."
Naughton and Harrison grinned at each other as they marched to the side
of the field and escorted Walter with great pomp of manner. The abashed
pitcher wiped his dripping face and heard Major Glendinning say to him:
"You had better not think of leaving Cristobal just now. It is the best
place in the Zone. When you are through with Naughton and his infernal
cargo, come and see me in my office, if he doesn't blow you sky-high in
the meantime. And don't forget that I expect you to win that next game
against Culebra."
He wheeled his horse sharply and trotted from the field, leaving Walter
to gaze after him with a dazed, foolish smile. Harrison thumped him on
the back and jubilantly shouted:
"Wasn't that easy? What did we tell you?"
"But do you honestly think he has any intention of giving me a job on
the gold roll?" tremulously implored Walter, whose emotions were in a
state of tumult.
"Sure thing," said Naughton. "He can always find a place for a young
fellow with the right stuff in him."
"'A husky young fellow with the right stuff in him,'" echoed Walter.
The familiar words had come home to roost.
"He will start you in at seventy-five per month"--this was from
Harrison--"and you will have to earn it. Base-ball cuts no figure with
the major in business hours."
"Your conscience can rest easy on that score," added Naughton. "No
danger of your cheating Uncle Sam."
"An honest pull is the noblest work of man," declaimed Harrison, and
this seemed to sum up the whole matter.
When Walter returned to his quarters, his first impulse was to write
a letter home. This proved more difficult than might seem. To report
to his anxious parents and his adoring sister that he was employed on
board a dynamite ship would not tend to ease their minds. He could
imagine this bit of news landing in the cottage at Wolverton with the
effect of a full-sized explosion. Eleanor would probably take her pen
in hand to compose a metrical companion piece of "The Boy Stood on the
Burning Deck."
"I must be tactful," frowningly reflected Walter. "I don't want to make
them nervous. Perhaps I had better not go into details. I will simply
say that I have a fairly lucrative position. Twenty cents an hour isn't
much down here, but it sounds big alongside that four-dollar-a-week job
in the hardware store."
Then he discovered that to discuss the better position which he had
not yet secured was to raise hopes that sounded fantastic. Those rival
ball-players from Culebra might knock him out of the box in the first
inning. This would mean good-by to Major Glendinning's favor. Base-ball
cranks were fickle and uncertain persons. Walter therefore merely
informed the family that the climate agreed with him and he was sure
his judgment had been sound in coming to the Isthmus.
"Between unloading dynamite and worrying about this base-ball
proposition," he soliloquized, "not to mention the fact that General
Quesada is camping on my trail, I expect to be gray-headed in about one
more week."
CHAPTER IV
A LANDSLIDE IN THE CUT
The dynamite ship had been almost emptied of cargo, when Naughton
suggested:
"I won't need you on this job after to-day, Goodwin. Why not go to
Culebra with me to-morrow morning and see some of the canal work? I
shall have to inspect the dynamite stored in the magazines."
Walter jumped at the chance of a holiday before venturing to interview
Major Glendinning. He was eager to behold the famous cut where they
were "making the dirt fly," and to find his friend Jack Devlin, the
steam-shovel man who had beguiled him to the Isthmus.
It was with a sense of wonderment as keen as that of the early
explorers that Walter was whisked in a passenger train, as if on a
magic carpet, into the heart of the jungle, past palm-thatched native
huts perched upon lush green hill-sides, by trimly kept American
settlements, by vine-draped rusty rows of engines, cars, and dredges
long ago abandoned by the French.
Soon there appeared the mighty Gatun dam and locks flung majestically
across a wide valley, resembling not so much man's handiwork as an
integral part of the landscape, made to endure as long as the hills
themselves. Upon and around them moved in ceaseless, orderly activity
a multitude of men and battalions of machines, piling up rock and
concrete.
Walter drew a long breath and exclaimed, his face aglow:
"It makes me sit up and blink. Is there anything bigger to see?"
"The Gatun locks alone will cost twenty-five million, not to mention
the dam," replied the practical Naughton, "but Culebra Cut is the
heftiest job of them all. It broke the poor Frenchmen's hearts and
their pocket-books."
They came at length to this far-famed range of lofty hills which link
the Andes of South and Central America. Leaving the train, Naughton
tramped ahead toward the gigantic gash dug in the continental divide.
Clouds of gray smoke spurted from far below, and the earth trembled
to one booming shock after another. Dynamite was rending the rock and
clay, and Walter realized, with a little thrill of pride, that he had
been really helping to build the Panama Canal.
Presently he stood at the brink of this tremendous chasm. It seemed
inadequate to call it a "cut." He gazed down with absorbed fascination
at the maze of railroad tracks, scores of them abreast, which covered
the unfinished bed of the canal. Along the opposite side, clinging to
excavated shelves which resembled titanic stairs, ran more tracks.
Beside them toiled the steam-shovels loading the processions of waiting
trains.
No wonder Jack Devlin, engineer of "Number Twenty-six," had swaggered
across the deck of the _Saragossa_. He knew that he was doing a man's
work. To tame and guide one of these panting, hungry monsters was like
being the master of a dragon of the fairy stories. There could be no
Panama Canal without them. Intelligent, docile, tireless, they could
literally remove mountains.
Walter sat upon a rock and watched one of them nudge and nose a huge
bowlder this way and that with its great steel dipper, exactly as if
it were getting ready to make a meal of it. Then the mass was picked
up, swung over a flat-car, swiftly, delicately, precisely, and the
huge jaws opened to lay down the heavy morsel. Walter decided that he
wanted to be a steam-shovel man. Naughton had to speak twice before the
interested lad heard him say:
"I shall be busy for some time, and may have to jump on a work-train
as far as Pedro Miguel station. Go down into the Cut, if you like, and
look around."
"Thanks. Say, Mr. Naughton, how old must a man be to run a
steam-shovel?"
"They break them in as firemen. Are you tough enough to shovel coal all
day? Don't let these Culebra tarriers coax you away from us. You are
scheduled to play ball for Cristobal, understand?"
By means of several sections of steep wooden stairs Walter clambered
to the bottom of the cut, and dodged across the muddy area of trackage
to gain the nearest bank upon which the steam-shovels were at work.
Fascinated, he halted to watch one of them at closer range.
A noise of shouting came from several laborers who were running along
a track further up the steep slope. The nearest steam-shovels blew
their whistles furiously. The shrill blasts were sounding some kind of
warning and Walter said to himself:
"Naughton's men must be ready to set off a blast. I guess I had better
move on."
He started to follow the fleeing laborers when a mass of muddy earth
came slipping down a dozen yards in front of him. It blocked the shelf
upon which he had climbed, and he checked himself, gazing confusedly up
the slope. A large part of the overhanging hill-side appeared to be in
sluggish motion. The wet, red soil far up toward the top of the cut had
begun to slide as if it were being pushed into the bed of the canal by
some unseen force. Dislodged fragments of rock rolled down the surface
of the slide and clattered in advance of it, but so deliberate was the
movement of the mass that there seemed to be time enough to escape it.
Walter ran along the ties and began to plough knee-deep through the
impeding heap of muddy tenacious clay on the track. He glanced upward
again, halted irresolutely, and gasped aloud:
"Great Scott, here comes a whole train of cars falling downhill."
The landslide had started just beneath the uppermost shelf of
excavated rock, and the line of track supported thereupon was almost
instantly undermined. The rails tilted and slipped with their weight
of rock-laden cars before the engine could drag them clear. The train
crew jumped and managed to crawl to the firm ground at the crest of
the slope a moment before the flat-cars toppled over and broke loose
from their couplings. Then the cars hung for an instant, spilled their
burden of rock, which made a little avalanche of its own, and rolled
down the slope with a prodigious clatter.
At this new peril, Walter knew not which way to turn. He could not be
blamed for losing his presence of mind. The cars parted company, taking
erratic courses, tumbling end over end. One of them bounded off at a
slant to fall in front of him, while another was booming down to menace
his retreat. All this was a matter of seconds, precious time that was
wasted for lack of decision.
Instead of making a wild dash in one direction or the other, Walter
danced up and down in the same spot, his eyes fairly popping from his
head. The result was that, by a miracle of good fortune, the flat-cars
roared and rattled past on either side and left him unscathed.
Then the huge, loosened layer of earth, moving with lazy momentum,
filled the ledge on which he stood, brushed him off, and carried him
down the slope. To his amazement he was not wholly buried, but rolled
over and over, now on the surface, now struggling in a sticky smother
of stuff that held him like a fly in a bed of mortar. A projecting
stratum of rock, not yet blasted away, checked the leisurely progress
of the mass before it reached the bottom of the cut.
Plastered with mud from his hair to his heels, bleeding from a dozen
scratches, his clothes in rags, Walter was quite astonished to find
himself alive. He was stuck fast in clay almost to the waist and so
dazed and breathless that he was unable to call for help.
Glancing stupidly up the slope, he beheld a steam-shovel sway and
totter. Nothing could surprise him now. With languid interest he
watched the towering machine turn over on its side in a leisurely
manner and then come slipping down to the next shelf. It resembled some
prehistoric monster with a prodigiously long neck, which had lost its
footing.
It came to rest on its side and out of one of the cab windows spilled
a large man in overalls who tobogganed down the miry slope with
extraordinary velocity, arms and legs flying.
He fetched up within a few yards of Walter, sat up, wiped the mud from
his eyes, and sputtered:
"Poor old Twenty-six! She's sure in a mess this time."
Recognizing Jack Devlin, Walter managed to find his voice and called
feebly:
"Is this what you call a great place for a husky young fellow?"
The steam-shovel man scrambled to his feet, active and apparently
unhurt, as if such incidents were all in the day's work. Plunging
through the débris of the slide, he peered into Walter's besmeared and
bleeding countenance. The voice and the words had sounded familiar and
assisted identification.
"Well, I'll be scuppered!" roared Jack Devlin. "Goodwin is your name.
You took my advice and beat it to the Isthmus. I'll have you out of
this in a jiffy."
A gang of laborers arrived a moment later, and with Devlin shouting
stentorian orders, their shovels speedily and carefully dug out
the hapless Walter. They were about to carry him to the nearest
switch-tender's shelter when he groaned protestingly:
"Ouch! Don't grab my right arm. It hurts."
Battered and sore as he was, all other damage was forgotten as he tried
to raise the precious right arm, his pitching arm, the mainstay of his
fortunes on the Isthmus. An acute pain stabbed him between wrist and
elbow. He murmured sorrowfully:
"It is broken or badly sprained. I'm not dead, but I certainly am
unfortunate."
"Those that try to stop a landslide in the Cut are generally lugged out
feet first," cheerfully remarked Devlin. "The landscape isn't fastened
down very tight. Were you looking for me?"
"Yes. And I found you, didn't I?" Walter grinned as he added: "We were
thrown together, all right."
They made him as comfortable as possible, while Devlin forgot his
sorrow over the plight of his beloved "Twenty-six."
"I feel sort of responsible for you, Goodwin," said he. "I'm going to
put you in the hospital car of the next train to Ancon, where they'll
give you the best of everything. I can't go with you, but I'll try to
see you to-night. I must boss a first-aid-to-the-injured job on that
poor old steam-shovel of mine. She looks perfectly ridiculous, doesn't
she? Now, cheer up."
The American hospital buildings at Ancon are magnificently equipped,
and their situation along the windy hill-side commands a memorable view
of the gray old city of Panama, the wide blue bay adorned with islands,
and the rolling Pacific. To Walter Goodwin the place seemed like a
prison, and he awaited the surgeon's verdict with the dismal face of
a man about to be sentenced. The sundry cuts and contusions were of
small account. A few days would mend them. But his aching, disabled arm
was quite a different matter.
"You were born lucky or you would be in the morgue," said the genial
young surgeon of the accident ward.
"I am damaged enough," sighed Walter. "What about this arm?"
"No fracture. A severe wrench that will make it pretty sore for a month
or so."
"A month or so!" and Walter winked to hold back the tears. "Why, I have
to pitch a game of ball with this arm next week."
"Nothing doing," decreed the surgeon. "You had better stay here for two
or three days and we'll try our best to patch you up in record time. Do
you want to notify any friends?"
"Yes, indeed," cried Walter. "Please send word to Mr. Harrison, captain
of the Cristobal nine."
"'Bucky' Harrison?" The surgeon showed lively interest. "Then you must
be the new pitcher for Cristobal. We heard about you. You are in the
enemy's camp, but we will treat you kindly."
Having been tucked in bed, Walter felt that he was a perfectly useless
member of society. The landslide had wiped out his bright expectations.
Major Glendinning could have no possible interest in a pitcher with a
crippled arm. When dismissed from the hospital he would be unable to
earn his food and lodging even as a laborer. As for his brave plan of
helping the dear household in Wolverton, he might have to beg aid from
them.
Jack Devlin appeared after supper. His manner was contrite and subdued
as he sat down by the cot and strongly gripped Walter's sound hand.
"You and I were sort of disorganized there in the Cut," said he. "I had
no chance to find out how things have been breaking for you. Have you
landed a job? What about it?"
Walter ruefully related the story of his pilgrimage. At the episode of
the parrot and broomstick, the steam-shovel man violently interrupted:
"General Quesada? I know who he is--a gambler, and a grafter, and a
fake soldier. He trimmed some friends of mine, but never mind that. He
is a large, fat, false alarm. Forget him."
When informed of the base-ball episode, he shook his head
disapprovingly.
"You ought to have given Culebra first chance at you," he expostulated.
"Maybe we could have found you a job. I am catcher of the Culebra nine,
do you see?"
"I'd rather be fireman of a steam-shovel than anything else in the
world," Walter eagerly exclaimed.
"You will not be fit to handle a shovel or a base-ball for some time,
my boy. We will not let it come between us, but I'm sorry you tied up
with those low-browed pirates at Cristobal. Need any money? Want to
write a letter home?"
"I am all right for the present, Mr. Devlin. And I think I'll wait a
day or so before writing the folks."
"You told me when we met on the ship that you were anxious to give your
father a lift. It made a great hit with me. What about that?"
"I guess I was like General Quesada's parrot, I talked too much,"
confessed Walter. "I shall be lucky if I can take care of myself."
Devlin was silent for a moment. Then he bade the patient farewell with
words of rough and hearty encouragement and departed from the ward,
a big, masterful man with a hard fist and a soft heart. As he walked
across the hospital grounds he repeated under his breath:
"He aimed to give his father a lift. The pluck of him! 'Tis a pity
that more men on the Isthmus are not thinking about the old folks at
home. 'Tis a safe bet that his father needs a lift. The lad looked very
solemn about it."
He turned into the hospital superintendent's office and asked a clerk
for Walter Goodwin's home address, which the rules required to be
recorded. Then he made a détour to the Ancon post-office, smiled
craftily, and demanded a money-order application blank. Separating
several bills from a wad crumpled in his trousers pocket, he reflected:
"He would fly off the handle if I suggested anything like this, being a
most independent young rooster. But I used to have a daddy of my own.
I'll say nothing about it till the lad gets a job. Then he can square
it."
Thereupon he wrote to Mr. Horatio Goodwin as follows:
DEAR SIR:
Your son will be unable to attend to his affairs for a few days,
so I am sending the enclosed amount which had been advanced
against his salary account.
Yours truly,
JOHN DEVLIN.
P. S.--He is in the Ancon Hospital, a bit mussed up but nothing
serious. He will write soon.
"There! I may be guilty of committing something or other under false
pretences, but I feel a whole lot easier in my mind," quoth the
steam-shovel man.
Next morning that bland dynamite expert, Naughton, came to the hospital
to show Walter that his friends in Cristobal had not forgotten him.
"What about the base-ball practice?" demanded the patient. "Have you
found another pitcher?"
"No. We haven't given you up as a total loss."
"Does Major Glendinning know I have been put out of commission?"
Walter's voice was very anxious.
Naughton smiled broadly.
"Yes. I saw him just after your message came to Harrison yesterday
afternoon. There is no finer man on the Isthmus than the major, but
he is a trifle unreasonable at times. He was so upset at the notion
of playing Culebra without you that he got peevish and blamed me for
letting you wander into that landslide. And then he sailed into you for
being too slow to get out of the way of it."
"Then he will have nothing more to do with me," was Walter's mournful
conclusion.
"You are not fit to do anything just now," evasively returned Naughton.
"The major's bearings are heated, but he will cool down. He took a
fancy to you. Now what can I do for you? You will soon be on your feet
again and going strong. Need any money?"
Walter flushed and his lip quivered. Jack Devlin had asked the same
question. These were friends worth having.
"I can get along somehow," he bravely answered.
Naughton exclaimed reprovingly:
"None of that. We folks on the Isthmus are one big family. You have
made good. Don't worry about your meal-ticket after you leave the
hospital. You may need some spare change for clothes and so on. I'll
leave a few dollars with the nurse."
"But I don't deserve all this kindness."
"Nonsense. What else?"
"I think I had better send a letter home to-day. I feel more like it
now. May I dictate it to you, Mr. Naughton?"
"Sure thing. But don't let the folks infer you are down and out. Tell
'em about the scenery."
"If the scenery would only stay put, I shouldn't be in the hospital,"
was the patient's comment.
Naughton chewed his pencil until Walter began:
MY DEAREST FAMILY:
I have had a slight accident, so I cannot very well use my right
hand. I have the very best of care, and everybody is just bully to
me.----
He stared at the ceiling and confided to Naughton:
"I am stumped. You see, it is hard to explain things. I was so cocksure
of myself--and--and--I was going to find a good position right away,
and it hurts a fellow's pride like the mischief to own up that he was
all wrong. And I don't want them to worry----"
Naughton nodded gravely and suggested:
"Shall I tell them about your impressions of the canal? You are right.
We ought to send them no hard-luck stories."
"Go ahead, then. My first impressions were dents. I'm covered with
them. You know more about the canal than I do."
Naughton scribbled industriously, and the patient seemed pleased with
the results.
"Harrison will be over to see you soon," said the amanuensis. "You are
going to help us dig the Big Ditch, so keep your nerve. Good-by and
good luck until next time."
Walter was a low-spirited and restless patient. Now and then he forgot
his troubles in chatting with the other men who had been brought into
the accident ward. They had been wounded on the firing-line of this
titanic conflict with Nature. Like good soldiers they were eager to
be up and at it again. They worked and dared for something more than
wages. They manifested intense pride and loyalty. It was their ambition
to "stay with the job." Their talk was mostly of progress made, of new
records set. Their spirit thrilled Walter, it was so fine and clean and
worthy of the flag they served.
After three days the surgeon examined him carefully, and announced:
"You are fit to leave us, but you must take it easy. And that arm
should be looked after. What are your plans?"
"I haven't any. I am not a canal employee, so I suppose I can't go to a
commission hotel."
"Naughton or Devlin will be here to see you again," said the surgeon.
"Why not bunk with me for a few days? I am in bachelor quarters. You
don't want to wait around in one of those Panama hotels. They are
fierce."
Walter thought of the vengeful General Quesada and had no desire, in
his disabled condition, to linger in the city of Panama, beyond the
Canal Zone. He gratefully accepted the surgeon's invitation and added:
"I should like to go out this afternoon and see something of Ancon."
"Very well. It will brace you up to get outdoors. If you want the
good salt wind, why don't you run over to Balboa docks? It is only
a trifling journey by train. And you can see the Pacific end of the
canal. It's a busy place."
The railroad station was no more than a few minutes' walk down the
hill from the hospital, and Walter footed it slowly, feeling weak and
listless. He enjoyed the brief trip to Balboa and his first glimpse
of the shipping of the Pacific. The wharves were American, but the
high-sided steamers crowded bow and stern were bound to strange,
romantic ports, to Guayaquil and Valparaiso and around the Horn, to
Mazatlan and Acapulco.
Picking his way among the jostling, noisy gangs of black laborers,
Walter perched himself upon a bale of merchandise under the long cargo
shed. The wharf was not large enough for its traffic. Freight of every
description covered it. Tally clerks, checkers, and foremen were at
their wits' ends to keep the streams of boxes, barrels, and crates
moving with order and system.
At one berth a Pacific mail-boat from San Francisco was discharging
supplies for the Canal Commission. Just beyond her, one of the Chilean
Navigation Company's fleet was filling her holds for the long voyage
down the west coast. Against her seaward side, as if waiting for room
at the wharf, was moored a rusty little coastwise steamer flying the
flag of the Panama Republic.
During a summer vacation from high-school, Walter had worked in the
shipping-rooms of the Wolverton Mills. He knew something about this
activity on the wharf. He thought himself capable of tallying freight
and sorting consignments. Sharp-eyed and interested, he watched the
hurly-burly of hard-driven industry. Presently he noticed something
which awoke his curiosity. It seemed extremely odd.
The freight trundled out of the Pacific mail-boat was piled compactly
between two narrow aisles or runways on the wharf, convenient for
transfer to the freight-cars of the Panama Railroad. Walter noted the
marks on the boxes, because most of the stuff was consigned to the
"Dept. of Commissary and Subsistence," and he was thereby reminded of
Major Glendinning.
Separated from this great heap of merchandise only by a runway was the
freight that was being rushed into the outward-bound Chilean steamer. A
negro halted his truck between the two piles and loaded it with cases
marked for Major Glendinning's department. Then he went clattering at
full speed to the gangway of the Chilean steamer.
Evidently the thick-witted laborer had made a blunder, thought Walter.
He had loaded his truck at the wrong side of the runway. At the gangway
of the South American vessel was stationed a "checker," one of the
white employees of the Zone, whose business was to discover just such
mistakes as this. Walter saw him halt the truck, glance at the marks
on the boxes, and then shove the negro along into the ship instead of
turning him back to the wharf.
Walter did some rapid thinking. He was enough of a shipping-clerk to
surmise that something was wrong. It might have been carelessness, but
he eyed the checker suspiciously. He was a long, stooping young man
with rather pallid, sullen features, and he conveyed an impression of
slouchiness and dissipation quite unlike the clean-cut type of the
average American in the Zone.
Walter disliked him. Perhaps this was why he was unwilling to give him
the benefit of the doubt.
The checker forsook the gangway, hurried into the runway where the
truckmen were passing in procession and gave them an order, roughly,
with a gesture which carried a meaning to the vigilant Walter. They
were told to continue shoving the merchandise consigned to Major
Glendinning's department into the Chilean steamer. They viewed any
white man as a "boss" to be obeyed. Unable to read the marks, they did
as they were ordered, without hesitation.
The checker ran back to the gangway, where he made pretence of
examining each arriving truck-load and passing it as O.K. Walter was
convinced that he had stumbled on a flagrantly crooked transaction.
It looked barefaced and bold, but it was actually much less so than
appeared. In the rush and confusion of the wharf, one dishonest
checker could engineer the business with small risk of official
detection. The merchandise would be missed later, but what proof was
there that it had been slipped aboard the Chilean steamer?
"It was one chance in a hundred that I happened to see it," said Walter
to himself. "I'm sure the checker is a rascal, but there must be others
in it, or how can the stolen goods be received and disposed of at the
other end of the voyage?"
He forsook his place of observation and moved cautiously nearer the
Chilean steamer, screened from the observation of the checker by a huge
crate of machinery. There he discovered, to his great surprise, that
the trucks loaded with pilfered merchandise were being wheeled across
the lower deck, through the open cargo port on the other side, and into
the small Panamanian coaster tied up to the larger steamer.
This altered the circumstances. Very likely the Chilean officers and
crew knew nothing about the shady business. The Panamanian craft
might have been courteously permitted to take on part of her cargo by
transferring it across the intervening deck.
Walter tingled with excitement. The checker must have an understanding
with the captain or owner, or both, of the disreputable-looking little
steamer hailing from Panama. Her destination could not be far distant.
She could be overhauled at short notice. Instead of informing the
American officials at Balboa, Walter swiftly decided to try to unravel
the plot by himself. It would show them that he was good for something
besides base-ball. And it might mean solid recognition. But there was
something bigger than his own interests at stake. The spirit of the
Canal Zone had taken hold of him. He knew that "graft" had been kept
out of the organization. To have the fair record blotted, even in the
smallest way, was hateful to him. He was as jealous of the honor of the
"Big Ditch" as Colonel Gunther himself.
CHAPTER V
TRAPPED IN OLD PANAMA
While Walter Goodwin was watching and waiting on the wharf the checker
at the gangway suddenly became wary. He stormed among the laborers and
abused them for blundering, turning them back with their truck-loads
of commissary stores and otherwise imitating a man honestly doing his
duty. Walter was uncertain whether the checker had spied him and taken
alarm, or whether some one in authority had moved inconveniently near.
The little Panama steamer into which the stolen merchandise had been
conveyed was making ready to cast loose and haul out into the stream.
Walter feared she was about to sail and carry with her all his hopes of
distinguishing himself as an investigator. He was elated, therefore,
when a man of whom he had caught a glimpse on the vessel's bridge
came on the wharf and halted to speak to the checker. The twain were
together for several minutes. Walter had time to study the new-comer.
He was no longer young, bearing marks of hard living, but of an alert,
resolute mien and rugged frame. He was a German, perhaps, certainly
not a Spanish-American. He resembled not so much a seafarer as one of
those broken soldiers of fortune, grown gray in adventures, to be found
in ports of the uneasy republics near the equator, ripe for bold and
unscrupulous enterprises and ready to serve any master.
These two were birds of a feather, thought Walter, and he must somehow
find out why they flocked together. Guesses were not proof. He could
follow the checker after the day's work was done and try to discover
where he went and whom he met.
Presently the older man returned to the steamer. Then Walter's train
of thought was derailed by a cordial voice and outstretched hand which
belonged to his shipmate of the _Saragossa_, Señor Fernandez Garcia
Alfaro.
"I have been to the hospital to see you, my dear friend," cried the
Colombian diplomat. "I read it in a newspaper that you had a fight
with a landslide. Ah, you are as strong as a brick house to be out so
soon. The arm? Alas, is it serious?"
"It will cripple me for base-ball for a while."
"Ah, you plucky Yankees! You are always thinking of your grand sport of
base-ball."
"I thought you had sailed for home," said Walter.
"My steamer had a break-down of her engines. She has not yet arrived
from the south. My father has arranged by cable to have the Chilean
ship touch at my port on her voyage to Valparaiso. She sails in three
days more. I have come to Balboa to see the captain. Will you go on
board with me?"
They climbed to the upper deck and while Alfaro did his errand, Walter
leaned overside and gazed down at the small Panamanian steamer, whose
name he discovered to be _Juan Lopez_. She was a dirty, disorderly
vessel, and the crew, of all shades from black to white, looked as if
some of them might be hanged before they were drowned.
No cargo was strewn about. Everything fetched from the wharf had been
instantly hidden under the hatches. The man who had conferred with the
checker came out of the cabin, glanced up, halted, and stared hard at
Walter. When Alfaro returned, he asked him excitedly:
"Do you know anything about this _Juan Lopez_ steamer alongside? And
have you ever seen that man with the gray mustache before?"
"Yes, I have heard of the _Juan Lopez_. She made trouble on the coast
of Colombia one time. It was a filibustering expedition, but they were
not able to make a landing. That man? It is Captain Brincker. I was in
Guayaquil when he got into some kind of a row with the government. Why
do you ask with so much interest, Goodwin?"
"Oh, I was just curious," said Walter, unwilling to confide in the
talkative, impulsive Colombian. "I suppose the _Juan Lopez_ has
reformed, or she would not be loading freight at Balboa."
"She is maybe trading on the Panama coast and up the rivers. Will you
come back to Ancon with me and dine at the Tivoli Hotel to-night?"
"Thank you, but I can't promise for sure," said Walter. "I have some
business on the wharf. Will it be all right if I telephone you by seven
o'clock?"
"Certainly," exclaimed Alfaro. Curious in his turn, he asked: "Is your
office on the wharf?"
"It is under my hat at present," smiled Walter. "Does this Captain
Brincker live in Panama?"
"I will ask my friends in the city and tell you all about him at
dinner. I think he is a hard customer."
"I have reasons for keeping an eye on him, so I'll be grateful for any
information," said Walter.
The Colombian was in haste to keep an engagement, and he left Walter
impatiently awaiting the next turn of events. The _Juan Lopez_ moved
away from the side of the Chilean steamer and anchored far out in the
bay. Shortly thereafter a small boat was sent ashore. It landed near
the wharf and Captain Brincker disembarked. He walked in the direction
of the railroad station.
A few minutes later, the checker left the gangway and also headed for
the station. Walter followed them into a train for Ancon, but they
did not sit together, and paid no attention to each other. This was
unexpected. When they left the train, the slouchy, ill-favored young
man climbed into a cab, while the grizzled soldier of fortune sturdily
set out on foot into Panama city.
Walter had fought shy of invading Panamanian territory because of
General Quesada and the native police, but he could not bear to quit
the chase. He straightway chartered a cab and made the Spanish-speaking
_cochero_ understand that he was to follow the chariot aforesaid. The
weary, overworked little horses jogged slowly through the picturesque
streets of balconied stone houses and mouldering churches and ramparts
recalling the storied age of the _Conquistadores_. Old Panama and the
Canal Zone, side by side, vividly contrasted the romantic past and the
practical, hustling present.
The cab of the checker passed the plaza with its palms and flowers,
and made toward the city water-front. The narrow streets framed
bright glimpses of the blue Bay of Panama. At length Walter bade
his _cochero_ halt. The slouchy young man whom he was pursuing had
dismissed his vehicle and was entering a large weather-worn house of
stucco, one of a solid block in a little thoroughfare close to the
crumbling sea-wall.
"It is my business to find out who lives there," reflected Walter. "I'm
sure that Americans from the Canal Zone are unlikely to have honest
errands in this corner of Panama."
He forsook his cab and walked slowly along the street. The row of
houses resembled an extended wall of stone pierced by windows and
doors. It was puzzling to make certain into which of them the suspected
young man had gone. Walter counted the doors from the corner to verify
his observation and paused to scan the entrance, hoping to find a
street number or name-plate.
He might ask questions of a policeman, but this was impracticable for
three reasons: first, he could not speak Spanish; second, he had no
fondness for Panama policemen; third, there was no policeman to be
found. Feeling rather foolish, he waylaid a barefooted boy and fished
for information with earnest gestures, but the youngster shook his head
and fled into the nearest alley.
"I should have brought Alfaro with me," sighed Walter. "I am as
helpless as a stranded fish. These people ought to be compelled to
learn English."
Still standing in front of the house and wearing an absent-minded,
worried manner, Walter had forgotten for the moment that he was
playing a game which required wit and vigilance. From around the
nearest corner, no more than a few yards away, appeared the robust
figure of Captain Brincker. At sight of the youth with the bandaged
arm, he stopped in his tracks, muttered something, and gazed with open
unfriendliness.
Intuition told Walter that this formidable man had better be avoided.
He felt like taking to his heels, but he was boyishly reluctant to show
the white feather. Undecided, he failed to retreat until it was too
late.
Captain Brincker advanced swiftly, confronted him, and asked in a heavy
voice:
"Were you looking for somebody?"
"Yes, but I don't need him just now," stammered Walter, trying to
brazen it out. "Another time will do just as well, thank you. I must be
going."
"Wait a minute," growled the soldier of fortune, and he grasped
Walter's left arm with a grip of iron. "I have seen you at Balboa this
afternoon, on the wharf, on the Chilean steamer, on the train. Are you
not old enough to mind your own business?"
Not yet recovered from the battering effects of the landslide, Walter
lacked his normal strength and agility, and his disabled arm made him
as helpless as a child. He dared not try to wrench himself free lest it
be injured afresh in the tussle.
"You can't scare me with your bluffs," he angrily retorted. "What right
have you to ask my business?"
"We will discuss that. And if you are not willing to talk, I may have
to hold you by the _right_ arm."
Walter winced at this and looked up and down the street. Brown, naked
children were playing in the gutters. Fighting-cocks were tethered
to the iron railing in front of a near-by dwelling. A black-haired
young man with a chocolate-drop complexion, lounging on a balcony,
lazily thrummed a guitar. Strolling pedlers cried their wares with
rude snatches of song. The voices of fishermen came from the beach by
the sea-wall. The place was wholly foreign, unfrequented by Americans.
The Canal Zone and its protecting power might have been a thousand
miles away. The passers-by would be pleased to see Walter worsted in a
scuffle. His affairs concerned them not in the least. It was futile to
call for help. He had been rash and stupid.
"What do you want to say to me?" he demanded, trying to keep his voice
under control.
"It is not hospitable to make you stand in the street," and Captain
Brincker smiled grimly. "Come inside with me."
As he spoke he twisted Walter violently about and shoved him into the
vestibule of the house, which was only a step from the street. Jerking
himself free in blind rage, Walter struck at his captor, who dodged and
slammed shut the heavy outer door behind them. It was like being in a
prison. Walter moved aside, trying to guard the injured arm.
"You are excited. I do not wish to be brutal," said Captain Brincker.
"You are very easy to handle. You will be foolish if you object."
He showed the way with a courteous gesture. A long hallway led to
the _patio_ or open court in the centre of the house. It was like a
tropical garden roofed by the sky. Gorgeous flowers bloomed, and a
fountain tinkled pleasantly. Walter followed in glum silence. He had
been caught like a rabbit. Frightened as he was, the fact that he
belonged to the race dominant on the Isthmus helped to steady him. He
felt that he must play the game to the finish without flinching. He
held himself erect, his chin up.
Captain Brincker offered a wicker chair and seated himself in another.
Then he scrutinized his unwilling guest with grave deliberation. His
face was rather questioning than hostile. The suspense made Walter's
heart flutter. The masterful personality of the soldier of fortune held
him silent. At length Captain Brincker said:
"You were watching the young man at the gangway. You wanted to know
all about me and the _Juan Lopez_. You were overheard talking to Señor
Alfaro. You followed the young man to this house. I want to know who is
employing you to do all this."
The quiet demeanor of the speaker helped Walter to regain his
self-confidence. If he could keep his head he might be able to
extricate himself.
"Nobody employed me. I had nothing better to do," he truthfully
replied. "Aren't you taking a lot for granted? I am just out of the
hospital and looking for a job. I don't look like a very dangerous
person, do I?"
"That depends," slowly spoke Captain Brincker. "You may be merely
meddlesome. Do you want to go home to the States? The passage can
be arranged, and some extra money for your pocket. There is a
condition----"
"That I keep my mouth shut," hotly retorted Walter. He turned very
red. His temper got the better of him. He was not old enough and wise
enough to fence with such a situation as this. With reckless, headlong
candor, he burst out:
"You are offering me hush money. It's a crooked, dirty proposition. And
I won't stand for it. I know you were in the scheme to steal commissary
stores from the wharf----"
Walter checked himself, aghast that he should have said so much and
thereby delivered himself into the enemy's hands. The effect of this
speech upon Captain Brincker was extraordinary. He pulled at the ends
of his gray mustache as if greatly perplexed, winked rapidly, and
stared with an air of blank amazement:
"Steal the commissary stores?" he echoed. "I have been called many hard
names, young man, but I plead not guilty this time. Now that you have
begun, will you be so good as to let the cat all the way out of the
bag?"
It was Walter's turn to feel bewildered. Captain Brincker's denial
carried conviction. It impressed Walter as genuine. Perhaps his
conjecture had been wrong. At any rate, the checker was guilty, and why
had the two of them come straight to this house from Balboa?
"I suppose I'm in serious trouble now," stubbornly answered Walter,
"but I won't take back what I said. The _Juan Lopez_ has a lot of
freight on board that doesn't belong there, and I intend to find out
all about it."
Captain Brincker leaned forward in his chair, his strong, brown hands
resting upon his knees, his keen eyes almost mirthful.
"You are frank with me," said he. "We are at cross-purposes, you and I.
I give you my word of honor as a soldier that I know nothing whatever
about this stolen freight. It is safe to tell you the truth, because
I cannot let you go free until after the _Juan Lopez_ sails. I am not
her captain. I am in charge of the expedition. There may be a change of
government in San Salvador very soon. Perhaps I shall assist. The plans
are in the hands of my employer, in whose house you have the honor to
be."
"Then it is a filibustering expedition," cried Walter, all interest and
animation. "And you are going to mix up in another revolution? Whew,
but I wish you would take me with you."
"With your arm in a sling? Besides, my employer detests Americans. Do
you believe I am telling the truth?"
"It sounds that way," confessed Walter. "But what about that checker?
He must be in the house right now."
With a shrug, Captain Brincker explained:
"He comes to see my employer. It is not my affair. I have had no words
with the young man except this afternoon at the wharf. I was instructed
to see that certain supplies were taken on board. I asked him about
them. I did not look at the stuff. It was his business to check it up."
It was quite obvious that Captain Brincker was anxious to clear himself
in the eyes of this honest, ingenuous accuser. He may have committed
many a greater crime against the law, but he disliked being thought a
commonplace thief.
Tempted by the amicable drift of the interview, Walter ventured a
dangerous question:
"Your employer--who is he?"
Captain Brincker scowled. This was treading on forbidden ground. He may
have been inwardly disgusted that the man he served should have stooped
so low as to pilfer supplies for the expedition, but the matter was
not for him to meddle with. He had an odd code of loyalty, a sadly
twisted sense of honor, but such as they were he was stanch to them. He
would not break with the man who had bought his sword and his services.
"My employer?" said he. "That is not for me to tell you. I shall
have to lock you up for the present. It would be most unfortunate to
have the expedition of the _Juan Lopez_ spoiled by the tongue of a
meddlesome boy. The American government would seize the ship and arrest
all hands if the news leaked out. You know too much to be at liberty."
Oddly enough, Walter made no protest, nor was he any longer angry. He
perceived that he had blundered into one affair while he was on the
trail of another. Captain Brincker had been honest with him, discussing
the situation as man to man, and he was justified in guarding the
secrecy of his adventurous enterprise against discovery by the
authorities. The alarming possibility was that he might think it his
duty to inform his employer of Walter's knowledge concerning the stolen
merchandise.
"Are you going to report what I found out--that the commissary stores
were smuggled on board the _Juan Lopez_?" asked Walter.
Before Captain Brincker could answer, there came from behind the palms
at the other side of the _patio_ the screeching voice of a parrot:
"_Viva Panama. Pobre Colombia. Ha! Ha! Ha!_"
[Illustration: "_Viva Panama! Pobre Colombia! Ha! Ha! Ha!_"]
Walter jumped from his chair. His cheek was quite pale. He had heard
this parrot before. It belonged to General Quesada, who must be the
mysterious employer. Standing in a door-way opening from another
part of the house was the gross, shapeless figure of General Quesada
himself, the parrot cage in his hand. With him was the slouchy young
man from Balboa wharf. Before crossing the _patio_ they had halted in
time to hear Walter's unfortunate question.
The checker repeated it in Spanish, and General Quesada comprehended
that the young seaman of the _Saragossa_ who hammered him with a
broom-stick had now discovered the plot to rob the American government
of supplies for the filibustering expedition.
The Panamanian glared wickedly at Walter and bellowed in Spanish a
volley of questions aimed at Captain Brincker. The latter answered
reluctantly. The scene was evidently distasteful to him. It was in his
mind to temper the storm of wrath and hatred. But General Quesada knew
that he had been found out. The checker, snarling and vindictive, was
rapidly explaining that Walter had been spying at the wharf and on the
train, and had followed him into Panama. Captain Brincker turned to the
hapless Walter and said with a shrug:
"It is a worse fix for you than I thought. General Quesada has a
terrible hatred for you because you struck him and disgraced him on the
ship from New York. I had not heard of it until now. And he knows that
you know too much about the business at the wharf."
"Why don't you help me get out of the house?" implored Walter. "You
don't seem like a coward. He looks as if he wanted to murder me. I
can't put up a fight. I am crippled."
The soldier of fortune looked confused and ashamed. He had never
earned his wages more unpleasantly, but he made no aggressive movement.
Remembering his errand, General Quesada waddled across the _patio_ into
the hallway and dismissed the checker. The street door slammed shut
with a rattle of bolts.
"What did he say he was going to do with me?" Walter besought Captain
Brincker.
"He seems very much pleased to get hold of you. I will try to cool his
anger."
General Quesada returned, grunting and swearing to himself. After
hanging the precious parrot cage in a tree, he dropped heavily into
a wicker chair and sat staring at Walter with the most malicious
satisfaction. Occasionally he chuckled as if here was a jest very much
to his liking. Walter yearned for his broom-handle. He looked about for
something which might serve as a weapon. Regardless of consequences, he
would put his mark on the fat, ugly countenance once more.
General Quesada read his purpose and gave an order to Captain Brincker.
The two captors roughly hustled Walter into a large, empty room
overlooking the bay, and so close to the water that the flooding tide
could be heard lapping against the foundation walls.
"You just wait until my government hears of this performance," cried
Walter. "General Quesada will be chucked in jail, where he belongs."
Captain Brincker replied in kindly tones:
"Take my advice and do what you are told. It is the best policy."
Left alone, Walter tried to persuade himself that no serious danger
could menace him. The Isthmus was almost a part of the United States,
and he was no more than a few minutes' drive from the Canal Zone, and
the protection of his own people. General Quesada wished to frighten
him into silence.
Walter went to one of the long windows, which was barred against
harbor thieves by ornamental iron grillwork. Misty and golden in the
effulgence of sunset lay the fishing-boats, the wide bay, the scattered
islands, and the steamers anchored off the quarantine station. The
brief tropical twilight fled, and the night came down.
After a long while a boat scraped against the sea-wall. He could
discern it as a slow-moving shadow. Voices murmured in Spanish, an
order was sharply uttered, and an oar rattled against the masonry. It
did not occur to Walter that the coming of the boat had anything to do
with him. He supposed that a crew of fishermen was making a belated
landing.
CHAPTER VI
JACK DEVLIN IN ACTION
Señor Fernandez Garcia Alfaro waited in the lobby of the Tivoli Hotel
at Ancon until considerably after seven o'clock and no telephone
message had come from his friend Walter Goodwin. Disappointed at
having to dine alone, the Colombian diplomat wandered to the desk and
again asked a clerk to make sure that no tidings had been sent him.
He was possessed of an uneasy feeling that something might be wrong.
He had not found time to make inquiries concerning Captain Brincker,
but he wished Walter had not been so interested in keeping track of
that hardened adventurer. Intrigue and mystery are native to the air
of Spanish-American countries. One suspects whatever he does not
understand.
Finally Alfaro drifted into the dining-room of this excellent hotel,
conducted by the paternal government of the Zone, where people meet
from all corners of the world. Soon there entered a dapper, black-eyed
young dandy in evening clothes of white serge, whom Alfaro recognized
as a partner of a shipping-firm in Panama, and an old acquaintance of
his. Beckoning him to his own table, the Colombian warmly exclaimed:
"It is a great pleasure, Antonio. Where have you been? I have suffered
a thousand disappointments not to find you."
"Business took me to Costa Rica for two weeks," replied the other. "Are
you now going home or are you returning?"
"I go to see my father and mother, Antonio. I have been waiting for
an American friend to dine with me. He has not arrived. I am anxious.
You know everything that goes on in Panama. Tell me, what is Captain
Brincker doing here? You are aware of him, of course."
"Who is not? He is a famous character. Before I went to Costa Rica the
story was going around that his fortunes had picked up. He has been
down at the heel for some time, you know, loafing in Panama."
"There is to be a revolution somewhere?"
"Politics are very much upset in San Salvador. Who knows? By the way,
my firm has just sold the old _Juan Lopez_. We were glad to get her off
our hands, I tell you, before she sunk at her moorings. A wretched tin
pot of a steamer! You are interested, because she one time figured in
Colombian affairs."
"Who purchased the _Juan Lopez_?" asked Alfaro. "I saw her loading at
Balboa to-day, and Captain Brincker was on board."
"The new owner is General Quesada. I wish the fat rascal no good luck
with her."
"The owner is General Quesada?" loudly exclaimed Alfaro. "I am
startled. And what does Captain Brincker do on board?"
"He is in the service of General Quesada, so I am told. You may put two
and two together, if you like. I have learned to mind my own affairs
in the shipping business of Panama. Perhaps General Quesada imagines
himself to be the next president of San Salvador. He does not buy a
steamer and hire a man like Captain Brincker for a pleasure excursion.
Is it not so?"
Alfaro had lost his appetite. The process of putting two and two
together filled him with alarm. His young friend Goodwin was entangling
himself unawares in the concerns of General Quesada, who bore him a
violent grudge. Alas, that he could not have been warned to steer clear
of Captain Brincker and the _Juan Lopez_! Alfaro was a poor dinner
companion for the dapper Antonio. He asked other questions and the
answers were not reassuring. Quesada was said to have been gambling
heavily in the disreputable resorts of Panama. Where had he found funds
to finance a Central American revolution? He had stolen his provisions
and the _Juan Lopez_ had been sold him for a song. But guns and
munitions cost a pot of money, and there were wages to pay. Probably
some shady concession hunter had backed the enterprise.
All this Alfaro moodily considered until he could no longer curb his
impatience.
"You will be so good as to excuse me, Antonio," said he. "I have
something to attend to. The address of General Quesada's house in
Panama? I wish to write it down. And you say that Captain Brincker has
been living with him?"
"Something diplomatic in the wind?" smiled the shipping merchant. "You
fear the _Juan Lopez_ may again annoy the politics of your fair country
of Colombia?"
"No, Antonio. It has to do with a friend. He saved my life. It is
better to be too anxious for such a one than too little."
"You have my approval. Command me if I can aid you. _Adios._"
Hastening from the hotel, Alfaro took the shortest road to the Ancon
hospital, for Goodwin had told him that he was staying there for the
present as a guest. After considerable trouble, he found the young
surgeon of the accident ward, who was off duty in his quarters.
"Yes," said he, "the base-ball pitcher with a game wing is supposed to
be bunking with me, but he flew the coop this afternoon and I haven't
seen him since. He said he was going to Balboa to sniff the breezes.
You look worried. Anything wrong?"
"I am a little afraid for him," answered Alfaro. "He was to dine with
me. I think he may have gone into Panama and got himself into trouble.
He has mixed himself up with some people who would be very glad to do
him harm."
The surgeon looked perturbed in his turn.
"I am fond of the youngster," said he. "He is not in fit condition to
take care of himself. If you have reason to fret about him, suppose we
try to look him up. Shall I telephone the Zone police department? Have
you any clews?"
A solid foot-fall sounded on the screened porch, and the big frame of
Jack Devlin, the steam-shovel man, loomed at the door. His pugnacious,
redly tanned face beamed good-naturedly as he said in greeting:
"Howdy, Doc! I dropped in to see my young pal Goodwin, but he's not in
the ward. What have you done with him? Is he all mended?"
"We have sort of mislaid him. This is his friend, Señor Alfaro. He can
explain the circumstances."
Devlin gripped the slim fingers of the Colombian in his calloused paw
and exclaimed:
"Glad to meet you. Goodwin told me how you played a star part in the
one-act piece of the parrot and the broomstick. What's on your mind?"
"Goodwin has not come back, and we think General Quesada may have
caught him in Panama."
"Quesada, eh?" and Devlin scowled ferociously. "I wouldn't mind taking
a crack at that fat crook myself. What's the evidence? Put me next."
Alfaro explained in his vehement, impassioned manner, and at the
mention of Captain Brincker the steam-shovel man raised a hand and
interrupted:
"Stop a minute. You say you saw this gray-headed beach-comber in
Guayaquil one time? So did I, my son. I know him. He is bad medicine
for young Goodwin to interfere with, but he has a decent streak in him.
Quesada sounds a good deal worse to me. He's a yellow pup all the way
through. Come along, Señor Alfaro. Grab your hat and follow me. I need
you to sling the Spanish language."
"You are going to consult with the police?" queried the Colombian.
"Not on your life. I'll round up this Quesada-Brincker outfit all by
myself. I am kind of responsible for Goodwin. I feel like a godfather
by brevet to him. It will do no harm to look into this thing. I am
just naturally suspicious of Panamanians in general and of Quesada in
particular. Good-by, Doc. I'll keep you posted."
They were lucky enough to find a cab in the hospital grounds and, as
the _cochero_ plied the whip, Alfaro added the details of his meeting
with Goodwin on the wharf. Devlin listened grimly. He had become
taciturn. He was no longer the jovial, swaggering steam-shovel man
bragging of the prowess of "old Twenty-six" but a two-fisted American
of the frontier breed, schooled to think and to act in tight places.
"I intend to get into General Quesada's house and look his game over,"
said he.
"But he has a revolver. He tried to kill me with it," cried Alfaro.
"Pshaw, I never found one of you Spanish-Americans that could shoot
straight," was the impolite comment.
They left the cab at the nearest corner. Devlin strode ahead, Alfaro
peering warily about for unfriendly policemen of the Panama force. In
front of the house Devlin halted and said:
"You are a professional diplomat. Better stay outside and jolly the
Spiggoty police if a row breaks loose inside. They will try to help
Quesada. If I need you I'll sing out good and loud."
"But I am not a coward," earnestly protested the Colombian. "I am not
afraid to go in with you. Goodwin saved my life. I will do anything for
him."
"You do as you're told, young man, or I may get peevish with you," was
the decisive reply.
Devlin rang the bell. When the door was opened by some one dimly
visible in the unlighted vestibule, he demanded in very bad Spanish:
"I wish to see General Quesada. It is important."
A strong voice answered in excellent English:
"The general will not be home to-night. What is your business?"
Devlin shoved the other man aside and advanced into the hallway, at the
further end of which an electric bulb was aglow.
The other man quickly followed and locked the door behind him.
"Pretty exclusive, aren't you?" said Devlin. "Why, hello, Captain
Brincker. I'm looking for a young friend of mine named Goodwin. What
have you done with him?"
Gazing hard at the bold intruder, the soldier of fortune answered:
"There is no young man in the house. You are Jack Devlin."
"Sure I am, and my belief is that you are a liar. Do you recall the
night when you broke jail ahead of the government troops that were
going to shoot you next morning, and swam aboard my dredge in Guayaquil
harbor?"
"That revolution in Ecuador was unlucky for me," returned Captain
Brincker, in a matter-of-fact way, as if this meeting were not at all
extraordinary. "I was on the losing side. You hid me on your dredge and
kept me there until I could slip away in a German tramp steamer. I have
not forgotten it."
Devlin stood alertly poised, his mind intent on the main issue. If
there was to be a truce it must be on his own terms. There was contempt
in his eyes as he said:
"You have fallen pretty low since then, Captain Brincker, to play
jackal to this cheap bully of a General Quesada. I'm sorry I hauled
you aboard my dredge. I have called you a liar. Are you man enough to
resent it?"
As if his degradation had been brought home to him, Captain Brincker's
deeply lined cheek turned a dull red. He had his own misguided sense of
duty, however, and he was thinking of his employer's interests as he
rejoined:
"That is a personal matter. You and I will settle it later. I cannot
let you come into this house, do you understand?"
"Yes, I understand," growled Devlin. "You're bound to earn your dirty
wages. Now, what about young Goodwin? He's a friend of mine, and you
know what that means."
"I can tell you nothing----"
"I'm sick of all this conversation. I can see it in your eye that
you're guilty," was Devlin's quick retort. His fist shot out and
collided with the jaw of Captain Brincker, who staggered back as Devlin
clinched with him. Their feet scuffled furiously upon the stone floor.
The struggle was waged in silence. The steam-shovel man was the younger
and more active, and he was a seasoned rough-and-tumble fighter. A
hip-lock, a tremendous heave and twist, and Captain Brincker went down
like a falling tree.
Devlin sat upon his chest and searched his clothing for weapons.
Finding a loaded revolver, he cocked it and allowed the vanquished
soldier of fortune to rise to his feet. The victor's nose was bleeding,
but he looked pleased as he gustily observed:
"Too speedy for you, eh? I hope I jolted some decency into you. I'm the
boss and you'll tell me what I want to know."
Without a word, Captain Brincker walked to the _patio_ and sat down
with his head in his hands. The violent fall had dazed him. Devlin
looked at him and said with a pitying laugh:
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself. You used to be a good deal of
a man. A bit too old for the strenuous life! Getting the best of you
was like taking candy from a child. Now, I mean business. Tell me the
truth, or I'll bend this gun over your head."
Like a good strategist, Devlin had taken his stand where he could
command a view of all the entrances into the _patio_. If surprised by
numbers, he intended to shoot his way out of the house.
Captain Brincker hated himself beyond words. He had wavered when he
might have protected Walter Goodwin against the wrath of General
Quesada. And now Devlin had made him feel utterly unmanly and
despicable. It had not been a part of his trade to protect a thief and
betray an honest, courageous American lad. He was in a mood to try to
make amends. He was ready to haul down his colors.
"I owe you a favor, Devlin," said he, speaking with an effort. "You
did me a good turn in Guayaquil harbor. And you have the upper hand.
I cannot stomach this Goodwin affair. Yes, the boy came here. I meant
him no harm. I was afraid he knew too much about the _Juan Lopez_
expedition. I wanted to keep him quiet for a little while. But he had
caught General Quesada at something worse. There was a scheme between
him and an American at Balboa, a young man who had been knocking about
the west coast and found a job on the wharf. He had gambled with
Quesada and lost. The general put the screws on him."
"I heard about that to-night," impatiently broke in Devlin. "Then
Quesada took Goodwin out of your hands. What has he done with him?"
"Carried him aboard the _Juan Lopez_. She is ready to sail. They are
only waiting for me to come on board."
"How long will Quesada wait for you? The steamer is anchored in the
bay, I suppose."
"He will not wait too long. He is afraid and suspicious. He will think
the expedition has been discovered and I am in trouble. He will expect
me to get away in a sail-boat and meet him at a rendezvous on the
coast."
"I believe you are honest with me," said Devlin. "I can't go aboard and
take Goodwin off single-handed. And neither can I trust you to see that
no harm comes to him on the voyage."
"You are not fair to me," protested Captain Brincker. "I am very sorry
that General Quesada got hold of him."
Devlin laughed incredulously and made an emphatic gesture with the
revolver.
"You are a desperate, broken man," he cried. "You are playing for a
stake against big odds. Quesada is your boss. Once you get to sea with
a ship-load of guns and cut-throat recruits and you will not let the
boy stand between you and your business. You are too old a dog to learn
new tricks. You mean well, but you are hard as nails. And I cannot
trust you to stand up against Quesada and the rest of them to save the
lad."
Captain Brincker chewed his gray mustache in silence. At length he
grumbled:
"What are you going to do about it?"
Devlin was perplexed, and he cogitated at some length before declaring:
"I have the bright idea. I will hold you as a hostage. When I think of
that poor crippled lad out yonder, with Quesada cooking it up in his
wicked heart how he can easiest make way with him, it's a wonder I'm
not mad enough to blow the head off you, Captain Brincker. You may be
thankful that I'm not a violent man."
Devlin glanced into the hallway. He dared not leave his prisoner, so he
gruffly ordered him to march in front of him. Halting inside the front
door, he sang out in a tremendous voice:
"Oh, you Alfaro! Get a jump on yourself."
The faithful Colombian heard the summons and dashed in as the door was
unbolted.
"Are you killed?" he gasped.
"Not by a considerable majority, my son. Captain Brincker and I had an
argument. I win. Here, don't step between him and the gun in my fist.
Do you know where to find a launch in a hurry and a man to run it?"
"Yes. My friend Antonio Varilla, who dined with me to-night, has a fast
gasolene boat."
"Can you find him to-night?"
"He was going from the hotel to the University Club of Panama to play a
match at billiards. He will be there now. Tell me, where is Goodwin?"
"I'm going to send you to find him, Alfaro. My Spanish is very rocky or
I'd do the trick myself and leave you on sentry duty with the prisoner.
You get that launch and you look for the _Juan Lopez_, understand? She
is in the bay, between here and Balboa. And you put it up to General
Quesada that his right-hand man, Captain Brincker, is too busy looking
into the muzzle of a gun to join the expedition. If Goodwin comes
back with you, Captain Brincker goes free. Otherwise I'll march this
gray-headed reprobate to the Ancon jail as a filibuster caught in the
act. And he'll get about five years. Uncle Sam is mighty hostile to
anybody who tries to touch off a revolution in these little Central
American republics."
Alfaro nodded with eager approval. Here was a crafty, resourceful
stratagem after his own heart. Devlin was a most admirable leader.
"I will find the launch in a hurry," said he, "and I will enjoy making
a speech to General Quesada. Trust me to do my share. Shall I come back
to this house?"
"Yes. I will not deprive Captain Brincker of my society. And you may
tell General Quesada that I intend to camp on his trail till I get his
scalp, too."
Alfaro vanished at top speed and Devlin prodded his captive back to the
_patio_. Under the circumstances, the soldier of fortune was not the
most entertaining company. They sat facing each other in the wicker
chairs while the hours dragged their slow length along. The house was
otherwise deserted. The servants had been dismissed earlier in the day.
The thick stone walls shut out the street sounds, but the open windows
overlooking the bay admitted the murmuring noise of the waves on the
beach.
At length Devlin heard the staccato explosions of a launch's engine,
diminishing in the distance. He hoped that Alfaro was on his way. The
tense excitement of the situation had slackened. Devlin was feeling the
nervous strain, and with a yawn he suggested:
"What about making some black coffee, Captain Brincker? You and I are
in for a late session to-night. Shall I convoy you into the kitchen? I
will poke the gun at you no more than I can help."
The prisoner complied rather grumpily. His sense of humor was in
eclipse. For a compulsory cook, he brewed a most excellent pot of
coffee which Devlin complimented in friendly terms. As an experienced
judge of men and their motives, he observed, after reflection:
"I do not think so harshly of you as I did. War is a cruel game, and
you are too old a dog to learn new tricks, I suppose. You ought to have
been caught young and tamed. I believe you had a notion of befriending
the Goodwin lad."
"Thank you, Devlin. It has been a good many years since any man said as
decent a thing as that about me." The fallen soldier of fortune looked
his gratitude, and his face was more eloquent than his words.
A long silence fell between them. Each man was busy with his own
thoughts. It was broken by Devlin.
"Quesada will not dare to knock Goodwin on the head and throw him into
the bay, will he? He thinks he has kidnapped the lad without anybody's
knowledge. And he has reason enough for getting rid of him."
"No. You need have no fear of that. He may plan nothing worse than to
maroon him in the jungle of San Salvador."
"It would be as bad as death for the boy, and his right arm is useless."
Through the seaward windows they heard the distant throb of a
steamer's engines, fluttering, irregular. The sound carried far across
the quiet water. The two men gazed at each other.
"She makes a clatter like a mowing-machine. You could hear her for
miles," said Devlin. He leaped to his feet and menaced his prisoner
with the revolver. "'Tis an old, worn-out boat that makes a noise like
that."
"It is the _Juan Lopez_," exclaimed Captain Brincker, and he did not
flinch. "I know those engines of hers. She is outward bound. She has
sailed without me."
"Who cares about you?" roared Devlin. "Alfaro failed to turn the trick.
Quesada has carried young Goodwin to sea, and precious little show the
lad will have for his life."
CHAPTER VII
A FAT RASCAL COMES TO GRIEF
When Jack Devlin learned that the _Juan Lopez_ had gone to sea, he
forgot his threat of putting the soldier of fortune in a Canal Zone
jail. His one concern was to rescue Walter Goodwin. The steam-shovel
man had that rugged, indomitable temperament which refuses to quit
as long as there is a fighting chance. Fiercely turning upon the
disconsolate Captain Brincker, he shouted:
"I have no time to bother with you. You could have saved the lad, and
you stood by and let Quesada carry him away. Many a man has stretched
hemp for a deed less cruel. I will wait here for Alfaro. Get out of my
sight. The house is not big enough for the two of us."
Without a word Captain Brincker, sorry, ashamed, and perhaps repentant,
went into the street. Devlin paced the hallway like a caged lion,
hoping against hope that Alfaro might be bringing Walter Goodwin ashore
in the launch. It was after midnight when the Colombian came running
into the house with only breath enough to gasp:
"The launch was a big one--General Quesada was frightened when he saw
it--he thought it was from the American government, sent to catch him.
They would not listen to me. The _Juan Lopez_ slipped her cable and ran
to sea as hard as she could."
Grasping him by the shoulders, Devlin hoarsely demanded:
"Could you tell if Goodwin was on board?"
"I called to him in English. I told him his friends would find him. I
thought I heard him try to holler something, but there was much noise,
the engines, and the men giving orders. They yelled to me to keep away
or they would shoot."
"I guess we had better get busy and plan our campaign," said Devlin.
"What will you do? Wake up the American minister in Panama? It is now
a diplomatic matter. It is an international outrage. It is a Panama
steamer that has stolen Goodwin, and General Quesada belongs to the
republic."
"Oh, shucks!" drawled the steam-shovel man. "Do you know what that
means? Cabling to Washington and enough red tape in the State
Department to choke a cow. And delay to drive you crazy. And what
becomes of Goodwin in the meantime?"
Rather chagrined to hear diplomacy dismissed so scornfully, Alfaro
timidly ventured:
"The civil administration of the Canal Zone?"
Devlin hauled the young man into the street and hustled him in the
direction of Ancon, as he confidently declared:
"Your theories are too complicated, my son. Diplomacy has killed your
speed. There is only one boss on the Isthmus, one man who can do things
right on the jump without consulting anybody in the world. I'm going to
put this up to the colonel."
"To Colonel Gunther?" Alfaro was dum-founded. "Will he let you talk to
him? Will he bother himself with this affair of ours?"
"You bet he will. And let me tell you, a steam-shovel man with the
high record for excavating in the Cut can go straight to the colonel on
business a whole lot less important than this."
"Can we see him to-night?"
"No. There is no train to Culebra. But, lucky for us, to-morrow is
Sunday, and he holds open court in his office, early in the morning.
It is then that any man on the job with a kick, growl, or grievance
can talk it over with the colonel. I will go to your hotel with you,
Alfaro, and we will hop aboard the first train out. It will be only a
few hours lost and that condemned old junk-heap of a _Juan Lopez_ will
not be many miles on her way to San Salvador."
Greatly comforted, the Colombian exclaimed with much feeling: "Next
to the colonel, I think you are the biggest man on the Isthmus, Señor
Devlin."
"I can handle a steam-shovel with any of them, and I aim to stand by my
friends," was the self-satisfied reply.
Before eight o'clock next morning they were waiting in a large, plainly
furnished room of a barn-like office building perched on the hill-side
of Culebra. The walls were covered with maps and blue prints. At a
desk heaped with papers sat the soldierly, white-haired ruler of forty
thousand men, the supreme director of a four-hundred-million-dollar
undertaking. His cheek was ruddy, his smile boyish, and he appeared to
be at peace with all the world.
He had come to listen to complaints, no matter how trivial, to pass
judgment, to give advice, like a modern Caliph of Bagdad. It was a cog
in the machinery of his wonderful organization. Dissatisfaction had
been checked as soon as the colonel set apart the one forenoon of the
week in which his men were not at work in order that they might "talk
it over with him." As Jack Devlin entered the office he was humming
under his breath the refrain of a popular song composed by an Isthmian
bard:
"Don't hesitate to state your case,
The boss will hear you through,
It's true he's sometimes busy
And has other things to do;
But come on Sunday morning
And line up with the rest,
You'll maybe feel some better
With that grievance off your chest."
The colonel was listening gravely to a difference of opinion between a
black Jamaican laborer and his buxom wife, touching the ownership of
seventeen dollars which she had earned by washing and ironing. The wise
judge ruled that the money belonged to her and ordered the husband to
return it. He muttered:
"I'se a British subjeck, sah, an' mah property rights is protected by
de British laws, sah."
"All right," and the colonel's blue eyes snapped. "If you like, I'll
deport you. You can get all the English law you want in Jamaica."
A perplexed young man informed the colonel that he was the secretary
of the Halcyon Social and Literary Club of Gorgona, which desired to
give a dance in the ballroom of the Tivoli Hotel. The request had been
denied because of a clash of dates with another organization. Would the
colonel help straighten it out? Certainly he would, and he sent the
young man away satisfied, after investigating the difficulty with as
scrupulous attention as if the fate of the Gatun dam had been involved.
A brawny blacksmith's helper had been discharged by his foreman. He
thought himself unfairly treated. The colonel pressed a button, and
inside three minutes the man's record, neatly documented, was on the
desk.
"You deserved what you got," crisply declared the colonel. "You were
drunk and insolent, and I am surprised that the foreman did not tap you
over the head with a crow-bar."
Jack Devlin restlessly awaited his turn, while Alfaro looked on with
comical wonderment that so great a man should busy himself with matters
so trifling. At length the colonel swung his chair around and affably
observed:
"Hello, Devlin. Have you dug Twenty-six out of the slide? And when will
she make another high record?"
"She is some bunged up, colonel, but still in the ring. The old girl
will be going strong in another week."
"What can I do for you?"
"It's not myself that has any kick, colonel. I want your help for
a friend of mine. He's not on the job, but I hope it will make no
difference with you. He worked for Mr. Naughton on the dynamite ship,
and then Major Glendinning half-way promised him a place on the gold
roll because he can pitch ball like a streak of greased lightning."
Devlin halted and grinned at his own frankness. The colonel smiled back
at him.
"Base-ball is irrelevant, Devlin, but I am sure Major Glendinning would
make your young man earn his salary. So he wanted him to pitch for
Cristobal? But you are the catcher of the Culebra nine. You show an
unselfish interest, I'm sure."
"I'm a fierce rooter on the ball field, colonel, but I can't let it
come between friends. This young chap, Walter Goodwin, got General
Quesada down on him. He whaled the fat scoundrel with a broomstick on
board the _Saragossa_. Quesada was trying to perforate Señor Alfaro
here with a gun."
The colonel appeared keenly interested and interrupted to say: "Why,
I was on the ship and I remember the youngster quite well. He was a
seaman. The skipper told me about the row. I liked Goodwin's pluck.
Between us, Devlin, the Panamanian gentleman had provoked a drubbing."
"Yes, sir. Goodwin was working his passage to the Isthmus to look for a
job and----"
"Why didn't he let me know it on shipboard?" queried the colonel. "I
was interested in him."
"He didn't have the nerve. You looked too big to him. To cut it short,
he was tipped over by the same landslide that left me and poor old
Twenty-six all spraddled out. He came out of Ancon hospital yesterday
with no job and his arm tied up. And he wandered down to Balboa and
caught General Quesada's steamer, the _Juan Lopez_, stealing commissary
stores from the wharf to outfit a filibustering expedition. Quesada got
hold of him and lugged him off to sea last night. It's surely a bad fix
for Goodwin."
The colonel no longer smiled. His resolute mouth tightened beneath the
short, white mustache. The blue eyes flashed. He listened to Alfaro's
detailed confirmation of the story. With winning courtesy the colonel
said to him:
"Your father, the Colombian minister of foreign affairs, has no
love for the United States, I am told. Will you tell him, with my
compliments, that I greatly admire the behavior of his son?"
Turning to Devlin he added, crisply, decisively:
"I have no reason to doubt your story. You have a fine record. I shall
act first and investigate later. Goodwin was kidnapped from the Zone,
from American soil, as I understand it. He was living with one of the
surgeons at Ancon?"
"Yes, colonel. You can find out by telephone easy enough."
"How many men were there on the _Juan Lopez_? And how fast is she?"
Alfaro answered:
"There were fifty or sixty men on board when I saw her at Balboa
yesterday. Perhaps more were taken on in the bay last night. I know
something about filibustering expeditions. She would carry not less
than a hundred men. And of course there are plenty of guns in her. Her
speed is slow. She will go eight or nine knots, I think."
"Will General Quesada fight?" The colonel asked the question with
distinctly cheerful intonation, as if for the moment he was more
soldier than engineer.
"He may fight for his neck," said Devlin, "and if he has a chance
to get away. He knows that he is caught with the goods. But without
Captain Brincker, he is a lame duck."
"And you are sure that young Goodwin is in serious danger?"
"Why not?" and Devlin pounded the desk with his hard fist. "Quesada has
motives enough for losing him somewhere."
"I agree with you. And, besides, I should like to recover those
commissary stores."
The colonel gazed at the opposite wall, composed and thoughtful. Devlin
eyed him wistfully, afraid that he might consider the case as beyond
his jurisdiction. Then with a quick glow of heat, the anger of a strong
man righteously provoked, the colonel said sharply:
"It is a rotten, abominable performance, clear through. We are wasting
time."
Summoning a clerk, he told him:
"Get Captain Brett, the superintendent at Balboa, on the telephone.
Tell him that I wish the biggest, fastest tug of the fleet, the
_Dauntless_, if possible, to be coaled and ready for sea in two hours.
Please ask him to call me up and report."
The colonel hesitated as if a question of authority perplexed him, but
when the clerk returned he was ready with another command.
"I want to talk with Major Frazier of the marine battalion at Camp
Elliot personally. Please connect his house with my desk."
Devlin nudged Alfaro. The face of the steam-shovel man lighted with the
joy of battle. The colonel was a man with his two feet under him. They
heard him say to the commander of the force of United States marines:
"It is an emergency detail, Major. I will forward the formal request
and explanation to you in writing, but the documents can wait. An
officer and a half company of men will be enough. Yes, equipped for
active service. Thank you, very much. I will have a special train at
your station in an hour from now, ready to take them to Balboa. It is a
bit of sea duty. Your men will enjoy it."
Other orders issued rapidly from the colonel's desk. The Panama
Railroad was notified to despatch a special train and give it a clear
track through to the Pacific. The Department of Justice of the Canal
Zone was requested to prepare the papers in due form for the arrest
of General Quesada, and the seizure of his vessel. The splendidly
organized system of administration moved as swiftly and smoothly in
behalf of that humble, forlorn young wanderer, Walter Goodwin, as if he
had been a person of the greatest consequence. As a final detail, the
colonel made out passes permitting Devlin to go in the special train
and on board of the government tug.
"You will want to see the fun, I suppose," said he, and his blue eyes
twinkled again. "I should enjoy it myself."
"Indeed you would, sir," frankly replied Devlin.
"I think the capture of the _Juan Lopez_ is in capable hands, with you
and the marines as the fighting force. Report to me as soon as you come
back. And bring Goodwin with you. I want to congratulate him on the
kind of friends he has made on the Isthmus."
[Illustration: "Report to me as soon as you come back. And bring
Goodwin with you."]
They stepped aside and made way for a committee from the machinists'
union with a grievance concerning pay for over-time. The colonel
settled back in his chair to give the problem his judicial attention.
As Devlin left the office he said to Alfaro:
"What did I tell you, my son? When you want quick action there is no
boss like a benevolent despot. That man will finish the Panama Canal
two years ahead of time because the people at home have sense enough to
let him alone."
"If he had ambitions like General Quesada he would rule all of South
America," was the tribute of Fernandez Garcia Alfaro.
A little after ten o'clock of this same morning the sea-going tug
_Dauntless_, of the dredging flotilla, swung away from the coaling
wharf at Balboa. Beneath her awnings lounged thirty marines in khaki
who welcomed Jack Devlin as a friendly foe. Several of them had played
on the Camp Elliot nine of the Isthmian League, and the stalwart
Culebra catcher had more than once routed them by hammering out a
home-run or a three-bagger at a critical moment.
"It's comical that we should be chasing after a pitcher that will try
to trim both of us, Jack," said a clean-built sergeant.
"Maybe he will ease up and let us hit the ball occasionally," replied
Devlin. "He is a good-hearted lad and he will be grateful for a small
favor like this."
The _Dauntless_ was faster than the _Juan Lopez_ by two or three knots
an hour. General Quesada had about ten hours' start in his flight
up the coast. The pursuers could not hope to overtake him until the
morning of the second day at sea. The excitement of the chase kept
all hands alert and in high spirits. From the captain of marines in
command of the detachment to the stokers in the torrid fire-room ran
the fervent hope that General Quesada, outlawed and desperate, would
make a fight of it. The marines regretted that cutlasses had not been
included in their equipment. The proper climax of such an adventure was
an old-fashioned boarding-party.
The long, hot day and the sweet, star-lit night passed by and the
powerful tug steadily tore through the uneasy swells of the Pacific,
holding her course within sight of the Central American coast lest the
quarry might double and slip into bay or river.
The whole ship's company crowded forward when the master of the
_Dauntless_ shouted from the wheel-house that he could make out a
smudge of smoke to the northward.
Slowly the tell-tale smoke increased until it became a dense black
streamer wind-blown along the blue horizon. Whatever the steamer might
be, she was lavishly burning coal as if in urgent haste.
The captain of marines sternly addressed his hilarious men, threatening
all sorts of punishment if they so much as cocked a rifle before the
order was given. Shading their eyes with their hands, they stood and
watched the funnel of the distant steamer lift above the rolling waste
of ocean. Slowly her hull climbed into view, and the skipper of the tug
recognized that rusty, dissolute vagabond of the high seas, the _Juan
Lopez_.
Shortly after this, the fleeing filibuster must have recognized
the _Dauntless_ as hailing from the Canal Zone. The funnel of the
_Juan Lopez_ belched heavier clouds of smoke from her funnel and an
extra revolution or two was coaxed from her decrepit engines. The
_Dauntless_ gained on her more slowly. Now the cheerful marines dived
below to handle shovels instead of rifles, and they mightily reinforced
the sweating stokers.
"I can juggle coal pretty fast myself," said Jack Devlin, as he
stripped off his shirt and followed the other volunteers.
This frenzied exertion was needless. An hour or two and the _Dauntless_
must certainly overtake the laboring _Juan Lopez_. Sympathy for Walter
Goodwin, anxiety to know what had become of him, made them wild with
impatience. He was an American, one of their own breed, and he was in
trouble.
The vessels were perhaps three miles apart when the _Juan Lopez_ veered
from her course and swept at a long slant toward the green and hilly
coast.
"There is no harbor hereabouts," shouted the skipper of the
_Dauntless_. "They are going to beach her and take to the woods."
The alarm on deck reached the ears of Jack Devlin, who popped out of
the stoke-hole and viewed the manoeuvre with blank dismay.
"I don't blame Quesada for beating it to the tall timber," he muttered
disgustedly. "But what about Goodwin?"
The _Dauntless_ turned to follow, but her master was unfamiliar with
the shoals and reefs lying close to the land. He reluctantly slackened
speed to feel his way inshore. The _Juan Lopez_, handled by one who
knew where he was going, made straight for a small bight of the coast
where the jungle crept, tall and dense, to the beach.
The marines opened fire when the converging courses of the two vessels
brought them within extreme rifle-range of each other. The _Juan Lopez_
showed no intention of heaving to. Her crew could be seen running to
and fro, working furiously at the tackle of the boats, making ready to
drop them overside. The volleys from the _Dauntless_ seemed only to
quicken their industry.
"Oh, for a Maxim or a Colt's automatic!" sighed the captain of marines.
"I'd make that wicked old tub look like a porous plaster. Who ever
dreamed the beggars would do anything but surrender?"
General Quesada had obviously concluded that it was better to try to
find another ship and more guns and rascals than to cool his heels in
an American jail. The flight of the _Juan Lopez_ ceased abruptly and at
full-tilt. She grounded close to the beach, and the shock was so great
that her ancient funnel was jerked overside as if it had been plucked
out by the roots.
Many of her crew tarried not for the boats, but jumped overboard,
bobbed up like so many corks, and scrambled through the surf to scuttle
headlong into the jungle.
The disappointed marines were within effective shooting distance, and
they merrily peppered the vanishing rogues. The _Dauntless_ swung
her boats out and a landing-party was swiftly organized. The boats
of the fugitive filibusters were more or less screened from view by
the intervening hull of the _Juan Lopez_. A sharp lookout was kept
for the bulky figure of General Quesada himself. Somehow he escaped
observation. Before the marines had set out for the shore, the last
runaway from the _Juan Lopez_ had fled across the beach and buried
himself in the jungle. The stranded ship had emptied herself as by
magic. It was concluded that General Quesada had been among the crowd
which filled the boats and floundered pell-mell through the surf.
"The boss pirate got away from us," disgustedly exclaimed Jack Devlin.
"There is no use chasing them through the jungle," said the captain
of marines. "They will scatter like a bunch of fire-crackers, and we
should be tangled up and lost in no time."
"I did not see Goodwin anywhere," replied Devlin, looking very anxious.
"The hull of the _Juan Lopez_ was between us and the boats, so that we
couldn't see all of them go ashore. Goodwin may have been taken into
the jungle. If he had been left behind on the ship, he would be making
signals to us by now."
"He would if he were alive," dolefully muttered the steam-shovel man.
CHAPTER VIII
WALTER SQUARES AN ACCOUNT
Locked in a room of General Quesada's house, Walter Goodwin felt
acutely sorry that he had not minded his own business. He ought to have
reported his suspicions to the American officials of the Canal Zone.
In his rash eagerness to play a man's part he had undertaken a task
too big for him. He was badly frightened, and yet he could not bring
himself to realize that serious danger threatened him.
Waiting in the darkened room, he heard the boat's crew make a landing
at the sea-wall near by. Instead of passing into the street, they
turned and began to climb the stone staircase, in the rear of the
house. Their talk had ceased. One of them laughed and another hushed
him with a low command. There was something sinister in this approach.
Walter surmised that their errand might concern him. Into his mind came
the tales he had read of wild, cruel deeds done in this Bay of Panama
in days gone by.
The men from the boat halted on the staircase, and presently Walter
heard the rumbling undertones of General Quesada. A door was opened,
and the swarthy sailors from the _Juan Lopez_ filed into the room.
They closed around Walter as if intending to take him with them. He
wanted to motion them away, to show them that he was an American, that
he could take his medicine like a man, but, alas! the brave, boyish
impulse came to naught. He could only stare stupidly at one and the
other, as if beseeching them to reveal their purpose. The mate in
charge of the party, a sprightly, shock-headed fellow with gold rings
in his ears, liked the lad because he made no foolish outcry, and tried
to cheer him with a friendly grin.
They escorted him to the sea-wall and thrust him into the boat. If he
shouted for help, only the Panamanian sentries posted along the ancient
fortification would hear him. It was no business of theirs if a sailor
was being carried off to his ship. In the stern loomed the broad,
shapeless figure of General Quesada. The oars made bright flashes in
the phosphorescent waters of the bay, and the boat moved out into the
silent night.
Walter comprehended that he was being carried on board the _Juan
Lopez_, because General Quesada was afraid to leave him behind as a
witness of his misdeeds. It was a most alarming situation, but Walter
was comforted by the hope that Captain Brincker would befriend him
during the filibustering voyage. The soldier of fortune was the most
masterful man of the rascally company and was likely to hold the upper
hand.
At length the low hull of the laden steamer was discernible in the
star-lit darkness. A gangway had been lowered, and after General
Quesada had clumsily clambered to the deck, Walter followed with the
help of the good-natured mate. He was promptly shoved into a small
deck-house and left to wonder miserably what would happen next. There
was much commotion in the steamer. From the loud talk, Walter gathered
that she was ready to sail as soon as Captain Brincker should come on
board. The forlorn lad anxiously listened for the strong voice of the
soldier of fortune.
A sailor entered the deck-house on some hasty errand and left the door
unfastened. Walter ventured outside and was unnoticed in the confusion.
Leaning over the rail, he gazed at the lights of Ancon and thought of
his stanch friends Jack Devlin and Alfaro. They would not know what had
become of him. They were powerless to aid him.
A gasolene launch was coming toward the steamer from the direction of
Panama. The filibustering crew was more noisily excited than ever.
Captain Brincker was expected to come off from shore in a row-boat.
This sputtering launch was instantly suspected. The _Juan Lopez_ was a
steamer with an uneasy conscience, quick to take alarm. Her hull began
to vibrate to the clangorous beat of her engines as she prepared to
take flight.
The launch swung in a wide arc to pass close alongside. General Quesada
was hailed in Spanish and told to wait for an important interview.
He was not inclined to parley. All he could think of was that the
American authorities wished to overhaul and search the steamer, and he
frantically ordered her to make for the open sea at top speed.
The voice from the launch had sounded familiar to Walter Goodwin. Hope
leaped in his heart. His friends were trying to rescue him. Before he
could call out, Fernandez Garcia Alfaro was shouting to him in English:
"Ho, there, Goodwin! We are wide awake. Keep your courage. We will not
give you up!"
Walter tried to yell a glad response, but a hand was clapped over his
mouth, and he was roughly dragged back into the deck-house. For the
moment disappointment overwhelmed him, but he found consolation in the
fact that his friends had traced and followed him. Otherwise he would
have felt quite hopeless, for the _Juan Lopez_ had sailed without
Captain Brincker and there was no one to stand between him and the
ruffianly vengeance of General Quesada.
The general was too busy during the night to pay heed to his prisoner.
He sorely needed the seasoned soldier of fortune to handle the lawless
crew. The encounter with the launch had made him fear pursuit, and his
martial spirit was considerably harassed. He blamed Walter Goodwin
as the source of his woes, and yearned to knock the meddlesome young
passenger on the head and toss him overboard. This was not feasible,
however, because although the ship's company was ripe for revolution,
rebellion, or piracy on the high seas, they would draw the line at
cold-blooded murder. It seemed an easier solution of the problem to
take Goodwin ashore with the expedition and conveniently lose him in
the jungle of San Salvador.
"He looks at me like the cat that swallowed the canary," sighed Walter
next morning. "Oh, if my right arm was only well and sound, I might
fight my way out of this fix somehow. But I just can't believe that
things won't come my way."
There were several English-speaking adventurers on board, recruited
from the ranks of the "tropical tramps" of Colon and Panama, and
General Quesada was unwilling to have Walter make their acquaintance.
His story might enlist their sympathy. He was therefore removed from
the deck-house and put in a small state-room below. A sentry was posted
outside the door, and a boy from the galley brought the rough rations
served out to the crew.
It was a tedious imprisonment, with nothing to do but lie in the bunk,
or walk to and fro three steps each way, or gaze through the round
port-hole at the shining, monotonous expanse of ocean. Now and then
the deck above his head resounded to the measured tramp of many feet
and the cadenced rattle of breech-blocks and bayonets. Rifles had been
broken out of the cargo, and the landing party was being drilled.
The boldly romantic character of the voyage made Walter's blood tingle.
To be afloat with these modern buccaneers who were bound out to raid
the Spanish Main was like a dream come true. But he had no part in
it. He was something to be got rid of. Youth is not easily dismayed,
however, and the whole experience was too fantastic, too incredible,
for Walter to regard his plight as gravely as the facts warranted.
On the second day at sea, he was staring through the open port, sadly
thinking about the fond household in Wolverton. There was a sudden
shouting on deck. The engines of the _Juan Lopez_ clanked and groaned
as if they were being driven beyond the limit of safety, and every beam
and plate and rivet of the rusty hull protested loudly. Some one ran
through the cabin shouting:
"They are after us, all right. This blighted old hooker can't get away."
Walter cheered and jubilantly pounded the door with his undamaged
fist. A faster steamer was chasing the _Juan Lopez_. It must have been
sent out from the Canal Zone. Poking his head through the port, he
squirmed as far as his shoulders would let him. Far astern he caught a
glimpse of a black, sea-going tug of large tonnage, whose tall prow was
flinging aside the foam in snowy clouds.
Soon the _Juan Lopez_ sharply altered her course and began to edge in
toward the coast. From this new angle Walter was able to watch the tug
draw nearer and nearer until he could make out the khaki uniforms of
the marines massed forward.
"Here is where General Quesada gets what is coming to him," he cried
exultantly.
He wiped his eyes and blubbered for joy. He was proud of his country.
There was no taking liberties with Uncle Sam on the high seas! A little
later he became alarmed at discovering that the _Juan Lopez_ was
heading straight for the beach. He comprehended the purpose of General
Quesada. The steamer was to be rammed ashore and the crew would escape
into the jungle. They might take Walter with them, beyond all reach of
rescue.
Now the bullets from the tug began to rattle against the fleeing
steamer or to buzz overhead. Walter dodged away from the port-hole and
tried to kick the state-room door from its hinges. He could hear the
crew working in wild haste to cast loose and lower the boats. From the
hold came a tremendous roar of steam. The _Juan Lopez_ was in danger of
blowing up before she stranded.
Then there came a rending shock as she struck the beach. Walter was
thrown from his feet and dazed, but he managed to scramble to the
port-hole, where he could see the crew diving overboard and fleeing
through the surf. Others were tumbling pell-mell into the boats. In any
other circumstances the flight of these bold revolutionists would have
been vastly amusing.
Walter began to hope that he had been forgotten in the panic. As soon
as the ship was deserted he would smash the flimsy door and gain the
deck, where he could signal the other vessel and let his friends know
that he was alive and well.
Before he could break his way out, the door was hastily unlocked, and
there stood General Quesada, perspiring freely and greatly excited.
He had delayed to get his precious prisoner who knew too much.
Carelessly assuming that in his disabled condition Walter could make
no resistance, he proposed to take him from the ship single-handed. In
expecting meek obedience he was guilty of a serious error of judgment.
With rescue so near, the robust youth was in no mood to obey the
beckoning gesture.
He objected to being led into the jungle, and his objection was sudden
and violent. His wits were working as nimbly as if he were pitching
a championship game of base-ball. This was his first chance to meet
the enemy on anything like even terms. And he had a large-sized score
to settle with General Quesada. Walter would have preferred a hickory
broom-handle and plenty of room to swing it, but without weapons of
any kind and only one good arm he must choose new tactics.
General Quesada stood in the doorway and growled impatiently at him.
Stepping back to gain momentum, Walter lowered his head and lunged
forward like a human battering-ram. He smote the corpulent general in
the region of his belt. The impact was terrific. The amazed warrior
doubled up and sat down with a thump and a grunt, clasping his fat
hands to his stomach. His appearance was that of a man who had collided
with a pile-driver.
Walter climbed over his mountainous bulk and the general was too
breathless to utter his emotions. His face expressed the most painful
bewilderment. He had ceased to take interest in his very urgent
affairs. Walter had no time to pity him. He had resolved to assist the
stern course of justice to the best of his ability.
Using his left arm and shoulder, he sturdily shoved at the collapsed
general until he had moved him inside the state-room. It was like
trying to shift a bale of cotton. The door opened outward into the main
cabin, so that Walter was able to close and lock it. Then he pushed
and dragged a table, a bench, and several chairs to build a barricade
against the door as an extra precaution. This accomplished, the weary
and panting youth said to himself:
"I think that will hold him for a while. It was about time the worm
turned. Now I'm willing to call it quits. And his crew isn't going to
bother to look for him."
This was a sound conclusion. It was a case of every man for himself.
They were entirely too busy trying to outrun the bullets of the marines
to concern themselves about the fate of General Quesada. He could not
even yell to them to wait for him, because the collision with Walter's
hard head made it necessary for him to remain seated on the floor,
still pensively clasping his belt and wondering what had happened to
him.
Walter was for taking no chances with his prize. Perching himself upon
the barricade, he waited for the boarding-party from the tug to find
him. The ship became silent except for the shriek of the steam from the
safety-valves. Walter was left in sole command to enjoy the situation.
Presently General Quesada showed symptoms of reviving. He lifted his
voice in a quavering appeal to his comrades in arms, but they had
disappeared beyond the green curtain of the jungle. Walter listened to
the plaintive wail and gloated. He was not vindictive by nature, but
there was such a thing as righteous retribution. When General Quesada
became more vigorous and began to kick the door, Walter addressed him
soothingly and advised him to be calm.
When the party of marines reached the steamer, Jack Devlin was one of
the first to scramble on deck. The voice of this faithful friend came
down the companion-way to Walter.
"He is not in the ship, you can take my word for it. He would have
surely shown himself by now."
"Oh, don't look so sad-eyed and hopeless until we make a search,"
replied the captain of marines. "I can't believe that he was put out of
the way during the voyage. And we didn't see him taken ashore."
Walter kept silent. This was the most delightful moment of his life.
Presently Devlin came downstairs into the cabin. The place was
gloomy after the dazzling sunshine above, and he halted to get his
bearings. Then moving forward, he almost stumbled into the barricade
of furniture. Walter leaned over, grasped him by the shoulder, and
exclaimed:
"I'm glad to see you aboard. Did you have a pleasant trip?"
The steam-shovel man jumped back, and emitted a yell which could have
been no louder if he had been clutched by a ghost.
"Are you honestly alive?" he gasped. "You blessed young rascal, you!
You scared me out of a year's growth."
"Of course I am alive, and doing very nicely, thank you. How in the
world did you happen to get on my trail? And what about the tug and the
rest of the outfit?"
Walter tried to make his voice sound as if this were a commonplace
meeting, but his eyes twinkled with mischief as he thought of the
second surprise in store for the steam-shovel man.
"I'll tell you all about it when you are safe aboard the _Dauntless_
yonder," said Devlin. "And what are you doing roosting on that heap of
furniture like a crazy hen? Oh my, but I'm sorry General Quesada got
away from you. We surely did pine to lug him back to Panama with us."
The hapless general in the state-room had become silent, for he was
reluctant to draw the attention of the American party. Walter chuckled
as he replied:
"I have a present for you. It is a big one. If you really want General
Quesada, you can have him with my compliments."
"You're joking, boy. He is boring a large hole in the jungle by this
time."
"He wishes he was. Open this door behind me and see what you find."
Devlin tossed the furniture aside and entered the state-room. General
Quesada was sitting on the edge of the bunk and appeared very
low-spirited. Just then the captain of the marines came below with a
dozen privates at his heels. The steam-shovel man loudly summoned them,
adding with tremendous gusto:
"Didn't I tell you that Goodwin was the finest lad that ever happened?
All he needed was a chance to get into action."
They cheered for Goodwin, and cordially invited General Quesada to
surrender and end the war.
"You _would_ steal Uncle Sam's groceries and go skylarking off to
start trouble in the cute little republic of San Salvador, would you?"
playfully remarked a sergeant of marines. "I never had a chance to talk
plain to a real live general. Step lively, now. No impudence."
The general was permitted to get his personal baggage, after which the
marines escorted him to the _Dauntless_, where his fallen fortunes met
with little sympathy. He was a sullen, despondent figure and not a
trace of his pompous bearing was left.
The sea was so smooth and the weather indications so favorable that
it was decided to salvage the cargo of the _Juan Lopez_. Her arms and
munitions and supplies were valuable and would be confiscated by the
American government after due process of the law. The transfer had to
be made in small boats, and was a task requiring two or three days. The
_Juan Lopez_ was hopelessly stranded. She would soon go to pieces, a
melancholy memorial of a Spanish-American revolution that was nipped
in the bud.
Walter Goodwin was in danger of being spoiled by the marines who petted
and pampered him, and were never tired of hearing him spin the yarn
of his adventures which began with the episode of the parrot and the
broomstick. Their surgeon attended to the injured arm, and found that
it was little the worse for the rough usage of the voyage. His verdict
was so encouraging that Walter could hope to play base-ball before the
Isthmian League finished its winter season.
This aroused violent argument on board the _Dauntless_. A war of words
raged over Walter's services as a pitcher. Jack Devlin set up a claim
in behalf of Culebra, because he had engineered the rescue.
"All obligations to Naughton and those other Cristobal robbers are
wiped out," cried he. "If I hadn't set out to find you and stuck to it
like a terrier at a rat-hole, where would you be now?"
"Camp Elliot has a pretty fast nine," chimed in the captain of marines,
"and Goodwin fairly belongs to us. Didn't we have a lot to do with
getting him back?"
"I really belong to Cristobal--" Walter tried to explain, but Devlin
cut the discussion short by declaring:
"We'll put it up to Colonel Gunther for a decision."
After one of these good-natured altercations, Walter called the
steam-shovel man aside and anxiously told him:
"It is all very fine to be called a hero and to be in such demand as a
pitcher, but it doesn't make me very happy. I came to the Isthmus to
look for a job on the gold roll and I seem to be getting farther away
from it all the time. I am broke and my folks at home don't know where
I am, and I don't seem to be giving them a lift very fast."
Devlin was instantly attentive and serious. It seemed to strike him
for the first time that being rescued was not a part of Walter's real
programme.
"Of course, I thought you ought to be pretty well satisfied with
yourself," said he. "You have kicked up a most amazing rumpus for a
lad of your tender years. Now, about a job----"
"Don't think me ungrateful," broke in Walter. "I don't deserve all this
wonderful friendship and kindness. I am just worried about things,
that's all, and I want your advice."
"You are perfectly right, my boy. You are keeping your eye on the
ball. In the first place, the colonel himself is interested in you. He
ought to be. You made trouble enough for him. And Major Glendinning
will forgive you for trying to stop that landslide in the cut. You
have recovered a good many dollars' worth of commissary supplies for
him, and that thief of a checker has been gotten rid of. You can take
it from me that he hasn't been seen since. Your stock ought to be way
above par by now."
"Do you really think there will be something for me to do?" asked
Walter.
"If there isn't, I'll recommend you to the colonel for the job of
suppressing Spanish-American revolutions with neatness and despatch.
The Panama republic and San Salvador between them ought to reward you
handsomely for putting the lid on General Quesada."
"Maybe my luck has turned," was Walter's hopeful comment.
"If it hasn't, my son, you can set me down as a mighty poor guesser."
CHAPTER IX
A PARENT'S ANXIOUS PILGRIMAGE
For the present Walter Goodwin may safely be left on board the
sea-going tug _Dauntless_ in charge of the faithful Jack Devlin and the
admiring marines. Some attention should be paid to the parents and the
sister whom he had left behind in Wolverton. Their affairs may seem
very prosaic after the crowded experiences of the only son by land and
sea, but nevertheless they deserve to be accounted for.
As the waiting days wore on, the house seemed to echo with loneliness.
Walter had filled it with lusty clatter and activity, and the very
disorder he had always left in his wake was an intimate part of the
family life. There was a jubilee when his first letter arrived from the
Isthmus, telling them of a safe voyage and of finding employment on the
very day he landed. Because the thoughtful youth made no mention of
the dynamite ship, the household became more cheerful and less anxious.
Walter was the most wonderful boy in the world.
Several days after this they received two letters in the same mail,
which caused alarm and bewilderment. One of them had been dictated to
Naughton in the Ancon hospital, the other written and signed by the
impulsive Jack Devlin. They told the news of Walter's accident and this
was very disturbing in itself, but, alas, the well-meaning attempt
of the steam-shovel man to send solid aid and comfort by means of a
money-order inspired the most alarming conjectures.
Mr. Horatio Goodwin was a man of a practical turn of mind, and he
sounded the first note of misgiving when he told his wife and daughter:
"I cannot understand it at all. Walter has been hurt, but he sends
us no details whatever. In this letter, which he dictated from the
hospital, he tells us a great deal of interesting news about the Panama
Canal, but it sounds as if it had been written by a man thoroughly
familiar with the work."
"Walter is very bright--" began Eleanor.
"He never shone at English composition," sighed her mother.
"And I am quite sure he is not a trained engineer," added Mr. Goodwin.
"The letter is not like Walter at all, and as for this money-order for
forty dollars enclosed in the brief note from Jack Devlin----"
Mrs. Goodwin no more than half heard this speech. She was wondering
whether Walter was really having good care. How dreadfully forlorn it
must be in a hospital two thousand miles from home! Supposing one of
those horrid mosquitoes that carry yellow-fever should fly in and bite
him?
"Bless his heart!" cried she. "And we have no idea of what has happened
to him. And to think of his sending money to us when I am quite sure he
must need it for himself! It is just like him."
"He was probably hurt while trying to save somebody's life," quoth
dewy-eyed Eleanor. "This Mr. Devlin says that poor Walter was a bit
mussed up. It sounds perfectly awful, doesn't it?"
Mr. Goodwin shook his head and appeared more than ever perplexed as he
reread the two letters and laid them side by side on the sitting-room
table, with the mysterious money-order between them.
"You two hero-worshippers do not seem to realize what an extraordinary
affair this is," said he. "In his own letter Walter makes no mention
of sending money. And in the same mail comes this large remittance on
account of Walter's salary, and it is enclosed by one Devlin, who seems
to have no official position on the Isthmus."
"He is the steam-shovel man who filled Walter with the notion of going
to the Isthmus," said Mrs. Goodwin. "Walter thought he was a splendid
fellow."
"But Walter knew nothing about him. And it is out of the question that
a boy like him should be given forty dollars in advance by a government
department only a few days after his arrival on the Isthmus."
"Walter must have made a wonderfully fine impression," argued the
doting mother. "He was worrying about us, and he asked Mr. Devlin to
look after his affairs and mail some money to us."
This sounded plausible, provided one took an exceedingly rosy view of
Walter's earning capacity, and as Mrs. Goodwin and Eleanor regarded it,
nothing was too extraordinary to happen on the Isthmus of Panama. But
after Eleanor had gone to bed Mr. Goodwin eyed the baffling money-order
and lost himself in meditative silence. At length his wife reminded him:
"You have been staring at that table long enough, Horatio. And you are
worrying more and more. Of course, all I can think of is that Walter
is ill and needs his mother. I hope his next letter will explain
everything."
"He is the only boy we have, and I wish he was at home," said Mr.
Goodwin in a low voice. His shoulders sagged more than usual and
his face was white and tired. The absent son was tugging at his
heart-strings. Unconsciously he let his glance dwell on the shabby old
easy-chair in which Walter had been wont to fling himself after supper
and study his high-school text-books.
"Why, Horatio, you look as if you thought something serious might have
happened to him," exclaimed his wife. "I confess that I am very low in
my mind, but mothers are silly creatures. Are you very anxious?"
"You and I have never hidden anything from each other, my dear," he
slowly answered. "Neither of these letters is from Walter himself.
They make me feel as if we had not really heard from him. If some one
had a motive for wishing us to believe that we need have no anxiety
about Walter, this money might have been sent for a purpose, to keep us
quiet."
"A bad motive? These letters were meant to deceive us?" quavered Mrs.
Goodwin, and then she rallied to say with the most emphatic decision,
"I don't care if it costs a dollar a word, Horatio, I want you to send
a cable message to the hospital as soon as the office opens to-morrow
morning. I would gladly sell every stick of furniture in the house to
be sure of getting a reply from Walter within the next twenty-four
hours, and so would you."
"That is precisely what I had decided to do," he exclaimed with an
approving smile. "I indorse your ultimatum, my dear. We shall hear
from Walter to-morrow, and then we'll be laughing at each other for
borrowing so much trouble."
It therefore happened that before noon of the following day there was
delivered to the surgeon of the accident ward a message, which read
thus:
Goodwin hospital Ancon.
Cable me is all well.
Father.
The surgeon sighed as if here was a hard nut to crack. This was only
the day after Walter Goodwin had vanished from the hospital, to the
consternation of his friends, Devlin and Alfaro. They had hurried into
Panama in search of him and no word had come back to the surgeon.
"I have no idea where Goodwin is," he said to a friend of the hospital
staff. "He failed to turn up here last night, and I guess his friends
couldn't find him. They were afraid he was in trouble."
"What will you do with the cablegram?"
"I think I had better hold it for two or three days before I try
to answer it myself. Devlin or that impetuous young diplomat from
Colombia may drift in and tell me some news. And Goodwin himself
may reappear. I hate to cable the agitated parent that his son's
whereabouts are unknown. It would be like looking for a needle in a
hay-stack for me to try to find him in Panama."
The surgeon tucked the message in his pocket and went to join his
white-clad fellows in the operating-room. He was a very busy young
man, and there was no time in his crowded day to investigate the
disappearance of Walter Goodwin. And inasmuch as the _Dauntless_ and
the marines had been sent to sea with very little publicity, several
days passed before the story of the pursuit of the _Juan Lopez_ reached
the hospital.
Meanwhile that anxious parent, Mr. Horatio Goodwin, had found it
difficult to give proper attention to his book-keeping duties in the
office of the coal-dealer in Wolverton. He started nervously when any
one entered the place and his eye was alert for the cap and buttons
of a telegraph-messenger boy. At the end of the first day of waiting,
he trudged homeward in a state of mind distraught and downcast. His
wife was grievously disappointed that no word had come from Walter,
but Eleanor maintained her blithe spirits. She had suddenly decided
to become a sculptor and labored until bedtime over a sticky lump of
modelling clay.
"This is a bust of Walter," she announced. "It looks as if his face
had been stepped on, but the firmly moulded chin is quite well done,
don't you think? It is comforting to look at that sculptured chin. It
shows that Walter can overcome all obstacles. It helps to keep me from
worrying about him."
Even this masterpiece failed to console the parents, who waited in vain
through another long day. Every little while Mr. Goodwin darted from
the coal-dealer's place to the telegraph office. At supper he told his
wife:
"There has been no interruption in the cable service, and our message
must have reached Ancon within two or three hours after I sent it."
"Walter may have left the hospital by this time," said she, "but they
ought to know his address."
"Yes. The department in which he is employed should be able to locate
him at once. The whereabouts of every American must be on record."
Walter's silence tortured them. Like other fathers and mothers since
the beginning, they imagined all sorts of mischances which might
have befallen him, just as when he had lingered after dark at the
skating-pond his mother was sure he had broken through the ice. Such
crosses as these the right kind of parents must bear. It is part of the
price they pay. On the Isthmus of Panama Walter Goodwin might consider
himself a man, but in his own home, in the hearts of his own people,
he was still a boy to be watched over, to be feared for, to inspire a
thousand tender anxieties of which he would never be aware.
"It will be very hard to wait for a letter from him," murmured Mrs.
Goodwin. "I have tried to be brave, but----"
"You have been brave and fine," and her husband kissed her. "Perhaps I
should not have let him go. I find it difficult to apply myself to my
day's work. I can write to the canal authorities asking them to make a
search, but we could not expect a reply before three weeks."
At breakfast next morning Eleanor, whose faith in the ability of her
masterful brother to conquer in any circumstances was still unshaken,
declared with the air of one who had solved a problem:
"If I were the parent of an only son who was lost, strayed, or stolen,
do you know what I'd do? I should take that money-order that has made
all the trouble and use it to pay my way to the Isthmus of Panama as
soon as I could."
"It would take a good deal more than forty dollars," replied Mrs.
Goodwin, "and your father could not leave his business."
"Very well, but father can find another position, and he can never find
another son like Walter." Eleanor's eyes sparkled with determination.
"We may be poor just now, but you have said a hundred times that you
are rich in your two children. It seems to me that you have lost half
your fortune. At least, you don't know where he is."
Mr. Horatio Goodwin made no argument. His gaze was rather absent as
he sat looking at his impulsive daughter. She had echoed what was in
his own mind, but he could not make it seem practicable. Mrs. Goodwin
revealed what was closest to her own heart by exclaiming unsteadily:
"I was awake most of the night trying to plan this very thing, Horatio.
Oh, I want you to go to Panama and bring Walter straight home with
you. Why, Eleanor and I would take in washing if necessary. Is it
impossible?"
"Nothing is impossible if you try hard enough," gravely affirmed
Eleanor. "There is Joan of Arc, for instance. She is my favorite
character in history. Just think what she went through----"
"The comparison is a little far-fetched," said Mr. Goodwin, as he
looked at the clock and went into the hall to put on his overcoat.
He was usually at his desk on the stroke of the clock, but now he
lingered. All his days he had walked in the beaten path of habit, a
methodical man unaccustomed to veering off at sudden tangents. Now he
had been violently lifted from the rut and his mind was in rebellion.
He had been afraid of poverty, but this anxiety was overshadowed. Mrs.
Goodwin followed him into the hall. Her troubled face was so eloquent
that he said:
"It is not really impossible, my dear. I could raise the money for the
trip, either on my note, or by placing a small mortgage on the house."
"You need not worry about leaving us," she replied. "There is a little
left in the savings-bank, and we can get along nicely."
"Oh, you blessed daddy," cried Eleanor, her arms around his neck. "When
can you start? I will help mother find your summer clothes in the
attic, and pack the little black trunk. You are going to the tropics,
you know."
"There is no hurry, my young fly-away. Matters are not in shape to go
at a moment's notice."
He was not as deliberate as his words indicated. On the way to the
coal office he bought a New York newspaper and turned to the shipping
advertisements. A steamer was scheduled to sail direct to Colon that
very afternoon at five o'clock, and there would be no more departures
for several days. Mr. Goodwin wore a hopeless air. It seemed utterly
out of the question for him to take this steamer, although a train
connection from Wolverton would enable him to reach the wharf by four
o'clock. Unreconciled to the delay, he entered the coal office and
listlessly took the ledgers and journals from the safe.
His employer, an elderly Irishman with a rough tongue and a reputation
more or less ungodly, halted while passing the desk and inquired:
"What's been on your mind for the last couple o' days, Mr. Goodwin?
You've been hoppin' in and out of here like a distracted flea. Anything
wrong with th' strappin' lad that went sailin' off to make his
forthune? Has he been forgettin' to write to ye? 'Tis the way of 'em. I
raised five meself."
This solicitude was unexpected, and Mr. Goodwin stammered in surprised
tones:
"Why, thank you. Yes, I am greatly concerned about Walter."
"Tell me about it," demanded the other. "Has he got himself into a
scrape, or can't ye get anny word from him at all?"
The father explained matters, and the shrewd, leathery countenance of
his employer expressed lively interest as he commented:
"Thim Spaniards is a queer lot. I mistrust 'em on gineral principles.
One of me own boys fought agin 'em in the war, tho' he was fightin'
typhoid-fever germs at Tampa durin' the whole of his enlistment.
Annyhow, ye ought to go down there right away an' look after your boy.
'Tis the proper thing to do. Ye have no lads to spare."
"I hope to be able to arrange to go, but--but I expected to consult
with you--" began Mr. Goodwin.
"You need not worry about your job, if that's what you're drivin'
at," exclaimed the old man. "'Tis not much of a job, but it will be
here when you come back. As ye know, keepin' my books is no great
undertakin' an' I pay what it's worth. It would go agin me principles
to pay more. Have you enough ready money to finance th' journey? I hope
ye will have two fares to pay comin' back."
"Well, I haven't the funds just at present, but I may be able, in a few
days, to secure----"
"Quit beatin' about the bush, Mr. Goodwin, and talk to me like a man.
Are you afraid I'll bite ye? There ain't a citizen of Wolverton that
stands better than you. Why will ye go messin' around and wastin' time
tryin' to raise money? Will three hundred be enough? Ye'll find a way
to pay me when you get on Easy Street again, and I will not burst into
tears if you don't."
Mr. Goodwin fumbled for his handkerchief. He had all the symptoms of a
cold in the head. His employer regarded him with an enjoyable grin and
resumed:
"You don't know what to make of me separatin' meself from a dollar
unless it's took from me by violence. My dear man, I'm a philanthropist
in disguise, tho' I didn't know it meself until now. When does a ship
sail to the place ye want to go to?"
"This afternoon. I can catch it if I go to New York at eleven o'clock,"
answered the dazed book-keeper.
He was grasped by the back of the neck, his hat jammed on his head,
his overcoat flung at him, and as the strong arm of the coal merchant
propelled him to the front door a husky voice roared in his ear:
"Trot home an' say good-by to the wife an' stop at the bank as ye dash
for the train. The cash will be there. Now shoo, an' God bless ye! I
have five of me own, and I would go to a hotter place than the Isthmus
of Panama for anny one of them."
Mr. Horatio Goodwin ran home so fast that he lost his breath and could
only paw the air and make funny noises while his dismayed wife hovered
over him and was undecided whether to bathe his head in cold water or
summon the family doctor. He had begun to make a feeble remark or two
when that serene damsel Eleanor laboriously descended the stairs, the
little black trunk bumping behind her. She showed both insight and
presence of mind by exclaiming:
"He is not having a fit, mother, dear. He is in a great hurry to go to
Panama, and he isn't used to running up the hill. I had an impunct that
he would come home this morning, and I've been getting things ready for
him."
"Is the child dreaming?" cried Mrs. Goodwin. "Horatio, what _is_ the
matter with you?"
"Eleven o'clock train--steamer this afternoon--everything
arranged--straight from heaven--last man in the world to expect it
from--can't understand it--" panted Mr. Goodwin, who had dropped into a
chair and sat with his legs sticking out straight in front of him.
His audience waited to hear no more, but began to whisk things into the
little black trunk.
"It is just like being in a drama," observed Eleanor, her cheeks as red
as two roses. "I may try to write a play, for I begin to have doubts
about my genius as a sculptor. Where are father's clean socks, mother?
In the mending basket?"
"Do find his last summer's straw hat," commanded Mrs. Goodwin. "I am
afraid Walter used it as a target and shot the crown out. Horatio, do
you suppose a batch of my doughnuts would keep if I put them in a tin
cake-box? Walter simply dotes on them."
"Put them in my straw hat? Nonsense!" returned Mr. Goodwin, to whom
this dialogue had sounded rather confused. "Please telephone for a
cab, Eleanor. I wish to have plenty of time at the station, and we can
sit down there and talk things over. I was never caught in a whirlwind
before and my wits seem to be considerably scattered."
Granted peace of mind, the sea voyage to the Isthmus would have been
a rare vacation for Mr. Horatio Goodwin. As it was, he felt ready to
risk his neck in a flying-machine to reach the journey's end as soon
as possible. He found the passengers most cordial and sympathetic and
every one on board took an interest in his quest.
As soon as the steamer dropped anchor in Colon harbor the captain began
to make inquiries. One of the doctors from the American quarantine
station, who came on board to inspect the ship's company, happened
to be a friend of Naughton, the dynamite man. He had met that bland
gentleman a few days before and obtained from him an unfinished story
which was not calculated to reassure Mr. Goodwin.
"Indeed I have heard of young Goodwin," said the doctor. "You see,
I am a base-ball crank, and I knew that he was expected to pitch for
Cristobal. His first job was unloading dynamite for Naughton----"
"Unloading dynamite!" murmured the father of Walter. "Was he--was he
blown up?"
"Not a bit of it. He made good. The next I heard of him he was dug out
of a landslide in Culebra Cut."
"And did he survive that?" Mr. Goodwin's knees were trembling, and he
sat down in a deck-chair.
"Oh, yes. It didn't damage him much, barring a badly wrenched arm which
spoiled his pitching. He was in Ancon hospital----"
"Then the letters were all right. I am so relieved," and Mr. Goodwin's
face beamed. "Now I can find him and----"
The quarantine doctor looked perplexed and hesitated before he replied:
"I hope so. The last time I saw Naughton he told me a most remarkable
yarn. Young Goodwin had been carried to sea in a filibustering steamer
by a notorious Panamanian named Quesada, who had it in for him. A
government tug and a company of marines were sent in chase."
"And what then?" Mr. Goodwin had completely wilted.
"I haven't heard the end of it. The tug ought to be back by this time
unless she had to run all the way to San Salvador. I'm quite sure the
boy is all right. He is hard to down. I shall be glad to put you in
touch with the right people as soon as you get ashore."
"This all sounds like the worst kind of a nightmare," wearily muttered
Mr. Goodwin. "If I can find him I shall take him home by the first
steamer."
CHAPTER X
BASE-BALL AND A HAPPY FAMILY
Almost a week after the _Juan Lopez_ had fled so hastily from the
Bay of Panama, Walter Goodwin came back in the government tug with a
body-guard of devoted marines. Although he had managed to make a good
deal of noise in the world for a youth of his years, he had no false
ideas of his own importance. As he looked at it, he had made a muddle
of things and his friends had pulled him out. He must show them that he
could stand on his own feet and they must be given no more trouble in
his behalf. Before landing at Balboa, he said to Jack Devlin:
"Please forget about me. I can jump right in and look for a job."
"Not until I have taken you to the colonel. Those were his orders.
We'll board the first train to Culebra on the chance of finding him in
his office."
"Did he really want to see me?"
"Sure. You are the prize disturbance of the Isthmus."
Colonel Gunther was in consultation with two of his division engineers
when the steam-shovel man led Walter in by the arm. Shoving aside a
mass of blue-prints and typewritten data, the colonel stepped forward
and heartily exclaimed:
"Why, here is the young man who was so handy with the broomstick! I
am delighted to know that your latest voyage has turned out so well.
I understand that you bagged General Quesada as an incident of the
adventure."
Walter blushed and replied:
"I had a lucky chance to get square with him, sir."
"The lad used his head, colonel," put in Devlin, with a broad grin.
"It's head-work that counts on the Isthmus, if you please. I have heard
you say it yourself."
"I can't thank you enough. I wasn't worth all that trouble," said
Walter.
"Oh, perhaps you were," smiled the colonel. "That remains to be seen.
Devlin told me that you were looking for work when you got into this
extraordinary scrape. You have done the Canal Commission a considerable
service. Would you like to take a position on the wharf at Balboa?"
Walter was about to answer with great fervor when a tall, spare
gentleman in khaki entered the office from another room and paused to
survey the group. Then he raised his voice abruptly and protested:
"Pardon me, colonel, but Goodwin belongs to me. I saw him first. With
your permission I will use him in the Cristobal commissary."
"Oh, how are you, Major Glendinning," and the colonel chuckled. "Has
base-ball anything to do with your lively interest in this young man?"
"Officially? No. Between us, as man to man? Yes," frankly returned the
major. "The force at Cristobal will be most unhappy if Goodwin is sent
to Balboa. They will consider themselves wronged. Their morale will be
impaired."
"Is it as bad as that?" The colonel tried to look serious. "If
base-ball is really involved, I had better surrender. I would rather
not add to my troubles."
The major bowed his thanks, and his stern features relaxed in a
mischievous smile. Turning to Walter, he said in his curt way:
"Glad to see you again. How is the arm? I called at the hospital to see
you, but you had flown off on that ridiculous voyage. Can you steer
clear of landslides and revolutions for a while?"
"I'll try, sir. I should like to lead a very quiet life. I can pitch
again before long."
The major glanced at the colonel and said impressively to Walter:
"I shall give you a job in my department, not on account of your
base-ball, mind you, but because you did a clever, plucky piece of work
on Balboa wharf. Is that clearly understood?"
"Be careful, or you will protest too much," laughed Colonel Gunther, as
he returned to his desk. "I think there is no question that Goodwin has
earned the right to a job in the Zone."
Jack Devlin shook hands with Walter and whispered:
"I had it in mind to put in a word myself. I want to break you in
at firing a steam-shovel when you are strong and husky again. But it
would have started another row over the base-ball end of it. Major
Glendinning is a stubborn man to lock horns with. So long, my boy. Your
luck has turned. I'll look you up on my first day off."
"You are the best friend a fellow ever had," said Walter.
Two days later he was put on the gold roll as a commissary clerk and
assigned to the great warehouse in Cristobal, which was filled with
groceries, dry-goods, hardware, shoes, crockery, candy, and what-not.
It was one depot of the unique system of store-keeping conducted on a
vast scale by a paternal government. After his breathless adventures,
Walter was glad to work with all his might at the humdrum task of
tallying the merchandise as it came in from the railroad cars.
He was thus engaged when his father found him. Mr. Horatio Goodwin
halted amid the boxes and barrels, and stood staring at his tall son as
if to make sure that his vision had not tricked him. Walter dropped his
tally-sheet, blinked in his turn and shouted:
"Goodness gracious, father! Is it you or somebody else?"
With this he made a violent assault on his parent, swung him clear of
the floor in a bear-like hug, and set him down in a rumpled condition.
"Are you really all right, Walter?" gasped Mr. Goodwin.
"Of course I'm all right. Can't you see it for yourself? You can't lose
me," Walter kept repeating as if he were firing minute-guns. "And what
brought you way down here from Wolverton?"
Mr. Goodwin tried to explain, but both were too excited to weave a
coherent narrative, and after waving his hands helplessly the father
cried:
"We can tell all this later. I have come to take you home with me. A
steamer sails for New York to-morrow."
"To take me home with you?" Walter's face was dismal beyond words.
This was a worse catastrophe than the landslide. "Why, father, you
don't understand. Everything is coming my way. I am on the gold roll at
seventy-five per month, and I intend to send 'most half of it home. I
had a few little upsets, but that's all past. Do you honestly mean it?"
"It is why I made the long journey," firmly answered Mr. Goodwin. "Your
mother and I cannot stand it, Walter. After she hears of the dynamite
and the landslide and the pirates she will never forgive me if I leave
you here."
"But you will give me a chance to talk it over with you?" implored
Walter. "A fellow can't afford to have his career smashed all to
flinders. Please look around first and see what a fine country this
is to live in. It is as quiet and safe as Wolverton, and a good deal
healthier."
"Your adventures sound like it," was Mr. Goodwin's dry comment. "Can
you quit work at once and come over to the hotel with me?"
"Not until noon and then I will knock off for dinner, father. It
wouldn't be square to leave my job, even to talk things over with you.
Excuse me, but I must keep this car-load of stuff moving."
Mr. Horatio Goodwin was repulsed, but by no means vanquished. For
all his mild demeanor, he had an obstinate streak, and his purpose of
taking Walter home was unshaken. As a dutiful son, Walter was sorely
distressed. He had never defied his father, nor did he wish to do so
now. But he could not bear to think of leaving the Isthmus with success
in his grasp. Resorting to strategy, he said to his father when next
they met:
"Now that you are here, why don't you spend a week in seeing the canal?
It is the greatest show on earth. You ought not to miss it. You needn't
worry about me. I am as safe as if I were clerking in a corner grocery
in Wolverton."
The suggestion delighted Mr. Goodwin, although he had a struggle with
his conscience on the score of expense. He ought to hasten back to his
desk in the coal-dealer's office. But never again would he have such a
vacation as this, and it would be easier to persuade Walter by pressing
the argument gradually. Next morning Mr. Goodwin, eager and alert, went
out to view the Gatun locks and dam.
Walter toiled in the commissary and meditated great thoughts. There
must be some way to solve the problem. He bided his time until Major
Glendinning, passing through the warehouse on a tour of inspection,
halted to ask:
"How are you going to like the job?"
"Tremendously, sir, thank you. But I may have to resign this week. My
father has come after me."
"What? Does he think you are incapable of taking care of yourself?"
thundered the major. "What's the matter with him?"
"They want me with them at home. I am too far away from the family."
"Pshaw! Does your father need you in his own business?"
"No, sir. His business doesn't amount to much at present. He was with
the Wolverton Mills for twenty years as accountant and book-keeper----"
"The mills closed down," interrupted the major. "I used to purchase
from them."
"Yes, sir. My father is a first-class man in every way, but times are
dull at home and--and--" Walter mopped his face and floundered on,
"you see, I happened to think that instead of my going home to the
family, I might somehow manage to bring the family down here. It sounds
foolish, but----"
Major Glendinning was both touched and amused. He had heard of Walter's
ambition to "give his father a lift."
"You mean to insinuate that there might possibly be an opening for a
first-class accountant and book-keeper in the canal organization?" he
queried. "Can you recommend him?"
"Very highly," was Walter's grave reply. "I have known him for
seventeen years, and he can furnish the very best of references."
"Bless me, but you are a sort of continuous performance," exclaimed
Major Glendinning. "A really first-class accountant and book-keeper!
Um-m! If you are a chip of the old block, your father deserves careful
consideration. Such men are not any too easy to find for the office
work of the various departments, even though the pay-rolls are full."
"He is at the Washington Hotel in Colon," hopefully suggested Walter.
"Of course, I am very anxious to stay on the job, and I don't want to
disobey him----"
"Perhaps you can persuade him to file a formal application," said Major
Glendinning.
Six weeks later a holiday crowd assembled in the base-ball park at
Cristobal to see an important game of the Isthmian League series. These
hundreds of cheerful, hearty Americans stood for something more than a
keen interest in the most popular sport of their nation. They showed
that the pestilential tropics had been conquered, that the northern
races could live and work and play in health and comfort where once the
fever-laden Chagres River had slain its thousands.
When the bow-legged captain of the Cristobal nine, "Bucky" Harrison,
led his men across the diamond for preliminary practice, the grandstand
greeted the pitcher with particular applause. He was tall and rugged
and of a pleasant countenance, and one might have heard the on-lookers
remarking:
"That is young Goodwin. Cristobal expects to win the championship with
him."
"He is in the commissary and doing very well, I understand."
"His father has a position in the same department, and the family
lives at Cristobal. The mother and sister are sitting over yonder. Do
you see the pretty young girl with the fair hair and the pink cheeks?
She is in the Zone high-school."
As Walter Goodwin swung his good right arm in "warming-up" practice
with the catcher, he glanced at the grandstand with an air of pride and
satisfaction wholly unselfish. His venturesome voyage to the Isthmus
had been tremendously worth while. One more achievement, and his cup
would be full to overflowing. He must prove that he could pitch winning
base-ball. But a fellow who had earned a place for himself on the gold
roll, and then found a fine position for his father, and moved the
whole family from Wolverton, ought to face the heaviest hitters of the
Culebra nine with a good deal of confidence in himself.
Shortly before the game began, Walter spied a black-haired young man,
who came running across the field, wildly waving his Panama hat. With a
joyous shout, Walter scampered to meet Señor Fernandez Garcia Alfaro,
who explained in his dramatic fashion:
"I have just now arrived from Colombia in the nick of time to behold
you play the grand sport of base-ball, my dear friend. My steamer lands
me at Balboa this morning. I jump for the train. I rush. I am in the
break-neck hurry, and here I am."
"This is a glad reunion. And General Quesada and his parrot will bother
you no more for some time," cried Walter.
"So I have heard. He is locked up in Uncle Sam's hotel with the iron
bars, which is a very good place for him. I am going back to Washington
to be a diplomat some more. And how is that dear family of yours? What
do you hear from them?"
"They are all here," exclaimed Walter, as he dragged the surprised
Colombian toward the grandstand. You may be sure that Mrs. Goodwin and
her daughter found this young man entertaining company, for he promptly
delivered himself of a eulogy of Walter as a noble, splendid young
man who had saved his life. In his own country girls of fourteen were
young ladies and to be treated as such, wherefore he instantly lost his
heart to Eleanor and was so flatteringly attentive that she felt very
grown-up indeed.
Their animated conversation ceased when the Cristobal players took
their positions in the field, and the first of the Culebra batsmen
marched to the plate. Mr. Horatio Goodwin actually shut his eyes when
Walter was ready to deliver the ball. There was one other spectator
quite as fidgety as he. It was that devoted patron of Isthmian
base-ball, Major Glendinning.
The opponents from Culebra were brawny men, and they were not at all
interested in the emotions of the Goodwin family. They proposed to
hammer the young Cristobal pitcher out of the box, and during the first
and second innings it looked as if they might be successful. That
temperamental dynamite expert, Naughton, slumped in a disconsolate heap
when he beheld Walter's pitching pounded for one hard, clean hit after
another. The game was still young, however, and the Cristobal fielding
was sharp and steady.
Walter gritted his teeth and took his punishment manfully. Jack
Devlin was catching for Culebra, and as Walter came to the bat, the
steam-shovel man muttered behind his mask:
"See here, my boy. I'll turn traitor for once. I want to see you make
good. I am responsible for you. Don't try to win on your speed. Ease
up. Save yourself. Use your head. You go at things too hard."
Here was friendship indeed. Devlin was as loyal to the Culebra nine
as he was to the devouring monster of a steam-shovel, old Twenty-six,
but he felt that as "Walter's godfather by brevet" he was in honor
bound to stick to him through thick and thin. The advice was sound.
Already Walter had felt warning twinges in his arm. He became more
deliberate and wary, and Culebra's batting streak was checked. The
Cristobal partisans cheered him lustily, and that elderly gentleman
of large affairs, Major Glendinning, was guilty of pounding a perfect
stranger on the back. Then "Bucky" Harrison and his comrades rallied
and dismayed the Culebra pitcher by driving in three runs, which tied
the score.
The game seesawed for some time, while Walter Goodwin became more
effective and cool-headed. The fateful seventh inning arrived, and
the score still stood at 6-6. Then Cristobal gained a run on a timely
hit. A little later, Culebra filled the bases with two men out. Walter
hitched up his belt and stole a glance at the grandstand. Eleanor was
leaning forward, lips parted, hands clasped, "wishing hard enough
to win," as he had so often beheld her on the high-school field at
Wolverton. He turned to face the Culebra batter, a bronzed six-footer
of the steam-shovel brigade. Just then there came booming across the
field the voice of Naughton:
"Oh, you Goodwin! Remember how you handled the stuff on the dynamite
ship. This is easy."
This was the right word in due season. Walter realized that he had
stood the test of a bigger game than this, that he had proved himself
in the day's work. As methodically as if he were carrying cases of
dynamite across the deck, he turned and sent the ball breaking across
the corner of the plate. The Culebra giant swung at it as if he
expected to drive a home-run into the Caribbean Sea. "One strike,"
called the umpire. The next ball floated lazily and so deceived the
batter that he made no attempt to hit it. A third ball was batted high
in air to fall into the waiting paws of "Bucky" Harrison.
Walter had pitched himself out of the tightest corner of the game
against the most formidable team of the Isthmian League. The game was
won, for during the last two innings neither side was able to score.
Walter's friends gathered around him as he pressed through the crowd to
join his family in the grandstand. Naughton marched at one elbow, Jack
Devlin at the other. Mr. Horatio Goodwin was earnestly shaking hands
with his wife, nor did he foresee that henceforth he was to be known
on the Isthmus, not by his own very respectable name and station, but
as "the father of the kid pitcher." Eleanor was confiding to Fernandez
Garcia Alfaro:
"He is the most wonderful brother that ever was. I wish I could show
you the bust that I made of modelling-clay. The firmly moulded chin was
prophetic. I can't understand how they managed to dig so much of the
Panama Canal without him."
Alfaro was as delighted over all the good fortune which had come to the
Goodwin family as if it had happened to himself.
"I shall go to Washington and be a diplomat with a heart full of the
greatest gladness," he shouted to Walter. "_Viva_ everybody!"
Jack Devlin approached rather sheepishly and eyed Mr. Goodwin uneasily
as he confessed:
"About that money-order I sneaked to you with the best of intentions.
It made you so much worry and false alarm about the boy that I ought to
be kicked. Here is where I apologize."
"It was the most brilliant inspiration you ever had," cheerfully
replied the father of Walter.
"Your generous impulse was one of the causes that brought us to the
Isthmus to live," added Mrs. Goodwin. "You had something to do with
reuniting the family. We feel under great obligations to you."
"Everything has ended so happily!" came from the radiant Eleanor. "Life
is uninteresting unless there are a few complications to look back on
as one grows older."
In the evening Jack Devlin called at the cottage under the palms at
Cristobal, beside the white beach and the flashing sea. He wished
to pay his formal respects to the Goodwin family, believing himself
largely responsible for their migration.
"There have been times when that lad of yours wished he had never set
eyes on me," he said to Mr. Goodwin, "but I reckon I'm forgiven. He had
a good berth in the commissary, but I am hoping he will want to tackle
a grown man's job after a while. If you want to finish his schooling I
will say no more, but there is no all-round education in the world like
holding down a job on the Panama Canal."
"Walter informs me that he wishes to become a mechanical engineer,"
replied Mr. Goodwin. "My parental authority has been rather shaky ever
since my son recommended me to Major Glendinning. It will be some time
before I dare to assert my rights as the head of the family."
"Father is joking," exclaimed Walter. "My family responsibilities did
give me some worry, but they are off my hands."
"Then with your father's permission, you will begin your real education
with a fireman's shovel, feeding coal into old Twenty-six," said
Devlin. "It is not an easy school, but I think you can stand up to it
by next summer."
"It sounds like a great place for a husky young fellow," blithely
quoted Walter, and Devlin indulged in a reminiscent grin.
"I think I told you something like that once upon a time," said he.
"You spoke words of wisdom," was Walter's emphatic verdict. "I am sure
that father and mother will agree that your advice was gilt-edged. I
am not looking for easy work. I want to help dig the Panama Canal. It
will be something to feel proud of all my life. And before the Culebra
Cut is finished and the big ships go sailing through, I intend to be a
full-fledged steam-shovel man."
THE END
BOOKS BY RALPH D. PAINE
_The Dragon and the Cross_
Illustrated, 12mo. $1.25
A lively story of how the son of an American missionary in China taught
some Chinese boys foot-ball and how the knowledge helped in one of the
native risings against the foreigners. A thrilling tale of fighting,
travel, and adventure.
_The Wrecking Master_
Illustrated, 12mo. $1.25
"Will be read with pleasure by the many boys to whom the sea speaks
with an inviting voice."--_New York Herald._
"It's always good to read the story of a lad who makes his way and
earns the love of fellow beings by his manliness. And when the story is
told with spirit and deals with life upon the sea one thinks that it's
the best sort of a book for boys--yes, and young men."--_Chicago Inter
Ocean._
_A Cadet of the Black Star Line_
Illustrated, 12mo. $1.25
"Mr. Paine's narrative of the experiences of a cadet on one of the big
ocean liners moves along with splendid spirit."
--_Philadelphia Press._
"A stirring tale of sea life, the breezes of the ocean blowing through
every chapter.... Clean, wholesome reading."
--_New York Observer._
_COLLEGE SERIES_
"In his stories of sport, Ralph Paine accomplishes considerable in the
right direction. He shows the reader the sport itself, and not only
the final-moment peep at it. He preaches subtly, too, for cleanness in
athletics, and I doubt not that his books have done a great deal toward
imbuing young men with a proper conception of the honest red-blood
world of muscle."--W. W. AULICK in _The Bookman_.
_Campus Days_
Illustrated, 12mo. $1.50
Ralph Paine writes of college life and adventure with a knowledge,
humor, and genial liveliness that bring foot-ball games, classrooms,
campus, and undergraduates vividly before us. In this new book he tells
of grinds and sports, of athletes and loafers, of their troubles, their
triumphs, their sentimental adventures and hare-brained escapades.
_The Stroke Oar_
Illustrated, 12mo. $1.50
"A wholesome, vigorous story."--_Chicago Tribune._
"A jolly, rollicking, bully narration."--_Boston Globe._
"Good, clean, and wholesome, filled with the atmosphere of athletic and
out-of-door living and thinking."
--_Richmond Times-Dispatch._
"The hero is a first-rate story and his mistakes and triumphs make a
first-rate story."--_Boston Transcript._
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, NEW YORK
_Sandy Sawyer, Sophomore_
Illustrated, 12mo. $1.50
"There is no little fun and humor in the book, and Sandy with his push
and enterprise is a most likable young fellow."
--_Springfield Republican._
"'Sandy Sawyer, Sophomore,' is a clean, healthy book, the kind that
makes you as an adult wish you could be young again for the keener
pleasure the book would give you; but even the deadened sensibilities,
when school days are becoming a dim recollection, cannot lessen
your appreciation of how a boy would enjoy this book.... The author
preaches cleanness and fairness in classroom and on athletic
field."--_Cincinnati Times-Star._
_The Fugitive Freshman_
Illustrated, 12mo. $1.50
"A mysterious disappearance, a wreck, the real thing in a game of
baseball are but a few of the excitements the book contains, which are
presented as only Mr. Paine can present them."
--_Philadelphia Ledger._
"Wherever he goes he takes with him the college atmosphere, and while
away engages in many entertaining adventures."
--_Boston Globe._
"Ralph D. Paine has never told a better story for boys than in 'The
Fugitive Freshman.' His young hero disappears from college because he
fears his father's wrath over the debts he has piled up and has all
kinds of adventures. It is an excellent book because the author is
never sensational. He points good morals without any preaching."--_San
Francisco Chronicle._
_The Head Coach_
Illustrated, 12mo. $1.50
"The book is so compact of healthy young manliness and depicts so many
sound-hearted characters in so winning a way that it deserves unusual
success."--_Chicago Inter Ocean._
"How the coach won out is a tale of plenty of incident and excitement
to suit any foot-ball enthusiast, which is saying a good deal. And, it
may be added, the romance is not all of the gridiron."--_Minneapolis
Journal._
"A manly story related in straightforward fashion."
--Philadelphia Press.
_College Years_
Illustrated, 12mo. $1.50
"Extremely life-like and accurate pictures of the campus.... Every boy
who intends to go to college will want to read these stories."--_Yale
Alumni Weekly._
"Breezy, spirited, vigorous ... reflects the best part of college life
as the student himself sees it."--_Chicago Record-Herald._
"Those who like rollicking fun and the stirring affairs of college
athletics will enjoy thoroughly Mr. Paine's yarns. They are pervaded
with the college atmosphere."--_Springfield Republican._
"Like the other books for which this author is known, 'College Years'
is of a spirited and wholesome character that is sure to win for it
many readers."--_Chicago Evening Post._
"Each story deals satisfactorily with its own field of effort The
author's enthusiasm for athletics and Yale is catching."
--_New York Sun._
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