The Hero of Panama Part 8

"Gee! You are a chap fer questions. Where does it go? Away up there, at the far end of the river gully, where the Lake of Gatun'll be, there's a sight more dirt than this being taken from the isthmus. Some of that's being dumped at the dam just away over our heads; some of it's being emptied outside Panama, filling up a swamp through which the ca.n.a.l will run. Reckon there won't be swamps when we're done. There'll be good hard ground, and houses'll be built on a spot where there's fever nowadays.

We're using dirt at this end in the same way; but you was asking about the dumping?"

Jim nodded, and looked at the spoil train being hauled away. "The gangs of n.i.g.g.e.rs do it, I guess," he said. "But it must take longer than the loading by a long way; at least that's what one would imagine."

"Jest about seven minutes fer the whole train," smiled Harry. "My davy on it! You ask how? Wall, listen here. I've been here a long while, and in them days when we was fixed badly fer more trucks n.i.g.g.e.rs did see to clearing the spoil trains--and precious bad n.i.g.g.e.rs they was, too, about that time. Yer see, they mostly comes from the West Indian Isles, and somehow the place didn't seem to suit 'em. They was too slack to work much; but guess our officials fixed the trouble. They found it was the food, and now every n.i.g.g.e.r employed on the works gets his meals regular at a Commission barracks, and sech meals as gives him strength. But we was talking of unloading. See that truck 'way in front of the trains, the one just close to the engine? Wall, that's the Lidgerwood apparatus, and guess it beats creation. There's a plough right forward of the train, and a wire rope attached to it. When the spoil train has been brought to the place where the dirt's to be dumped, n.i.g.g.e.rs or Europeans let down the truck ends, so's the whole train's one long platform. The plough then gets pulled from end to end, and shoots the dirt out. Seven minutes for a whole train, siree! Lightning ain't in it!"

Whistles sounded at this minute, and promptly Harry shut down his levers and leaped from the cab.

"Guess you've done right well fer a first time," he said. "In a day you'll be able to get to at it alone. Anyway, you've earned your grub.

Come along to the Commission hotel; there's meals there for all whites, and no one can grumble at them."

Wherever he went Jim found something to interest him, so much so that it was a matter of wonder to him that, though he had often been close to the isthmus, he had had no idea of the extraordinary bustle taking place there. It was so extremely surprising to find small towns sprung up where he was a.s.sured there was but a single native hut before, to discover buildings so temptingly cool and elegant in appearance, and to learn that America not only employed labour, but provided quarters, food, and recreation for her employees. And here was another example.

Harry took him away from the lock cutting, where one of these days a double tier of three locks will elevate ships from the Atlantic, and introduced him to his friends in one of the well-equipped hotels erected for the accommodation of white employees. Hundreds of men were streaming up the steps as they arrived, and pa.s.sing in behind the copper-gauze screens of the veranda. Jim noticed that all bore much the same appearance--for the most part clean shaven, with here and there some wearing moustaches and beards. Dressed in rough working clothes, with broad-brimmed hats, none showed signs of ill health. There was a buzz of eager conversation as they washed before the meal, and a loud clatter from many tongues as they sat at the tables. As to the food, it was plain, abundant, and well cooked.

"Costs jest fifty cents a day," explained Harry. "If you've finished we'll get to the club. We usually go along fer a smoke at dinner-time.

'Sides, there's a cable of interest now and agin, and sometimes letters."

A few minutes with Harry at the club served, in fact, to banish any doubts which Jim may have had as to remaining on the isthmus. For here was comfort and recreation at the same time, and plenty of men with whom to make friends.

"This here's Jim, him as saved Phineas Barton," Harry told his comrades, and the statement was at once sufficient to rouse interest. Hand-grips were exchanged with our hero. The news of his presence spread round the huge room, in which men were smoking or playing dominoes at little tables, and one by one they strolled up.

"You're stayin' here?" asked one, and when Jim nodded, "I'm main glad: Phineas is one of the best, and a chap who could go in for him as you did must be one of the right kind. What are you going to do?"

"Steam digging, I hope," said Jim. "But of course I'm green yet."

"You'll do. If you've got the grit to face being sucked under by a foundering ship, guess you've the gumption to run one of them diggers.

Anyway, I'm glad you're staying. Play yer a game of dominoes one of these mornings."

"Say, siree, ken you sing any?" asked another, when he had shaken hands; "'cos there's concerts here sometimes o' nights, and a new hand aer wanted."

"Guess I can do a little," answered Jim, reddening; for here was a find.

No one loved a sing-song more than our hero, and, to give him only his due, he had an excellent voice, badly trained, or not trained at all, to be accurate, but pleasing for all that. "When I've put a little together I'll buy a banjo," he told his interrogator. "I had one aboard the ship, but guess it's deep down below the Caribbean."

"My, that are good news! Say, boys, here's one as can strum on a banjo."

The information was hailed with delight by those present, for a banjo player was an acquisition indeed. These skilled white men engaged in the Panama undertaking were as simple as well could be, and longed for nothing more than mild recreation. After an eight-hours day of strenuous work, and supper at the Commission hotel, it delighted them to gather at one of the clubs and there listen to an impromptu concert. But the midday halt was not the time for dawdling. Already the better part of the interval was gone, and very soon the blowing of steam whistles summoned the workers back to their machines; for nearly every one of the white employees in that hotel managed some sort of machine.

"There's a heap of them engaged with the rock drillers," said Harry, "and ef you go along the line to-morrow, towards Panama, and enter the great Culebra cut, you'll see and hear 'em at work everywhere. Most every night, when the whistles has blown and the men cleared off, you'd think a battle was being fought over there, for there's dynamite and powder exploding on every side, and huge rocks jest bounding down into the trench. Gee! There is a dust up. But I war saying that most everyone who's white has a machine to mind. Of course there are overseers, and lots of officials. Then there's a small army kept going in the repair shops 'way along over Panama direction, at Gorgona. That's a place as would open the eyes of people at New York. I tell you, they turn out a power of work there. See that machine down there running along the rails? Wall, that's home-made, every stick and rod of it put together at Gorgona, and, what's more, it's the invention of one of the employees here."

He was bursting with pride, with a legitimate pride. There was no conceit about Harry, but merely a robust belief in all that his comrades did, and in particular in the brains and muscles at work on this giant undertaking. With a sweep of his hand he pointed to a heavy truck, with a crane-like attachment built on it, running along the rails on one of the higher steps of the huge cutting on which he himself was engaged.

"Jest watch it," he invited Jim. "It's a treat to see it handle rails.

You see, our rails wants shifting constantly; for as the diggers clear the dirt they naturally want to get forward or outward, as the case may be, seeing that we cut our steps away to the side. Anyhow, there's need to swap the rails from place to place and lay new tracks, and that 'ere machine is a track layer, which handles the double lengths of bolted rails as if they was sticks."

Jim was fascinated, indeed, as he watched this new wonder; for wonder the machine undoubtedly was. As he looked he could realize that gangs of men and much time might be needed to shift the lines of rails, and time, he remembered, was an item of which his comrades were sparing. Bustle was the order of the day, and of every succeeding day, on the isthmus.

As to the machine, it swung its arm over a long length of rail, fastened its clutches upon it, and lifted the double track, ready bolted to its sleepers, into the air. Then it trotted along the rails, and presently deposited its burden somewhere else.

"And by the time it's nipped back for another length, and has brought it, the track gang has got the lengths in line, and has bolted the fishplates to it," explained Harry. "But that digger's waiting for us.

Git along, Jim."

Breezy was not the word for this young American. He seemed to enjoy every minute of his life, and would have made an admirable companion for one subject to depression. However, Jim was not that; our hero was naturally inclined to jollity, if at times serious, as became his position of responsibility, but with Harry beside him there was no thought of seriousness. They made a laughing, jolly couple on the digger. The hours flew by, so that Jim was astonished when the five-o'clock whistles blew.

"How's he shaping?" he heard a voice ask, and, turning, found it was Phineas Barton, with another white beside him.

"Shaping! Say, ef there's a digger going free he's fit to take it right off, he's that careful," cried Harry. "See him at it, Major."

"You jest go along as you was before," he whispered in Jim's ear, as the latter hopped back into the cab of the digger. "I ain't going to stay up there alongside of you, 'cos there ain't no need; and you ain't got no cause to feel fl.u.s.tered. The Major's one of the works bosses, and reckon employment lays with him. He'll know in a jiffy that you're able to do the work."

To tell the truth our hero felt somewhat scared at the moment, more even than he had that morning when taking his place for the first time on the machine. But he had perfect confidence now in his powers of control, and, with that a.s.surance to help him, struggled against the unusual feeling of nervousness which had so suddenly attacked him, and let the bucket of the digger rattle down to the bottom of the bank. Time after time he dug his way upwards, and delighted Harry by his management.

"Gee! Ef he ain't got some bra.s.s!" the latter exclaimed beneath his breath, as the bucket swung out over the spoil train. "He's copying me with a vengeance. I mind the time when I first started in at the business, and it took me a sight longer to fix the emptying of that bucket. But this here Jim has kind of tumbled to the knack. He swings her out, and ain't stopped swinging afore he opens up and lets his dirt drop. Ef that don't fix the Major, wall he don't deserve to have good men."

As a matter of fact the official was a good deal impressed; but he was a cautious man, and was not inclined to be taken in by a demonstration which might prove to be somewhat freakish. He told himself that under observation there are some men who do better than others, only to break down on ordinary occasions, lacking the stimulus of a gallery to applaud. He yet wanted to prove that this would-be employee had a head on his shoulders, and though he had heard the tale of the rescue, he determined to see if Jim could show coolness on dry land as well as in the water. Therefore he strolled across to the head of the spoil train, to find the driver had not yet quitted his post, in fact he was just in the act of uncoupling from the train, but willingly obeyed an order.

Then the official strolled back, to find Jim still busy with the digger, and, waiting a favourable opportunity, waved his arm. What followed made Harry stand up on his toes with anxiety.

"He's sure to boss it!" he growled. "Gee, if I don't talk to that driver! He knows as well as I do that he ought to blow his whistle afore giving his engine steam to draw out. An old hand wouldn't be caught, but most like Jim'll bungle it. He'll get his bucket opened over the train, and the moving cars will catch it."

That, it was evident, was the intention of the Major. He was applying a test which might well strain the cuteness of a raw hand; and, as it happened, it was only watchfulness which saved Jim. Up came his bucket, a ma.s.s of dirt tumbling from its edge, and round spun the machine, swinging the bucket over the trucks. In a moment the bottom would fall open. Harry could see him handling the rope which freed the trigger.

Then he gave a sigh of satisfaction, for Jim had observed the movement.

His hand left the rope, the bucket stopped in its swing, there was the grinding sound of moving gears, and promptly the ma.s.sive beam returned on its axis.

"That train's moving," he shouted. "I might have had a jam up."

"You might, and no mistake," said Phineas, coming up to the side of the cab. "You jest fixed the business nicely. Reckon if there had been a bust-up the Major deserved to have to pay for the damage. Say, Major, here's a hand wanting a job."

"Bring him to the office to-morrow; I'll take him," was the short reply. "Usual terms; he can get on to a digger way up by Culebra."

Before Jim could thank him the official had departed, leaving our hero still seated in the cab.

"You kin git down off that machine and eat a supper feeling you've earned it," exclaimed Harry, coming up to him and gripping his hand.

"I'm main sorry though that you're to work at Culebra, 'cos it would have been nice to meet of an evening."

"And no reason why you shouldn't," cried Phineas. "See here, Harry, Jim's to live with me. He and his sister will have quarters at the house, the two n.i.g.g.e.rs and the Chinaman also. It's an exception, I know, but there it is. Of course he'll get his dinner and supper way up at Culebra; but he'll take breakfast with me, and of an evening he'll come down to the club here. Guess you'll hear more of him."

That the arrangement was likely to prove satisfactory seemed certain, and it may be imagined that Jim was filled with glee. He sat in Phineas's parlour that night, behind the screen of copper gauze, with his mind full of the morrow, wondering what Culebra would be like, and whether the men working there could be half so pleasant as those he had already met.

CHAPTER VI

A Shot in the Dark

Folks in the Panama zone do not keep late hours as a rule, for work begins at an early hour, and he who would be fresh and ready must seek his bed early. However, Jim and his friends were not to find repose on this, almost their first night ash.o.r.e, as readily as they imagined.

Indeed they were to meet with an adventure which was startling, to say the least of it. They were seated in the parlour, Jim and Phineas, discussing their work, while Sadie had retired for the night. Tom and Sam were engaged in an animated conversation in the back regions, and, no doubt, were themselves preparing to turn in. Not one had an idea that a stranger was prowling about outside the house.

"Thought I heard someone about," Jim had remarked, some few minutes earlier, but Phineas had shaken his head emphatically.