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And, only because of a slight defect, Alcando would have been far from the scene when the little explosion occurred at Gatun Dam. Once more the great Canal was open to traffic. The last of the slide in Culebra Cut had been taken out, and boats could pass freely. "Let's make a trip through now, just for fun," suggested Blake to Joe one day, when they had packed up their cameras.
There are members of the Z. P. who sleep with a gun under their pillow because of that look or a muttered word. But even were I nervous I should have been little disturbed at the glare in this case, for it will probably be a long walk from Culebra penitentiary to where I am thirty-two months from that morning. A holiday air brooded over all Gatun and the country-side.
Instead of the camp being on Culebra, for instance, it might well be on Porto Rico. The extreme delicacy of aircraft, however, and the necessity for quick attention in case of injuries, especially injuries to the engine, demand a suitable base even more imperiously than do ships and other rugged things.
At times when they remained in Culebra Cut, which they did for two weeks, instead of one, fresh unexposed films were received from New York, being brought along the Canal by Government boats, for, as I have explained, the boys were semi-official characters now. Mr. Alcando was rapidly becoming expert in handling a moving picture camera, and often he went out alone to film some simple scene.
"Another thing," Frank went on, "we were to have nothing to do with Lieutenant Gordon while on the Isthmus. We were to roam about at our own sweet will and pick up what information we could. So it doesn't seem likely that he would send for us all to meet him at the Culebra cut. Does it, now?" "No, it doesn't look reasonable," Jack admitted. "You know what we were saying about Ned's theory?"
"They're so interesting I couldn't help but remember them," said Blake with a smile. "This book has a lot in it about the big landslides. At first they were terribly discouraging to the workers. They practically put the French engineers, who started the Canal, out of the running, and even when the United States engineers started figuring they didn't allow enough leeway for the Culebra slides.
If anybody should ask you, the plotters know just as much about our arrangement as we do." Ned, who had been following along behind the others, broke into a laugh. "The boy has the situation sized up correctly," he said. "Then come along," growled the lieutenant. "Where are you going?" "We're going to have a look at the Culebra cut," was the reply.
All long-heralded sights such is the nature of the world and man are at first glimpse disappointing. To this rule the great Culebra "cut" was no exception. After all this was merely a hill, a moderate ridge, this backbone of the Isthmus the sundering of which had sent its echoes to all corners of the earth. The long-fed imagination had led one to picture a towering mountain, a very Andes.
The lieutenant, after many warnings against getting in the way, and against getting lost in the jungle, had just left Peter and Jimmie, and the boys stood at the verge of the great Culebra cut, taking in the wonder and the force of the marvelous scene. Night and day, under the great white lights, the work went forward, cutting a way for the commerce of the world.
For I am Joanna that some call 'Culebra' and some 'Gadfly' and some 'Fighting Jo. And indeed there be few men can match me at swordplay and as for musket and pistol watch now, Martino, the macaw yonder!"
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