"Yes, anyone possessing a duplicate of my plans would know just how to set about dealing the ca.n.a.l a fearful blow," was the slow response.

Rob's pulses beat fast and thick. He caught his breath. Jared had such duplicate plans, and was in the hands of men who could work on his weak nature to give them up. He glanced up at Mr. Mainwaring, expecting to see signs of anxiety on his face. But the engineer was perfectly calm.

"After all that 'dry history,' as Tubby called it," said he, with a smile, "let's go and play shuffle board. Fred is waiting for us."

CHAPTER XVII.

AT OLD PANAMA.

The week following the conversation recorded in the last chapter found the travelers located at the Hotel Grand Central, in Panama City. Colon, although the Americans have done much to clean it up and make it more presentable than in former days, does not hold much of interest. Besides, Mr. Mainwaring's offices were at Panama, which made his presence there a necessity.

The boys had pa.s.sed a busy time sight-seeing in the old city. They had climbed the Cathedral towers, gazing out over the glittering bay dotted with small but beautiful islands, where the wealthy Panamans spent the heated months. They had explored nooks and corners and inspected the oldest church on the continent.

On the particular day on which this chapter opens they had planned an expedition to Old Panama city, which lies about five miles from the present town. Mr. Mainwaring was busy, but Fred had obtained leave to accompany the boys, his duties as his father's secretary not being very onerous. They set out in high spirits along the road leading to the ruins of the golden city sacked by Morgan and his buccaneers.

The drive was made in an aged hack, and hardly had the boys left the outskirts of the town before they were exclaiming over the luxuriant tropical vegetation and the odd sights that met their eyes on every side.

Once or twice they crossed small streams, and laughed at the sight of native women pounding clothes on rocks at the water side with big, flat clubs.

"Heaven help the b.u.t.tons!" cried Merritt. "This must be a paradise for b.u.t.ton manufacturers."

"I guess they don't bother much with them, at least not the natives that we've pa.s.sed," chuckled Fred.

"Oh, look at that bunch of bananas!" cried Tubby presently, as they pa.s.sed by a clump of green banana plants laden with fruit. "Let's hop out and get some."

But the fruit was green and uneatable. Bananas, as Tubby did not know, are picked and shipped while green, and grow yellow and ripe on the voyage north in the holds of the fruit steamers, which are kept carefully at a uniform temperature.

"It's odd that we've seen nothing of Jared or his friends," remarked Rob, as, after the discovery of Tubby's mistake, they drove on again. "Has your dad notified the police?"

"Yes, indeed," rejoined Fred Mainwaring, "but nothing has come of it as yet. Of course, a careful lookout is being kept. Say, fellows," he exclaimed in a cautious tone, "do you know I believe that some plot is on foot to injure the great Gatun Dam and delay the opening of the ca.n.a.l? At least, I'm pretty sure, from things I've heard dad say, that such is the case."

"And you think, or rather he thinks, that Jared is mixed up in it?" asked Tubby breathlessly.

"That's what. At least he is mixed up in it to this extent, that he is supplying the plotters with plans of the dam and so on in order that they can strike their blow at the weakest part of it."

"Gee whiz! I'd like to get my hands on that Jared just once," exclaimed Merritt angrily. "What a skunk he is."

"It's a pity we ever let him get away from Hampton," muttered Merritt.

"Of course, we found out that he and the man with him bought tickets for New York, but that was only a blind clew at best."

"Well, we don't actually know that he is on the Zone at all," struck in Rob; "although all the steamship offices were quizzed, we couldn't find out that anybody answering Jared's description had taken pa.s.sage for the Isthmus."

"So far as that is concerned," remarked Fred, "dad says that that proves nothing. He might have shipped from San Francisco or New Orleans, or even from some Canadian port for some other destination, and then worked his way up here on a sailing vessel or coasting steamer."

"And that's just about what he would have done," cried Rob. "Both Alverado and Estrada have plenty of sympathizers in Bogota who would help them in any plot against Uncle Sam. But, after all, the whole thing may be a false alarm."

"You wouldn't think so if you could have heard what dad said at that meeting of the Ca.n.a.l heads the other day," rejoined Fred. "Of course I can't tell you what took place, although I was present in my capacity as secretary; but from what I heard a strict watch is to be kept and the guards doubled."

"If Estrada and Alverado know the country well, it's quite likely that they aren't in the city at all," struck in Merritt. "The country outside the actual Ca.n.a.l Zone is a trackless jungle. They may be hiding up in there some place."

"That's quite likely, too," rejoined Fred. "I heard dad saying something about that the other day. By the way, we are going to start up the Chagres day after to-morrow; won't that be bully? That's my idea of sport,--following up a tropic river looking for a tributary."

"What's your dad going to do with the tributary when he finds it?" asked the practical Tubby.

"That hasn't been settled yet," was the rejoinder. "Of course, if it proves to be the branch that feeds the Chagres and causes all the trouble in flood time, it will be dammed or something so as to make it harmless."

"Say, don't talk so loud," whispered Rob in a cautious tone, for the boys from their first low tones had gradually drifted into louder talk, "that driver is listening to every word we're saying."

"Just like an inquisitive n.i.g.g.e.r," growled Fred resentfully.

"He's not a n.i.g.g.e.r," declared Rob; "he looks to me more like a Latin-American of some sort. He may be a fellow countryman of this Estrada. In that case, I hope he didn't overhear anything."

"Well, you were talking as loud as any of us," declared Tubby.

"Yes, that's so. I kind of wish I hadn't."

"Look!" cried Merritt suddenly.

He had good reason to exclaim. Ahead of them, rising majestically above the brilliant-hued tropical greenery, was a vast gray tower, square and ma.s.sive, and pierced with square windows. At its summit it was overgrown with mosses, lichens and many-hued flowers of gorgeous coloring. But for this, it might have seemed anything but a ruin.

"The ruined tower of the old cathedral church of St. Augustin!" cried Rob.

"And that's all that remains of the city from which Morgan took so much plunder that it required seventy-five mules and six hundred prisoners to pack it across the Isthmus to Porto Bello," chimed in Merritt, who, it will be seen from this remark, had been reading up on Panama.

Leaving the rig behind them, the four lads made their way to the foot of the tower. They elected to push their way through a tangle of brush instead of following the regular footpath. As Tubby said, it seemed more like coming to a ruin than by strolling up to it on a beaten track. Their tough khaki uniforms resisted the thorns and brambles valiantly, and they arrived at the foot of the ma.s.sive old tower out of breath but undamaged, except for sundry scratches on their hands.

They entered the old tower through a tumble-down doorway. The walls, they noticed as they pa.s.sed through, were three feet or more thick, which perhaps accounted for the st.u.r.dy piles standing so long after the rest of the city had vanished. Inside was a crumbled stairway of stone up which the four Scouts were soon scrambling. They clambered to the very top and then Rob and Fred drew from their pockets two pennants. One bore the "totem" of the Eagles; the other was emblazoned with the Patrol emblem of the Black Wolves.

"I thought of this just before we left," said Rob, as he drew out the Eagle flag; "I guess we're the first Boy Scouts on the Isthmus and so we'll be the first to unfurl our totems above old Panama."

"But how are you going to make the flag fast?" asked Tubby.

"See that p.r.i.c.kly branch growing right out from the edge of the tower? I guess I'll make mine fast to that," said Rob, "it'll be as good as a flag pole."

"Look out you don't slip," warned Merritt, as Rob made his way over roughly piled stones that had crumbled from the parapet and gained the edge of the tower. At that point a staff-like thorn bush raised one bare arm aloft. As Rob had said, it did indeed make a regular flag pole.

Balancing himself carefully, the leader of the Eagle Patrol reached out and peered over the edge.

"Wow, fellows, but it looks a long way to the ground!" he exclaimed. "If I ever fell, I'd land with a b.u.mp all right."

Clasping the flag in one hand, he leaned out and laid hold of the upright branch. There was a sudden cracking sound. The horrified Scouts, who were watching Rob, saw him make a desperate grab at the wall to recover himself as the branch snapped.

But Rob's effort came too late.

"He's gone!" yelled Tubby, turning as white as a ghost as Rob, without a sound, plunged over the parapet and out of sight.

His chums turned sick and faint. They dared not go to the edge to gaze upon what they knew must lie at the foot of the tower. They simply stood like figures carved out of wood waiting for the sound of Rob's crashing fall.