He did not intend to speak shortly, but it sounded so in the stress of his hurry.

"Then I'm coming!" said Mr. Alcando quietly. "If I'm to do this sort of work in the jungle, along our railroad, I'll need to have my nerve stiffened."

"This will stiffen it all right," returned Blake, sternly, as a louder sound from without told of a larger ma.s.s of the earth sliding into the waters of the Ca.n.a.l, whence the drift had been excavated with so much labor.

It was a bad slide--the worst in the history of the undertaking--and the limit of it was not reached when Joe and Blake, with their cameras and spare boxes of film, went out on deck.

The brown-red earth, the great rocks and the little stones, ma.s.ses of gravel, shale, schist, cobbles, fine sand--all in one intermingled ma.s.s was slipping, sliding, rolling, tumbling, falling and fairly leaping down the side of Gold Hill.

"Come on!" cried Blake to Joe.

"I'm with you," was the reply.

"And I, also," said Mr. Alcando with set teeth.

Fortunately for them the tug was tied to a temporary dock on the side of the hill where the slide had started, so they did not have to take a boat across, but could at once start for the scene of the disaster.

"We may not be here when you come back!" called Captain Wiltsey after the boys.

"Why not?" asked Joe.

"I may have to go above or below. I don't want to take any chances of being caught by a blockade."

"All right. We'll find you wherever you are," said Blake.

As yet the ma.s.s of slipping and sliding earth was falling into the waters of the Ca.n.a.l some distance from the moored tug. But there was no telling when the slide might take in a larger area, and extend both east and west.

Up a rude trail ran Blake and Joe, making their way toward where the movement of earth was most p.r.o.nounced. The light was not very good on account of the rain, but they slipped into the cameras the most sensitive film, to insure good pictures even when light conditions were most unsatisfactory.

The moving picture boys paused for only a glance behind them. They had heard the emergency orders being given. Soon they would be flashed along the whole length of the Ca.n.a.l, bringing to the scene the scows, the dredges, the centrifugal pumps--the men and the machinery that would tear out the earth that had no right to be where it had slid.

Then, seeing that the work of remedying the accident was under way, almost as soon as the accident had occurred, Blake and Joe, followed by Mr. Alcando, hurried on through the rain, up to their ankles in red mud, for the rain was heavy. It was this same rain that had so loosened the earth that the slide was caused.

"Here's a good place!" cried Blake, as he came to a little eminence that gave a good view of the slipping, sliding earth and stones.

"I'll go on a little farther," said Joe. "We'll get views from two different places."

"What can I do?" asked the Spaniard, anxious not only to help his friends, but to learn as much as he could of how moving pictures are taken under adverse circ.u.mstances.

"You stay with Blake," suggested Joe. "I've got the little camera and I can handle that, and my extra films, alone and with ease.

Stay with Blake."

It was well the Spaniard did.

With a rush and roar, a grinding, crashing sound a large ma.s.s of earth, greater in extent than any that had preceded, slipped from the side of the hill.

"Oh, what a picture this will make!" cried Blake, enthusiastically.

He had his camera in place, and was grinding away at the crank, Mr. Alcando standing ready to a.s.sist when necessary.

"Take her a while," suggested Blake, who was "winded" from his run, and carrying the heavy apparatus.

The big portion of the slide seemed to have subsided, at least momentarily. Blake gave a look toward where Joe had gone. At that moment, with a roar like a blast of dynamite a whole section of the hill seemed to slip away and then, with a grinding crash the slanting earth on which Joe stood, and where he had planted the tripod of his camera, went out from under him.

Joe and his camera disappeared from sight.

CHAPTER XX

AT GATUN DAM

"Look!" cried Mr. Alcando. He would have said more--have uttered some of the expressions of fear and terror that raced through his mind, but he could not speak the words. He could only look and point.

But Blake, as well as the Spaniard, had seen what had happened, and with Blake to see was to act.

"Quick!" he cried. "We've got to get him out before he smothers!

Pack up this stuff!"

As he spoke he folded the tripod legs of his camera, and laid it on top of a big rock, that seemed firmly enough imbedded in the soil not to slip from its place. Then, placing beside it the spare boxes of film, and throwing over them a rubber covering he had brought, Blake began to run across the side of the hill toward the place where Joe had last been seen.

"Come on!" cried Blake to Mr. Alcando, but the Spaniard needed no urging. He had laid with Blake's the boxes of film he carried, and the two were now speeding to the rescue.

"Go get help!" cried Joe to an Indian worker from the tug, who had followed to help carry things if needed. "Go quick! Bring men--shovels! We may have to dig him out," he added to Mr.

Alcando.

"If--if we can find him," replied the other in low tones.

"Go on--run!" cried Joe, for the Indian did not seem to understand. Then the meaning and need of haste occurred to him.

"_Si, senor_, I go--_p.r.o.nto_!" he exclaimed, and he was off on a run.

Fortunately for Blake and Mr. Alcando, the worst of the slide seemed to be over. A big ma.s.s of the hill below them, and off to their right, had slid down into the Ca.n.a.l. It was the outer edge of this that had engulfed Joe and his camera. Had he been directly in the path of the avalanche, nothing could have saved him. As it was, Blake felt a deadly fear gripping at his heart that, after all, it might be impossible to rescue his chum.

"But I'll get him! I'll get him!" he said fiercely to himself, over and over again. "I'll get him!"

Slipping, sliding, now being buried up to their knees in the soft mud and sand, again finding some harder ground, or shelf of shale, that offered good footing, Blake and the Spaniard struggled on through the rain. It was still coming down, but not as hard as before.

"Here's the place!" cried Blake, coming to a halt in front of where several stones formed a rough circle. "He's under here."

"No, farther on, I think," said the Spaniard.

Blake looked about him. His mind was in a turmoil. He could not be certain as to the exact spot where Joe had been engulfed in the slide, and yet he must know to a certainty. There was no time to dig in many places, one after the other, to find his chum. Every second was vital.

"Don't you think it's here?" Blake asked, "Try to think!"

"I am!" the Spaniard replied. "And it seems to me that it was farther on. If there was only some way we could tell--"