The Boy Scouts at the Panama Canal Part 21

"What is a test hole?" asked Rob, as the boys trudged along the top of the dam beside him.

"It is a hole blown in the ground so that we can tell what sort of foundation we are working on," was the reply.

"Blown in the ground?" asked Tubby with round inquiring eyes.

"Yes. Dynamited, perhaps I should have said. Ram Chunda there," he motioned back at the dark man who was trotting along behind, "is the boss dynamiter. He's going to shoot the hole."

"Oh, he's a Hindoo?" exclaimed Rob as he heard the name of the dark satellite. "We thought he was a negro."

"Oh, no. We couldn't trust negroes with dynamite. Almost all the dynamite men on the ca.n.a.l are Hindoos. They are not fit for the heavy work; but we find them reliable and trust-worthy around explosives."

"What's that?" asked Merritt presently, indicating a small hut painted a bright red.

"That's a dynamite hut. See, there are several workmen waiting to have explosives served out to them."

"Can anybody get the stuff who wants it?" asked Merritt.

"No, indeed. That would never do. They have to bring an order signed by the boss on their particular section."

Ram Chunda, however, appeared to have his supply of explosives elsewhere for they did not stop at the dynamite hut but pa.s.sed on.

"How much dynamite is stored there?" asked Rob, as they hurried along.

"Oh, enough to blow the whole dam up, I guess," was the careless reply, to which the boys did not attach much significance at the time, although they were to recollect those words with peculiar vividness later.

Before long they reached a place where ladders were stretched from the ground to the top of the dam.

"We'll go down these," announced Mr. Raynor, halting. "Ram, you go first.

You boys can follow. All got steady heads, I hope?"

"I think so," murmured Fred, with a vivid recollection in his mind of the scene on the ruined tower of St. Augustin, "two of us have, anyhow."

The engineer did not, of course, understand the allusion nor, to the joy of Rob and Merritt, did he ask any explanation. Neither boy liked to recall those awful moments when they hung suspended in mid-air between life and death.

The ladders were long and steep, but the descent was made without incident. At the base of the dam, however, was a steep sort of embankment of loose sand and gravel. Tubby, who was behind Ram Chunda, looked down and saw this, which appeared to offer a secure "jumping off" place.

With a whoop he jumped from the last ladder while still several feet above the top of the bank. His feet struck it with a scrunch. But the loose, shaly stuff was treacherous. With an alarmed yell the fat boy, the cocoanuts round his belt rattling like castanets, rolled down the bank, revolving like a barrel.

The others looked on in some alarm. Suddenly Tubby struck the bottom of the bank and simultaneously there came a series of sounds like a volley of musketry.

Pop! pop! pop! pop!

"Gracious, it's Tubby," cried Rob, tracing the source of the sounds.

"Is he blowing up?" demanded Fred Mainwaring in genuine alarm.

"Sounds like it!" exclaimed Merritt apprehensively.

The engineer and the Hindoo looked on in amazement. The fat boy continued to pop loudly. Suddenly, still popping spasmodically, he struggled to his feet. What a sight he presented!

He was covered from head to foot with a milky fluid which was flowing down him and on which the gravel had stuck and plastered him with yellow mud.

"Tubby, are you hurt?" yelled Merritt.

"Bob," shrilled Rob, for once, in his alarm, giving Tubby his real first name, "what's the trouble? Are you injured?"

"No, but those cocoanuts have blown up!" shouted Tubby angrily. "One after another they busted! I thought I was in a battle for a minute."

"Well, you look as if you'd been through a hard siege," declared Rob, who, now that his apprehension was over, joined the others in a hearty laugh and a scramble down the gravel bank.

"What made 'em bust?" demanded Tubby, ruefully, surveying his drenched uniform and brus.h.i.+ng himself off as best he could.

As soon as he could speak for laughing the engineer explained. Cocoanuts in their natural state are s.h.i.+elded by great ma.s.ses of leaves which keep their milky contents cool. Tubby, in his greed, had girded himself about with the succulent nuts and then spent a long morning in the hot sun.

This, combined with his activities, had caused the milk to heat up and ferment.

If the fat boy had not taken his tumble down the bank it is not likely that the nuts would have exploded. But the fall was what proved too much for the already fermented milk. Like so much gunpowder it had expanded and blown the "eyes," or thin parts, out of each cocoanut, spraying the unfortunate Tubby with milk, and making the sharp series of reports that had so alarmed them.

Even Ram Chunda's immobile face bore the trace of a smile at Tubby's disaster. In fact, the boy got no sympathy from anyone.

"I'll pack no more cocoanuts with me," he was heard to mutter, "they are as dangerous as Anarchists' bombs and a whole lot messier. Gee, my uniform's a sight!"

But as the unanimous verdict seemed to be "Serves you right," Tubby had few remarks on his disaster to offer for the public benefit.

CHAPTER XXI.

"RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!"

Ram Chunda approached a small hut painted red like the other dynamite shed, and came out with his arms laden with what were apparently cylindrical tin cans. He selected a number of these, handling them with no more apparent care than if they had been tins of tomatoes, instead of charges of dynamite.

"T-t-t-tell him to be a little c-c-c-careful, won't you?" begged Tubby.

"That stuff would blow up worse than cocoanuts if he dropped it."

"Yes, we'd never know what struck us," said the engineer carelessly, "but don't worry about Ram, he knows what he's doing."

He spoke with the indifference of one who has handled high explosives for years, but the boys' emotions were very different. They eyed Ram Chunda askance as he stumbled occasionally on a rock or hillock of earth.

In this manner they walked quite a distance back from the dam to a point where no tracks or workmen were visible.

"Right here is where, before long, we are going to build a wing dam to strengthen the main one," explained the engineer.

"Then what's the use of blowing it up?" asked Tubby stolidly. The fat boy was, to tell the truth, in a state of alarm over what was to come.

"Why, we want to see just what lies underneath before we start to dig a foundation, otherwise it would be so much wasted labor," was the response.

There were already several test holes drilled in the ground, but the object of dynamiting was to loosen up the soil beneath to ascertain if there was any substratum of water.