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CHAPTER XIX.
A GUARDIAN NEEDING GUARDING

Little realizing the danger in which Jimmie had been left, Ned made what speed he could to Gamboa and there looked about for some means of reaching Culebra without delay. It seemed important that he should reach the other members of his party as soon as possible and send one of the boys back to keep watch with Jimmie.

Besides, it was his intention to communicate with Lieutenant Gordon immediately. He did not expect the lieutenant to call out a squad of secret service men and place the big dam under guard. That, he reasoned, would defeat his plans for rounding up the plotters. However, it was his duty to report progress to the officer and consult with him concerning future movements.

At Gamboa he found a telephone and called the Tivoli at Ancon, but, to his disgust, Lieutenant Gordon could not be found. He tried the offices of several engineers and canal officials with no better result. At last, exhibiting a secret service badge which had been given him by the lieutenant, he mounted an engine about to leave for Culebra and was soon in that beautiful city.

The boys were at the hotel where he had left them, having declined the repeated offers of hospitality by Mr. Chester, and Tony was with them. A session was at once held in a private room, and Jack Bosworth and Harry Stevens jumped at the chance to load themselves with provisions and travel back to the stone house east of Gamboa. They were given the needed directions and sent away with a note to an officer of the railroad, who, it may be as well to state here, landed them at Gamboa in quick time and without asking any questions.

After the boys had taken their departure Frank Shaw called Ned aside.

“There’s something doing here to-night,” he said. “Mr. Chester came out of the parlor as red as a lobster, about six o’clock, and I guess he had a fight with a couple of Japs, Gostel and another chap I’ve never seen before. They parted courteously, but I could see that Tony’s father was angry clear through. After he had gone back to his camp, or started for it, the Japs got a little crowd of gabbers about them and set off down the road toward Colon. They seemed mighty pleased over something, and I guess they’re going to start something to-night.”

“And the other man, this Col. Van Ellis. Did he come here with Chester?”

“Oh, yes; he was here, but I took good care that he did not see me. I think he went away with Chester. They were both very angry.”

“Angry at the Japanese?”

“Yes; anyway, they disagreed over something. But while the two white men were angry, the Japs seemed pleased. I’ll tell you what I think, Ned. The Japs are up to something the others do not like.”

Ned was beginning to see a great light. Once before, since seeing Gostel, he had studied out the problem of the sincerity of the man, and had reached the conclusion that he was using Chester – perhaps others – for some sinister purpose of his own. Now he thought he saw the plot in its true light. However, he did not communicate his thoughts to the others. Had Gordon been at hand he would have confided the story to him. But Gordon was not at the Tivoli at Ancon and no one seemed to know where he was, so he was obliged to go ahead and exercise his own best judgment.

“What’s doing to-night?” Glen Howard asked, when Ned and Frank returned to the room where the other boys were seated.

“We’re going to Gatun,” was the reply. “We’re going on a special engine, and we’re to leave the tracks in the outskirts and get down to the dam.”

“Why, this is not the night,” Frank said, surprised.

“The date on the drawings was that of to-morrow, Saturday,” said Glen. “This is Friday. Of course you know what you are doing, but I wouldn’t take any chances on flushing the game.”

“What is it all about?” demanded Tony Chester. “There seems to be something in the air to-night. Father went away in a grouch and told me to remain with you boys, and Gastong is wandering about the city in a half-distracted manner. If you go to Gatun may I go with you?”

Ned pondered a moment before replying. There was in his mind the thought that this boy might work a miracle for his father. He saw one chance for saving Chester from the results of his connection with the plotters, and resolved to take it, risky to his plans though it was.

“No,” he said, in a moment, “you are to go to your camp with a note for your father. After you deliver the note, you are to come back here and remain until you hear from me. If your father comes with you, so much the better.”

“Will he tell me what is in the note – why he comes back to the city?”

“I don’t think so,” was the reply. “If he does come, tell him to remain close to a ’phone, here, for I may want to talk with him.”

“I can’t understand what all this mystery is about,” Tony exclaimed.

“When did you see Gastong last?” asked Ned.

“Oh, about half an hour ago. He was in the hotel then, flying around like a hen minus her head. He asked for you, and said he’d be in the buffet when you came.”

Ned lost no time in getting to the buffet, where he found Gastong, sitting in conversation with a trampish-looking fellow who seemed to be somewhat under the influence of liquor. He beckoned to Ned when he entered the room and made room for him on the leather rest at his side.

“This is Tommy, the cook,” he said, when Ned was seated. “Your cook.”

“You ought to join the force,” laughed Ned. “I never would have known you.”

“Lieutenant Gordon told me to keep watch of you boys,” laughed Tommy, “but I reckon you’re doing pretty well for yourselves.”

“You are a secret service man?” asked Ned, satisfied now that Gordon had indeed thought it necessary to keep them all under surveillance.

“Of course,” replied Tommy. “I’m not much of a cook. I guess you found that out up at the camp.”

“It was thoughtful of the lieutenant,” Ned said, “but, as you say, we seem to be getting on very well. Do you happen to know where Gordon is at the present moment?”

“He was to meet me here,” was the reply, “but has not shown up.”

“It is dollars to apples,” said Gastong, “that the Japs have cornered him. He told me, on the night you went after the bomb-man, that some one was sleuthing him.”

“I didn’t know that you knew him,” Ned said, wondering if every person he had come upon since arriving on the Isthmus was in the secret service.

“Well,” said Gastong, “Lieutenant Gordon was on the squad here, you know, before he went to Mexico, and I used to meet him now and then.”

“And he told you, on the first night of our arrival at camp, that we might need looking after?”

“Well, he told me that it would do no harm to let him know if I saw a mob of New York boys wandering about the works,” laughed Gastong.

“So that is how you happened to be patrolling the Culebra cut in a motor car on the day the boys ran into Col. Van Ellis at the old house?”

“Well,” said Gastong, “Tommy, here, kept me posted in a way, and I thought I might be useful out that direction.”

“It was clever of the lieutenant,” laughed Ned. “Suppose you now turn your attention to him? He may need the help of the Boy Scouts to get out of a hole himself.”

“I reckon you could help him, all right,” Gastong replied, confidently, but still with a look of anxiety on his face. “He has a heap of confidence in you, Mr. Nestor, but he thought best to take every precaution for your welfare. That is the reason why he surrounded you, as far as possible, with secret service people.”

Ned was more than amused at the statement, for all the discoveries that had been made had resulted from the activities of the boys and himself. In fact, the only help Gordon’s chain of secret service men had given his party was the thwarting of the plans of Van Ellis at the old house.

This had been important, in a sense, as the boys would otherwise have been held prisoners there and so would not have been able to come to the rescue of Ned and Jimmie at the old temple. Still, Jack Bosworth had been in that incident, and it was a question in the mind of the patrol leader if the result would have been the same without him. However, he gave the lieutenant full credit for his cautious way of going at the matter.

“The Japs, as you call them,” he said to Gastong and Tommy, “have gone on toward Colon. I’m going on after them, but it may be well for you to remain here on the chance of meeting the lieutenant. He may have plans of his own for to-night.”

“I am sure he has,” said Tommy. “He has been active all day, with half a dozen men going and coming under his orders. He missed you this afternoon.”

“I had a date to view the scenery up the Chagres river,” laughed Ned.

The patrol leader went back to the room where he had left Frank, George, Glen, and Peter. Tony had left for his father’s camp and George Tolford had gone with him.

“I would give considerable to know what Chester and the Japs, as they are called, quarreled about to-night,” he said, but of course the boys could give him no information on the subject.

As a matter of fact, Ned thought he knew, but the thing was so incomprehensible to him that he doubted, for a time, his own reasoning. It was now nine o’clock, and it seemed to him that the time for action had come. Whether he was right in his deductions or not, he could not afford to ignore the plans he had made for the night. He did not like the idea of accepting responsibility for the important move he was determined to make, but Lieutenant Gordon was not to be found, and there was nothing for him to do but to go ahead.

“Now, boys,” he said to his chums, “we are going into a game to-night that may lead to bloodshed. Again, it may prove a farce. I have only my own judgment to go on, but the matter is so serious that I’m going to take a risk. I should prefer to have Lieutenant Gordon with us, but that seems to be impossible. Get your guns ready, and I’ll arrange for a railroad motor car to take us to Gatun.”

“I just believe Lieutenant Gordon is in trouble,” Peter said. “He was in the hotel this afternoon, just before they carried the sick man out, but has not been seen since.”

Ned sprang to his feet, all excitement.

“When did they carry a sick man out?” he asked.

“Oh, it must have been about five o’clock,” was the reply. “He was plumb sick, too, for they carried him out in a wheel-chair, with a sheet over his face.”

“Who carried him out?”

“Why, the men from the hospital who were sent for.”

“What floor?” demanded Ned, a thought he did not care to put into words coming to his mind.

“Third floor,” replied Peter. “I stood out there, looking around, when the chair was brought down on the freight elevator.”

Greatly to the amazement of the boys Ned darted away. In a minute he stood before the clerk’s desk.

“Will you have a boy show me to Lieutenant Gordon’s room?” he asked.

“Certainly,” was the reply, “but you won’t find him in. There have been repeated inquiries, for him this afternoon.”

“Has any one been to his room?” asked Ned.

“Yes, but it is locked and the key is not here. I was up on that floor about five o’clock, when the hospital people took a man out of the room next to his, and his door was locked then.”

Ned stood for a moment in deep thought, hesitating, wondering if the clerk was a man to be trusted in a great emergency.

“You look to me like a dependable man,” he finally said to the clerk, “anyway, I’ve got to take you into my confidence. Will you take duplicate keys to the lieutenant’s room and the room next to it and come with me?”

“Of course, if it is anything important,” replied the clerk, “but you’ll have to give some good reason before I can admit you to either room.”

“Step in here,” Ned said, motioning toward a little check room at the end of the counter. “You saw the sick man carried out?” he asked, as the clerk wonderingly stepped into the designated room.

“Yes, I saw him taken out. He was a stranger – took the room about noon through a friend. I did not see him at all, that is, until he was carried out, and then I did not see his face.”

“You are sure it was not Lieutenant Gordon who was carried out?” asked Ned.

“Why, why, he wasn’t sick. He said nothing to me of being ill.”

“But he has enemies on the Isthmus,” Ned went on, “and is now at work on a very delicate and dangerous job for the government. Suppose – ”

The clerk waited to hear no more. He seized the keys asked for and bounded toward the elevator, taking Ned with him. When they entered the lieutenant’s room they found it in great disorder. There were many signs of a desperate struggle. On the floor was a three-cornered slip of paper which had evidently, judging from the quality and thickness, been torn from a drawing roll. The scrap showed only two irregular lines, but Ned recognized them.

Lieutenant Gordon had taken into his possession the crude map of the Gatun dam which Ned had discovered in the old temple bomb-room. The next room, the one from which the alleged sick man had been taken, was also in disorder, and the door which connected the two apartments had been forced open. There was a strong odor of chloroform in both rooms.

The clerk did not need to be told what had taken place. His face turned white as chalk and his voice trembled as he asked:

“What is to be done? Think of the lieutenant being carried off from this hotel in the daytime. It will ruin us.”

“First,” Ned replied, “you must make up your mind to keep what has been done a profound secret. You may tell the proprietor if you see fit to do so, but no one else must know.”

“But the secret service men must be told.”

“Not now,” Ned replied. “I have an idea that I can restore the lieutenant to his friends without any row being made over the matter.”

“But how? I don’t understand.”

“At least,” Ned urged, “wait until two o’clock to-morrow morning. I am going out now on an expedition which may reveal many things, if I succeed. If I fail, why, then you must notify the secret service men and look for me in some of the pools about Gatun.”

The clerk finally consented to this arrangement, and in ten minutes Ned and his chums were speeding toward Gatun on a railroad motor car.

CHAPTER XX.
THE SPOIL OF THE LOCKS

At eleven o’clock that night the workmen employed at the locks, the spillway, and the barrier of the Gatun dam found that their lights were not working satisfactorily and sent word back to the electric department that something was amiss.

The electric department sent word back to the men in the excavations that the lights were all right so far as they were concerned, that they were doing their full duty efficiently, and that the men with the shovels, the dynamite and the dump cars might go chase themselves.

This expression of fact and permission did not make it any lighter at the workings, but the men kept on, in the intermittent showers of illumination, and grumbled while they excavated and piled in the concrete. At last, just before midnight, the incandescence did not come back to the globes, and the men gathered in groups to discuss the matter and express heated opinions of the efficiency of the men in charge of the lighting plant.

The workmen moved about here and there in the shadows and clambered like ants over the great bulk of the dam. No one looked to see that the men assembled in the workings all belonged there. At midnight four men who did not belong there entered the excavation which leads from the bottom of the lower lock to the sea-level channel into Limon Bay, which is a child of the Caribbean Sea.

These four men moved about as if accustomed to the situation, only now and then they halted and whispered together. Other men, workmen, were doing that, however, and so these four passed on up to the foot of the spillway without attracting attention.

Here they separated, one to the west, one to the east, where the locks are, and one to a position half way between the spillway and the west side of the locks. The fourth man remained near the foot of the spillway.

Due primarily to its size, Gatun dam has received, perhaps, more attention in the United States than is its due. There is nothing especially difficult or complicated about this dam, and many dams have been successfully built in this country to withstand much larger pressures and greater heads of water than the Gatun dam without being given one-quarter of the attention.

Gatun dam fills the opening between the hills at Gatun through which the Chagres river flows to the Caribbean Sea. It consists, if it may be regarded in the light of a finished production, of a water-tight center or core composed of sand and clay mixed in proper proportion and deposited hydraulically; that is by being pumped in.

On each side a wall of rock confines this core. The bulk of the dam rests on impermeable material of sufficient supporting power. The locks and spillway are considered a part of the dam.

The locks are built in an excavation at the east end of the dam, in rock, and will lift vessels from the Atlantic level to the level of the Lake of Gatun. The spillway is a concrete-lined opening cut through a hill of rock near the center of the dam. When supplied with suitable gates, it will regulate the level of the lake.

The dam proper is about 9,000 feet long over all, measured on its crest, including locks and spill way, but for only five hundred feet of this great distance will it be subjected to great pressure. During this space there is, or will be, a weight of about eighty-five feet depth against the barrier. For only about half its length will the head of water on the dam be over fifty feet.

It will be seen from the above description that the point of attack on the dam would naturally be where the pressure is greatest, also at the locks, which would make a mighty channel for the flood of water, and which would be difficult to repair. The spillway, too, if enlarged by explosives, would make a nasty hole to build up.

Now another point which Ned had considered when he looked over the crude drawings he had discovered. Hard rock underlies the dam near the surface of the ground except for about one-fifth of its entire length. Here the rock dips down to a minimum depth below sea-level of from 195 feet in the depression east of the spillway to 255 feet in that west of the spillway. Here, of course, would be another point of attack by one designing permanent mischief.

These depressions or valleys have been slowly filled during past ages. Measured from sea-level down, the first 80 feet consists of sand and clay; the next 100 feet or so is stiff blue clay, while the last 20 to 60 feet is a conglomerate, composed of sand, shells and stone. It will be readily seen that great damage might be done by a raging torrent boring into the sand and clay of the first strata.

Now, the outer walls of rock are 1,200 feet apart, the interval being filled with spoil from the canal and lock excavations. The south “toe,” as it is called, has a height of 60 feet, while the north or down-stream “toe” is 30 feet high. Spoil from the excavations will be dumped outside the “toes” until the dam is 2,000 feet in width at the bottom. The top of the dam is, or will be, 30 feet above water level and have a width of 100 feet. The channel of the spillway is 300 feet wide.

Ned had figured it out that one attacking the dam would naturally seek to enlarge the locks and the spillway and also to burrow in under the bulk of the dam where the sand and clay had been washed in below sea-level by countless years of flood and storm. The locks and spillway, enlarged, would require years of active work for repair; the sand and clay, if subjected to high explosives, would cause the crest of the dam to drop in on the north side and so enfeeble the entire structure, requiring the gigantic work of constructing new foundations.

Therefore, when Ned saw the four men moving toward the spillway, saw them part and seek the vulnerable points which have been described above, he knew that the time he had been waiting for had come. The treacherous rascals were there to do their wicked work that night – to carry out plans long formed and well considered – and they were opposed only by the inexperienced patrol leader from New York and his three chums, Frank Shaw, Glen Howard, and Peter Fenton. It will be remembered that Jimmie McGraw, Jack Bosworth, and Harry Stevens were at the old stone house on the road to Las Cruces from Gamboa, and that George Tolford had accompanied Tony to the Chester camp.

On reaching Gatun the boys had slipped out of the lights of the station and descended immediately to the bottom of the cut. They were at once accosted by a foreman, but the explanation Ned gave seemed more than sufficient, for Dan Welch, the man in charge of a group of workers on the locks, at once summoned his assistant to the job and remained with the boys.

“I have heard about you, Ned Nestor,” Welch said; “in fact, about half the men in the workings at Gatun have heard of you.”

“I don’t understand how,” replied the puzzled boy.

“Well, through that bomb business at the cottage. You see, it leaked out. When the attempt to blow up the place was reported, the men naturally asked what the dickens the scamps wanted to blow up a crowd of sightseers for, and then it came out that you came here with Lieutenant Gordon, and that’s about all.”

It was at this time that the lights suspended operation. Welch glanced about the busy scene for an instant and sat down on a box which contained tools.

“No use,” he said. “The electric men work as they please. We’ll wait here and lose our record. Did you say where Lieutenant Gordon is to-night?”

“I did not, because I wasn’t asked,” was the reply, “and because I don’t know where he is.”

“He’s a good fellow, Gordon,” Welch exclaimed. “I’d go far and fast to do him a favor. I hope he’s coming out of this game all right.”

Then Ned sat down on the tool-box and told Welch the story of the abduction of the lieutenant, and also the story of what was going on there that night, as he understood it. To say that Welch was profoundly excited does not half express the foreman’s state of mind as he listened.

“My God!” he cried, when Ned paused. “To think of the wickedness of the thing. To destroy the work of years. To delay the completion of the canal for a decade. What can we do? In this darkness, the spoilers can work their will.”

“I think I know who they are,” Ned said. “We must find them.”

“It is too bad that the lights should fail us just at this time,” the foreman said.

“I have an idea that the plotters arranged for that,” Ned said, then.

“But how?” demanded Welch. “The plants are well guarded. You know, of course, that we are all on the lookout for something of the kind? We thought we had provided against any sudden surprise. Where are we to look for them?”

Then Ned pointed out the probable points of attack, and Welch sprang to his feet in a fuming passion.

“The spillway and the locks,” he cried. “And the point where the soft earth extends under the dam! Come!”

“Bring four of your men who can be trusted,” Ned advised, not leaving the box.

“Yes, and what then?”

“Send a man to the light station and have tracers sent out, but instruct him not to have the lights turned on until you give the signal.”

“I understand,” the foreman said. “We’ll catch them with the goods!”

Four men, workmen, were strolling along the danger points within five minutes, and another moved toward the electric switches which governed that part of the illumination. Ned and Welch remained near the spillway. The three boys, after whispered instructions from Ned, moved along the line passing word from man to man.

It was a long and heart-breaking half hour, seemingly double that time, that followed. The man from the switches came back and whispered to Welch, and at that moment a shrill bird-call sounded in the darkness. This, in turn, was followed by the report of a revolver, and then the light leaped into the globes, making the place, the entire length of the canal dam, the spillway and the locks, as bright as day.

There came a half-hearted explosion from the direction of the locks, followed by more shots. Then everything was in confusion, and groups of men gathered in four spots along the line. There were more shots and then the three boys rushed, panting, to the position Ned and the foreman had taken.

“They’ve got them!” Frank cried. “They’ve got every man of them – four Japs with lighted fuses in their hands!”

“There must be more than four!” Welch cried.

“I think not,” Ned replied. “This is hardly a job for many men to work on! The four dare not take others into their confidence. Come! Suppose we gather them in?”

“How do you boys know they’ve got them all?” demanded Welch. “The four men must be some distance apart.”

“Not too far for a revolver to carry a signal!” smiled Ned. “You probably noticed four groups of shots? Well, the boys who have been acting as messengers from man to man gave directions as to the number of shots for each group!”

“I see!” said Welch. “You don’t need any whiskers, boy, to do the brain work of a man. Here comes the first batch!”

Itto and Gostel were the first ones brought in. Itto was wounded fatally and Gostel was bleeding from a wound in the side. The other men were not injured. They stood in a little group for a moment, and then Itto dropped to the ground.

The reports of the men who had been sent out to the danger points showed that each one of the four had been caught lighting a fuse, the bombs having been set.

“We were forced to work before we were ready,” Gostel said, defiantly. “Our government discovered what was going on, and we would have been arrested to-morrow. So we were obliged to take the risk to-night. We were working for the glory of the Emperor, but he forbade it!”

“I did not believe the government of Japan would descend to any such despicable work,” Ned said. “You fellows are cranks! You would have worked great harm to your Emperor if you had succeeded. By the way,” he added, “what did you do with Lieutenant Gordon?”

Gostel glared at his questioner, but Itto beckoned Ned to his side.

“The old stone house on the road to Las Cruces!” he whispered.

“Where is that?” asked Welch, who had bent over the wounded man and heard the words.

“I know,” replied Ned. “One act of this tragedy has already been pulled off there. Have your men take these cranks to Gatun and get a railroad motor. We must get to Gamboa without loss of time. It is only a short distance from there to the place he speaks of. If they took Lieutenant Gordon there a prisoner, they are likely to have had a warm reception, for three of my chums are there!”

But it was not necessary for them to go to the old stone house. At Gamboa they found Lieutenant Gordon and the three boys. Jimmie excitedly related the sensational occurrences at the house.

“Jack and Harry came up,” he concluded, “just as the two men, Pedro and Gaga, were going together with knives. I was scared into a trance! The boys covered them with guns an’ we trussed ’em both. You never saw people more surprised in your life. Then two men brought in Lieutenant Gordon, all nicely tied up, and went away, or started to go away. Well, they wasn’t prepared for an attack from the bushes, and we have four prisoners in a cell of a jail at Gamboa, right over there!”

In an hour the boys were all back at Culebra, with Lieutenant Gordon looking angry enough to eat sinkers, as Jimmie said. The officer though pleased at the general results, did not like to admit that he had been captured by the enemy and rescued by the Boy Scouts, the little fellows he was guarding!