CHAPTER V. A BIG SURPRISE.
Time and weather had warped the boards of the structure till fair-sizedcracks gaped here and there. The boys made for one of these, with theobject of peering into the place and getting a glance at its occupants.At first they had thought that these were nothing more than a gang oftramps, but the name of the engineer, spoken with a foreign accent, hadaroused them to a sense that, whoever was in the old barn, a subject wasbeing discussed that might be of interest to their new friends.
Applying their eyes to two cracks in the timbers, they saw that withinthe barn four persons were seated. One of these they recognized almostinstantly as Jared Applegate. By his side sat a youth of about his ownage, flashily dressed, with a general air of cheap smartness about him.The other two occupants of the place were of a different type. One washeavily built and dark in complexion, almost a light coffee color, infact. His swarthy face was clean shaven and heavily jowled. Seated nextto him on an old hay press was a man as dark as he, but more slender anddapper in appearance. Also he was younger, not more than thirty, whilehis companion was probably in the neighborhood of fifty, although aspowerful and vigorous, so far as the boys could judge, as a man of halfhis years.
"You say that you have duplicates of Mainwaring's plans, showing exactlythe weakest points of the great dam?" the elder man was asking, just asthe boys assumed positions of listening.
Jared nodded. He glanced at the more slender of the two foreigners.
"I guess Mr. Estrada has told you all about that," he said.
"Of course, my dear Alverado," the dapper little man struck in, "yourecollect that I spoke to you of Senor Applegate's visit to me atWashington."
Rob started. The name Estrada, coupled with a mention of Washington,recalled to his mind something that sent a thrill through him taken inconnection with the words of the man addressed as Alverado.
Estrada,--Jose Estrada! That was the name of the ambassador of a SouthAmerican republic that had several times been mentioned as being opposedto Uncle Sam's plans on the Isthmus. What if--but not wishing to miss aword of what followed, he gave over speculating and applied himself tolistening with all his might. Jared gave a short, disagreeable laugh.
"You can just bet I got duplicates of all the plans," he chuckled, "I hadan idea that Mainwaring was going to fire me on account of--well, ofsomething, and so I went to work and copied off all of his private papersI could. You see, it was common talk on the Isthmus that the place wasalive with spies, and I figured out that anybody who was interestedenough to hire spies must be mighty anxious to get at the real plans ofthe canal, and willing to pay big for them, too," he added with a greedylook on his face, which for an instant gave him a strong likeness to hisfather.
Rob and Merritt exchanged glances. From even the little that they hadheard it was plain enough what was going forward in the barn. There wasno doubt now that Jared was bargaining with representatives of a foreignpower that had good reason to dislike Uncle Sam; no question but that Mr.Mainwaring's plans, or at least copies of them, were in the hands of anunscrupulous young rascal who was willing to sell them to the highestbidder, without caring for what nefarious purpose they were to be used.
The Boy Scouts' blood fairly boiled as they heard. They had always knownJared to be weak, unprincipled and dishonest, but that he would descendto such rascality as this was almost beyond belief. Merritt in his angermade a gesture of shaking his fist. It was an unfortunate move. A bit ofboard on which one of his feet rested gave way with a sharp crack underthe sudden shifting of his weight.
Instantly the men in the barn were on the alert.
"What was that?" cried Estrada sharply.
"Nothing. A rat, I guess; old barns like this are full of them," rejoinedJared, striving to appear at ease, but glancing nervously about him.
"A rat, bah!" exclaimed Alverado, puffing out his fat jowls till helooked like a huge puff adder. "That was not a rat, _amigo_, that was aspy. This barn is not as secret a meeting place as you led us tobelieve."
"Come on, Merritt," whispered Rob, "grab up everything and run for it.They'll be out here in a minute."
Swiftly they gathered up their paste, brushes and bills, and crouchinglow ran toward what had been a smoke-house. Hardly had they darted withinits dark and odorous interior when the conspirators in the barn camerushing out, looking in every direction. In Alverado's hand somethingglittered in the sunlight. The two Boy Scouts peering out through aknot-hole had no difficulty in recognizing the object, with an unpleasantthrill, as an automatic revolver.
They now saw, too, something that they had been unable to perceive fromthe back of the barn. This was a big, red touring car drawn up close tothe antiquated structure. But they had no time to waste in looking at thecar. The movements of the searching party engrossed their attention toodeeply.
"Scatter in every direction," they heard Alverado order, "we must findout if anyone has been here listening, or if our ears deceived us."
There was no doubt but that the search was to be a thorough one. Even thechauffeur of the car, which, the boys noticed in a quick, fleetingglance, bore no number, joined in the search. They rushed about like apack of bloodhounds in every direction.
"This is getting pretty warm," whispered Rob; "it's plain those chaps arethoroughly alarmed and don't mean to leave a stone unturned to find us."
"Oh, that unlucky board!" groaned Merritt remorsefully. "I'm a finespecimen of a Scout to make such a mistake as that,--at such a criticaltime, too."
"It was unfortunate; but accidents will happen," rejoined Rob quickly."But it's no use crying over spilt milk."
"What are we going to do?"
"I'm trying to think."
"Perhaps there is a chance that they will overlook us."
"No danger of that, I'm afraid. From what little I saw of Mister Alveradohe appears to be a very painstaking gentleman."
"They're searching the house now."
"Yes, that will take them some time; but you can depend on it that whenthey've finished they'll search the outbuildings."
"Yes; and they've left that chauffeur on guard outside, too. Not a chanceof our getting out of here."
"Unless there's another door."
"Cracky! Maybe there is. Let's look. But we've got to hurry up. Hark!"
"They're coming out of the house and pointing over here," cried Rob thenext instant.
Both boys desperately sought to find some way out of the old smoke-houseother than by the door by which they had entered. But no exit offered.Suddenly Rob had an inspiration. The smoke-house was roofed like aninverted V. The roof was covered with shingles. Apparently they wererotten, for in places the light came through. One side of the roof facedtoward the abandoned farmhouse; the other faced back upon some fields.Rob thrust his fist with some violence against the shingles on the sideof the smoke-house roof that faced the fields. To his joy the shinglesgave way almost like rotten cardboard.
"Hurrah! We've found a way out," he cried exultingly, although he wascareful not to raise his voice much above a whisper. He rapidly enlargedthe opening till it was big enough to crawl through. Luckily the searchparty had paused to examine a corn crib that lay between the smoke-houseand the farmhouse, so that the boys had a few seconds' grace.
"Now then, through you go!" breathed Rob as soon as he had pitched outthe bills.
Merritt scrambled through with Rob close on his heels. The apex of theroof, of course, screened them from view of the party now approaching theold smoke-house. It was a drop of not more than three feet to the ground,for the walls were low, and Rob had, of necessity, punctured the roofnear the eaves.
Ahead of them lay a meadow with a patch of woods beyond. Rank brush andtall weeds intervened. But they had to make a dash of some hundred feetacross an open space. Somehow, just how they never knew, they got acrossit and plunged into the brush, making for the woods beyond.
At the same instant Alverado and the others ent
ered the smoke-house.
The Boy Scouts at the Panama Canal Page 5
