THE LITTLE BOX
THE LITTLE BOX
Blake and Joe were too well-seasoned travelers to care to witness many of the scenes attendant upon the departure of their vessel. Though young in years, they had already crowded into their lives so many thrilling adventures that it took something out of the ordinary to arouse their interest.
It was not that they were blasé, or indifferent to novel sights, but travel was now, with them, an old story. They had been out West, to the Pacific Coast, and in far-off jungle lands, to say nothing of their trip to the place of the earthquakes, and the more recent trip to the flooded Mississippi Valley.
So, once they had waved good-by to their friends and fellow-workers on the pier, they went to their stateroom to look after their luggage.
The two boys and Mr. Alcando had a room ample for their needs, and, though it would accommodate four, they were assured that the fourth berth would not be occupied, so no stranger would intrude.
When Blake and Joe went below Mr. Alcando did not follow. Either he liked the open air to be found on deck, or he was not such a veteran traveler as to care to miss the sights and sounds of departure. His baggage was piled in one corner, and that of the boys in other parts of the stateroom, with the exception of the trunks and cameras, which were stowed in the hold, as not being wanted on the voyage.
"Well, what do you think of him now?" asked Joe, as he sat down, for both he and Blake were tired, there having been much to do that day.
"Why, he seems all right," was the slowly-given answer.
"Nothing more suspicious; eh?"
"No, I can't say that I've seen anything. Of course it was queer for him to have someone in his room that time, and to get rid of whoever it was so quickly before we came in. But I suppose we all have our secrets."
"Yes," agreed Joe. "And he certainly can't do enough for us. He is very grateful."
This was shown in every way possible by the Spaniard. More than once he referred to the saving of his life in the runaway accident, and he never tired of telling those whom he met what the boys had done for him.
It was truly grateful praise, too, and he was sincere in all that he said. As Joe had remarked, the Spaniard could not do enough for the boys.
He helped in numberless ways in getting ready for the trip, and offered to do errands that could better be attended to by a messenger boy. He was well supplied with cash, and it was all Joe and Blake could do to prevent him from buying them all sorts of articles for use on their trip.
Passing a sporting goods store that made a specialty of fitting out travelers who hunted in the wilds, Mr. Alcando wanted to purchase for Blake and Joe complete camping outfits, portable stoves, guns, knives, patent acetylene lamps, portable tents, automatic revolvers and all sorts of things.
"But we don't need them, thank you!" Blake insisted. "We're not going to do any hunting, and we won't camp out if we can help it."
"Oh, but we might have to!" said Mr. Alcando, "then think how useful these outfits would be."
"But we'd have to cart them around with us for months, maybe," said Joe, "on the slim chance of using part of the things one night. We don't need 'em."
"But I want to do something for you boys!" the Spaniard insisted. "I am so grateful to you—"
"We know that, by this time," declared Blake. "Please don't get anything more," for their friend had already bought them some things for their steamer trip.
"Ah, well then, if you insist," agreed the generous one, "but if ever you come to my country, all that I own is yours. I am ever in your debt."
"Oh, you mustn't feel that way about it," Blake assured him. "After all, you might have saved yourself."
"Hardly," returned the Spaniard, and he shuddered as he recalled how near he had been to death on the bridge.
But now he and Blake and Joe were safely on a steamer on their way to Panama. The weather was getting rather cool, for though it was only early November the chill of winter was beginning to make itself felt.
"But we'll soon be where it's warm enough all the year around," said Joe to Blake, as they arranged their things in the stateroom.
"That's right," said his chum. "It will be a new experience for us. Not quite so much jungle, I hope, as the dose we had of it when we went after the wild animals."
"No, and I'm glad of it," responded Joe. "That was a little too much at times. Yet there is plenty of jungle in Panama."
"I suppose so. Well, suppose we go up on deck for a breath of air."
They had taken a steamer that went directly to Colon, making but one stop, at San Juan, Porto Rico. A number of tourists were aboard, and there were one or two "personally conducted" parties, so the vessel was rather lively, with so many young people.
In the days that followed Joe and Blake made the acquaintance of a number of persons, in whom they were more or less interested. When it became known that the boys were moving picture operators the interest in them increased, and one lively young lady wanted Blake to get out his camera and take some moving pictures of the ship's company. But he explained, that, though he might take the pictures on board the steamer, he had no facilities for developing or printing the positives, or projecting them after they were made.
In the previous books of this series is described in detail the mechanical process of how moving pictures are made, and to those volumes curious readers are referred.
The process is an intricate one, though much simplified from what it was at first, and it is well worth studying.
On and on swept theGatun, carrying our friends to the wonderland of that great "ditch" which has become one of the marvels of the world. Occasionally there were storms to interrupt the otherwise placid voyage, but there was only short discomfort.
Mr. Alcando was eager to reach the scene of operations, and after his first enthusiasm concerning the voyage had worn off he insisted on talking about the detailed and technical parts of moving picture work to Joe and Blake, who were glad to give him the benefit of their information.
"Well, you haven't seen anything more suspicious about him; have you?" asked Joe of his chum when they were together in the stateroom one evening, the Spaniard being on deck.
"No, I can't say that I have. I guess I did let my imagination run away with me. But say, Joe, what sort of a watch have you that ticks so loudly?"
"Watch! That isn't my watch!" exclaimed his chum.
"Listen!" ordered Blake. "Don't you hear a ticking?"
They both stood at attention.
"I do hear something like a clock," admitted Joe. "But I don't see any. I didn't know there was one in this stateroom."
"There isn't, either," said Joe, with a glance about. "But I surely do hear something."
"Maybe it's your own watch working overtime."
"Mine doesn't tick as loud as that," and Blake pulled out his timepiece. Even with it out of his pocket the beat of the balance wheel could not be heard until one held it to his ear.
"But what is it?" asked Joe, curiously.
"It seems to come from Mr. Alcando's baggage," Blake said. "Yes, it's in his berth," he went on, moving toward that side of the stateroom. The nearer he advanced toward the sleeping place of the Spaniard the louder became the ticking.
"He's got some sort of a clock in his bed," Blake went on. "He may have one of those cheap watches, though it isn't like him to buy that kind. Maybe he put it under his pillow and forgot to take it out. Perhaps I'd better move it or he may not think it's there, and toss it out on the floor."
But when he lifted the pillow no watch was to be seen.
"That's funny," said Blake, musingly. "I surely hear that ticking in this berth; don't you?"
"Yes," assented Joe. "Maybe it's mixed up in the bedclothes." Before Blake could interfere Joe had turned back the coverings, and there, near the foot of the berth, between the sheets, was a small brass-bound box, containing a number of metal projections. It was from this box the ticking sound came.
"Why—why!" gasped Blake. "That—that box—"
"What about it?" asked Joe, wonderingly.
"That's the same box that was on his table the time we came in his room at the hotel—when we smelled the cigar smoke. I wonder what it is, and why he has it in his bed?"
THE SECRET CONFERENCE
THE SECRET CONFERENCE
Blake was silent a moment after making this portentous announcement. Then he leaned forward, with the evident intention of picking up the curious, ticking box.
"Look out!" cried Joe, grasping his chum's hand.
"What for?" Blake wanted to know.
"It might be loaded—go off, you know!"
"Nonsense!" exclaimed Blake. "It's probably only some sort of foreign alarm clock, and he stuffed it in there so the ticking wouldn't keep him awake. I've done the same thing when I didn't want to get up. I used to chuck mine under the bed, or stuff it in an old shoe. What's the matter with you, anyhow? You act scared," for Joe's face was actually white—that is as white as it could be under the tan caused by his outdoor life.
"Well, I—I thought," stammered Joe. "Perhaps that was a—"
"Who's getting suspicious now?" demanded Blake with a laugh. "Talk about me! Why, you're way ahead!"
"Oh, well, I guess I did imagine too much," admitted Joe with a little laugh. "It probably is an alarm clock, as you say. I wonder what we'd better do with it? If we leave it there—"
He was interrupted by the opening of the stateroom door and as both boys turned they saw their Spanish friend standing on the threshold staring at them.
"Well!" he exclaimed, and there was an angry note in his voice—a note the boys had never before noticed, for Mr. Alcando was of a sunny and happy disposition, and not nearly as quick tempered as persons of his nationality are supposed to be.
"I suppose it does look; as though we were rummaging in your things," said Blake, deciding instantly that it was best to be frank. "But we heard a curious ticking noise when we came down here, and we traced it to your bunk. We didn't know what it might be, and thought perhaps you had put your watch in the bed, and might have forgotten to take it out. We looked, and found this—"
"Ah, my new alarm clock!" exclaimed Mr. Alcando, and what seemed to be a look of relief passed over his face. He reached in among the bed clothes and picked up the curious brass-bound ticking box, with its many little metallic projections.
"I perhaps did not tell you that I am a sort of inventor," the Spaniard went on. "I have not had much success, but I think my new alarm clock is going to bring me in some money. It works on a new principle, but I am giving it a good test, privately, before I try to put it on the market."
He took the brass-bound, ticking box from the bed, and must have adjusted the mechanism in a way Blake or Joe did not notice, for the "click-click" stopped at once, and the room seemed curiously still after it.
"Some day I will show you how it works," the young Spaniard went on. "I think, myself, it is quite what you call—clever."
And with that he put the box in a trunk, and closed the lid with a snap that threw the lock.
"And now, boys, we will soon be there!" he cried with a gay laugh. "Soon we will be in the beautiful land of Panama, and will see the marvels of that great canal. Are you not glad? And I shall begin to learn more about making moving pictures! That will please me, though I hope I shall not be so stupid a pupil as to make trouble for you, my friends, to whom I owe so much."
He looked eagerly at the boys.
"We'll teach you all we know, which isn't such an awful lot," said Joe. "And I don't believe you'll be slow."
"You have picked up some of it already," went on Blake, for while delaying over making their arrangements in New York the boys and their pupil had gone into the rudiments of moving picture work.
"I am glad you think so," returned the other. "I shall be glad when we are at work, and more glad still, when I can, with my own camera, penetrate into the fastness of the jungle, along the lines of our railroad, and show what we have done to bring civilization there. The film will be the eyes of the world, watching our progress," he added, poetically.
"Why don't you come up on deck," he proceeded. "It is warm down here."
"We just came down," said Joe, "but it is hot," for they were approaching nearer to the Equator each hour.
While the boys were following the young Spaniard up on deck, Joe found a chance to whisper to Blake:
"I notice he was not at all anxious to show us how his brass-box alarm clock worked."
"No," agreed Blake in a low voice, "and yet his invention might be in such a shape that he didn't want to exhibit it yet."
"So you think that's the reason, eh?"
"Surely. Don't you?"
"I do not!"
"What then?"
"Well, I think he's trying to—"
"Hush, here he comes!" cautioned Blake, for their friend at that moment came back from a stroll along the forward deck.
But if Joe was really suspicious of the young Spaniard nothing that occurred in the next few days served to develop that suspicion. No reference was made to the odd alarm clock, which was not heard to tick again, nor was it in evidence either in Mr. Alcando's bed, or elsewhere.
"What were you going to say it was that time when I stopped you?" asked Blake of his chum one day.
"I was going to say I thought it might be some sort of an improvement on a moving picture camera," Joe answered. "This may be only a bluff of his—wanting to learn how to take moving pictures. He may know how all along, and only be working on a certain improvement that he can't perfect until he gets just the right conditions. That's what I think."
"Well, you think wrong," declared Blake. "As for him knowing something about the pictures now, why he doesn't even know how to thread the film into the camera."
"Oh, well, maybe I'm wrong," admitted Joe.
Day succeeded day, until, in due time, after their stop at San Juan, where the boys went ashore for a brief visit, the steamer dropped anchor in the excellent harbor of Colon, at the Atlantic end of the great Panama Canal.
A storm was impending as the ship made her way up the harbor, but as the boys and the other passengers looked at the great break-water, constructed to be one of the protections to the Canal, they realized what a stupendous undertaking the work was, and they knew that no storm could affect them, now they were within the Colon harbor.
"Well, we're here at last!" exclaimed Joe, as he looked over the side and noticed many vessels lying about, most of them connected in some manner with the canal construction.
"Yes, and now for some moving pictures—at least within a day or so," went on Blake. "I'm tired of doing nothing. At last we are at Panama!"
"And I shall soon be with you, taking pictures!" cried the Spaniard. "How long do you think it will be before I can take some views myself?" he asked eagerly.
"Oh, within a week or so we'll trust you with a camera," said Blake.
"That is, if you can spare time from your alarm clock invention," added Joe, with a curious glance at his chum.
But if Mr. Alcando felt any suspicions at the words he did not betray himself. He smiled genially, made some of his rapid Latin gestures and exclaimed:
"Oh, the clock. He is safe asleep, and will be while I am here. I work only on moving pictures now!"
In due season Blake, Joe and Mr. Alcando found themselves quartered in the pleasant Washington Hotel, built by the Panama Railroad for the Government, where they found, transported to a Southern clime, most of the luxuries demanded by people of the North.
"Well, this is something like living!" exclaimed Blake as their baggage and moving picture cameras and accessories having been put away, they sat on the veranda and watched breaker after breaker sweep in from the Caribbean Sea.
"The only trouble is we won't be here long enough," complained Joe, as he sipped a cooling lime drink, for the weather was quite warm. "We'll have to leave it and take to the Canal or the jungle, to say nothing of standing up to our knees in dirt taking slides."
"Do you—er—really have to get very close to get pictures of the big slides?" asked Mr. Alcando, rather nervously, Blake thought.
"The nearer the better," Joe replied. "Remember that time, Blake, when we were filming the volcano, and the ground opened right at your feet?"
"I should say I did remember it," said Blake. "Some picture that!"
"Where was this?" asked the Spaniard.
"In earthquake land. There weresometimes there!"
"Ha! Do not think to scare me!" cried their pupil with a frank laugh. "I said I was going to learn moving pictures and I am—slides or no slides."
"Oh, we're not trying to 'josh' you," declared Blake. "We'll all have to run some chances. But it's all in the day's work, and, after all, it's no more risky than going to war."
"No, I suppose not," laughed their pupil. "Well, when do we start?"
"As soon as we can arrange for the government tug to take us along the Canal," answered Blake. "We'll have to go in one of the United States vessels, as the Canal isn't officially opened yet. We'll have to make some inquiries, and present our letters of introduction. If we get started with the films inside of a week we'll be doing well."
The week they had to wait until their plans were completed was a pleasant one. They lived well at the hotel, and Mr. Alcando met some Spaniards and other persons whom he knew, and to whom he introduced the boys.
Finally the use of the tug was secured, cameras were loaded with the reels of sensitive film, other reels in their light-tight metal boxes were packed for transportation, and shipping cases, so that the exposed reels could be sent to the film company in New York for developing and printing, were taken along.
Not only were Blake and Joe without facilities for developing the films they took, but it is very hard to make negatives in hot countries. If you have ever tried to develop pictures on a hot day, without an ice water bath, you can understand this. And there was just then little ice to be had for such work as photography though some might have been obtained for an emergency. Blake and Joe were only to make the exposures; the developing and printing could better be done in New York.
"Well, we'll start up the canal to-morrow," said Blake to Joe on the evening of their last day in Colon.
"Yes, and I'll be glad of it," remarked Joe. "It's nice enough here at this hotel, but I want to get busy."
"So do I," confessed his chum.
They were to make the entire trip through the Canal as guests of Uncle Sam, the Government having acceded to Mr. Hadley's request, as the completed films were to form part of the official exhibit at the exposition in California later on.
"Whew, but itishot!" exclaimed Joe, after he and Blake had looked over their possessions, to make sure they were forgetting nothing for their trip next day.
"Yes," agreed Blake. "Let's go out on the balcony for a breath of air."
Their room opened on a small balcony which faced the beach. Mr. Alcando had a room two or three apartments farther along the corridor, and his, too, had a small balcony attached. As Blake and Joe went out on theirs they saw, in the faint light of a crescent and much-clouded moon, two figures on the balcony opening from the Spaniard's room.
"He has company," said Joe, in a low voice.
"Yes," agreed Blake. "I wonder who it is? He said all of his friends had left the hotel. He must have met some new ones."
It was very still that night, the only sounds being the low boom and hiss of the surf as it rushed up the beach. And gradually, to Joe and Blake, came the murmur of voices from the Spaniard's balcony. At first they were low, and it seemed to the boys, though neither expressed the thought, that the conference was a secret one. Then, clearly across the intervening space, came the words:
"Are you sure the machine works right?"
"Perfectly," was the answer, in Mr. Alcando's tones. "I have given it every test."
Then the voices again sunk to a low murmur.
ALONG THE CANAL
ALONG THE CANAL
"Blake, did you hear that?" asked Joe, after a pause, during which he and his chum could hear the low buzz of conversation from the other balcony.
"Yes, I heard it. What of it?"
"Well, nothing that I know of, and yet—"
"Yet you're more suspicious than I was," broke in Blake. "I don't see why."
"I hardly know myself," admitted Joe. "Yet, somehow, that ticking box, and what you saw in that letter—"
"Oh, nonsense!" interrupted Blake. "Don't imagine too much. You think that curious box is some attachment for a moving picture camera; do you?"
"Well, it might be, and—"
"And you're afraid he will get ahead of you in your invention of a focus tube; aren't you?" continued Blake, not giving his companion a chance to finish what he started to say. For Joe had recently happened to hit on a new idea of a focusing tube for a moving picture camera, and had applied for a patent on it. But there was some complication and his papers had not yet been granted. He was in fear lest someone would be granted a similar patent before he received his.
"Oh, I don't know as I'm afraid of that," Joe answered slowly.
"Well, it must be that—or something," insisted Blake. "You hear Alcando and someone else talking about a machine, and you at once jump to the conclusion that it's a camera."
"No, I don't!" exclaimed Joe. He did not continue the conversation along that line, but he was doing some hard thinking.
Later that evening, when Mr. Alcando called at the room of the two chums to bid them goodnight, he made no mention of his visitor on the balcony. Nor did Blake or Joe question him.
"And we start up the Canal in the morning?" asked the Spaniard.
"Yes, and we'll make the first pictures going through the Gatun locks," decided Blake.
"Good! I am anxious to try my hand!" said their "pupil."
With their baggage, valises, trunks, cameras, boxes of undeveloped film, other boxes to hold the exposed reels of sensitive celluloid, and many other things, the moving picture boys and Mr. Alcando went aboard the government tugNamathe next morning. With the exception of some Army engineers making a trip of inspection, they were the only passengers.
"Well, are you all ready, boys?" asked the captain, for he had been instructed by his superiors to show every courtesy and attention to our heroes. In a sense they were working for Uncle Sam.
"All ready," answered Blake.
"Then we'll start," was the reply. "I guess—"
"Oh, one moment, I beg of you!" cried Mr. Alcando. "I see a friend coming with a message to me," and he pointed along the pier, where the tug was tied. Coming on the run was a man who bore every appearance of being a Spaniard.
"You are late," complained Mr. Alcando, as the runner handed him a letter. "You almost delayed my good friend, the captain of this tug."
"I could not help it," was the answer. "I did not receive it myself until a few minutes ago. It came by cable. So you are off?"
"We are off!" answered Mr. Alcando.
Then the other spoke in Spanish, and later on Blake, who undertook the study of that language so as to make himself understood in a few simple phrases knew what it was that the two men said. For the runner asked:
"You will not fail us?"
"I will not fail—if I have to sacrifice myself," was the answer of Mr. Alcando, and then with a wave of his hand the other went back up the pier.
"All right?" again asked Captain Watson.
"All right, my dear sir, I am sorry to have delayed you," answered Mr. Alcando with more than his usual politeness.
"A little delay doesn't matter. I am at your service," the commander said. "Well, now we'll start."
If either Blake or Joe felt any surprise over the hurried visit, at the last minute, of Mr. Alcando's friend, they said nothing to each other about it. Besides, they had other matters to think of just then, since now their real moving picture work was about to begin.
In a short time they were moving away from the pier, up the harbor and toward the wonderful locks and dam that form the amazing features (aside from the Culebra Cut) of the great Canal.
"Better get our cameras ready; hadn't we, Blake?" suggested Joe.
"I think so," agreed his chum. "Now, Mr. Alcando, if you want to pick up any points, you can watch us. A little later we'll let you grind the crank yourself."
I might explain, briefly, that moving pictures are taken not by pressing a switch, or a rubber bulb, such as that which works a camera shutter, but by the continuous action of a crank, or handle, attached to the camera. Pressing a bulb does well enough for taking a single picture, but when a series, on a long celluloid strip, are needed, as in the case for the "movies," an entirely different arrangement becomes absolutely necessary.
The sensitive celluloid film must move continuously, in a somewhat jerky fashion, inside the dark light-tight camera, and behind the lens. As each picture, showing some particular motion, is taken, the film halts for the briefest space of time, and then goes on, to be wound up in the box, and a new portion brought before the lens for exposure.
All this the crank does automatically, opening and closing the shutter, moving the film and all that is necessary.
I wish I had space, not only to tell you more of how moving pictures are made, but much about the Panama Canal. As to the former—the pictures—in other books of this series I have done my best to give you a brief account of that wonderful industry.
Now as to the Canal—it is such a vast undertaking and subject that only in a great volume could I hope to do it justice. And in a story (such as this is intended to be), I am afraid you would think I was trying to give you pretty dry reading if I gave you too many facts and figures.
Of course many of you have read of the Canal in the newspapers—the controversy over the choice of the route, the discussion as to whether a sea level or a lock canal was best, and many other points, especially whether the Gatun Dam would be able to hold back the waters of the Chagres River.
With all that I have nothing to do in this book, but I hope you will pardon just a little reference to the Canal, especially the lock features, since Joe and Blake had a part in at least filming those wonderful structures.
You know there are two kinds of canals, those on the level, which are merely big over-grown ditches, and those which have to go over hills and through low valleys.
There are two ways of getting a canal over a hill. One is to build it and let the water in to the foot of the hill, and then to raise vessels over, the crest of the hill, and down the other side to where the canal again starts, by means of inclined planes, or marine railways.
The other method is by "locks," as they are called. That is, there are built a series of basins with powerful, water-tight gates dividing them. Boys who live along canals well know how locks work.
A boat comes along until it reaches the place where the lock is. It is floated into a basin, or section, of the waterway, and a gate is closed behind it. Then, from that part of the canal which is higher than that part where the boat then is, water is admitted into the basin, until the boat rises to the level of the higher part of the canal. Then the higher gate is opened, and the vessel floats out on the higher level. It goes "up hill," so to speak.
By reversing the process it can also go "down hill." Of course there must be heavy gates to prevent the higher level waters from rushing into those of the lower level.
Some parts of the Panama Canal are eighty-five feet higher than other parts. In other words, a vessel entering the Canal at Colon, on the Atlantic side of the Isthmus, must rise eighty-five feet to get to the level of Gatun Lake, which forms a large part of the Canal. Then, when the Pacific end is approached, the vessel must go down eighty-five feet again, first in one step of thirty and a third feet, and then in two steps, or locks, aggregating fifty-four and two-thirds feet. So you see the series of locks at either end of the great Canal exactly balance one another, the distance at each end being eighty-five feet.
It is just like going up stairs at one end of a long board walk and down again at the other end, only the steps are of water, and not wood.
The tug bearing Blake, Joe and Mr. Alcando was now steaming over toward Toro Point break-water, which I have before alluded to. This was built to make a good harbor at Colon, where violent storms often occur.
"I want to get some pictures of the breakwater," Blake had said, since he and his chum were to present, in reels, a story of a complete trip through the Canal, and the breakwater was really the starting point. It extends out into the Caribbean Sea eleven thousand feet.
"And you are taking pictures now?" asked Mr. Alcando, as Blake and Joe set up a camera in the bow of the boat.
"That's what we're doing. Come here and we'll give you lesson number one," invited Blake, clicking away at the handle. "I will gladly come!" exclaimed the Spaniard, and soon he was deep in the mysteries of the business.
There was not much delay at the breakwater, as the boys were anxious to get to the Canal proper, and into the big locks. A little later their tug was steaming along the great ditch, five hundred feet wide, and over forty feet deep, which leads directly to the locks. This ditch, or start of the Canal proper, is about seven miles long, and at various points of interest along the way a series of moving pictures was taken.
"And so at last we are really on the Panama Canal!" cried Joe as he helped Blake put in a fresh reel of unexposed film, Mr. Alcando looking on and learning "points."
"That's what you are," the captain informed them, "and, just ahead of you are the locks. Now you'll see something worth 'filming,' as you call it."
ALMOST AN ACCIDENT
ALMOST AN ACCIDENT
"What's that big, long affair, jutting out so far from the locks?" asked Blake, when the tug had approached nearer.
"That's the central pier," the captain informed him. "It's a sort of guide wall, to protect the locks. You know there are three locks at this end; or, rather, six, two series of three each. And each lock has several gates. One great danger will be that powerful vessels may ram these gates and damage them, and, to prevent this, very elaborate precautions are observed. You'll soon see. We'll have to tie up to this wall, or we'll run into the first protection, which is a big steel chain. You can see it just ahead there."
Joe and Blake, who had gotten all the pictures they wanted of the approach to the lock, stopped grinding away at the handle of the camera long enough to look at the chain.
These chains, for there are several of them, each designed to protect some lock gate, consist of links made of steel three inches thick. They stretch across the locks, and any vessel that does not stop at the moment it should, before reaching this chain, will ram its prow into it.
"But I'm not taking any such chances," Captain Watson informed the boys. "I don't want to be censured, which might happen, and I don't want to injure my boat."
"What would happen if you did hit the chain?" asked Blake. They had started off again, after the necessary permission to enter the locks had been signaled to them. Once more Blake and Joe were taking pictures, showing the chain in position.
"Well, if I happened to be in command of a big vessel, say the size of theOlympic, and I hit the chain at a speed of a mile and a half an hour, and I had a full load on, the chain would stop me within about seventy feet and prevent me from ramming the lock gate."
"But how does it do it?" asked Joe.
"By means of machinery," the captain informed him. "Each end of the chain fender goes about a drum, which winds and unwinds by hydraulic power. Once a ship hits the chain its speed will gradually slacken, but it takes a pressure of one hundred tons to make the chain begin to yield. Then it will stand a pressure up to over two hundred and fifty tons before it will break. But before that happens the vessel will have stopped."
"But we are not going to strike the chain, I take it," put in Mr. Alcando.
"Indeed we are not," the captain assured him. "There, it is being lowered now."
As he spoke the boys saw the immense steel-linked fender sink down below the surface of the water.
"Where does it go?" asked Blake.
"It sinks down in a groove in the bottom of the lock," the captain explained. "It takes about one minute to lower the chain, and as long to raise it."
"Well, I've got that!" Blake exclaimed as the handle of his camera ceased clicking. He had sufficient views of the giant fender. As the tug went on Captain Watson explained to the boys that even though a vessel should manage to break the chain, which was almost beyond the bounds of possibility, there was the first, or safety gate of the lock. And though a vessel might crash through the chain, and also the first gate, owing to failure to stop in the lock, there would be a second gate, which would almost certainly bring the craft to a stop.
But even the most remote possibility has been thought of by the makers of the great Canal, and, should all the lock-gates be torn away, and the impounded waters of Gatun Lake start to rush out, there are emergency dams that can be put into place to stop the flood.
These emergency dams can be swung into place in two minutes by means of electrical machinery, but should that fail, they can be put into place by hand in about thirty minutes.
"So you see the Canal is pretty well protected," remarked Captain Watson, as he prepared to send his tug across the place where the Chain had been, and so into the first of the three lock basins.
"Say! This is great!" cried Blake, as he looked at the concrete walls, towering above him. They were moist, for a vessel had recently come through.
Now the tug no longer moved under her own steam, nor had it been since coming alongside the wall of the central pier. For all vessels must be towed through the lock basins, and towed not by other craft, but by electric locomotives that run alongside, on the top of the concrete walls.
Two of these locomotives were attached to the bow of the tug, and two to the stern. But those at the stern were not for pulling, as Joe at first supposed, for he said:
"Why, those locomotives in back are making fast to us with wire hawsers. I don't see how they can push with those."
"They're not going to," explained Captain Watson. "Those in the stern are for holding back, to provide for an emergency in case those in front pull us too fast."
"Those who built the Canal seem to have thought of everything," spoke Blake with much enthusiasm.
"You'll think so, after you've seen some more of the wonders," the tug captain went on with a smile. "Better get your cameras ready," he advised, "they'll be opening and closing the gates for us now, and that ought to make good pictures, especially when we are closed in the lock, and water begins to enter."
"How does it come in?" asked Joe. "Over the top?"
"No, indeed. They don't use the waterfall effect," answered Blake, who had been reading a book about the Canal. "It comes in from the bottom; doesn't it, Captain Watson?"
"Yes, through valves that are opened and closed by electricity. In fact everything about the lock is done by electricity, though in case of emergency hand power can be used. The water fills the lock through openings in the floor, and the water itself comes from Gatun Lake. There, the gate is opening!"
The boys saw what seemed to be two solid walls of steel slowly separated, by an unseen power, as the leaves of a book might open. In fact the gates of the locks are called "leaves." Slowly they swung back out of the way, into depressions in the side walls of the locks, made to receive them.
"Here we go!" cried the captain, the tug began to move slowly under the pull of the electric locomotives on the concrete wall above them. "Start your cameras, boys!"
Blake and Joe needed no urging. Already the handles were clicking, and thousands of pictures, showing a boat actually going through the locks of the Panama Canal, were being taken on the long strip of sensitive film.
"Oh, it is wonderful!" exclaimed Mr. Alcando. "Do you think—I mean, would it be possible for me to—"
"To take some pictures? Of course!" exclaimed Blake, generously. "Here, grind this crank a while, I'm tired."
The Spaniard had been given some practice in using a moving picture camera, and he knew about at what speed to turn the handle. For the moving pictures must be taken at just a certain speed, and reproduced on the screen at the same rate, or the vision produced is grotesque. Persons and animals seem to run instead of walk. But the new pupil, with a little coaching from Blake, did very well.
"Now the gates will be closed," said the tug captain, "and the water will come in to raise us to the level of the next higher lock. We have to go through this process three times at this end of the Canal, and three times at the other. Watch them let in the water."
The big gates were not yet fully closed when something happened that nearly put an end to the trip of the moving picture boys to Panama.
For suddenly their tug, instead of moving forward toward the front end of the lock, began going backward, toward the slowly-closing lock gates.
"What's up?" cried Blake.
"We're going backward!" shouted Joe.
"Yes, the stern locomotives are pulling us back, and the front ones seem to have let go!" Captain Watson said. "We'll be between the lock gates in another minute. Hello, up there!" he yelled, looking toward the top of the lock wall. "What's the matter?"
Slowly the tug approached the closing lock gates. If she once got between them, moving as they were, she would be crushed like an eggshell. And it seemed that no power on earth could stop the movement of those great, steel leaves.
"This is terrible!" cried Mr. Alcando. "I did not count on this in learning to make moving pictures."
"You'll be in tighter places than this," said Blake, as he thought in a flash of the dangers he and Joe had run.
"What'll we do?" asked Joe, with a glance at his chum.
"Looks as though we'd have to swim for it if the boat is smashed," said Blake, who remained calm. "It won't be hard to do that. This is like a big swimming tank, anyhow, but if they let the other water in—"
He did not finish, but they knew what he meant. Slowly and irresistibly the great lock gates were closing and now the tug had almost been pulled back between them. She seemed likely to be crushed to splinters.