The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Boy Scouts at the Panama Canal, by John Henry Goldfrap

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Title: The Boy Scouts at the Panama Canal

Author: John Henry Goldfrap

Release Date: February 12, 2013 [eBook #42077]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOY SCOUTS AT THE PANAMA CANAL***

E-text prepared by Stephen Hutcheson, Brenda Lewis,
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
(http://www.pgdp.net)

THE BOY SCOUTS
AT THE PANAMA CANAL

By LIEUT. HOWARD PAYSON

Author of
“The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol,”
“The Boy Scouts on the Range,”
“The Boy Scouts and the Army Airship,”
“The Boy Scouts’ Mountain Camp,”
“The Boy Scouts for Uncle Sam,” etc.

A. L. BURT COMPANY
Publishers New York
Printed in U. S. A.

Copyright, 1913
BY
HURST & COMPANY
MADE IN U. S. A.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Boy Scouts to the Rescue 5

II. An Angry Farmer 16

III. On a Mission 27

IV. Some Up-to-date Advertising 35

V. A Big Surprise 43

VI. Baseball 53

VII. A Test for the Eagles 66

VIII. Skill vs. Muscle 85

IX. Fire! 91

X. A Scout Hero 100

XI. The Fire Test 113

XII. In Peril of His Life 122

XIII. The Enemy’s Move 131

XIV. A Novel Proposal 148

XV. Off for the Isthmus 156

XVI. Something about the Canal 167

XVII. At Old Panama 181

XVIII. Between Earth and Sky 191

XIX. The Gatun Dam 200

XX. A Dynamite Volcano 209

XXI. “Run for Your Lives!” 217

XXII. The Boys Meet an Old Acquaintance 223

XXIII. Along the Chagres 232

XXIV. The Trackless Jungle 241

XXV. A Chapter of Accidents 257

XXVI. The Ruined City 270

XXVII. “Be Prepared” 284

The Boy Scouts at the
Panama Canal

CHAPTER I.
BOY SCOUTS TO THE RESCUE.

Farmer Hiram Applegate had just finished breakfast. For this reason, perhaps, he felt exceptionally good-humored. Even the news he had read in his morning paper (of the day before) to the effect that his pet abomination and aversion, The Boy Scouts, had held a successful and popular review in New York and received personal commendation from the President failed to shake his equanimity.

Outside the farmhouse the spring sun shone bright and warm. The air was crisp, and odorous with the scent of apple blossoms. Robins twittered cheerily, hens clucked and now and then a blue bird flashed among the orchard trees.

As Hiram stepped out on his “vendetta,” as he called his verandah—or, to use the old-fashioned word and the better one, “porch”—he was joined by a rather heavy-set youth with small, shifty eyes and a sallow skin which gave the impression of languishing for soap and water. A suit of