The Boy Scouts at the Panama-Pacific Exposition

The messenger condescended to slacken his speed sufficiently to catch the question which Rob asked. After saluting, as became a fellow scout, he nodded his head in the affirmative, being apparently too winded to say even a single word.

Accordingly the two boys entered the building and threading their way among a multitude of exhibits, with a sprinkling of people examining the same, most of them rather sober-looking in appearance, they managed to find where the offices of the director were located.

“We wish to see Professor Marsh, who is in charge of this building,” was what Rob said to an active little man wearing large glasses, and with all the earmarks of a scientist.

“That happens to be my name, son; what can I do for you?” replied the other, as he bent a pair of exceedingly penetrating eyes upon the scouts.

“We have come to you,” Rob explained, “from Professor Andrew McEwen, of Edinburgh University, who met with an accident while visiting an old friend near our home, on Long Island, New York State, and while not seriously injured could not finish his journey across the continent.”

The little man immediately showed signs of tremendous excitement. He glued his eyes on the suitcase Rob was carrying.

“Yes, yes, glad to hear that he is not seriously injured. Professor McEwen is one of the most famous of his class, and the world could ill afford to lose him at this interesting stage of events. But he was to bring with him a collection too precious to trust to ordinary channels. I sincerely trust that it was not harmed when he met with his accident?”

“Oh! no, sir,” exclaimed Rob, hastily, “not in the least, since he did not have it with him at the time. But he grieved to think it might be delayed in reaching you, and so he intrusted it to the keeping of myself and my comrade here, as we happened to be of some assistance to him at the time.”

The scientist seemed to be actually dumfounded. He stared from Rob to Andy, and then looked hard at the suitcase.

“Can it be possible that Professor McEwen intrusted those priceless papyrus relics to the care of two mere boys? I am astounded, and likewise worried. Oh! I hope you have taken great care with them. Give me the bag, and let me see for myself. It would be a shock indeed if anything had happened to destroy the labor of years, and caused such a dreadful loss to science.”

He almost snatched the suitcase from Rob’s hand and vanished like a streak through a door that led to another room, leaving the two boys exchanging amused glances.

“Whew! I’m sorry for you if anything has gone wrong with those rolls, Rob,” said Andy, making a wry face. “We’re apt to go out of this building faster than we came in, I’m afraid.”

“No danger,” Rob told him; “they were prepared to resist ordinary shocks in transit, and we’ve handled them as carefully as Professor McEwen himself could have done. But he did look actually frightened, for a fact.”

“Isn’t it queer what a pile these learned scientists think of things that other people wouldn’t give five cents for?” remarked Andy.

“Oh! well,” said Rob, “that’s because we’re in the dark concerning their real value. Look in through the half-open door and you can see several men like Professor Marsh undoing those same rolls with trembling hands.”

“Yes, and notice the awed look on their faces, will you, Rob? The director is shaking hands all around now, and beaming on his colleagues, so I guess he’s found things O. K. and hunky dory. Here he comes out to tell us so.”

The look of deep anxiety on Professor Marsh’s face had vanished, and there was a trace of a pleased smile there when he again confronted the two scouts.

“The letter inclosed from Professor McEwen speaks in the highest terms of you young gentlemen,” he said, effusively, as he stretched out both hands. “He writes that you were instruments in the hands of Providence of saving his life; and for that let me remark that you deserve the heartfelt thanks of all who are interested in the work that distinguished gentleman is doing for science. I am proud to shake you by the hand. To think that you have come three thousand miles bearing those priceless rolls, and delivered them to us here without the slightest damage. And this very night I shall write to Professor McEwen to that effect.”

“We are instructed to wire him in your name with your permission, professor, that you have received them intact,” ventured Rob.

“I will sign any message you choose to send him, son,” declared the happy director of the building devoted to the interests of science.

“And now, sir,” said Rob, “would you mind returning my suitcase?”

CHAPTER XII

THE PEOPLE OF THE “ZONE.”

When Rob and his chum left the building they carried the empty suitcase; and besides, Professor Marsh had written and signed a long and effusive message to his learned colleague in care of Judge Collins, at Hampton, Long Island, which Rob was empowered to send, at his own expense, by wire as a night letter.

“That job is done,” said Rob, with the air of one who has gotten rid of a load that had been on his mind.

“And just to think how we can enjoy ourselves for weeks if we feel like staying that long,” pursued the happy Andy, fairly bubbling over with enthusiasm and joy.

“Even when we decide to start back home,” laughed Rob, “the fun isn’t over by a huge sight.”

“You mean, Rob, we’ll have the time of our lives traveling across the Canadian Rockies, taking in wonderful scenery that is better, lots of people say, than anything across in Switzerland?”

“Yes,” said the scout leader, “and if we choose to stop over for a day or two to try the trout fishing at a lake we were told about, haven’t we got our rods and other material along in our trunk?”

“It takes a wideawake fellow like you to think of every little detail, for a fact!” declared Andy, with genuine admiration.

“Oh! I’m far from perfect, I want you to know,” the other told him. “I can remember plenty of times when I’ve found that, after all, the very thing of most importance was forgotten or neglected. But it pays to try and cover the ground. It saves lots of trouble and disappointment in the long run.”

“I believe you, Rob; with me it seems as though I fall into the way of letting some other fellow do my thinking for me. I know it’s wrong, but anyhow it’s satisfying to have that confidence in your chum.”

“You didn’t think of letting some other scout do your work for you at the time you were learning the various bugle calls, I noticed, Andy.”

“Shucks! that’s different,” returned the other, hastily. “Now that you mention it, I can’t remember ever asking a substitute to do my eating for me when meal time rolled around. Guess you must be right, though, Rob; some of these days I intend to wake up and even think for myself.”

“Believe me you can’t make that day any too soon, Andy. If you happened to find yourself cast adrift on a big desert you would be sorry you delayed so long, though, if you pulled through alive, it might be the making of you.”

“Oh! I’ll buckle down to the job without being forced that way,” Andy hurriedly assured the scout leader. “What’s the next thing on the program?”

“I know you’re just dying to get into the amusement section of the Exposition called the Zone, and which is a good deal like the Streets of Cairo and the Midway of the Chicago Fair. I’ll make a bargain with you, Andy.”

“All right; let’s hear the particulars,” exclaimed the other eagerly.

“First of all,” began Rob, “I want to get rid of this suitcase, and we’ll make for that tobacconist’s odd booth, to leave it with him until we’re going back to the hotel.”

“That’s over this way, past the big California building, with the Oregon one that has a colonnade of logs alongside. Well, after we’ve shunted the bag on the man who runs the tobacco shop, what next?”

“We’ll put in the rest of the morning,” Rob explained, “in rummaging through some of these places clustering around the Tower of Jewels. I’ve got a string of things I’m wild to see, and that’s as good a place to make a start as anywhere.”

“That brings us to noon, when we agreed to meet Hiram, you remember, for lunch?” Andy reminded his chum.

“Yes, and I understand there are dozens and dozens of eating places to be found in the Zone. If you want you can have an Arab dinner, a Chinese chop suey, a French meal à la carte, a German one, or anything your taste calls for. So we might as well head that way for our lunch, and pick out a place that seems to promise good things for hungry fellows.”

“Huh! after I once get inside the Zone, Rob, nothing can drag me out again for the whole afternoon. So, I hope you’ve concluded to make a sacrifice, and devote the rest of the day to keeping me company in roaming around among all the queer sights they tell me you can run up against there.”

Rob nodded his head and smiled.

“I promise you that, Andy, because I know you too well to believe there could be any peace until you have had your way. Yes, and I admit that I can get a lot of enjoyment out of seeing all those foreign things, as well as the more important exhibits in Machinery Hall and such places.”

“Sure thing,” said Andy, with an assumption of great sagacity. “In one case we are shown wonderful development in the world’s progress along the lines of science and commerce; while in the Zone you can see man himself as he appears all over this ball, how he lives, what his forefathers have done for ages and ages in the past, and in fact study human nature. To me that is better than gaping at some machine I never could understand in a lifetime.”

By this time they had reached the shop where arrangements had been made with the obliging proprietor to act as a medium of exchange between the three scouts during their stay. The empty suitcase was disposed of and once more the boys started out to gaze upon some of the myriad strange sights that were to be met with on every hand.

Doubtless Rob took a considerably greater amount of interest in what they viewed during those several hours than did his companion, though now and then Andy managed to display more or less enthusiasm.

It would be utterly impossible to mention the things they saw as they wandered hither and thither about that section of the grounds. Even a guide-book of the Exposition would have to skim over the details, such were the numberless attractions on every hand.

“Getting on toward noon, Rob!” suggested Andy, finally, as he laid a hand on his stomach, as if to call attention to the fact that it was unusually flat.

“And there’s Hiram coming this way, too, as if he was beginning to remember his promise to meet us for lunch. I wonder if we can keep him with us the rest of the day?”

“Not unless you get a rope and tie him,” chuckled Andy, “for he’s clean gone daffy over the line of exhibits he fancies most, and will haunt that part of the Exposition nearly all the time we’re here.”

Hiram caught sight of them about that moment, and hurried over.

“Just on the way to the meeting-place,” he announced. “Knew it was near grub time and wanted to get it over with. Say, they’ve got the greatest lot of things worth while on exhibition over there in the building devoted to inventions you ever saw. And the aviation field is a peach. My stars! but they’re a busy bunch of willing, hustling workers there.”

Rob had been studying the other’s face, and it told him something.

“You found your firm represented there, of course, Hiram?” he remarked.

“’Course they are, and cutting some high jinks, too,” came the reply. “They’ve got some of their finished products working in the field, with air pilots of national renown in charge of the flights. You must get over that way some time and see.”

“We will, perhaps before the day is done,” Rob assured him; “but I suppose now, Hiram, you didn’t introduce yourself to the Golden Gate people?”

“Naw. I just took it all in, and browsed around everywhere, laughing to myself to think how surprised they were going to be when they found out that the Hiram Nelson, inventor of the wonderful stabilizer for aëroplanes, was only a Boy Scout. But what are we going into the Zone for, tell me?”

“Why, to get something to eat, to be sure,” remarked Andy.

“But I’m no cannibal,” expostulated Hiram, holding back in pretended alarm; “even if they do have that stripe of people here on exhibition. I don’t hanker after trying a roast Fiji Islander, or a fricasseed Igorrote from the Philippine Islands – I’m not that hungry.”

“Oh!” Andy told him, tugging at his sleeve, “we’ll find a thousand places here where they cook meals after the fashion of every nation under the sun. I hope we pick out one that is close to that giant seesaw; because I’m wild to go up in it so as to get a magnificent view of the harbor, the Exposition grounds and the City of San Francisco.”

It was found to be an easy matter to accomplish this, and they were soon being served at a table that stood out-of-doors, so that as they enjoyed their lunch they could watch the endless procession of people passing and repassing.

As so many attractions in the amusement concession were connected with foreign countries, it was really almost as good as being abroad to see the various representative types that sauntered or hurried by.

“I wonder how many of those Arabs, Turks, Algerians, Persians, Hindoos, Hottentots and others are the real thing, and how many rank fakes,” suggested Hiram.

“That’s more than anybody can tell,” laughed Rob. “It’s the easiest thing to put stain on the skin of an Irishman, dress him in the Oriental style, clap a red fez on his head, and then call him a Turk. Only he has to keep his tongue tight-locked; because his brogue would give him away. If you listen to them chattering in their own tongue you can tell which are the real thing.”

“As for me,” spoke up Andy, frankly, “I just don’t question any of them, but take it for granted they’re what they make out to be. And I want to say, fellows, it’s the biggest treat to me to be here, watching the congress of all the nations and people on the globe.”

Hiram’s lip curled and he snickered, but Andy pretended not to hear. To Hiram’s mind any one who could confess to caring for such frivolous things when there was a building not far away just jammed with the most marvelous inventions known to modern science and ingenuity – well, it bordered on silliness. But then “many men, many minds,” and perhaps it is just as well that people do not all think alike. There is a deal of truth in that old proverb to the effect that what is “one man’s food may be another’s poison.”

So they sat there for a long time while the procession of Head Hunters from Borneo, natives of the island of Ceylon, South American vaqueros in their picturesque attire, pigmies from the heart of Africa, Mexican bull-fighters, Moros from our island possessions in the Orient, Chinese, Japanese, Servians, Tyrolese mountain climbers and yodlers, and a multitude of others continued to pass, many of them coming from the villages and side shows of the great amusement park.

From time to time the amazing arm of the giant Aëroscope would project up against the heavens, the car filled with those visitors who wished to obtain a view of their surroundings.

Every time it arose, slowly but majestically, Andy would stop talking to gape and watch, as though just then the one longing in his heart was to take that skyward trip.

Rob knew it would be the very first thing Andy would want to do after they left the table; and indeed, he was not feeling at all averse to complying with such a request, for it seemed as if the extensive view to be obtained must be well worth the price charged for the trip aloft.

“Three hundred and sixty-five feet they say in the guide book,” Andy gushed; “and all for a small sum in the bargain. I wouldn’t miss that sight for ten times fifty cents. Why, only for the Rockies being in the way, with a real good glass you might get even a peep in at Hampton town, unless one of those nasty sea fogs blocked you off,” and then, of course, he had to laugh himself at the idea of any glass being able to cover a distance of something like three thousand miles.

CHAPTER XIII

A STRANGE MEETING IN THE AIR

“Hiram, it’s only fair that you stay with us for a while this afternoon,” Rob mentioned as they were leaving the table.

“Oh! I expected to put in say an hour or so with you, Rob; and then later on I hope you’ll make your way over to the aviation field, where you’ll just as like as not find me hanging around, still picking up points.”

“That’s a bargain, then, is it?” demanded Rob.

“Just as you say,” Hiram declared. “I guess now I c’n hit on the fust thing our chum Andy here’ll be wantin’ to do. I’ve been watchin’ him stare at that old arm every time she rose up with the car; and I see we’re headin’ that way right fast now.”

“Yes, it’s a good idea to take that trip the first thing,” said Rob, “because you get a comprehensive idea of the lay of the land that serves you better than any map you can buy. They don’t stay up very long, though, because there are more dollars waiting to be picked up from the crowd that’s always in line to occupy the car.”

“Three hundred and sixty-five feet up is going some,” muttered Hiram. “I hope now they don’t have any accident to the machinery while we’re taking our look. I must see how they work this trick; it ought to be interesting.”

He would have started to carry out this intention then and there only that Andy held on to his coat and would not let go.

“The machinery part can keep, Hiram,” the impatient one declared. “Some time when you’re alone poke around all you like; but my tastes run in another channel. You’re like the geologists, with your nose pointed toward the ground all the while; I’m built more after the style of the astronomers who keep looking up and see the glories of the firmament that beat the fossils all hollow.”

“H’m! you don’t say!” was all the remark Hiram made, but it contained considerable skepticism concerning Andy’s sweeping assertion.

They fell in line, and were fortunate enough to be able to get aboard without having to wait, as they might have done later in the afternoon.

“This thing must have cost a raft of money to build; it beats the old Ferris Wheel to pieces, I should think; and that was a wonder in its day.”

“Yes,” said Andy, “but think of the money they must take in, running it all the time from February up to December. Why, I should think they’d have millions of passengers in that time, and at so much a head it would be like a regular gold mine.”

About that time the car was closed and locked, so that by no mischance could any reckless passenger be tempted to jump when it was high in the air, so as to accomplish a spectacular suicide.

“And they’ve got the windows screened in, too,” remarked Andy.

“They knew you were coming, I kinder guess, and wanted to make sure you wouldn’t lose your head up there so as to fall overboard,” Hiram told him.

The car was crowded, so that they could not see who all of their fellow passengers were. There was also considerable shouting going on, some of those aboard bidding farewell to friends who had been unable to make that trip, as though they fully expected to keep right on going up, once they got started toward the blue heavens overhead, until they landed in Glory.

“Here she goes!” announced Andy, eagerly, as the car was felt to vibrate.

With that they left the ground and commenced to ascend. The motion was fairly steady, as the weights on the other end of the great seesaw had been adjusted to correspond to the number of those in the car, so that after all the engine did not have a great deal of hard work to do in lifting that load.

“Whee! I only hope none of the balancing weight slips off!” said Hiram, who appeared to be rather nervous.

“I’m surprised at you, Hiram,” remarked Rob; “it seems queer for a fellow who aspires to be a bold air pilot some of these fine days, and who has even been up several times as high as three thousand feet, to be shivering with fear now, when at the most we’re only going to get three hundred odd feet from the ground.”

“Oh, well, that’s a horse of a different color,” Hiram explained; “when you’re up in an aëroplane it depends on your own self whether you come down safe, or have an accident. In this case you haven’t got a single thing to do with it, but just trust to a mechanic, who may be as reliable as they make ’em, but could make a mistake just once. That’s what gets my goat; my efficiency don’t count for a cent in this game.”

“Well, there is something in that,” Rob admitted; “but let’s try to find a place and look out as we keep on rising. Already the view seems to be getting pretty fine.”

There was more or less talking and laughing and all that in the car, for when there happens to be a spice of danger connected with any of these amusements many people become half hysterical.

The view was, indeed, becoming grand, as Rob had said, and both boys were soon copying Andy, who was staring first one way and then another, as sea and shore began to be spread out before him like a Mercator’s chart.

Although the huge arm of the giant Aëroscope had by no means reached the upper limit of its sweep, the great buildings lying below had the appearance of squatty “ant-heaps,” as Andy termed them; and the crowds that swarmed many of the walks of the Exposition looked so minute that it was hard to believe they were human beings.

All at once, the working arm of the big seesaw stopped with a rude jerk that caused a number of girls aboard to give vent to cries of alarm. Even strong men had a nervous look on their faces, Rob immediately noticed.

“What’s this mean?” demanded Hiram, laying a hand on Rob’s arm.

“We haven’t reached the highest sweep yet, I’m dead sure,” complained Andy, in a petulant tone, just as though he believed the management meant to cheat those aboard out of the full benefit of their money. “We want a better view than this. All the others went to the top, and I don’t see why we shouldn’t, too.”

“Rob, this stop wasn’t meant, was it?” demanded Hiram, insistent as usual.

“Don’t talk so loud, Hiram,” he was advised. “You’ll only frighten those girls all the more if they happen to hear you. No, I don’t believe it was intended that we stop this far up, and with such a bump, too.”

“But is there any real danger of an accident? I wouldn’t care so much if I had my new-fangled parachute with me, and could only get outside; for even if the old car did drop, I’d be able to sail down like a feather.”

“Danger – of course not a bit,” Rob told him sternly. “You don’t suppose the managers of this big Exposition would allow a mechanical affair like this Aëroscope to be run day after day unless the owners had made it absolutely accident proof. Just hold your horses and we’ll soon be moving again.”

“Yes, and Hiram,” said Andy just then, “don’t put yourself on a par with those silly screeching girls over there, who are hugging each other so. Poor things, they don’t know any better! But you’re a scout, Hiram, and have been taught never to show the white feather. Brace up! You’re wearing khaki right now, and for the sake of the cloth show yourself a man!”

That brought Hiram to a realization of the fact that he was indeed hardly proving himself a worthy scout. He pretended to be indifferent.

“Shucks! who cares?” he exclaimed. “I do wish them girls’d let up on their racket; it gets on a feller’s nerves to hear ’em shriek that way.”

“Well, I know what ails the old thing!” suddenly announced Andy, with a grin on his face that told how his love for joking exceeded any faint feeling of alarm that may have seized upon him.

“Let’s hear it, then!” demanded Rob.

“Oh, if you had only guessed it before we started it would have saved lots of bother!” called out Hiram.

“They miscalculated the weight, you see!” continued Andy. “Some fellows are so deceptive in their looks. Now right across from us there’s a fat boy with his back turned this way, and staring hard out of the window. I bet you they figured wrong on him, and that’s why we’ve got stuck up here four-fifths of the way to the top.”

The other two now looked, and owing to some of the passengers in the car crowding together an opening was made like a little lane. At the end of this they discovered, just as Andy had said, an exceedingly fat boy occupying more than his share of space, with his chubby legs braced under him, and his face pressed against the heavy wire netting that covered the open windows.