pretty cool!” exclaimed Merritt.
“I know it is, at least it looks so,” responded Tubby.
“Seems to me it’s up to you to do some work, too,” protested Merritt.
“As if I hadn’t just done a big job in labeling that pig,” replied Tubby, yawning; “it’s your turn now.”
Seeing that it was useless to try to turn Tubby from his determination to rest, which, next to eating, was his favorite occupation, Rob and Merritt took up their brushes, paste and a roll of bills and set out for the barn. Tubby watched them languidly a minute and then drove off along the sandy track while the other two clambered up a bank.
From the road the barn had appeared quite close; but when they reached the top of the bank they found that, actually, it stood back quite a little distance beyond a strip of grass and weeds. The boys waded through these almost knee-deep, and finally reached the side of the old barn. They set down their buckets and brushes and unrolled some bills preparatory to pasting them up.
Suddenly Merritt raised a warning finger. Rob instantly divined that his chum enjoined silence.
“Hark!” was the word that Merritt’s lips framed rather than spoke.
Inside the barn some one was talking, – several persons seemingly. After a minute the boys could distinguish words above the low hum of the speakers’ voices. Suddenly they caught a name: “Mainwaring.”
“I guess maybe we might be interested in this,” whispered Rob.
By a common impulse the two Boy Scouts moved closer to the moldering wall of the old barn.
CHAPTER V
A BIG SURPRISE
Time and weather had warped the boards of the structure till fair-sized cracks gaped here and there. The boys made for one of these, with the object 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 of tramps, but the name of the engineer, spoken with a foreign accent, had aroused them to a sense that, whoever was in the old barn, a subject was being discussed that might be of interest to their new friends.
Applying their eyes to two cracks in the timbers, they saw that within the barn four persons were seated. One of these they recognized almost instantly as Jared Applegate. By his side sat a youth of about his own age, flashily dressed, with a general air of cheap smartness about him. The other two occupants of the place were of a different type. One was heavily built and dark in complexion, almost a light coffee color, in fact. His swarthy face was clean shaven and heavily jowled. Seated next to him on an old hay press was a man as dark as he, but more slender and dapper in appearance. Also he was younger, not more than thirty, while his companion was probably in the neighborhood of fifty, although as powerful and vigorous, so far as the boys could judge, as a man of half his years.
“You say that you have duplicates of Mainwaring’s plans, showing exactly the weakest points of the great dam?” the elder man was asking, just as the 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, “you recollect that I spoke to you of Señor Applegate’s visit to me at Washington.”
Rob started. The name Estrada, coupled with a mention of Washington, recalled to his mind something that sent a thrill through him taken in connection with the words of the man addressed as Alverado.
Estrada, – José Estrada! That was the name of the ambassador of a South American republic that had several times been mentioned as being opposed to Uncle Sam’s plans on the Isthmus. What if – but not wishing to miss a word of what followed, he gave over speculating and applied himself to listening with all his might. Jared gave a short, disagreeable laugh.
“You can just bet I got duplicates of all the plans,” he chuckled, “I had an idea that Mainwaring was going to fire me on account of – well, of something, and so I went to work and copied off all of his private papers I could. You see, it was common talk on the Isthmus that the place was alive with spies, and I figured out that anybody who was interested enough to hire spies must be mighty anxious to get at the real plans of the canal, and willing to pay big for them, too,” he added with a greedy look on his face, which for an instant gave him a strong likeness to his father.
Rob and Merritt exchanged glances. From even the little that they had heard it was plain enough what was going forward in the barn. There was no doubt now that Jared was bargaining with representatives of a foreign power 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 an unscrupulous young rascal who was willing to sell them to the highest bidder, without caring for what nefarious purpose they were to be used.
The Boy Scouts’ blood fairly boiled as they heard. They had always known Jared to be weak, unprincipled and dishonest, but that he would descend to such rascality as this was almost beyond belief. Merritt in his anger made a gesture of shaking his fist. It was an unfortunate move. A bit of board on which one of his feet rested gave way with a sharp crack under the 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,” rejoined Jared, striving to appear at ease, but glancing nervously about him.
“A rat, bah!” exclaimed Alverado, puffing out his fat jowls till he looked like a huge puff adder. “That was not a rat, amigo, that was a spy. This barn is not as secret a meeting place as you led us to believe.”
“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 crouching low ran toward what had been a smoke-house. Hardly had they darted within its dark and odorous interior when the conspirators in the barn came rushing out, looking in every direction. In Alverado’s hand something glittered in the sunlight. The two Boy Scouts peering out through a knot-hole had no difficulty in recognizing the object, with an unpleasant thrill, as an automatic revolver.
They now saw, too, something that they had been unable to perceive from the back of the barn. This was a big, red touring car drawn up close to the antiquated structure. But they had no time to waste in looking at the car. The movements of the searching party engrossed their attention too deeply.
“Scatter in every direction,” they heard Alverado order, “we must find out 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 the chauffeur of the car, which, the boys noticed in a quick, fleeting glance, bore no number, joined in the search. They rushed about like a pack of bloodhounds in every direction.
“This is getting pretty warm,” whispered Rob; “it’s plain those chaps are thoroughly alarmed and don’t mean to leave a stone unturned to find us.”
“Oh, that unlucky board!” groaned Merritt remorsefully. “I’m a fine specimen of a Scout to make such a mistake as that, – at such a critical time, 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 Alverado he 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 when they’ve finished they’ll search the outbuildings.”
“Yes;