Adventure Magazine Cover — page 185: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Mahogany Garden across the beach ridge that barricaded the sea from the dried marsh. The rows were twenty feet apart. In the firmest part of the ridge the masons and carpenters were building a wooden sluice-gate, set in stone blocks. Its lowest level was low-water mark. The shovelers were at work taking out the sand on the landward side of the gate, as they had taken out all but a small part on the seaward side, to a level three feet below high-water mark. “Do you mean you are really going to try to do a thing like that, Haskell?” “Wait just half an hour and see. The tide is coming up now.” And he left the enthusiastic youngster to marshal more men on the landward work. Peters watched the tide creep up to near the three-foot sub- level and then he saw Haskell coming back, taking a shovel from a workman as he came. “Open the gates and lash them!” cried the engineer, and he watched the water narrowly as the gates were made ready. Then, wading in at the edge of the water, he threw a narrow channel through the slender sand barrier and saw the first rush of the sea-water through the canal, which was still two-thirds choked with sand. Steadily the speed and volume of the rivulet grew as the tide increased. One foot wide, two feet wide, four feet wide—more and more the sea-water, rushing inland, dug down and sideways into the sand, and a yel- low, sand-laden, boiling flood tumbled into the nearest reaches of the marsh, spreading the sand ripped out from between the piling over a wide area. Then at last the tide was at maximum and began to ebb. In half an hour the water that had flowed in with a mad rush came out with decreased volume, and by the middle of the afternoon the canal stood revealed, two rows of glistening piling with every grain of sand and soil washed out down to low-water level. Now Haskell ordered the gates closed and all cracks sealed for the time being. Inland the floor of the marsh, as far as could be seen, was covered with a coating of wet sand that would not interfere with the lumbering in the least when dried, but would make a far cleaner and better foundation than the salt peat of the bog. When he understood the whole thing, the younger man clapped an arm around the elder and said: ‘How I would like to see Uncle John watching this! He would have four joy- 749 spasms a minute. It is great, Haskell, it is great!” ‘He is wondering just about now what I want with twenty saws to work from barges, twenty donkey-engines to run them, three tow-boats and everything needed to get the lumber in the water, trim the logs, get them through the canal and tow them in ralts to steamer-side to be heaved inboard.” ‘“Didn’t you explain how you were going to do it?” “No. John Peters doesn’t want expla- nations before or after.” ‘Great guns, Haskell, that must mean a forty per cent. saving, F.O.B.!” “Nearer sixty, Jack!” “On thirty miles—let me see—”’ his voice trailed off to a murmured following of his mental calculation, till suddenly he clutch- ed Haskell by the arm and said almost aghast, ““‘Why, man alive, that means thirty million dollars!” “About forty million, lad, when we figure the saving in getting out the timber farther inland by dredging a five-foot canal on from the inland water-mark. But we are not through yet, lad. I thought it wise to put an order for one hundred rifles, with three hundred rounds each, in the requisi- tion, and I am sorry, from something I saw last night, that I did not order them shipped by special steamer from Kingston ”’ ‘You saw something last night?” “Yes, some time about midnight Juan waked me and I ran to the window just in time to see two men drop into the dry side of the canal, after inspecting the gate, and sneak off inland.” “Two white men?” 3 “No, two Mayas, and both were armed —trifle, pistol and knife.” Peters whistled significantly and then asked: “Well, what are you going to do about it?” “Just this. I am going to leave you in camp to-morrow, and I want you to trench both sides of the ridge to defend the gate, and to start a timber stockade north side of the camp—timbers that will stop high- velocity, subcaliber bullets. Have the masons build a tank that will hold a thou- sand gallons of water and put it under cover; then dig a cellar in the sand, lined with masonry, that will hold three or four boat- loads of provisions. I am going upshore for provisions, all the arms in the village and all the fresh water I can float back.” GomicdooksEeo