Chapter II: The New Venture

FOR a few minutes there was entire silence while the four devoted their whole attention to the delicious meal Chris had prepared, and, during this lull, the reader has time to observe and note more carefully this little band of old friends, whom he has doubtless met amid many adventures in the Boy Chum Series. They have changed but little since he met them last in "The Young Net Fishermen." Charley West, the strapping young fellow, who now sits on one side of the fire eagerly devouring piping hot omelette and rich oyster stew, is the same old Charley of yore, his face a trifle older and more alert, perhaps, from the dangers and hardships through which he has passed, but with the same old merry twinkle in his eyes. Walter Hazard, now grown almost as husky as his chum, sits next to him, and close beside Walt is gray-haired Captain Westfield, a sort of guardian father to them both, a master of the sea, but rather helpless on land. He, too, is little changed, while Chris, the little ebony darkey, wears the same broad, good-natured smile as ever. But we must stop and listen to the conversation now starting up, for upon it depends the future of our four friends.

"Tell us what our next move is to be," Walter demanded.

"It rests with the rest of you as much as with me," Charley smiled. "All I am going to do is to make the suggestion."

"Go ahead," said the captain impatiently, "we're waiting to hear it."

"Well," said Charley, "West of Jupiter about forty miles lays the great lake Okeechobee. It's reported by explorers that there's a ten-mile belt clear around the lake of the richest land in the world. Between the lake and Jupiter there is only one little trading-post, called Indiantown. All the way leads through swamps, prairies, and pine barrens. There is a sort of road, but it is under water for about six months in the year."

"All that's interesting, but what has it got to do with us?" said Waiter impatiently.

"I'm coming to that in a minute," said Charley placidly. "Last year the county commissioners passed a law for the building of a dirt road from Jupiter to the lake, and a man named Murphy made a bid of 17½ cents a yard for the dirt handled and he got the contract. He bought a steam shovel with a 1½-yard bucket. He went to work and has got about ten miles of the road completed. Now he wants to sell out his machine and contract. Says his wife in Connecticut is sick, and he's got to go back and stay with her. I saw him in Jupiter to-day, and he told me he would sell machine, tents, a team of mules, and the contract for one-third of what the machine alone cost him, $3,000. I didn't promise him anything, but said we would ride out and look at it in the morning. It looks to me like a good chance to establish ourselves in a good steady business. There's about thirty miles of the road yet to build. And he says there are plenty more contracts to be had for the asking. The machine can dig one and one-half cubic yards of earth per minute, and, at 17½ cents per yard, that's some money, I'm thinking. Besides it works nights as well as days. Well, what do you think about it?"

Walter looked rather disappointed. "That sounds all right," he admitted, "but there doesn't seem much chance of having any fun, adventure or excitement out of such a job."

"Adventure, excitement!" echoed Charley. "Why, I don't know where you'd be more likely to find both. Remember, we are going through an almost unknown country. Right through the Indians' hunting grounds, and through a country alive with snakes and game."

"Good," exclaimed Walter, with eyes shining. "I vote yes for the steam shovel."

"I don't know about it," said the Captain doubtfully. "It ain't a good plan generally to go into a business that you don't know anything about."

"But we will soon learn," protested Charley vigorously. "If we buy, Murphy has agreed to stay on for a couple of weeks until we get on to the run of things."

"Well," consented the old sailor reluctantly. "It won't do any harm to look at the critter, though I guess I won't be able to tell as much about her as I would about a sea-going craft."

"Well, how about you, Chris?" Charley inquired.

The little negro grinned. "Golly, Massa Charley, I reckon I'm pretty well satisfied as I is. Don't reckon you-alls ebber seed a nigger but was willing to lay around in de sun all day an' do nothin' but eat an' fish, but if you-alls are goin' into any foolish projectin's, I reckon dis nigger will hab to go along to keep you outer trouble."

"Then it's settled," Charley declared with satisfaction. "We will get an early start in the morning and drive out and see just how things are going."

Thus settled, an early hour next morning found them on the way, drawn in a rickety wagon behind a lean mule with a wicked-looking eye. There was no danger of their losing their way for the machine-made road stretched out before them a smoothed mound of earth flanked on each side by deep ditches made by the removed dirt. At places the road was raised a full four feet above the surrounding land, while at other places it descended gradually to a mere two feet.

Charley viewed it with satisfaction. "That's the kind of work I want to do," he said. "The kind of work that creates something, that helps people, gives them employment, and makes them happy. Take that road, for instance," he continued dreamily, "of course it is only a road, but it will open up the way to thousands of acres of rich land, and give thousands of people a chance to own a home and farm."

"Yes," agreed the Captain testily, who was hot and sweating under the blazing sun, "and it will drive away the Indians from their last hunting ground, and the people who will flock in will be Huns, Polacks and Japs, and most of them will die off with the malaria, and the rest, after they have raised their crops, will find it costs them more to get them to market than they are worth. Say, Chris, can't you spread more sail on that craft of yours? I allow that there ain't much breeze, but surely it can do more than a mile an hour."

Chris, who was driving the melancholy beast, obediently leaned forward and brought his tattered hat down on the mule's flank. "Get up, you Clarence; wake up, you mule," he shouted--and Clarence woke up. What had simply been before a saddened, downcast, plodding mule, became a marvel of upstanding ears, bared teeth and flying hoofs. Charley landed with a bump on the side of the road. Walter, close beside him, and the Captain not far away, while Chris, disdaining solid ground, lit far over in the ditch of stagnant water and mud. The cart, a battered wreck in front, with one thill gone, still remained, while Clarence, still enveloped in his harness and dragging the other thill behind him, with leaping bounds was headed back for home.

Captain Westfield arose slowly and painfully, and felt gently of his trousers' seat. "I reckon Chris crowded on a wee bit too much sail," he said mildly.

Chris crawled out of the ditch, spitting out mud and water. "Golly, dat Clarence sho' can move some," he exclaimed admiringly, as he gazed after the vanishing mule. "Who would hab thought dat a little slap of the hat could liven him up so?"

"I don't think it was that, at all," laughed Walter, as he regained his feet. "I believe he took offense at being called Clarence, as any self-respecting mule would--probably his real name is Maud."

"You fellows can laugh, if you see anything funny in it," stated Charley reproachfully. "You wouldn't if you were me. You lit on the sand or water, but I landed broadside on a slab of rock. Well, there's no use trying to catch Clarence. He's singing 'Home, Sweet Home,' with four feet. I guess we are as near the camp as we are Jupiter, so we might as well go ahead."

So ahead they marched, looking more like a trio of hoboes than possible investors in a big enterprise. A walk of a few miles brought them in sight of a cluster of white tents, and they hastened their steps, knowing that their destination was not far ahead. They paused at the first tent, the largest of the cluster, and evidently the eating tent, for they could see through the open flap two long tables with rude seating benches running down the middle, and a heap of tin dishes on a table in one corner. Outside a big, powerful, sweating negro was kneading bread on a dirty-looking bench, upon which a protruding stove-pipe from the tent was sending down fine flakes of soot.

"Mister Murphy's dun fudder up the road apiece by the machine," he informed them in reply to their questions. "Be you gentlemen going to stay for dinner?"

They told him that they were not sure as yet, and hurried up the road, eager to be away from the odors of the camp.

"Golly," exclaimed Chris, "did you-alls notice de bench dat nigger was makin' bread on? I'll bet dar was a solid inch ob dirt on de top ob hit. Dat nigger's been scaling fish, chopping up meat, and making bread on dat same bench for de past six months widout washin' hit up once. Huh, if I was his boss I'd give him a licking for sho'."

A few minutes' walk brought them in sight of the big steam shovel, which was doing the work of two hundred men with wheelbarrows. It looked simple enough, a kind of short steel car, resting upon sections of railroad track. Upon the car was mounted, on a kind of ratchet work of iron, a swinging steel platform, from which projected out a long tapering steel boom, at the end of which dangled from wire ropes a huge steel bucket with wicked looking big teeth. Wire ropes an inch and a half thick led down the boom and wound, coil upon coil, around the big controlling drums on the platform below. Two gigantic cog-wheels controlled the lowering and raising of the huge boom in front. Just back of the big revolving drums and cog-wheels a second little platform arose from the first. It was iron-hooded overhead, but in front it was open, and behind the opening, with before him six huge brass levers, stood a man controlling the movements of this mighty worker. Even as the little party watched, the great shovel plunged down, straight down, burying its great teeth in the rooty ground. The drag rope pulled it in until it had gathered up a full load of earth. The boom lifted slightly, the platform swung around, and the bucket dropped its load. For five minutes Charley watched the operation repeated, with his watch in his hand. "Murphy hasn't lied about that," he said. "They are digging a bucket a minute, all right. Let's figure it out: One and one-half yards a minute, that's 26 cents a minute; multiplying that by 60 minutes in the hour, makes $15.60 per hour, and 24 hours in the day, makes $374.40 per day. That's going some, I guess."

"Whew," whistled Walter, "that's just like finding money."