Fortunately for them the tug was tied to a temporary dock on the side of the hill where the slide had started, so they did not have to take a boat across, but could at once start for the scene of the disaster.
"We may not be here when you come back!" called Captain Wiltsey after the boys.
"Why not?" asked Joe.
"I may have to go above or below. I don't want to take any chances of being caught by a blockade."
"All right. We'll find you wherever you are," said Blake.
As yet the mass of slipping and sliding earth was falling into the waters of the Canal some distance from the moored tug. But there was no telling when the slide might take in a larger area, and extend both east and west.
Up a rude trail ran Blake and Joe, making their way toward where the movement of earth was most pronounced. The light was not very good on account of the rain, but they slipped into the cameras the most sensitive film, to insure good pictures even when light conditions were most unsatisfactory.
The moving picture boys paused for only a glance behind them. They had heard the emergency orders being given. Soon they would be flashed along the whole length of the Canal, bringing to the scene the scows, the dredges, the centrifugal pumps—the men and the machinery that would tear out the earth that had no right to be where it had slid.
Then, seeing that the work of remedying the accident was under way, almost as soon as the accident had occurred, Blake and Joe, followed by Mr. Alcando, hurried on through the rain, up to their ankles in red mud, for the rain was heavy. It was this same rain that had so loosened the earth that the slide was caused.
"Here's a good place!" cried Blake, as he came to a little eminence that gave a good view of the slipping, sliding earth and stones.