The sentence trailed off into nothingness. There was really no way of telling. All about them was a dreary waste of mud, sand, boulders, smaller stones, gravel and more mud—mud was over everything. And more mud was constantly being made, for the rain had not ceased.
"I'm going to dig here!" decided Blake in desperation, as with his bare hands he began throwing aside the dirt and stones. Mr. Alcando watched him for a moment, and then, as though giving up his idea as to where Joe lay beneath the dirt, he, too, started throwing on either side the clay and soil.
Blake glanced down the hill. The Indian messenger had disappeared, and, presumably, had reached the tug, and was giving the message for help. Then Blake bent to his Herculean task again. When next he looked up, having scooped a slight hole in the side of the hill, he saw a procession of men running up—men with picks and shovels over their shoulders. He saw, too, a big slice of the hill in the Canal. The wonderful waterway was blocked at Culebra Cut.
Blake thought little of that then. His one idea and frantic desire was to get Joe out.
"They'll never get here in time," said Mr. Alcando in a low voice. "We'll never get him out in time."
"We—we must!" cried Blake, as again he began digging.
Mr. Alcando had spoken the truth. The men could not get there in time—Joe could not be dug out in time—if it had depended on human agencies. For not only was Blake unaware of the exact spot where his chum lay buried, but, at least so it seemed, there had been such a mass of earth precipitated over him that it would mean hours before he could be gotten out.
However, fate, luck, Providence, or whatever you choose to call it, had not altogether deserted the moving picture boys. The very nature of the slide, and the hill on which it had occurred, was in Joe's favor. For as Blake, after a despairing glance at the approaching column of men, bent again to his hopeless task, there was a movement of the earth.
"Look out!" cried Mr. Alcando.
He would have spoken too late had what happened been of greater magnitude. As it was Blake felt the earth slipping from beneath his feet, and jumped back instinctively. But there was no need.