"And then?" asked Jim. "What happens? Where is the dirt taken? Who unloads the trucks?"
"Gee! You are a chap fer questions. Where does it go? Away up there, at the far end of the river gully, where the Lake of Gatun'll be, there's a sight more dirt than this being taken from the isthmus. Some of that's being dumped at the dam just away over our heads; some of it's being emptied outside Panama, filling up a swamp through which the canal will run. Reckon there won't be swamps when we're done. There'll be good hard ground, and houses'll be built on a spot where there's fever nowadays. We're using dirt at this end in the same way; but you was asking about the dumping?"
Jim nodded, and looked at the spoil train being hauled away. "The gangs of niggers do it, I guess," he said. "But it must take longer than the loading by a long way; at least that's what one would imagine."
"Jest about seven minutes fer the whole train," smiled Harry. "My davy on it! You ask how? Wall, listen here. I've been here a long while, and in them days when we was fixed badly fer more trucks niggers did see to clearing the spoil trains--and precious bad niggers they was, too, about that time. Yer see, they mostly comes from the West Indian Isles, and somehow the place didn't seem to suit 'em. They was too slack to work much; but guess our officials fixed the trouble. They found it was the food, and now every nigger employed on the works gets his meals regular at a Commission barracks, and sech meals as gives him strength. But we was talking of unloading. See that truck 'way in front of the trains, the one just close to the engine? Wall, that's the Lidgerwood apparatus, and guess it beats creation. There's a plough right forward of the train, and a wire rope attached to it. When the spoil train has been brought to the place where the dirt's to be dumped, niggers or Europeans let down the truck ends, so's the whole train's one long platform. The plough then gets pulled from end to end, and shoots the dirt out. Seven minutes for a whole train, siree! Lightning ain't in it!"
Whistles sounded at this minute, and promptly Harry shut down his levers and leaped from the cab.
"Guess you've done right well fer a first time," he said. "In a day you'll be able to get to at it alone. Anyway, you've earned your grub. Come along to the Commission hotel; there's meals there for all whites, and no one can grumble at them."