"Huh! seems like they do things on a big scale out this way," grunted Hiram.

"I reckon our Coney Island would hardly be in the swim with this show,"

Andy declared, as they paid their way at the gate and entered the grounds.

Colossal buildings could be seen on all sides, most of them dazzling in the sunlight. Rob had studied the arrangement of these buildings so well that he appeared to recognize them now as though entirely familiar with his surroundings. It was evident that the little party would not have much use for a guide as long as Rob was along to serve them in that capacity.

"I calculate that this is the Panama-Pacific Court of the Universe," he told his chums, "and that building over there is the Palace of Agriculture, while this other must be the Palace of Transportation; then there's the Palace of Horticulture where you can see that huge gla.s.s dome. Over there is the Column of Progress, more than a hundred and fifty feet high, and overlooking the Marino."

The boys surveyed these sights with more or less awe.

"I suppose," ventured Hiram, "after we've nosed around here for a week or two we'll feel as much to hum with these big buildings as if we were in Hampton, and lookin' at our Odd Fellows' Temple. But what a heap of things they must all of 'em hold. It'll keep us hustlin' to see the hull lot, workin' ten hours a day for weeks."

"Oh! well, none of us expect to see everything that's on exhibit here,"

said Rob. "Our tastes are not wholly alike, either. I may want to spend most of my time in a certain quarter that wouldn't interest you other fellows to any great extent; and on your part I've no doubt there are certain things that will hold you spellbound, yet which we may only care to take one good look at."

At that Andy started to chuckle.

"I warrant you I can guess where Hiram will be found pretty much all his time at the show," he remarked, pointedly; and of course the other scout felt impelled to take him up on that positive a.s.sertion.

"Say where, then, if you know so much, Mr. Smarty," he asked Andy.

"Just as soon as he gets the locations down pat," began the other, "you'll never see him a great way off from the quarter where the inventions are being exhibited. He's daffy on mechanics and such things; and he'll be worse than any sticking plaster you ever saw, once he gets planted in front of the booths, or finds out where the aeroplanes are going up every little while."

"Oh! well, I own up that's mostly what I wanted to come all the way out here for," said Hiram, frankly. "But it's a toss-up, Andy, that once you get in that amus.e.m.e.nt park they call the Zone, a place of more'n sixty acres, I read, you'll spend most of your time watching the Fiji Islanders dance, or riding around on that observation car to view the wonders of Yellowstone Park, or mebbe the Great Colorado Canyon."

"I can't get there any too soon, I'm telling you, boys," Andy confessed.

"Both of you have come out here on business as well as sight-seeing; but it's different in my case. I'm carefree, and bound to enjoy myself to the limit. In good time I'll wander all over every building in the grounds; but first I want to be amused so as to forget the troubles of our long trip here."

"It's very evident," began Rob, "that we'll have to settle on some particular place as a sort of general round-up. If each one is going to start off on his own hook, now and then, unless we fix it that way, we might wander all day long through the enormous buildings, and the grounds covered by this Fair, and never meet."

"Well thought of, Rob!" cried Andy. "Let me suggest that we take this queer-looking tobacconist shop as our rendezvous. We can make an arrangement with the owner for a couple of dollars or so, to take messages, and hold the same for the rest of the bunch."

"The sooner that's arranged the better it'll suit me, I guess," said Hiram, who was plainly on needles and pins while being kept from hunting up the building in which he would find myriads of remarkable devices ill.u.s.trating the inventive genius of the world, and particularly of those from the American nation.

"Of course I'm going at once to the exhibit in which Professor McEwen is interested," said Rob, after they had arranged with the proprietor of the Oriental tobacco booth, "because I'll not feel easy until I've done my part of the contract, and delivered the stuff he intrusted to our charge."

"H'm, that means me too, I suppose, Rob," observed Andy, sighing.

"Oh! I could do it alone," Rob started to say, when Andy braced up, bit his lip, and continued:

"That was the old selfish streak in me speaking then, Rob. You'll have to overlook it once more. Of course, I'll not let you finish this business by yourself. It would be a fine way of acting on my part, now, wouldn't it-taking the goods and then refusing to pay for the same? Here, let me carry the bag a while. I'm going to be your shadow for this one day anyhow; though p'raps, after all, we can manage to drop in at the Zone, and see what's what in that interesting district."

Rob laughed.

"I'll make a special point of it to oblige you, Andy," he said, clapping the other on the shoulder. "As for Hiram, I can understand why he's so anxious to find out where the aviation field lies. We've got to remember that his business is with parties who are altogether interested in airships and flying."

"Thanks, Rob," said Hiram, nodding his head in that quick jerky way he had. "It stands to reason that I want to pick up a few pointers on the sly before I show myself to the Golden Gate people. By hanging around I'm apt to hear some talk, and learn a few facts that may stand me in good later on."

"You'd better go some slow, Hiram," cautioned Andy. "Remember that we had it arranged to back you up when the time came to interview your people.

So don't spoil all our plans by being too precipitate."

"Meaning, I figure," Hiram answered, wincing under that last word, "that I mustn't be rash, and put my foot in it. I promise you I'll fight shy there, Rob; and when we meet here to get a bite of lunch together, p'raps I'll have some news for you."

"I hope it will be the right kind of news, then, Hiram," Rob told him, seriously; "though for that matter it seems to me this company has treated you splendidly already, and that they must be on the square."

"And after that affair is all settled up," continued the other, drawing a long breath of antic.i.p.ation, "think of the great times I'm going to have mousing around the building that houses the inventions. I tell you I'm the luckiest dog that ever lived to get this big chance thrown right at me."

So Hiram hurried away, having already marked out his course from long study of the little chart each one of the scouts possessed, and which gave what might be called a "bird's-eye view" of the extensive Exposition grounds, where the most prominent buildings were located, and the shortest way to get from one point to another.

Rob looked after him with a smile on his face. He turned to Andy and laughed.

"Isn't he the greatest crank in his line you ever saw?" asked Andy.

"Oh! it's hardly fair to call Hiram that," expostulated the scout leader; "he's enthusiastic over inventions, but what of that? Every fellow who's dead in earnest could be spoken of as a crank. And it's the cranks, as you call them, who make the wheels of progress go around."

"Yes," added Andy dryly, "I've noticed that some of them even seem to have wheels in their heads, though they get hopping mad if you mention it, or turn your hand this way," and he indicated a revolving motion with his finger that could hardly be mistaken by a sensitive person.

"All I know is that Hiram is due to enjoy the greatest feast his soul ever could imagine. But don't let us waste any more time here, Andy; I've got my bearings by now, and can take you straight to the building where the scientists love to gather and gloat over the queer things that are so wonderful to them. Come along!"

CHAPTER XI.

ROB DELIVERS THE GOODS.

"What's that splendid looking arch over there meant to represent, Rob?"

asked Andy, as he pointed to the right.

"They call it the Arch of the Setting Sun," replied the scout leader.

"A mighty good name, considering how we're at the jumping-off place of the United States. Seems to me, Rob, that the Far West has always gone by the name of the Land of the Setting Sun."

"That's why the arch has been built," Rob told him. "You see, in pioneer days the constant drift was always this way. Men who founded homes in what was then the wilderness along the Ohio kept hearing wonderful stories about the richness of the soil farther west, and what unlimited fur-bearing animals were to be captured by those daring enough to take the risk."

"And so they kept pushing farther and farther, year in and year out. In this way settlers finally overran the prairies, and crossed the Rockies?"

asked Andy, as he surveyed the beautiful arch that had been raised to commemorate the dreams of the men who blazed the way of civilization through the wilderness.

"Yes, and here along the sh.o.r.e of the Pacific lay the end of the dream,"

explained the scout leader. "California represented the foot of the rainbow of promise those hardy men had seen painted in the sky. The western sun meant a whole lot in those days; it shone over the Land of Promise; it was the hope and ambition of almost every settler. No one drifted East; it was always into the mysterious and beckoning West that families emigrated."

Around them were crowds of eager sight-seers. At times they jostled elbows with representatives of numerous foreign nations.

"But there are not near so many foreigners visiting the Panama-Pacific Exposition as there would have been only for the terrible European war that's raging across the ocean," Rob happened to remark a little later when the other scout called his attention to a group of dark-featured men wearing the red fezzes of Orientals, and pa.s.sing along as though viewing the wonders of the exhibition with a lively interest.

"I suppose the building erected by California is reckoned the largest one of all on the grounds, isn't it, Rob? How much s.p.a.ce does it cover, do you know?"

"They say five acres, Andy, which you must own is a shack of some size."