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+Project Gutenberg's The Moving Picture Boys at Panama, by Victor Appleton
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Moving Picture Boys at Panama
+       Stirring Adventures Along the Great Canal
+
+Author: Victor Appleton
+
+Release Date: January 22, 2004 [EBook #10776]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS AT PANAMA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Janet Kegg and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: WITH A GRINDING CRASH THE EARTH ON WHICH JOE
+STOOD WENT OUT FROM UNDER HIM.]
+
+
+
+THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS AT PANAMA
+
+OR
+
+Stirring Adventures Along the Great Canal
+
+
+By
+
+VICTOR APPLETON
+
+
+1915
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER
+     I  TO THE RESCUE
+    II  ON THE BRINK
+   III  A SURPRISE
+    IV  A DELAYED LETTER
+     V  ANOTHER SURPRISE
+    VI  SOMETHING QUEER
+   VII  IN NEW YORK
+  VIII  OFF FOR PANAMA
+    IX  THE LITTLE BOX
+     X  THE SECRET CONFERENCE
+    XI  ALONG THE CANAL
+   XII  ALMOST AN ACCIDENT
+  XIII  IN THE JUNGLE
+   XIV  IN DIRE PERIL
+    XV  IN CULEBRA CUT
+   XVI  THE COLLISION
+  XVII  THE EMERGENCY DAM
+ XVIII  THE BIG SLIDE
+   XIX  JOE'S PLIGHT
+    XX  AT GATUN DAM
+   XXI  MR. ALCANDO'S ABSENCE
+  XXII  A WARNING
+ XXIII  THE FLASHLIGHT
+  XXIV  THE TICK-TICK
+   XXV  MR. ALCANDO DISAPPEARS
+
+
+
+THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS AT PANAMA
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+TO THE RESCUE
+
+With a series of puffs and chugs a big, shiny motor
+cycle turned from the road into the graveled drive at the side of
+a white farmhouse. Two boys sat on the creaking saddles. The one
+at the front handle bars threw forward the clutch lever, and then
+turned on the power sharply to drive the last of the gases out of
+the twin cylinders.
+
+The motor cycle came to a stop near a shed, and the two lads,
+swinging off, looked at each other for a moment.
+
+"Some ride, that!" observed one. "You had her going then, Blake!"
+
+"Just a little, Joe--yes. It was a nice level stretch, and I
+wanted to see what she could do."
+
+"You didn't let her out to the full at that; did you?"
+
+"I should say not!" answered the one who had ridden in front, and
+guided the steed of steel and gasoline. "She'll do better than
+ninety miles an hour on the level; but I don't want to ride on her
+when she's doing it."
+
+"Nor I. Well, it was a nice little run, all right. Funny, though,
+that we didn't get any mail; wasn't it?"
+
+"It sure was. I think somebody must be robbing the post-office,
+for we ought to have had a letter from Mr. Hadley before this,"
+and he laughed at his own joke.
+
+"Yes," agreed Joe, "and I ought to have had one from--"
+
+He stopped suddenly, and a blush suffused the tan of his cheeks.
+
+"Might as well say it as think it," broke in Blake with another
+laugh that showed his white, even teeth. "Hasn't Mabel written to
+you this week?"
+
+"What if she hasn't?" fired back Joe.
+
+"Oh, nothing. Only--"
+
+"Only I suppose you are put out because you haven't had a postcard
+from Birdie Lee!" challenged Joe.
+
+"Oh, well, have it your own way," and Blake, with a shrug of his
+broad shoulders, began to wheel the motor cycle into the shed.
+
+"No, but it is queer; isn't it?" went on Joe. "Here we've been
+back from the flood district over two weeks now, and we haven't
+had a line from Mr. Hadley. He promised to write, too, and let us
+know what sort of moving pictures he might be in line for next.
+Our vacation will soon be over, and we don't want to be idle."
+
+"That's right," agreed his chum. "There's no money in sitting
+around, when the film isn't running. Oh, well, I suppose Mr.
+Hadley has been so busy that he hasn't had time to make his plans.
+
+"Besides," Blake went on, "you know there was a lot of trouble
+over the Mississippi flood pictures--reels of film getting lost,
+and all that--to say nothing of the dangers our friends ran.
+Birdie Lee said she'd never forget what they suffered."
+
+"I don't blame her. Well, maybe they haven't got straightened out
+enough yet to feel like writing. But it sure is nice here, and I
+don't mind if we stay another week or so," and he looked up the
+pleasant valley, on one side of which was perched the farmhouse
+where the two moving picture boys had been spending their
+vacation.
+
+"It sure is nice," agreed Blake. "And it's lots more fun since we
+got this motor cycle," for they had lately invested in the
+powerful vehicle on which they had made many trips about the
+surrounding country.
+
+As Blake went to put the machine in the shed, which their
+farmer-landlord had allowed them to use, Joe turned to glance back
+along the road they had come.
+
+The farmhouse was set up on a little hill, above the road, and a
+glimpse of the highway could be had for a long distance. It was
+the sight of something coming along this thoroughfare that
+attracted Joe's attention.
+
+"What are you looking at?" asked Blake, returning after having put
+away the motor cycle.
+
+"That horse and buggy. Looks to me as though that horse was
+feeling his oats, and that the fellow driving him didn't know any
+more about handling the reins than the law allows."
+
+"That's right, Joe. If he doesn't look out he'll have an upset, or
+a runaway."
+
+The vehicle in question was a light buggy; drawn by a particularly
+large and spirited horse. Seated in the carriage, as the boys
+could see from their point of vantage, were two men. Who they were
+could not be distinguished at that distance, but the carriage was
+rapidly coming nearer.
+
+"There he goes!" suddenly cried Joe.
+
+As his chum spoke Blake saw that one of the reins had parted,
+probably because the driver pulled on it too hard in trying to
+bring the restive steed down to a walk.
+
+Once the spirited horse felt that he was no longer under control,
+save by one line, which was worse than none, he sprang forward,
+and at once began to gallop, pulling after him the light carriage,
+which swayed from side to side, threatening every moment to
+collapse, overturn, or at least be torn loose from the horse.
+
+"There he goes!" yelled Joe again.
+
+"I should say so!" agreed Blake. "There are going to be some
+doings soon!"
+
+This was evident, for the horse was running away, a fact not only
+apparent in itself, but heralded by the looks on the faces of the
+two occupants of the carriage, and by their frightened cries,
+which the wind easily carried to the watching Joe Duncan and Blake
+Stewart.
+
+On the road below them, and past the boys, swept the swaying
+carriage in a cloud of dust. As it was momentarily lost to sight
+behind a grassy knoll, Blake cried:
+
+"The broken bridge, Joe! The broken bridge! They're headed right
+for it!"
+
+"That's right!" exclaimed his chum. "How can we stop them?"
+
+Once having recognized the danger, the next thought that came to
+the minds of Blake and Joe, trained for emergencies, was how to
+avert it. They looked at each other for a second, not to gain a
+delay, but to decide on the best possible plan of saving the
+imperiled men.
+
+"The broken bridge," murmured Blake again. "That horse will never
+be able to make the turn into the temporary road, going at the
+speed he is!"
+
+"No, and he's probably so frightened that he'll not try it,"
+agreed Joe. "He'll crash right through the barrier fence, and--"
+
+He did not finish his sentence, but Blake knew what his chum
+meant.
+
+About half a mile beyond the farmhouse the road ran over a bridge
+that spanned a deep and rocky ravine. About a week before there
+had been an accident. Weakened by the passing of a heavy traction
+threshing engine, it had been broken, and was ruled unsafe by the
+county authorities.
+
+Accordingly the bridge had been condemned and partially torn down,
+a new structure being planned to replace it. But this new bridge
+was not yet in place, though a frail, temporary span, open only to
+foot passengers and very light vehicles, had been thrown across
+the ravine.
+
+The danger, though, was not so much in the temporary bridge, as in
+the fact that the temporary road, connecting with it, left the
+main and permanent highway at a sharp curve. Persons knowing of
+the broken bridge made allowances for this curve, and approached
+along the main road carefully, to make the turn safely into the
+temporary highway.
+
+But a maddened horse could not be expected to do this. He would
+dash along the main road, and would not make the turn. Or, if he
+did, going at the speed of this one, he would most certainly
+overturn the carriage.
+
+The main highway was fenced off a short distance on either side of
+the broken bridge, but this barrier was of so frail a nature that
+it could not be expected to stop a runaway.
+
+"He'll crash right through it, run out on the end of the broken
+bridge and----"
+
+Once more Joe did not finish.
+
+"We've got to do something!" cried Blake.
+
+"Yes, but what?" asked Joe.
+
+"We've got to save them!" cried Blake again, as he thought of the
+two men in the carriage. He had had a glimpse of their faces as
+the vehicle, drawn by the frenzied horse, swept past him on the
+road below. One of the men he knew to be employed in the only
+livery stable of Central Falls, on the outskirts of which he and
+Joe were spending their holiday. The other man was a stranger.
+Blake had only seen that he was a young man, rather good-looking,
+and of a foreign cast of countenance. Blake had momentarily put
+him down for an Italian.
+
+"The motor cycle!" suddenly cried Joe.
+
+"What?" asked Blake, only half comprehending.
+
+"We might overtake them on the motor cycle!" repeated his chum.
+
+A look of understanding came into Blake's eyes.
+
+"That's right!" he cried. "Why didn't I think of that before,
+instead of standing here mooning? I wonder if we've got time?"
+
+"We'll make time!" cried Joe grimly. "Get her out, and we'll ride
+for all we're worth. It'll be a race, Blake!"
+
+"Yes. A race to save a life! Lucky she's got plenty of gas and oil
+in her."
+
+"Yes, and she hasn't had a chance to cool down. Run her out."
+
+Blake fairly leaped toward the shed where he had wheeled the motor
+cycle. In another instant he and Joe were trundling it down the
+gravel walk to the road.
+
+As they reached the highway they could hear, growing fainter and
+fainter, the "thump-thud," of the hoofs of the runaway horse.
+
+Joe held the machine upright while Blake vaulted to the forward
+saddle and began to work the pedals to start the motor. The
+cylinders were still hot from the recent run, and at the first
+revolution the staccato explosions began.
+
+"Jump up!" yelled Blake in his chum's ear--shouting above the
+rattle and bang of the exhaust, for the muffler was open.
+
+Joe sprang to leather, but before he was in his seat Blake was
+letting in the friction clutch, and a moment later, at ever
+gathering speed, the shining motor cycle was speeding down the
+road to the rescue. Would Joe and Blake be in time?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+ON THE BRINK
+
+"What--what's your plan, Blake?" yelled Joe into
+his chum's ear, as he sat behind him on the jolting second saddle
+of the swaying motor cycle.
+
+"What do you mean?" demanded Blake, half turning his head.
+
+"I mean how are you going to stop that runaway, or rescue those
+fellows?"
+
+"I haven't thought, yet, but if we can get ahead of the horse we
+may be able to stop him before he gets to the road-barrier or to
+the dangerous turn."
+
+"That's right!" panted Joe, the words being fairly jolted out of
+him. "Head him off--I see!"
+
+"Hold fast!" exclaimed Blake, as the conductor does when a trolley
+car goes around a curve. "Hold fast!"
+
+There was need of the advice, for a little turn in the road was
+just ahead of them and Blake intended to take it at almost top
+speed.
+
+Bumping, swaying, jolting, spitting fire and smoke, with a rattle,
+clatter and bang, on rushed the motor cycle on its errand of
+rescue.
+
+"Hark!" cried Joe, close to Blake's ear, "Listen!"
+
+"Can't, with all this racket!" yelled back Blake, for he had
+opened the throttle to gain a little increase of power. "What's
+the matter?"
+
+"I thought I heard the horse."
+
+"Hearing him won't do any good," observed Blake grimly. "We've got
+to see him and get ahead!"
+
+And he turned on a little more gasoline.
+
+While Blake and Joe are thus speeding to the rescue of the men in
+the runaway, we will take a few moments to tell our new readers
+something about the boys who are to figure prominently in this
+story.
+
+Joe Duncan and Blake Stewart were called the "Moving Picture
+Boys," for an obvious reason. They took moving pictures. With
+their curious box-like cameras, equipped with the thousand feet of
+sensitive celluloid film, and the operating handle, they had risen
+from the ranks of mere helpers to be expert operators. And now
+they were qualified to take moving pictures of anything from a
+crowd, shuffling along the street, to a more complicated scene, such
+as a flood, earthquake or volcanic eruption. And, incidentally, I
+might mention that they had been in all three of these last
+situations.
+
+The first volume of this series is called "The Moving Picture
+Boys," and in that I introduced to you Blake and Joe.
+
+They worked on adjoining farms, and one day they saw a company of
+moving picture actors and actresses come to a stream, near where
+they were, to take a "movie drama."
+
+Naturally Blake and Joe were interested at once, and making the
+acquaintance of Mr. Calvert Hadley, who was in charge of the
+taking of the play, or "filming it," as the technical term has it,
+the two boys were given an opportunity to get into the business.
+
+They went to New York, and began the study of how moving pictures
+are taken, developed from the films, the positives printed and
+then, through the projecting machine, thrown on the screen more
+than life size.
+
+The process is an intricate one, and rather complicated, involving
+much explanation. As I have already gone into it in detail in my
+first book of this series, I will not repeat it here. Those of you
+who wish to know more about the "movies" than you can gain by
+looking at the interesting pictures in some theater, are
+respectfully referred to the initial volume.
+
+Joe and Blake were much interested in the Film Theatrical Company.
+My former readers will well remember some members of that
+organization--C.C. Piper, or "Gloomy," as he was called when not
+referred to as just "C.C."; Birdie Lee, a pretty, vivacious girl;
+Mabel Pierce, a new member of the company; Henry Robertson, who
+played juvenile "leads"; Miss Shay, and others in whom you are
+more or less interested.
+
+After various adventures in New York City, taking films of all
+sorts of perilous scenes, Joe and Blake went out West, their
+adventures there being told in the volume of that name. They had
+their fill of cowboys and Indians, and, incidentally, were in no
+little danger.
+
+Afterward they went to the Pacific Coast, thence to the jungle,
+where many stirring wild animal scenes were obtained, and
+afterward they had many adventures in Earthquake Land. There they
+were in great danger from tremors of the earth, and from
+volcanoes, but good luck, no less than good management, brought
+them home with whole skins, and with their cases filled with rare
+films.
+
+Having finished in the land of uncertainty, the work assigned to
+them by Mr. Hadley and his associates, Joe and Blake had gone for
+their vacation to the farm of Mr. Hiram Baker, near Central Falls.
+But their intention of enjoying a quiet stay was rudely
+interrupted.
+
+For not long after they had arrived, and were resting quietly
+under a cherry tree in the shade, Mr. Ringold, with whom they were
+also associated in moving picture work, called them up on the long
+distance telephone to offer them a most curious assignment.
+
+This was to go to the flooded Mississippi Valley, and get moving
+pictures of the "Father of Waters" on one of "his" annual
+rampages.
+
+Of course Blake and Joe went, and their adventures in the flood
+fill the volume immediately preceding this one.
+
+And now they had returned, anticipating a second session of their
+vacation. They had brought a motor cycle with which to go about
+the pretty country surrounding Central Falls.
+
+"For," reasoned Blake, "we haven't much time left this summer, and
+if we want to enjoy ourselves we'll have to hustle. A motor cycle
+is the most hustling thing I know of this side of an automobile,
+and we can't afford that yet."
+
+"I'm with you for a motor cycle," Joe had said. So one was
+purchased, jointly.
+
+It was on returning from a pleasant ride that our heroes had seen
+the runaway with which we are immediately concerned. They were now
+speeding after the maddened horse dragging the frail carriage,
+hoping to get ahead of and stop the animal before it either
+crashed into the frail barrier, and leaped into the ravine, or
+upset the vehicle in trying to make the turn into the temporary
+road.
+
+"There he is!" suddenly cried Blake. The motor cycle, bearing the
+two chums, had made the curve in the road successfully and was now
+straightened up on a long, level stretch. And yet not so long,
+either, for not more than a quarter of a mile ahead was another
+turn, and then came the bridge.
+
+"I see him!" answered Joe. "Can you make it?"
+
+"I'm going to!" declared Blake, closing his lips firmly.
+
+Every little bump and stone in the road seemed magnified because
+of the speed at which they were moving. But Blake held the long
+handles firmly, and, once the curve was passed, he turned the
+rubber grip that let a little more gasoline flow into the
+carbureter to be vaporized and sprayed into the cylinders, where
+the electric spark exploded it with a bang.
+
+"We--are--going--some!" panted Joe.
+
+"Got--to!" assented Blake, grimly.
+
+On swayed the thundering, rattling motor cycle. The carriage top
+had either been let down, or some of the supports had broken, and
+it had fallen, and the boys could now plainly see the two men on
+the seat. They had not jumped, but they had evidently given up
+trying to make the horse stop by pulling on the one rein, for the
+animal was speeding straight down the center of the road.
+
+"We aren't catching up to him very fast!" howled Joe into Blake's
+ear, and he had to howl louder than usual, for they were then
+passing along a portion of the road densely shaded by trees. In
+fact the branches of the trees met overhead in a thick arch, and
+it was like going through a leafy tunnel.
+
+This top bower of twigs and branches threw back the noise of the
+explosions of the motor cycle, and made an echo, above which it
+was almost impossible to make one's voice heard.
+
+"Look out!" suddenly cried Blake. "Hold fast!"
+
+At first Joe imagined that his chum was going to make another
+curve in the road, but none was at hand. Then, as Blake watched
+his chum's right hand, he saw him slowly turn the movable rubber
+handle that controls the gasoline supply. Blake was turning on
+more power, though now the machine was running at a higher rate
+than Joe or Blake had ever traveled before.
+
+With a jump like that of a dog released from the leash, the motor
+cycle seemed to spring forward. Indeed Joe must needs hold on, and
+as he was not so favorably seated as was his chum, it became a
+matter of no little trouble to maintain a grip with his legs and
+hands.
+
+"We--sure--are--going--some!" muttered Joe. But he did not open
+his mouth any more. It was too dangerous at the speed they had
+attained. A jolt over a stone, or a bit of wood, might send his
+teeth through his tongue if he parted his jaws. So he kept quiet.
+
+Ahead of them the carriage swayed and swerved. The horse was a
+speedy one, but no creature of bone, blood, muscles and sinews can
+distance a fire-spitting and smoke-eating machine like a motor
+cycle. The distance was gradually being cut down.
+
+But now, just ahead of them, was the curve, immediately beyond
+which was the broken bridge, and also the temporary one, shunting
+off at a sharp angle from the main highway.
+
+"Look out! Hold on!" once more cried Blake, speaking in quick
+tones.
+
+For a moment Joe wondered at the added caution, and then he sensed
+what Blake was about to do.
+
+To one side of them stretched a level field. The road made a
+slight detour about it, just before meeting the ravine, and by
+crossing this field it was possible for the boys to reach the
+bridge ahead of the swaying carriage. But at the speed they were
+now running it was dangerous, and risky in the extreme, to run
+across the uneven meadow. Blake, however, evidently was going to
+chance it.
+
+"Hold fast!" he cried once more, and Joe had no more than time to
+take a firmer grip on the bar in front of him, and to cling with
+his legs to the foot supports and saddle, than they were off the
+road, and into the green field. The fence had been taken down to
+allow for the storage of bridge-building material in the meadow.
+
+"Now we'll get him!" cried Blake, but he spoke too soon. For the
+motor cycle had not gone ten feet into the uneven field, jolting,
+swaying and all but throwing off the moving picture boys, than the
+sound of the explosions suddenly ceased, and the machine began to
+slacken speed.
+
+With a quickness that was added to by the rough nature of the
+ground, the motor cycle slowed up and stopped.
+
+"What's the matter?" cried Joe, putting down his feet to support
+the machine.
+
+"Something's busted--gasoline pipe, I guess!" cried Blake. "Come
+on! We've got to run for it!"
+
+The accident had occurred only a short distance from the road.
+Together the two chums, leaping clear of the motor cycle, made for
+it on the run.
+
+But they were too late. They had a glimpse of the runaway horse
+dashing straight at the fence barrier.
+
+The next moment there was a splintering crash, and he was through
+it.
+
+"Oh!" cried Blake.
+
+The thunder of the horse's hoofs on what was left of the wooden
+approach to the broken bridge drowned his words.
+
+Then the animal, with a leap, disappeared over the jagged edges of
+the planks. The boys expected to see the carriage and the two
+occupants follow, but to their intense surprise, the vehicle
+swayed to one side, caught somehow on one of the king beams of the
+bridge and hung there.
+
+"Come on!" cried Blake, increasing his speed; "we've got a chance
+of saving them yet!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+A SURPRISE
+
+They reached--only just in time--the broken and
+collapsed carriage with its two front wheels mere twisted and
+splintered spokes. The moving picture boys reached it, and with
+strong and capable hands pulled it back from the brink of the
+ravine, over which it hung. In the depths below the horse lay,
+very still and quiet.
+
+"Pull back!" directed Blake, but Joe needed no urging. A slight
+difference--inches only--meant safety or death--terrible injury at
+best, for the ravine was a hundred feet deep. But those few inches
+were on the side of safety.
+
+So evenly was the carriage poised, that only a little strength was
+needed to send it either way. But Joe and Blake pulled it back on
+the unwrecked portion of the bridge approach.
+
+The two men were still on the seat, but it had broken in the
+middle, pitching them toward the center, and they were wedged
+fast. Hank Duryee, the town livery driver, did not seem to be
+hurt, though there was an anxious look on his face, and he was
+very pale, which was unusual for him.
+
+As for the other man he seemed to have fainted. His eyes were
+closed, but his swarthy complexion permitted little diminution in
+his color. There was a slight cut on his head, from which had
+trickled a little blood that ran down to his white collar.
+
+"Easy, boys!" cautioned Hank, and his voice rasped out in the
+quiet that succeeded the staccato noise from the motor cycle. "Go
+easy now! A touch'll send us down," and he gazed shudderingly into
+the depths below.
+
+"We've got you," Blake assured him, as he and Joe drew still
+farther back on the platform of the bridge what was left of the
+carriage. As they did so one of the rear wheels collapsed, letting
+the seat down with a jerk.
+
+"Oh!" gasped Hank, and a tremor seemed to go through the
+insensible frame of the other.
+
+"It's all right," Blake assured the livery stable driver. "You
+can't fall far."
+
+"Not as far as down--there," and Hank pointed a trembling finger
+into the depths of the ravine.
+
+"Can you get out--can you walk?" asked Joe.
+
+"Yes. I'm more scared than hurt," Hank made answer.
+
+"How about him?" asked Blake, motioning to the other occupant of
+the carriage.
+
+"Only a little cut on the head, where he banged, up against the
+top irons, I guess. A little water will fetch him around. My! But
+that was a close shave!"
+
+He staggered out on the broken bridge. His legs were unsteady,
+through weakness and fear, but not from any injury.
+
+"How did it happen?" asked Joe.
+
+"Horse got scared at something--I don't know what--and bolted. I
+didn't want to take him out--he's an old spitfire anyhow, and
+hasn't been driven in a week. But this feller was in a hurry," and
+he nodded toward the unconscious man, "and I had to bring him out
+with Rex--the only horse in the stable just then.
+
+"I said I was afraid we'd have a smash-up, and we did. The line
+busted near Baker's place, and--well, here we are."
+
+"Better here than--down there," observed Joe in a low voice.
+
+"That's right," agreed Hank. "Now let's see what we can do for
+him. Hope he isn't much hurt, though I don't see how he could be."
+
+"Who is he?" asked Blake, but the livery stable driver did not
+answer. He was bending back the bent frame of the dashboard to
+more easily get out the swarthy man. Joe and Blake, seeing what
+he was trying to do, helped him.
+
+Soon they were able to lift out the stranger, but there was no
+need of carrying him, for he suddenly opened his eyes, straightened
+up and stood on his feet, retaining a supporting hand on Hank's
+shoulder.
+
+"Where--where are we?" he asked, in a dazed way. "Did we fall?"
+
+He spoke with an accent that at once told Blake and Joe his
+nationality--Spanish, either from Mexico or South America.
+
+"We're all right," put in Hank. "These young fellows saved us from
+going over into the gulch. It was a narrow squeak, though."
+
+"Ah!" The man uttered the exclamation, with a long sigh of
+satisfaction and relief. Then he put his hand to his forehead, and
+brought it away with a little blood on it.
+
+"It is nothing. It is a mere scratch and does not distress me in
+the least," he went on, speaking very correct English, in his
+curiously accented voice. He appeared to hesitate a little to pick
+out the words and expressions he wanted, and, often, in such
+cases, the wrong words, though correct enough in themselves, were
+selected.
+
+"I am at ease--all right, that is to say," he went on, with a
+rather pale smile. "And so these young men saved us--saved our
+lives? Is that what you mean, seņor--I should say, sir?" and he
+quickly corrected his slip.
+
+"I should say they did!" exclaimed Hank with an air of
+satisfaction. "Old Rex took matters into his own hands, or, rather
+legs, and we were just about headed for kingdom come when these
+fellows pulled us back from the brink. As for Rex himself, I guess
+he's gone where he won't run away any more," and leaning over the
+jagged edge of the bridge the stableman looked down on the
+motionless form of the horse. Rex had, indeed, run his last.
+
+"It is all so--so surprising to me," went on the stranger. "It all
+occurred with such unexpected suddenness. One moment we are
+driving along as quietly as you please, only perhaps a trifle
+accentuated, and then--presto! we begin to go too fast, and the
+leather thong breaks. Then indeed there are things doing, as you
+say up here."
+
+He smiled, trying, perhaps, to show himself at his ease. He was
+rapidly recovering, not only from the fright, but from the effects
+of the blow on the head which had caused the cut, and rendered him
+unconscious for a moment.
+
+"It sure was a narrow squeak," declared Hank again. "I don't want
+any closer call. I couldn't move to save myself, I was so
+dumbfounded, and the carriage would have toppled down in another,
+second if you boys hadn't come along and hauled it back."
+
+"We saw you pass Mr. Baker's house," explained Blake, "and we came
+after you on the motor cycle. Tried to get ahead of you, but the
+old machine laid down on us."
+
+"But we got here in time," added Joe.
+
+"You did indeed! I can not thank you enough," put in the Spaniard,
+as Joe and Blake both classed him. "You have saved my life, and
+some day I hope not only to repay the favor, but to show how
+grateful I am in other ways. I am a stranger in this part of your
+fine country, but I expect to be better acquainted soon. But where
+is our horse?" he asked quickly, not seeming to understand what
+had happened. "How are we to continue our journey?" and he looked
+at his driver.
+
+"We're at the end of it now, in more ways than one," Hank
+answered, with a smile. "You're just where you wanted to go,
+though not in the style I calculated on taking you."
+
+"But I do not comprehend, sir," said the Spaniard, in rather
+puzzled accents. "I have engaged you to take me to a certain
+place. There is an accident. We go through a fence with a
+resounding crash--Ah! I can hear that smash yet!" and he put his
+hands to his ears in a somewhat dramatic manner.
+
+"Then everything is black. Our horse disappears, and--"
+
+"He's down there, if you want to know _where_ he disappeared to,"
+broke in Hank, practically.
+
+"It is no matter--if he is gone," went on the Spaniard. "But I do
+not comprehend--assimilate--no, comprehend--that is it. I do not
+comprehend what you mean when you say we are at our journey's
+end."
+
+"I'll tell you," exclaimed Hank, as he glanced at Joe and Blake in
+a manner that caused them to wonder. "You said you wanted to
+find--"
+
+"Pardon me--my card, gentlemen!" and the stranger extended a
+rectangle of white on which was engraved the name _Vigues
+Alcando_.
+
+Blake took it, and, as he did so, from the pocket whence the
+Spaniard had extracted the card, there fell a letter. Joe picked
+it up, but, to his surprise it was addressed to himself and Blake
+jointly, and, in the upper left hand corner was the imprint of the
+Film Theatrical Company.
+
+"Why--why," began Joe. "This is for us! Look, Blake!"
+
+"For you! That letter for you?" cried Mr. Alcando. "Are you the
+moving picture boys?"
+
+"That's what they call us," answered Joe. "This is Blake Stewart,
+and I'm his chum, Joe Duncan."
+
+"Is it possible--is it possible!" cried Mr. Alcando. "And you have
+saved my life! Why--I--I--er--I--Oh! To think of this happening
+so! You are--you are--!" He put his hands to his head and seemed
+to sway.
+
+"Look out! He's going to fall!" warned Blake, springing forward to
+catch the Spaniard.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+A DELAYED LETTER
+
+But Mr. Alcando, to Americanize his name, did
+not faint. After reeling uncertainly for a moment, he obtained
+command of his muscles, straightened up, and stood rigid.
+
+"I--I beg your pardons," he said, faintly, as though he had
+committed some blunder. "I--I fear I am not altogether myself."
+
+"Shouldn't wonder but what you were a bit played out," put in
+Hank. "What we've just gone through with was enough to knock
+anyone out, to say nothing of the crack you got on the head. Maybe
+we'd better get a doctor?" and his voice framed a question, as he
+looked at Joe and Blake.
+
+"No, no!" hastily exclaimed the Spaniard, for he was of that
+nationality, though born in South America, as the boys learned
+later.
+
+"I do not require the services of a physician," went on Mr.
+Alcando, speaking rapidly. "I am perfectly all right now--or, I
+shall be in a few moments. If I had a drink of water--"
+
+His voice trailed off feebly, and he looked about rather
+helplessly.
+
+"There used to be a spring hereabouts," said Hank, "but I haven't
+been this way in some time, and--"
+
+"I know where it is!" interrupted Blake. He and Joe, with a
+training that had made it necessary for them to "size up," and
+know intimately their surroundings, for use in taking moving
+pictures, had sensed the location of a bubbling spring of pure
+water along the road on their first visit to it. "It's right over
+here; I'll get some," Blake went on.
+
+"If you will be so kind," spoke the Spaniard, and he extended a
+collapsible drinking cup.
+
+Blake lost little time in filling it, and soon after drinking Mr.
+Alcando appeared much better.
+
+"I am sorry to give all this trouble," the Spaniard went on, "but
+I have seemed to meet with considerable number of shocks to-day.
+First there was the runaway, which I certainly did not expect, and
+then came the sudden stop--a stop most fortunate for us, I take
+it," and he glanced, not without a shudder, in the direction of
+the gulch where the dead horse lay.
+
+"And then you pulled us back from the brink--the brink of death,"
+he went on, and his voice had in it a tone of awe, as well as
+thankfulness. "I can not thank you now--I shall not try," he went
+on. "But some time, I hope to prove--
+
+"Oh, what am I saying!" he broke in upon himself. "I never
+dreamed of this. It is incomprehensible. That I should meet you
+so, you whom I--"
+
+Once more his hands went to his head with a tragic gesture, and
+yet it did not seem that he was in physical pain. The cut on his
+head had stopped bleeding.
+
+"It is too bad! Too bad! And yet fate would have it so!" he
+murmured after a pause. "But that it should turn in such a queer
+circle. Well, it is fate--I must accept!"
+
+Joe and Blake looked at each other, Blake with slightly raised
+eyebrows, which might mean an implied question as to the man's
+sanity. Then the moving picture boys looked at Hank, who had
+driven them about on several excursions before they bought the
+motor cycle.
+
+Hank, who stood a little behind the Spaniard, shrugged his
+shoulders, and tapped his head significantly.
+
+"But I must again beg your pardon," said Mr. Alcando quickly. "I
+most certainly am not myself this day. But it is the surprise of
+meeting you whom I came to seek. Now, if you will pardon me," and
+he looked at the letter, addressed to Blake and Joe jointly--which
+epistle had been handed to him after it had been picked up from
+the ground.
+
+"And were you really looking for us?" asked Joe, much puzzled.
+
+"I was--for both of you young gentlemen. My friend the driver here
+can testify to that."
+
+"That's right," said Hank. "This gentleman came in on the New York
+express, and went to our livery stable. He said he wanted to come
+out to Baker's farm and meet you boys.
+
+"I happened to be the only one around at the time," Hank went on,
+"and as I knew the road, and knew you boys, I offered to bring him
+out. But I wish I'd had some other horse. I sure didn't count on
+Rex running away.
+
+"And when I found I couldn't stop him, and knew we were headed for
+the broken bridge--well, I wanted to jump out, but I didn't dare.
+And I guess you felt the same way," he said to Mr. Alcando.
+
+"Somewhat, I must confess," spoke the Spaniard, who, as I have
+said, used very good English, though with an odd accent, which I
+shall not attempt to reproduce.
+
+"And then came the smash," went on Hank, "and I didn't expect, any
+more than he did, that you fellows would come to our rescue. But
+you did, and now, Mr. Alcando, you can deliver your letter."
+
+"And these really are the young gentlemen whom I seek?" asked the
+Spaniard. "Pardon me, I do not in the least doubt your word," he
+added with a formal bow, "but it seems so strange."
+
+"We are the moving picture boys," answered Blake with a smile,
+wondering what the letter could contain, and, wondering more than
+ever, why a missive from the Film Theatrical Company should be
+brought by this unusual stranger.
+
+"Then this is for you," went on Mr. Alcando. "And to think that
+they saved my life!" he murmured.
+
+"Shall I read it, Joe?" asked Blake, for the Spaniard extended the
+letter to him.
+
+"Sure. Go ahead. I'll listen."
+
+Blake took the folded sheet from the envelope, and his first
+glance was at the signature.
+
+"It's from Mr. Hadley!" he exclaimed.
+
+"What's up?" asked Joe, quickly.
+
+Blake was reading in a mumbling tone, hardly distinguishable.
+
+"Dear boys. This will introduce--um--um--um--who is desirous of
+learning the business of taking moving pictures. He comes to me
+well recommended--um--um" (more mumbles). "I wish you would do all
+you can for him--um--and when you go to Panama--"
+
+That was as far as Blake read. Then he cried out:
+
+"I say, Joe, look here! I can't make head nor tail of this!"
+
+"What is it?" asked his chum, looking over; his shoulder at the
+letter the Spaniard had so strangely brought to them.
+
+"Why, Mr. Hadley speaks of us going to Panama. That's the first
+we've had an inkling to that effect. What in the world does he
+mean?"
+
+"I hope I have not brought you bad news in a prospective trip to
+where the great canal will unite the two oceans," spoke the
+Spaniard in his formal manner.
+
+"Well, I don't know as you'd call it _bad_ news," said Blake,
+slowly. "We've gotten sort of used to being sent to the ends of
+the earth on short notice, but what gets me--excuse me for putting
+it that way--what surprises me is that this is the first Mr.
+Hadley has mentioned Panama to us."
+
+"Is that so?" asked Mr. Alcando. "Why, I understood that you knew
+all about his plans."
+
+"No one knows _all_ about Hadley's plans," said Joe in a low
+voice. "He makes plans as he goes along and changes them in his
+sleep. But this one about Panama is sure a new one to us."
+
+"That's right," chimed in Blake.
+
+"We were speaking of the big ditch shortly before the runaway came
+past," went on Blake, "but that was only a coincidence, of course.
+We had no idea of going there, and I can't yet understand what Mr.
+Hadley refers to when he says we may take you there with us, to
+show you some of the inside workings of making moving pictures."
+
+"Did you read the letter all the way through?" Joe asked.
+
+"No, but--"
+
+"Perhaps I can explain," interrupted the Spaniard. "If you will
+kindly allow me. I came to New York with an express purpose in
+view. That purpose has now suffered--but no matter. I must not
+speak of that!" and there seemed to be a return of his queer,
+tragic manner.
+
+"I am connected with the Equatorial Railroad Company," he resumed,
+after a momentary pause, during which he seemed to regain control
+of himself. "Our company has recently decided to have a series of
+moving pictures made, showing life in our section of the South
+American jungle, and also what we have done in the matter of
+railroad transportation, to redeem the jungle, and make it more
+fit for habitation.
+
+"As one of the means of interesting the public, and, I may say,
+in interesting capitalists, moving pictures were suggested. The
+idea was my own, and was adopted, and I was appointed to arrange
+the matter. But in order that the right kind of moving pictures
+might be obtained, so that they would help the work of our
+railroad, I decided I must know something of the details--how the
+pictures are made, how the cameras are constructed, how the
+pictures are projected--in short all I could learn about the
+business I desired to learn.
+
+"My company sent me to New York, and there, on inquiry, I learned
+of the Film Theatrical Company. I had letters of introduction, and
+I soon met Mr. Hadley. He seems to be in charge of this branch of
+the work--I mean outdoor pictures."
+
+"Yes, that's his line," said Joe. "Mr. Ringold attends to the
+dramatic end of it. We have done work for both branches."
+
+"So I was told," went on Mr. Alcando. "I asked to be assigned a
+teacher, and offered to pay well for it. And Mr. Hadley at once
+suggested that you two boys would be the very ones who could best
+give me what I desired.
+
+"He told me that you had just returned from the dangers of the
+Mississippi flood section, and were up here resting. But I made so
+bold upon myself to come here to entreat you to let me accompany
+you to Panama."
+
+Mr. Alcando came to a stop after his rather lengthy and excited
+explanation.
+
+"But Great Scott!" exclaimed Blake. "We don't know anything about
+going to _Panama_. We haven't the least idea of going there, and
+the first we've heard of it is the mention in this letter you
+bring from Mr. Hadley."
+
+"It sure is queer," said Joe. "I wonder if any of our mail--"
+
+He was interrupted by the sound of rapid footsteps, and a
+freckle-faced and red-haired boy, with a ragged straw hat, and no
+shoes came running up.
+
+"Say--say!" panted the urchin. "I'm glad I found you. Here's a
+letter for you. Pa--pa--he's been carryin' it around in his
+pocket, and when he changed his coat just now it dropped out. He
+sent me down with it, lickity-split," and the boy held out an
+envelope bearing a special delivery stamp. Blake took the missive
+mechanically.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+ANOTHER SURPRISE
+
+While Blake was tearing off the end of the
+envelope, preparatory to taking out the enclosure, Joe looked
+sharply at the red-haired lad who had so unexpectedly delivered
+it.
+
+"How'd your father come to get our letter, Sam?" asked Joe, for
+the lad was the son of a farmer, who lived neighbor to Mr. Baker.
+
+"Sim Rolinson, the postmaster, give it to him, I guess,"
+volunteered Sam. "Sim generally takes around the special delivery
+letters himself, but he must have been busy when this one come in,
+and he give it to pa. Anyhow, pa says he asked him to deliver it."
+
+"Only he didn't do it," put in Joe. "I thought something was the
+matter with our mail that we hadn't heard from New York lately.
+Your father was carrying the letter around in his pocket."
+
+"But he didn't mean to!" spoke Sam quickly. "He forgot all about
+it until to-day, when he was changing his coat, and it fell out.
+Then he made me scoot over here with it as fast as I could. He
+said he was sorry, and hoped he hadn't done any damage."
+
+"Well, I guess not much," Joe responded, for, after all, it was an
+accommodation to have the letters brought out from the post-office
+by the neighbors, as often happened. That one should be forgotten,
+and carried in a pocket, was not so very surprising.
+
+"Then you won't make any fuss?" the barefoot lad went on, eagerly.
+
+"No--why should we?" inquired Joe with a smile. "We won't inform
+the postal authorities. I guess it wasn't so very important," and
+he looked at Blake, who was reading the delayed letter.
+
+"Whew!" finally whistled Joe's chum. "This is going some!"
+
+"What's up now?"
+
+"Another surprise," answered Blake. "This day seems to be filled
+with 'em."
+
+"Is it about Panama?"
+
+"You've guessed it. Mr. Hadley wants us to go there and get a
+series of moving pictures. Incidentally he mentions that he is
+sending to us a gentleman who wants to go with us, if we decide to
+go. I presume he refers to you," and Blake nodded in the direction
+of Mr. Alcando.
+
+"Then you have confirmatory evidence of what my letter says?"
+asked the Spaniard, bowing politely.
+
+"That's what it amounts to," Blake made answer. "Though, of
+course, seeing that this is the first we've had Panama brought up
+to us, we don't really know what to say about going there."
+
+"Hardly," agreed Joe, at a look from his chum.
+
+"And yet you may go; shall you not?" asked the Spaniard, quickly.
+He seemed very eager for an answer.
+
+"Oh, yes, we may--it's not altogether out of the question," said
+Blake. "We'll have to think about it, though."
+
+"And if you do go, may I have the honor of accompanying you to the
+Isthmus?" Again he seemed very anxious.
+
+"Well, of course, if Mr. Hadley wants you to go with us we'll take
+you," answered Joe slowly. "We are employed by Mr. Hadley, as one
+of the owners of the Film Theatrical Company, and what he says
+generally goes."
+
+"Ah, but, gentlemen, I should not want you to take me under
+compulsion!" exclaimed the Spaniard, quickly. "I would like to
+go--as your friend!" and he threw out his hands in an impulsive,
+appealing gesture. "As a friend!" he repeated.
+
+"Well, I guess that could be arranged," returned Blake with a
+smile, for he had taken a liking to the young man, though he did
+not altogether understand him. "We'll have to think it over."
+
+"Oh, of course. I should not ask for a decision now," said Mr.
+Alcando quickly. "I shall return to my hotel in the village, and
+come out to see you when I may--when you have made your decision.
+I feel the need of a little rest--after my narrow escape. And that
+it should be you who saved my life--you of all!"
+
+Again the boys noted his peculiar manner.
+
+"I guess we had better be getting back," suggested Hank. "Have to
+foot it to town, though," he added regretfully, as he looked at
+the smashed carriage. "I hope the boss doesn't blame me for this,"
+and his voice was rueful.
+
+"I shall take it upon myself to testify in your favor," said the
+Spaniard with courtly grace. "It was an unavoidable accident--the
+breaking of the rein, and the maddened dash of the horse off the
+bridge. That we did not follow was a miracle. I shall certainly
+tell your employer--as you say your boss," and he smiled--"I shall
+tell him you could not help it."
+
+"I'd take it kindly if you would," added Hank, "for Rex, though he
+had a terrible temper, was a valuable horse. Well, he won't run
+away any more, that's one sure thing. I guess that carriage can
+be patched up."
+
+"Why don't you ask Mr. Baker to lend you a rig?" suggested Blake.
+"I'm sure he would. I'll tell him how it happened."
+
+"That is kind of you, sir. You place me more than ever in your
+debt," spoke the Spaniard, bowing again.
+
+"How did you know we were here?" asked Joe of the boy who had
+brought the delayed special delivery letter.
+
+"I stopped at Mr. Baker's house," Sam explained, "and Mrs. Baker
+said she saw you come down this way on your motor cycle. She said
+you'd just been on a ride, and probably wouldn't go far, so I ran
+on, thinking I'd meet you coming back. I didn't know anything
+about the accident," he concluded, his eyes big with wonder as he
+looked at the smashed carriage.
+
+"Are you able to walk back to the farmhouse where we are
+boarding?" asked Blake of Mr. Alcando. "If not we could get Mr.
+Baker to drive down here."
+
+"Oh, thank you, I am perfectly able to walk, thanks to your
+quickness in preventing the carriage and ourselves from toppling
+into the chasm," replied the Spaniard.
+
+Hank, with Mr. Alcando and Sam, walked back along the road, while
+Blake and Joe went to where they had dropped their motor cycle.
+They repaired the disconnected gasoline pipe, and rode on ahead to
+tell Mr. Baker of the coming of the others. The farmer readily
+agreed to lend his horse and carriage so that the unfortunate ones
+would not have to walk into town, a matter of three miles.
+
+"I shall remain at the Central Falls hotel for a week or more, or
+until you have fully made up your mind about the Panama trip,"
+said Mr. Alcando on leaving the boys, "and I shall come out,
+whenever you send me word, to learn of your decision. That it may
+be a favorable one I need hardly say I hope," he added with a low
+bow.
+
+"We'll let you know as soon as we can," promised Blake. "But my
+chum and I will have to think it over. We have hardly become
+rested from taking flood pictures."
+
+"I can well believe that, from what I have heard of your strenuous
+activities."
+
+"Well, what do you think about it all?" asked Joe, as he and his
+chum sat on the shady porch an hour or so after the exciting
+incidents I have just narrated.
+
+"I hardly know," answered Blake. "I guess I'll have another go at
+Mr. Hadley's letter. I didn't half read it."
+
+He took the missive from his pocket, and again perused it. It
+contained references to other matters besides the projected Panama
+trip, and there was also enclosed a check for some work the moving
+picture boys had done.
+
+But as it is with the reference to the big canal that we are
+interested we shall confine ourselves to that part of Mr. Hadley's
+letter.
+
+"No doubt you will be surprised," he wrote, "to learn what I have
+in prospect for you. I know you deserve a longer vacation than you
+have had this summer, but I think, too, that you would not wish to
+miss this chance.
+
+"Of course if you do not want to go to Panama I can get some other
+operators to work the moving picture cameras, but I would rather
+have you than anyone I know of. So I hope you will accept.
+
+"The idea is this: The big canal is nearing completion, and the
+work is now at a stage when it will make most interesting films.
+Then, too, there is another matter--the big slides. There have
+been several small ones, doing considerable damage, but no more
+than has been counted on.
+
+"I have information, however, to the effect that there is
+impending in Culebra Cut a monstrous big slide, one that will beat
+anything that ever before took place there. If it does happen I
+want to get moving pictures, not only of the slide, but of scenes
+afterward, and also pictures showing the clearing away of the
+débris.
+
+"Whether this slide will occur I do not know. No one knows for a
+certainty, but a man who has lived in Panama almost since the
+French started the big ditch, claims to know a great deal about
+the slides and the causes of them. He tells me that certain small
+slides, such as have been experienced, are followed--almost always
+after the same lapse of time--by a much larger one. The larger one
+is due soon, and I want you there when it comes.
+
+"Now another matter. Some time after you get this you will be
+visited by a Spanish gentleman named Vigues Alcando. He will have
+a letter of introduction from me. He wants to learn the moving
+picture business, and as he comes well recommended, and as both
+Mr. Ringold and I are under obligations to people he represents,
+we feel that we must grant his request.
+
+"Of course if you feel that you can't stand him, after you see
+him, and if you don't want to take him with you--yes, even if you
+don't want to go to Panama at all, don't hesitate to say so. But I
+would like very much to have you. Someone must go, for the films
+from down there will be particularly valuable at this time, in
+view of the coming opening of the Canal for the passage of
+vessels. So if you don't want to go, someone else representing us
+will have to make the trip.
+
+"Now think the matter over well before you decide. I think you
+will find Mr. Alcando a pleasant companion. He struck me as being
+a gentleman, though his views on some things are the views of a
+foreigner. But that does not matter.
+
+"Of course, as usual, we will pay you boys well, and meet all
+expenses. It is too bad to break in on your vacation again, as we
+did to get the flood pictures, but the expected big slide, like
+the flood, won't wait, and won't last very long. You have to be
+'Johnnie on the Spot' to get the views. I will await your answer."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+SOMETHING QUEER
+
+For a little while, after he had read to Joe the
+letter from Mr. Hadley, Blake remained silent. Nor did his chum
+speak. When he did open his lips it was to ask:
+
+"Well, what do you think of it, Blake?"
+
+Blake drew a long breath, and replied, questioningly:
+
+"What do you think of it?"
+
+"I asked you first!" laughed Joe. "No, but seriously, what do you
+make of it all?"
+
+"Make of it? You mean going to Panama?"
+
+"Yes, and this chap Alcando. What do you think of him?"
+
+Blake did not answer at once.
+
+"Well?" asked Joe, rather impatiently.
+
+"Did anything--that is, anything that fellow said--or did--strike
+you as being--well, let's say--queer?" and Blake looked his chum
+squarely in the face.
+
+"Queer? Yes, I guess there did! Of course he was excited about the
+runaway, and he did have a narrow escape, if I do say it myself.
+Only for us he and Hank would have toppled down into that
+ravine."
+
+"That's right," assented Blake.
+
+"But what struck me as queer," resumed Joe, "was that he seemed
+put out because it was we who saved him. He acted--I mean the
+Spaniard did--as though he would have been glad if someone else
+had saved his life."
+
+"Just how it struck me!" cried Blake. "I wondered if you felt the
+same. But perhaps it was only because he was unduly excited. We
+might have misjudged him."
+
+"Possibly," admitted Joe. "But, even if we didn't, and he really
+is sorry it was we who saved him, I don't see that it need matter.
+He is probably so polite that the reason he objects is because he
+didn't want to put us to so much trouble."
+
+"Perhaps," agreed Blake. "As you say, it doesn't much matter. I
+rather like him."
+
+"So do I," assented Joe. "But he sure is queer, in some ways.
+Quite dramatic. Why, you'd think he was on the stage the way he
+went on after he learned that we two, who had saved him, were the
+moving picture boys to whom he had a letter of introduction."
+
+"Yes. I wonder what it all meant?" observed Blake.
+
+The time was to come when he and Joe were to learn, in a most
+sensational manner, the reason for the decidedly queer actions of
+Mr. Alcando.
+
+For some time longer the chums sat and talked. But as the day
+waned, and the supper hour approached, they were no nearer a
+decision than before.
+
+"Let's let it go until morning," suggested Blake.
+
+"I'm with you," agreed Joe. "We can think better after we have
+'slept on it.'"
+
+Joe was later than Blake getting up next morning, and when he saw
+his chum sitting out in a hammock under a tree in the farmyard,
+Joe noticed that Blake was reading a book.
+
+"You're the regular early worm this morning; aren't you?" called
+Joe. "It's a wonder some bird hasn't flown off with you."
+
+"I'm too tough a morsel," Blake answered with a laugh. "Besides,
+I've been on the jump too much to allow an ordinary bird the
+chance. What's the matter with you--oversleep?"
+
+"No, I did it on purpose. I was tired. But what's that you're
+reading; and what do you mean about being on the jump?"
+
+"Oh, I just took a little run into the village after breakfast, on
+the motor cycle."
+
+"You did! To tell that Spaniard he could, or could not, go with
+us?"
+
+"Oh, I didn't see him. I just went into the town library. You know
+they've got a fairly decent one at Central Falls."
+
+"Yes, so I heard; but I didn't suppose they'd be open so early in
+the morning."
+
+"They weren't. I had to wait, and I was the first customer, if you
+can call it that."
+
+"You _are_ getting studious!" laughed Joe. "Great Scott! Look at
+what he's reading!" he went on as he caught a glimpse of the title
+of the book. "'History of the Panama Canal' Whew!"
+
+"It's a mighty interesting book!" declared Blake. "You'll like
+it."
+
+"Perhaps--if I read it," said Joe, drily.
+
+"Oh, I fancy you'll want to read it," went on Blake,
+significantly.
+
+"Say!" cried Joe, struck with a sudden idea. "You've made up your
+mind to go to Panama; haven't you?"
+
+"Well," began his chum slowly, "I haven't fully decided--"
+
+"Oh, piffle!" cried Joe with a laugh. "Excuse my slang, but I know
+just how it is," he proceeded. "You've made up your mind to go,
+and you're getting all the advance information you can, to spring
+it on me. I know your tricks. Well, you won't go without me; will
+you?"
+
+"You know I'd never do that," was the answer, spoken rather more
+solemnly than Joe's laughing words deserved. "You know we promised
+to stick together when we came away from the farms and started in
+this moving picture business, and we have stuck. I don't want to
+break the combination; do you?"
+
+"I should say not! And if you go to Panama I go too!"
+
+"I haven't actually made up my mind," went on Blake, who was,
+perhaps, a little more serious, and probably a deeper thinker than
+his chum. "But I went over it in my mind last night, and I didn't
+just see how we could refuse Mr. Hadley's request.
+
+"You know he started us in this business, and, only for him we
+might never have amounted to much. So if he wants us to go to
+Panama, and get views of the giant slides, volcanic eruptions, and
+so on, I, for one, think we ought to go."
+
+"So do I--for two!" chimed in Joe. "But are there really volcanic
+eruptions down there?"
+
+"Well, there have been, in times past, and there might be again.
+Anyhow, the slides are always more or less likely to occur. I was
+just reading about them in this book.
+
+"Culebra Cut! That's where the really stupendous work of the
+Panama Canal came in. Think of it, Joe! Nine miles long, with an
+average depth of 120 feet, and at some places the sides go up 500
+feet above the bed of the channel. Why the Suez Canal is a farm
+ditch alongside of it!"
+
+"Whew!" whistled Joe. "You're there with the facts already,
+Blake."
+
+"They're so interesting I couldn't help but remember them," said
+Blake with a smile. "This book has a lot in it about the big
+landslides. At first they were terribly discouraging to the
+workers. They practically put the French engineers, who started
+the Canal, out of the running, and even when the United States
+engineers started figuring they didn't allow enough leeway for the
+Culebra slides.
+
+"At first they decided that a ditch about eight hundred feet wide
+would be enough to keep the top soil from slipping down. But they
+finally had to make it nearly three times that width, or eighteen
+hundred feet at the top, so as to make the sides slope gently
+enough."
+
+"And yet slides occur even now," remarked Joe, dubiously.
+
+"Yes, because the work isn't quite finished."
+
+"And we're going to get one of those slides on our films?"
+
+"If we go, yes; and I don't see but what we'd better go."
+
+"Then I'm with you, Blake, old man!" cried Joe, affectionately
+slapping his chum on the back with such energy that the book flew
+out of the other's hands.
+
+"Look out what you're doing or you'll get the librarian after
+you!" cried Blake, as he picked up the volume. "Well, then, we'll
+consider it settled--we'll go to Panama?"
+
+He looked questioningly at his chum.
+
+"Yes, I guess so. Have you told that Spaniard?"
+
+"No, not yet, of course. I haven't seen him since you did. But I
+fancy we'd better write to Mr. Hadley first, and let him know we
+will go. He'll wonder why we haven't written before. We can
+explain about the delayed letter."
+
+"All right, and when we hear from him, and learn more of his
+plans, we can let Mr. Alcando hear from us. I guess we can mosey
+along with him all right."
+
+"Yes, and we'll need a helper with the cameras and things. He can
+be a sort of assistant while he's learning the ropes."
+
+A letter was written to the moving picture man in New York, and
+while waiting for an answer Blake and Joe spent two days visiting
+places of interest about Central Falls.
+
+"If this is to be another break in our vacation we want to make
+the most of it," suggested Joe.
+
+"That's right," agreed Blake. They had not yet given the Spaniard
+a definite answer regarding his joining them.
+
+"It does not matter--the haste, young gentlemen," Mr. Alcando had
+said with a smile that showed his white teeth, in strong contrast
+to his dark complexion. "I am not in so much of a haste. As we
+say, in my country, there is always maņana--to-morrow."
+
+Blake and Joe, while they found the Spaniard very pleasant, could
+not truthfully say that they felt for him the comradeship they
+might have manifested toward one of their own nationality. He was
+polite and considerate toward them--almost too polite at times,
+but that came natural to him, perhaps.
+
+He was a little older than Joe and Blake, but he did not take
+advantage of that. He seemed to have fully recovered from the
+accident, though there was a nervousness in his actions at times
+that set the boys to wondering. And, occasionally, Blake or Joe
+would catch him surreptitiously looking at them in a strange
+manner.
+
+"I wonder what's up?" said Blake to Joe, after one of those
+occasions. "He sure does act queer."
+
+"That's what I say," agreed Joe. "It's just as though he were
+sorry he had to be under obligations to us, if you can call it
+that, for saving his life."
+
+"That's how it impresses me. But perhaps we only imagine it.
+Hello, here comes Mr. Baker with the mail! We ought to hear from
+New York."
+
+"Hasn't Birdie Lee written yet?" asked Joe.
+
+"Oh, drop that!" warned Blake, his eyes flashing.
+
+There was a letter from Mr. Hadley, in which he conveyed news and
+information that made Blake and Joe definitely decide to make the
+trip to Panama.
+
+"And take Alcando with us?" asked Joe.
+
+"I suppose so," said Blake, though it could not be said that his
+assent was any too cordial.
+
+"Then we'd better tell him, so he'll know it is settled."
+
+"All right. We can ride over on the motor cycle."
+
+A little later, after a quick trip on the "gasoline bicycle," the
+moving picture boys were at the only hotel of which Central Falls
+boasted. Mr. Alcando was in his room, the clerk informed the boys,
+and they were shown up.
+
+"Enter!" called the voice of the Spaniard, as they knocked. "Ah,
+it is you, my young friends!" he cried, as he saw them, and
+getting up hastily from a table on which were many papers, he
+began hastily piling books on top of them.
+
+"For all the world," said Joe, later, "as though he were afraid
+we'd see something."
+
+"I am delighted that you have called," the Spaniard said, "and I
+hope you bring me good news."
+
+"Yes," said Blake, "we are going--"
+
+As he spoke there came in through the window a puff of air, that
+scattered the papers on the table. One, seemingly part of a
+letter, was blown to Blake's feet. He picked it up, and, as he
+handed it back to Mr. Alcando, the lad could not help seeing part
+of a sentence. It read:
+
+"... go to Panama, get all the pictures you can, especially the
+big guns...."
+
+Blake felt himself staring eagerly at the last words.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+IN NEW YORK
+
+"Ah, my letters have taken unto themselves wings,"
+laughed the Spaniard, as he stooped to pick up the scattered
+papers. "And you have assisted me in saving them," he went on, as
+he took the part of the epistle Blake held out to him.
+
+As he did so Mr. Alcando himself had a glimpse of the words Blake
+had thought so strange. The foreigner must have, in a manner,
+sensed Blake's suspicions, for he said, quickly:
+
+"That is what it is not to know your wonderful American language.
+I, myself, have much struggles with it, and so do my friends. I
+had written to one of them, saying I expected to go to Panama, and
+he writes in his poor English, that he hopes I do go, and that I
+get all the pictures I can, especially big ones."
+
+He paused for a moment, looking at Blake sharply, the boy thought.
+Then the Spaniard went on:
+
+"Only, unfortunately for him, he does not yet know the difference
+between 'guns' and 'ones.' What he meant to say was that he hoped
+I would get big pictures--big ones, you know. And I hope I do. I
+suppose you do take big moving pictures--I mean pictures of big
+scenes, do you not?" and he included Joe in the question he asked.
+
+"Oh, yes, we've taken some pretty big ones," Blake's chum
+admitted, as he thought of the time when they had so recently been
+in the flooded Mississippi Valley, and when they had risked danger
+and death in the jungle, and in earthquake land.
+
+"Though, I suppose," went on Mr. Alcando, as he folded the part of
+a letter Blake had picked up, "I suppose there are big guns at
+Panama--if one could get pictures of them--eh?" and again he
+looked sharply at Blake--for what reason our hero could not
+determine.
+
+"Oh, yes, there are big guns down there," said Joe. "I forget
+their size, and how far they can hurl a projectile. But we're not
+likely to get a chance to take any pictures, moving or otherwise,
+of the defenses. I fancy they are a sort of government secret."
+
+"I should think so," spoke Blake, and there was a curious
+restraint in his manner, at which Joe wondered.
+
+"Yes, we probably won't get much chance to see the big guns," went
+on the Spaniard. "But I am content if I learn how to become a
+moving picture operator. I shall write to my friend and tell him
+the difference between the word 'one' and 'gun.' He will laugh
+when he finds out his mistake; will he not?" and he glanced at
+Blake.
+
+"Probably," was the answer. Blake was doing some hard thinking
+just then.
+
+"But so you have decided to go to the Canal?" asked the Spaniard,
+when he had collected his scattered papers.
+
+"Yes, we are going down there," answered Blake, "and as Mr. Hadley
+wishes you to go along, of course we'll take you with us, and
+teach you all we know."
+
+"I hope I shall not be a burden to you, or cause you any trouble,"
+responded the Spaniard, politely, with a frank and engaging smile.
+
+"Oh, no, not at all!" returned Joe, cordially. He had taken quite
+a liking to the chap, and anticipated pleasure in his company.
+Usually when he and Blake went off on moving picture excursions
+they had some members of the Film Theatrical Company with them, or
+they met friends on the way, or at their destination. But neither
+C.C. Piper, nor any of the other actors were going to the Canal,
+so Blake and Joe would have had to go alone had it not been for
+the advent of Mr. Alcando.
+
+"We're very glad to have you with us," added Blake. "How soon can
+you be ready to go?"
+
+"Whenever you are. I can leave to-day, if necessary."
+
+"There isn't any necessity for such a rush as that," Blake said,
+with a laugh. "We'll finish out our week's vacation, and then go
+to New York. Our cameras will need overhauling after the hard
+service they got in the flood, and we'll have to stay in New York
+about a week to get things in shape. So we'll probably start for
+the Canal in about two weeks."
+
+"That will suit me excellently. I shall be all ready for you,"
+said the Spaniard.
+
+"Then I'll write to Mr. Hadley to expect us," Blake added.
+
+The boys left Mr. Alcando straightening out his papers, and
+started back through the town to the farm.
+
+"What made you act so funny, Blake, when you picked up that piece
+of paper?" asked Joe, when they had alighted from their motor
+cycle at the Baker homestead a little later.
+
+"Well, to tell you the truth, Joe, I was a bit suspicious."
+
+"What about; that gun business?"
+
+"Yes," and Blake's voice was serious.
+
+"Buttermilk and corn cakes!" cried Joe with a laugh. "You don't
+mean to say you think this fellow is an international spy; do you?
+Trying to get secrets of the United States fortifications at the
+Canal?"
+
+"Well, I don't know as I exactly believe _that_, Joe, and yet it
+was strange someone should be writing to him about the big guns."
+
+"Yes, maybe; but then he explained it all right."
+
+"You mean he _tried_ to explain it."
+
+"Oh, well, if you look at it that way, of course you'll be
+suspicious. But I don't believe anything of the sort. It was just
+a blunder of someone who didn't know how, trying to write the
+English language.
+
+"It's all nonsense to think he's a spy. He came to Mr. Hadley well
+recommended, and you can make up your mind Mr. Hadley wouldn't
+have anything to do with him if there was something wrong."
+
+"Oh, well, I don't exactly say he's a _spy_," returned Blake,
+almost wavering. "Let it go. Maybe I am wrong."
+
+"Yes, I think you are," said Joe. "I like that chap, and I think
+we'll have fine times together."
+
+"We'll have hard work, that's one thing sure," Blake declared. "It
+isn't going to be easy to get good pictures of the big ditch. And
+waiting for one of those Culebra Cut slides is going to be like
+camping on the trail of a volcano, I think. You can't tell when
+it's going to happen."
+
+"That's right," agreed Joe with a laugh. "Well, we'll do the best
+we can, old man. And now let's go on a picnic, or something, to
+finish out our vacation. We won't get another this year, perhaps."
+
+"Let's go down and see how they're coming on with the new bridge,
+where the horse tried to jump over the ravine," suggested Blake,
+and, a little later they were speeding in that direction.
+
+The final week of their stay in the country went by quickly
+enough, and though the boys appreciated their vacation in the
+quiet precincts of Central Falls, they were not altogether sorry
+when the time came to leave.
+
+For, truth to tell, they were very enthusiastic about their moving
+picture work, and though they were no fonder of a "grind" than any
+real boys are, they were always ready to go back to the clicking
+cranks that unwound the strips of celluloid film, which caught on
+its sensitive surface the impressions of so many wonderful scenes.
+
+They called at the hotel one evening to tell Mr. Alcando that they
+were going to New York the following day, and that he could, if he
+wished, accompany them. But they found he had already left. He
+had written them a note, however, in which he said he would meet
+them in the metropolis at the offices of the moving picture
+concern, and there complete plans for the trip to Panama.
+
+"Queer he didn't want to go in to New York with us," said Blake.
+
+"There you go again!" laughed Joe. "Getting suspicious again. Take
+it easy, Blake."
+
+"Well, maybe I am a bit too fussy," admitted his chum.
+
+Their trip to, and arrival in, New York was unattended by any
+incidents worth chronicling, and, taking a car at the Grand
+Central Terminal, they were soon on their way to the film studios.
+
+"Well, well! If it isn't Blake and Joe!" cried C.C. Piper, the
+grouchy actor, as he saw them come in. "My, but I am glad to see
+you!" and he shook their hands warmly.
+
+"Glad something pleases you," said Miss Shay, with a shrug of her
+shoulders. "You've done nothing but growl ever since this
+rehearsal started." Blake and Joe had arrived during an
+intermission in the taking of the studio scenes of a new drama.
+
+"Is he as bad as ever?" asked Joe of Mabel Pierce, the new member
+of the company.
+
+"Well, I don't know him very well," she said, with a little blush.
+
+"He's worse!" declared Nettie Shay. "I wish you'd take him out
+somewhere, boys, and find him a good nature. He's a positive
+bear!"
+
+"Oh, come now, not as bad as that!" cried Mr. Piper. "I am glad to
+see you boys, though," and really he seemed quite delighted.
+"What's on?" he asked. "Are you going with us to California? We're
+going to do a series of stunts there, I hear."
+
+"Sorry, but we're not booked to go," said Blake. "I guess it's
+Panama and the Canal for us."
+
+Mr. Piper seemed to undergo a quick and curious change. His face,
+that had been lighted by a genial smile, became dull and careworn.
+His manner lost its joyousness.
+
+"That's too bad!" he exclaimed. "Panama! You're almost sure to be
+buried alive under one of the big Culebra slides, and we'll never
+see you again!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+OFF FOR PANAMA
+
+There was a moment of silence following Mr.
+Piper's gloomy prediction, and then Miss Shay, with a laugh, cried
+out:
+
+"Oh, what a shame! I'd keep still if I couldn't say anything nicer
+than _that_."
+
+"Not very cheerful; is he?" spoke Joe.
+
+"About the same as usual," commented Blake, drily.
+
+"Well, it's true, just the same!" declared C.C. Piper, with an air
+of conviction.
+
+"'The truth is not to be spoken--at all times,'" quoted Miss
+Pierce.
+
+"Good for you!" whispered Joe.
+
+C.C. seemed a little put out at all the criticism leveled at him.
+
+"Ahem!" he exclaimed. "Of course I don't mean that I want to see
+you boys caught in a landslide--far from it, but--"
+
+"But, if we _are_ going to be caught that way, you hope there will
+be moving pictures of it; don't you, C.C.?" laughed Blake. "Now,
+there's no use trying to get out of it!" he added, as the gloomy
+actor stuttered and stammered. "We know what you mean. But where
+is Mr. Ringold; or Mr. Hadley?"
+
+"They're around somewhere," explained Miss Shay, when the other
+members of the company, with whom they had spent so many happy and
+exciting days, had offered their greetings. "Are you in such a
+hurry to see them?" she asked of Blake.
+
+"Oh, not in such an _awful_ hurry," he answered with a laugh, as
+Birdie Lee came out of a dressing room, smiling rosily at him.
+
+"I guess not!" laughed Miss Shay.
+
+Soon the interval between the scenes of the drama then being
+"filmed," or photographed, came to an end. The actors and
+actresses took their places in a "ball room," that was built on
+one section of the studio floor.
+
+"Ready!" called the manager to the camera operator, and as the
+music of an unseen orchestra played, so that the dancing might be
+in perfect time, the camera began clicking and the action of the
+play, which included an exciting episode in the midst of the
+dance, went on. It was a gay scene, for the ladies and gentlemen
+were dressed in the "height of fashion."
+
+It was necessary to have every detail faithfully reproduced, for
+the eye of the moving picture camera is more searching, and
+far-seeing, than any human eye, and records every defect, no
+matter how small. And when it is recalled that the picture thrown
+on the screen is magnified many hundred times, a small defect, as
+can readily be understood, becomes a very large one.
+
+So great care is taken to have everything as nearly perfect as
+possible. Blake and Joe watched the filming of the drama,
+recalling the time when they used to turn the handle of the camera
+at the same work, before they were chosen to go out after bigger
+pictures--scenes from real life. The operator, a young fellow;
+whom both Blake and Joe knew, looked around and nodded at them,
+when he had to stop grinding out the film a moment, to allow the
+director to correct something that had unexpectedly gone wrong.
+
+"Don't you wish you had this easy job?" the operator asked.
+
+"We may, before we come back from Panama," answered Blake.
+
+A little later Mr. Ringold and Mr. Hadley came in, greeting the
+two boys, and then began a talk which lasted for some time, and in
+which all the details of the projected work, as far as they could
+be arranged in advance, were gone over.
+
+"What we want," said Mr. Hadley, "is a series of pictures about
+the Canal. It will soon be open for regular traffic, you know,
+and, in fact some vessels have already gone through it. But the
+work is not yet finished, and we want you to film the final
+touches.
+
+"Then, too, there may be accidents--there have been several small
+ones of late, and, as I wrote you, a man who claims to have made a
+study of the natural forces in Panama declares a big slide is due
+soon.
+
+"Of course we won't wish the canal any bad luck, and we don't for
+a moment want that slide to happen. Only--"
+
+"If it does come you want it filmed!" interrupted Blake, with a
+laugh.
+
+"That's it, exactly!" exclaimed Mr. Ringold.
+
+"You'll find plenty down there to take pictures of," said Mr.
+Hadley. "We want scenes along the Canal. Hire a vessel and take
+moving pictures as you go along in her. Go through the Gatun
+locks, of course. Scenes as your boat goes in them, and the waters
+rise, and then go down again, ought to make a corking picture!"
+
+Mr. Hadley was growing enthusiastic.
+
+"Get some jungle scenes to work in also," he directed. "In short,
+get scenes you think a visitor to the Panama Canal would be
+interested in seeing. Some of the films will be a feature at the
+Panama Exposition in California, and we expect to make big money
+from them, so do your best."
+
+"We will!" promised Joe, and Blake nodded in acquiescence.
+
+"You met the young Spaniard who had a letter of introduction to
+you; did you not?" asked Mr. Hadley, after a pause.
+
+"Yes," answered Blake. "Met him under rather queer circumstances,
+too. I guess we hinted at them in our letter."
+
+"A mere mention," responded Mr. Hadley. "I should be glad to hear
+the details." So Blake and Joe, in turn, told of the runaway.
+
+"What do you think of him--I mean Mr. Alcando?" asked the moving
+picture man.
+
+"Why, he seems all right," spoke Joe slowly, looking at Blake to
+give him a chance to say anything if he wanted to. "I like him."
+
+"Glad to hear it!" exclaimed Mr. Hadley heartily. "He came to us
+well recommended and, as I think I explained, our company is under
+obligations to concerns he and his friends are interested in, so
+we were glad to do him a favor. He explained, did he not, that his
+company wished to show scenes along the line of their railroad, to
+attract prospective customers?"
+
+"Yes, he told us that," observed Joe.
+
+"What's the matter, Blake, haven't you anything to say?" asked Mr.
+Hadley in a curious voice, turning to Joe's chum. "How does the
+Spaniard strike you?"
+
+"Well, he seems all right," was Blake's slow answer. "Only I
+think--"
+
+"Blake thinks he's an international spy, I guess!" broke in Joe
+with a laugh. "Tell him about the 'big guns,' Blake."
+
+"What's that?" asked Mr. Hadley, quickly.
+
+Whereupon Blake told of the wind-blown letter and his first
+suspicions.
+
+"Oh, that's all nonsense!" laughed Mr. Hadley. "We have
+investigated his credentials, and find them all right. Besides,
+what object would a South American spy have in finding out details
+of the defenses at Panama. South America would work to preserve
+the Canal; not to destroy it. If it were some European nation now,
+that would be a different story. You don't need to worry, Blake."
+
+"No, I suppose it is foolish. But I'm glad to know you think Mr.
+Alcando all right. If we've got to live in close companionship
+with him for several months, it's a comfort to know he is all
+right. Now when are we to start, how do we go, where shall we make
+our headquarters and so on?"
+
+"Yes, you will want some detailed information, I expect," agreed
+the moving picture man. "Well, I'm ready to give it to you. I have
+already made some arrangements for you. You will take a steamer to
+Colon, make your headquarters at the Washington Hotel, and from
+there start out, when you are ready, to get pictures of the Canal
+and surrounding country. I'll give you letters of introduction, so
+you will have no trouble in chartering a tug to go through the
+Canal, and I already have the necessary government permits."
+
+"Then Joe and I had better be packing up for the trip," suggested
+Blake.
+
+"Yes, the sooner the better. You might call on Mr. Alcando, and
+ask him when he will be ready. Here is his address in New York,"
+and Mr. Hadley handed Blake a card, naming a certain uptown hotel.
+
+A little later, having seen to their baggage, and handed their
+particular and favorite cameras over to one of the men of the film
+company, so that he might give them a thorough overhauling, Blake
+and Joe went to call on their Spanish friend.
+
+"Aren't you glad to know he isn't a spy, or anything like that?"
+asked Joe of his chum.
+
+"Yes, of course I am, and yet--"
+
+"Still suspicious I see," laughed Joe. "Better drop it."
+
+Blake did not answer.
+
+Inquiry of the hotel clerk gave Blake and Joe the information that
+Mr. Alcando was in his room, and, being shown to the apartment by
+a bell-boy, Blake knocked on the door.
+
+"Who's there? Wait a moment!" came in rather sharp accents from a
+voice the moving picture boys recognized as that of Mr. Alcando.
+
+"It is Blake Stewart and Joe Duncan," said the former lad. "We
+have called--"
+
+"I beg your pardon--In one moment I shall be with you--I will
+let you in!" exclaimed the Spaniard. The boys could hear him
+moving about in his apartment, they could hear the rattle of
+papers, and then the door was opened.
+
+There was no one in the room except the young South American
+railroad man, but there was the odor of a strong cigar in the
+apartment, and Blake noticed this with surprise for, some time
+before, Mr. Alcando had said he did not smoke.
+
+The inference was, then, that he had had a visitor, who was
+smoking when the boys knocked, but there was no sign of the caller
+then, except in the aroma of the cigar.
+
+He might have gone into one of the other rooms that opened from
+the one into which the boys looked, for Mr. Alcando had a suite in
+the hotel. And, after all, it was none of the affair of Blake or
+Joe, if their new friend had had a caller.
+
+"Only," said Blake to Joe afterward, "why was he in such a hurry
+to get rid of him, and afraid that we might meet him?"
+
+"I don't know," Joe answered. "It doesn't worry me. You are too
+suspicious."
+
+"I suppose I am."
+
+Mr. Alcando welcomed the boys, but said nothing about the delay in
+opening his door, or about the visitor who must have slipped out
+hastily. The Spaniard was glad to see Blake and Joe, and glad to
+learn that they would soon start for Panama.
+
+"I have much to do, though, in what little time is left," he said,
+rapidly arranging some papers on his table. As he did so, Blake
+caught sight of a small box, with some peculiar metal projections
+on it, sticking out from amid a pile of papers.
+
+"Yes, much to do," went on Mr. Alcando. And then, either by
+accident or design, he shoved some papers in such a way that the
+small box was completely hidden.
+
+"We have just come from Mr. Hadley," explained Joe, and then he
+and Blake plunged into a mass of details regarding their trip,
+with which I need not weary you.
+
+Sufficient to say that Mr. Alcando promised to be on hand at the
+time of the sailing of the steamer for Colon.
+
+In due time, though a day or so later than originally planned,
+Blake and Joe, with their new Spanish friend, were on hand at the
+pier. Mr. Alcando had considerable baggage, and he was to be
+allowed the use of an old moving picture camera with which to "get
+his hand in." Blake and Joe, of course had their own machines,
+which had been put in perfect order. There were several of them
+for different classes of work.
+
+Final instructions were given by Mr. Hadley, good-bys were said,
+and the boys and Mr. Alcando went aboard.
+
+"I hope you have good luck!" called Birdie Lee to Blake, as she
+waved her hand to him.
+
+"And so do I," added Mabel Pierce to Joe.
+
+"Thanks!" they made answer in a chorus.
+
+"And--look--out--for--the--big slides!" called Mr. Piper after
+them, as the steamer swung away from the pier.
+
+"Gloomy to the last!" laughed Blake.
+
+So they were off for Panama, little dreaming of the sensational
+adventures that awaited them there.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+THE LITTLE BOX
+
+Blake and Joe were too well-seasoned travelers to care to witness
+many of the scenes attendant upon the departure of their vessel.
+Though young in years, they had already crowded into their lives
+so many thrilling adventures that it took something out of the
+ordinary to arouse their interest.
+
+It was not that they were blasé, or indifferent to novel sights,
+but travel was now, with them, an old story. They had been out
+West, to the Pacific Coast, and in far-off jungle lands, to say
+nothing of their trip to the place of the earthquakes, and the
+more recent trip to the flooded Mississippi Valley.
+
+So, once they had waved good-by to their friends and
+fellow-workers on the pier, they went to their stateroom to look
+after their luggage.
+
+The two boys and Mr. Alcando had a room ample for their needs,
+and, though it would accommodate four, they were assured that the
+fourth berth would not be occupied, so no stranger would intrude.
+
+When Blake and Joe went below Mr. Alcando did not follow. Either
+he liked the open air to be found on deck, or he was not such a
+veteran traveler as to care to miss the sights and sounds of
+departure. His baggage was piled in one corner, and that of the
+boys in other parts of the stateroom, with the exception of the
+trunks and cameras, which were stowed in the hold, as not being
+wanted on the voyage.
+
+"Well, what do you think of him now?" asked Joe, as he sat down,
+for both he and Blake were tired, there having been much to do
+that day.
+
+"Why, he seems all right," was the slowly-given answer.
+
+"Nothing more suspicious; eh?"
+
+"No, I can't say that I've seen anything. Of course it was queer
+for him to have someone in his room that time, and to get rid of
+whoever it was so quickly before we came in. But I suppose we all
+have our secrets."
+
+"Yes," agreed Joe. "And he certainly can't do enough for us. He is
+very grateful."
+
+This was shown in every way possible by the Spaniard. More than
+once he referred to the saving of his life in the runaway
+accident, and he never tired of telling those whom he met what the
+boys had done for him.
+
+It was truly grateful praise, too, and he was sincere in all that
+he said. As Joe had remarked, the Spaniard could not do enough for
+the boys.
+
+He helped in numberless ways in getting ready for the trip, and
+offered to do errands that could better be attended to by a
+messenger boy. He was well supplied with cash, and it was all Joe
+and Blake could do to prevent him from buying them all sorts of
+articles for use on their trip.
+
+Passing a sporting goods store that made a specialty of fitting
+out travelers who hunted in the wilds, Mr. Alcando wanted to
+purchase for Blake and Joe complete camping outfits, portable
+stoves, guns, knives, patent acetylene lamps, portable tents,
+automatic revolvers and all sorts of things.
+
+"But we don't need them, thank you!" Blake insisted. "We're not
+going to do any hunting, and we won't camp out if we can help it."
+
+"Oh, but we might have to!" said Mr. Alcando, "then think how
+useful these outfits would be."
+
+"But we'd have to cart them around with us for months, maybe,"
+said Joe, "on the slim chance of using part of the things one
+night. We don't need 'em."
+
+"But I want to do something for you boys!" the Spaniard insisted.
+"I am so grateful to you--"
+
+"We know that, by this time," declared Blake. "Please don't get
+anything more," for their friend had already bought them some
+things for their steamer trip.
+
+"Ah, well then, if you insist," agreed the generous one, "but if
+ever you come to my country, all that I own is yours. I am ever in
+your debt."
+
+"Oh, you mustn't feel that way about it," Blake assured him.
+"After all, you might have saved yourself."
+
+"Hardly," returned the Spaniard, and he shuddered as he recalled
+how near he had been to death on the bridge.
+
+But now he and Blake and Joe were safely on a steamer on their way
+to Panama. The weather was getting rather cool, for though it was
+only early November the chill of winter was beginning to make
+itself felt.
+
+"But we'll soon be where it's warm enough all the year around,"
+said Joe to Blake, as they arranged their things in the stateroom.
+
+"That's right," said his chum. "It will be a new experience for
+us. Not quite so much jungle, I hope, as the dose we had of it
+when we went after the wild animals."
+
+"No, and I'm glad of it," responded Joe. "That was a little too
+much at times. Yet there is plenty of jungle in Panama."
+
+"I suppose so. Well, suppose we go up on deck for a breath of
+air."
+
+They had taken a steamer that went directly to Colon, making but
+one stop, at San Juan, Porto Rico. A number of tourists were
+aboard, and there were one or two "personally conducted" parties,
+so the vessel was rather lively, with so many young people.
+
+In the days that followed Joe and Blake made the acquaintance of a
+number of persons, in whom they were more or less interested. When
+it became known that the boys were moving picture operators the
+interest in them increased, and one lively young lady wanted Blake
+to get out his camera and take some moving pictures of the ship's
+company. But he explained, that, though he might take the pictures
+on board the steamer, he had no facilities for developing or
+printing the positives, or projecting them after they were made.
+
+In the previous books of this series is described in detail the
+mechanical process of how moving pictures are made, and to those
+volumes curious readers are referred.
+
+The process is an intricate one, though much simplified from what
+it was at first, and it is well worth studying.
+
+On and on swept the _Gatun_, carrying our friends to the
+wonderland of that great "ditch" which has become one of the
+marvels of the world. Occasionally there were storms to interrupt
+the otherwise placid voyage, but there was only short discomfort.
+
+Mr. Alcando was eager to reach the scene of operations, and after
+his first enthusiasm concerning the voyage had worn off he
+insisted on talking about the detailed and technical parts of
+moving picture work to Joe and Blake, who were glad to give him
+the benefit of their information.
+
+"Well, you haven't seen anything more suspicious about him; have
+you?" asked Joe of his chum when they were together in the
+stateroom one evening, the Spaniard being on deck.
+
+"No, I can't say that I have. I guess I did let my imagination run
+away with me. But say, Joe, what sort of a watch have you that
+ticks so loudly?"
+
+"Watch! That isn't my watch!" exclaimed his chum.
+
+"Listen!" ordered Blake. "Don't you hear a ticking?"
+
+They both stood at attention.
+
+"I do hear something like a clock," admitted Joe. "But I don't see
+any. I didn't know there was one in this stateroom."
+
+"There isn't, either," said Joe, with a glance about. "But I
+surely do hear something."
+
+"Maybe it's your own watch working overtime."
+
+"Mine doesn't tick as loud as that," and Blake pulled out his
+timepiece. Even with it out of his pocket the beat of the balance
+wheel could not be heard until one held it to his ear.
+
+"But what is it?" asked Joe, curiously.
+
+"It seems to come from Mr. Alcando's baggage," Blake said. "Yes,
+it's in his berth," he went on, moving toward that side of the
+stateroom. The nearer he advanced toward the sleeping place of the
+Spaniard the louder became the ticking.
+
+"He's got some sort of a clock in his bed," Blake went on. "He may
+have one of those cheap watches, though it isn't like him to buy
+that kind. Maybe he put it under his pillow and forgot to take it
+out. Perhaps I'd better move it or he may not think it's there,
+and toss it out on the floor."
+
+But when he lifted the pillow no watch was to be seen.
+
+"That's funny," said Blake, musingly. "I surely hear that ticking
+in this berth; don't you?"
+
+"Yes," assented Joe. "Maybe it's mixed up in the bedclothes."
+Before Blake could interfere Joe had turned back the coverings,
+and there, near the foot of the berth, between the sheets, was a
+small brass-bound box, containing a number of metal projections.
+It was from this box the ticking sound came.
+
+"Why--why!" gasped Blake. "That--that box--"
+
+"What about it?" asked Joe, wonderingly.
+
+"That's the same box that was on his table the time we came in his
+room at the hotel--when we smelled the cigar smoke. I wonder what
+it is, and why he has it in his bed?"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+THE SECRET CONFERENCE
+
+Blake was silent a moment after making this portentous
+announcement. Then he leaned forward, with the evident intention
+of picking up the curious, ticking box.
+
+"Look out!" cried Joe, grasping his chum's hand.
+
+"What for?" Blake wanted to know.
+
+"It might be loaded--go off, you know!"
+
+"Nonsense!" exclaimed Blake. "It's probably only some sort of
+foreign alarm clock, and he stuffed it in there so the ticking
+wouldn't keep him awake. I've done the same thing when I didn't
+want to get up. I used to chuck mine under the bed, or stuff it in
+an old shoe. What's the matter with you, anyhow? You act scared,"
+for Joe's face was actually white--that is as white as it could be
+under the tan caused by his outdoor life.
+
+"Well, I--I thought," stammered Joe. "Perhaps that was a--"
+
+"Who's getting suspicious now?" demanded Blake with a laugh. "Talk
+about me! Why, you're way ahead!"
+
+"Oh, well, I guess I did imagine too much," admitted Joe with a
+little laugh. "It probably is an alarm clock, as you say. I wonder
+what we'd better do with it? If we leave it there--"
+
+He was interrupted by the opening of the stateroom door and as
+both boys turned they saw their Spanish friend standing on the
+threshold staring at them.
+
+"Well!" he exclaimed, and there was an angry note in his voice--a
+note the boys had never before noticed, for Mr. Alcando was of a
+sunny and happy disposition, and not nearly as quick tempered as
+persons of his nationality are supposed to be.
+
+"I suppose it does look; as though we were rummaging in your
+things," said Blake, deciding instantly that it was best to be
+frank. "But we heard a curious ticking noise when we came down
+here, and we traced it to your bunk. We didn't know what it might
+be, and thought perhaps you had put your watch in the bed, and
+might have forgotten to take it out. We looked, and found this--"
+
+"Ah, my new alarm clock!" exclaimed Mr. Alcando, and what seemed
+to be a look of relief passed over his face. He reached in among
+the bed clothes and picked up the curious brass-bound ticking box,
+with its many little metallic projections.
+
+"I perhaps did not tell you that I am a sort of inventor," the
+Spaniard went on. "I have not had much success, but I think my new
+alarm clock is going to bring me in some money. It works on a new
+principle, but I am giving it a good test, privately, before I try
+to put it on the market."
+
+He took the brass-bound, ticking box from the bed, and must have
+adjusted the mechanism in a way Blake or Joe did not notice, for
+the "click-click" stopped at once, and the room seemed curiously
+still after it.
+
+"Some day I will show you how it works," the young Spaniard went
+on. "I think, myself, it is quite what you call--clever."
+
+And with that he put the box in a trunk, and closed the lid with a
+snap that threw the lock.
+
+"And now, boys, we will soon be there!" he cried with a gay laugh.
+"Soon we will be in the beautiful land of Panama, and will see the
+marvels of that great canal. Are you not glad? And I shall begin
+to learn more about making moving pictures! That will please me,
+though I hope I shall not be so stupid a pupil as to make trouble
+for you, my friends, to whom I owe so much."
+
+He looked eagerly at the boys.
+
+"We'll teach you all we know, which isn't such an awful lot," said
+Joe. "And I don't believe you'll be slow."
+
+"You have picked up some of it already," went on Blake, for while
+delaying over making their arrangements in New York the boys and
+their pupil had gone into the rudiments of moving picture work.
+
+"I am glad you think so," returned the other. "I shall be glad
+when we are at work, and more glad still, when I can, with my own
+camera, penetrate into the fastness of the jungle, along the lines
+of our railroad, and show what we have done to bring civilization
+there. The film will be the eyes of the world, watching our
+progress," he added, poetically.
+
+"Why don't you come up on deck," he proceeded. "It is warm down
+here."
+
+"We just came down," said Joe, "but it is hot," for they were
+approaching nearer to the Equator each hour.
+
+While the boys were following the young Spaniard up on deck, Joe
+found a chance to whisper to Blake:
+
+"I notice he was not at all anxious to show us how his brass-box
+alarm clock worked."
+
+"No," agreed Blake in a low voice, "and yet his invention might
+be in such a shape that he didn't want to exhibit it yet."
+
+"So you think that's the reason, eh?"
+
+"Surely. Don't you?"
+
+"I do not!"
+
+"What then?"
+
+"Well, I think he's trying to--"
+
+"Hush, here he comes!" cautioned Blake, for their friend at that
+moment came back from a stroll along the forward deck.
+
+But if Joe was really suspicious of the young Spaniard nothing
+that occurred in the next few days served to develop that
+suspicion. No reference was made to the odd alarm clock, which was
+not heard to tick again, nor was it in evidence either in Mr.
+Alcando's bed, or elsewhere.
+
+"What were you going to say it was that time when I stopped you?"
+asked Blake of his chum one day.
+
+"I was going to say I thought it might be some sort of an
+improvement on a moving picture camera," Joe answered. "This may
+be only a bluff of his--wanting to learn how to take moving
+pictures. He may know how all along, and only be working on a
+certain improvement that he can't perfect until he gets just the
+right conditions. That's what I think."
+
+"Well, you think wrong," declared Blake. "As for him knowing
+something about the pictures now, why he doesn't even know how to
+thread the film into the camera."
+
+"Oh, well, maybe I'm wrong," admitted Joe.
+
+Day succeeded day, until, in due time, after their stop at San
+Juan, where the boys went ashore for a brief visit, the steamer
+dropped anchor in the excellent harbor of Colon, at the Atlantic
+end of the great Panama Canal.
+
+A storm was impending as the ship made her way up the harbor, but
+as the boys and the other passengers looked at the great
+break-water, constructed to be one of the protections to the
+Canal, they realized what a stupendous undertaking the work was,
+and they knew that no storm could affect them, now they were
+within the Colon harbor.
+
+"Well, we're here at last!" exclaimed Joe, as he looked over the
+side and noticed many vessels lying about, most of them connected
+in some manner with the canal construction.
+
+"Yes, and now for some moving pictures--at least within a day or
+so," went on Blake. "I'm tired of doing nothing. At last we are at
+Panama!"
+
+"And I shall soon be with you, taking pictures!" cried the
+Spaniard. "How long do you think it will be before I can take some
+views myself?" he asked eagerly.
+
+"Oh, within a week or so we'll trust you with a camera," said
+Blake.
+
+"That is, if you can spare time from your alarm clock invention,"
+added Joe, with a curious glance at his chum.
+
+But if Mr. Alcando felt any suspicions at the words he did not
+betray himself. He smiled genially, made some of his rapid Latin
+gestures and exclaimed:
+
+"Oh, the clock. He is safe asleep, and will be while I am here. I
+work only on moving pictures now!"
+
+In due season Blake, Joe and Mr. Alcando found themselves
+quartered in the pleasant Washington Hotel, built by the Panama
+Railroad for the Government, where they found, transported to a
+Southern clime, most of the luxuries demanded by people of the
+North.
+
+"Well, this is something like living!" exclaimed Blake as their
+baggage and moving picture cameras and accessories having been put
+away, they sat on the veranda and watched breaker after breaker
+sweep in from the Caribbean Sea.
+
+"The only trouble is we won't be here long enough," complained
+Joe, as he sipped a cooling lime drink, for the weather was quite
+warm. "We'll have to leave it and take to the Canal or the jungle,
+to say nothing of standing up to our knees in dirt taking slides."
+
+"Do you--er--really have to get very close to get pictures of the
+big slides?" asked Mr. Alcando, rather nervously, Blake thought.
+
+"The nearer the better," Joe replied. "Remember that time, Blake,
+when we were filming the volcano, and the ground opened right at
+your feet?"
+
+"I should say I did remember it," said Blake. "Some picture that!"
+
+"Where was this?" asked the Spaniard.
+
+"In earthquake land. There were _some_ times there!"
+
+"Ha! Do not think to scare me!" cried their pupil with a frank
+laugh. "I said I was going to learn moving pictures and I
+am--slides or no slides."
+
+"Oh, we're not trying to 'josh' you," declared Blake. "We'll all
+have to run some chances. But it's all in the day's work, and,
+after all, it's no more risky than going to war."
+
+"No, I suppose not," laughed their pupil. "Well, when do we
+start?"
+
+"As soon as we can arrange for the government tug to take us
+along the Canal," answered Blake. "We'll have to go in one of the
+United States vessels, as the Canal isn't officially opened yet.
+We'll have to make some inquiries, and present our letters of
+introduction. If we get started with the films inside of a week
+we'll be doing well."
+
+The week they had to wait until their plans were completed was a
+pleasant one. They lived well at the hotel, and Mr. Alcando met
+some Spaniards and other persons whom he knew, and to whom he
+introduced the boys.
+
+Finally the use of the tug was secured, cameras were loaded with
+the reels of sensitive film, other reels in their light-tight
+metal boxes were packed for transportation, and shipping cases, so
+that the exposed reels could be sent to the film company in New
+York for developing and printing, were taken along.
+
+Not only were Blake and Joe without facilities for developing the
+films they took, but it is very hard to make negatives in hot
+countries. If you have ever tried to develop pictures on a hot
+day, without an ice water bath, you can understand this. And there
+was just then little ice to be had for such work as photography
+though some might have been obtained for an emergency. Blake and
+Joe were only to make the exposures; the developing and printing
+could better be done in New York.
+
+"Well, we'll start up the canal to-morrow," said Blake to Joe on
+the evening of their last day in Colon.
+
+"Yes, and I'll be glad of it," remarked Joe. "It's nice enough
+here at this hotel, but I want to get busy."
+
+"So do I," confessed his chum.
+
+They were to make the entire trip through the Canal as guests of
+Uncle Sam, the Government having acceded to Mr. Hadley's request,
+as the completed films were to form part of the official exhibit
+at the exposition in California later on.
+
+"Whew, but it _is_ hot!" exclaimed Joe, after he and Blake had
+looked over their possessions, to make sure they were forgetting
+nothing for their trip next day.
+
+"Yes," agreed Blake. "Let's go out on the balcony for a breath of
+air."
+
+Their room opened on a small balcony which faced the beach. Mr.
+Alcando had a room two or three apartments farther along the
+corridor, and his, too, had a small balcony attached. As Blake and
+Joe went out on theirs they saw, in the faint light of a crescent
+and much-clouded moon, two figures on the balcony opening from the
+Spaniard's room.
+
+"He has company," said Joe, in a low voice.
+
+"Yes," agreed Blake. "I wonder who it is? He said all of his
+friends had left the hotel. He must have met some new ones."
+
+It was very still that night, the only sounds being the low boom
+and hiss of the surf as it rushed up the beach. And gradually, to
+Joe and Blake, came the murmur of voices from the Spaniard's
+balcony. At first they were low, and it seemed to the boys, though
+neither expressed the thought, that the conference was a secret
+one. Then, clearly across the intervening space, came the words:
+
+"Are you sure the machine works right?"
+
+"Perfectly," was the answer, in Mr. Alcando's tones. "I have given
+it every test."
+
+Then the voices again sunk to a low murmur.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+ALONG THE CANAL
+
+"Blake, did you hear that?" asked Joe, after a pause, during which
+he and his chum could hear the low buzz of conversation from the
+other balcony.
+
+"Yes, I heard it. What of it?"
+
+"Well, nothing that I know of, and yet--"
+
+"Yet you're more suspicious than I was," broke in Blake. "I don't
+see why."
+
+"I hardly know myself," admitted Joe. "Yet, somehow, that ticking
+box, and what you saw in that letter--"
+
+"Oh, nonsense!" interrupted Blake. "Don't imagine too much. You
+think that curious box is some attachment for a moving picture
+camera; do you?"
+
+"Well, it might be, and--"
+
+"And you're afraid he will get ahead of you in your invention of a
+focus tube; aren't you?" continued Blake, not giving his companion
+a chance to finish what he started to say. For Joe had recently
+happened to hit on a new idea of a focusing tube for a moving
+picture camera, and had applied for a patent on it. But there was
+some complication and his papers had not yet been granted. He was
+in fear lest someone would be granted a similar patent before he
+received his.
+
+"Oh, I don't know as I'm afraid of that," Joe answered slowly.
+
+"Well, it must be that--or something," insisted Blake. "You hear
+Alcando and someone else talking about a machine, and you at once
+jump to the conclusion that it's a camera."
+
+"No, I don't!" exclaimed Joe. He did not continue the conversation
+along that line, but he was doing some hard thinking.
+
+Later that evening, when Mr. Alcando called at the room of the two
+chums to bid them goodnight, he made no mention of his visitor on
+the balcony. Nor did Blake or Joe question him.
+
+"And we start up the Canal in the morning?" asked the Spaniard.
+
+"Yes, and we'll make the first pictures going through the Gatun
+locks," decided Blake.
+
+"Good! I am anxious to try my hand!" said their "pupil."
+
+With their baggage, valises, trunks, cameras, boxes of undeveloped
+film, other boxes to hold the exposed reels of sensitive
+celluloid, and many other things, the moving picture boys and Mr.
+Alcando went aboard the government tug _Nama_ the next morning.
+With the exception of some Army engineers making a trip of
+inspection, they were the only passengers.
+
+"Well, are you all ready, boys?" asked the captain, for he had
+been instructed by his superiors to show every courtesy and
+attention to our heroes. In a sense they were working for Uncle
+Sam.
+
+"All ready," answered Blake.
+
+"Then we'll start," was the reply. "I guess--"
+
+"Oh, one moment, I beg of you!" cried Mr. Alcando. "I see a friend
+coming with a message to me," and he pointed along the pier, where
+the tug was tied. Coming on the run was a man who bore every
+appearance of being a Spaniard.
+
+"You are late," complained Mr. Alcando, as the runner handed him a
+letter. "You almost delayed my good friend, the captain of this
+tug."
+
+"I could not help it," was the answer. "I did not receive it
+myself until a few minutes ago. It came by cable. So you are off?"
+
+"We are off!" answered Mr. Alcando.
+
+Then the other spoke in Spanish, and later on Blake, who undertook
+the study of that language so as to make himself understood in a
+few simple phrases knew what it was that the two men said. For
+the runner asked:
+
+"You will not fail us?"
+
+"I will not fail--if I have to sacrifice myself," was the answer
+of Mr. Alcando, and then with a wave of his hand the other went
+back up the pier.
+
+"All right?" again asked Captain Watson.
+
+"All right, my dear sir, I am sorry to have delayed you," answered
+Mr. Alcando with more than his usual politeness.
+
+"A little delay doesn't matter. I am at your service," the
+commander said. "Well, now we'll start."
+
+If either Blake or Joe felt any surprise over the hurried visit,
+at the last minute, of Mr. Alcando's friend, they said nothing to
+each other about it. Besides, they had other matters to think of
+just then, since now their real moving picture work was about to
+begin.
+
+In a short time they were moving away from the pier, up the harbor
+and toward the wonderful locks and dam that form the amazing
+features (aside from the Culebra Cut) of the great Canal.
+
+"Better get our cameras ready; hadn't we, Blake?" suggested Joe.
+
+"I think so," agreed his chum. "Now, Mr. Alcando, if you want to
+pick up any points, you can watch us. A little later we'll let you
+grind the crank yourself."
+
+I might explain, briefly, that moving pictures are taken not by
+pressing a switch, or a rubber bulb, such as that which works a
+camera shutter, but by the continuous action of a crank, or
+handle, attached to the camera. Pressing a bulb does well enough
+for taking a single picture, but when a series, on a long
+celluloid strip, are needed, as in the case for the "movies," an
+entirely different arrangement becomes absolutely necessary.
+
+The sensitive celluloid film must move continuously, in a somewhat
+jerky fashion, inside the dark light-tight camera, and behind the
+lens. As each picture, showing some particular motion, is taken,
+the film halts for the briefest space of time, and then goes on,
+to be wound up in the box, and a new portion brought before the
+lens for exposure.
+
+All this the crank does automatically, opening and closing the
+shutter, moving the film and all that is necessary.
+
+I wish I had space, not only to tell you more of how moving
+pictures are made, but much about the Panama Canal. As to the
+former--the pictures--in other books of this series I have done
+my best to give you a brief account of that wonderful industry.
+
+Now as to the Canal--it is such a vast undertaking and subject
+that only in a great volume could I hope to do it justice. And in
+a story (such as this is intended to be), I am afraid you would
+think I was trying to give you pretty dry reading if I gave you
+too many facts and figures.
+
+Of course many of you have read of the Canal in the
+newspapers--the controversy over the choice of the route, the
+discussion as to whether a sea level or a lock canal was best, and
+many other points, especially whether the Gatun Dam would be able
+to hold back the waters of the Chagres River.
+
+With all that I have nothing to do in this book, but I hope you
+will pardon just a little reference to the Canal, especially the
+lock features, since Joe and Blake had a part in at least filming
+those wonderful structures.
+
+You know there are two kinds of canals, those on the level, which
+are merely big over-grown ditches, and those which have to go over
+hills and through low valleys.
+
+There are two ways of getting a canal over a hill. One is to build
+it and let the water in to the foot of the hill, and then to raise
+vessels over, the crest of the hill, and down the other side to
+where the canal again starts, by means of inclined planes, or
+marine railways.
+
+The other method is by "locks," as they are called. That is, there
+are built a series of basins with powerful, water-tight gates
+dividing them. Boys who live along canals well know how locks
+work.
+
+A boat comes along until it reaches the place where the lock is.
+It is floated into a basin, or section, of the waterway, and a
+gate is closed behind it. Then, from that part of the canal which
+is higher than that part where the boat then is, water is admitted
+into the basin, until the boat rises to the level of the higher
+part of the canal. Then the higher gate is opened, and the vessel
+floats out on the higher level. It goes "up hill," so to speak.
+
+By reversing the process it can also go "down hill." Of course
+there must be heavy gates to prevent the higher level waters from
+rushing into those of the lower level.
+
+Some parts of the Panama Canal are eighty-five feet higher than
+other parts. In other words, a vessel entering the Canal at Colon,
+on the Atlantic side of the Isthmus, must rise eighty-five feet to
+get to the level of Gatun Lake, which forms a large part of the
+Canal. Then, when the Pacific end is approached, the vessel must
+go down eighty-five feet again, first in one step of thirty and a
+third feet, and then in two steps, or locks, aggregating
+fifty-four and two-thirds feet. So you see the series of locks at
+either end of the great Canal exactly balance one another, the
+distance at each end being eighty-five feet.
+
+It is just like going up stairs at one end of a long board walk
+and down again at the other end, only the steps are of water, and
+not wood.
+
+The tug bearing Blake, Joe and Mr. Alcando was now steaming over
+toward Toro Point break-water, which I have before alluded to.
+This was built to make a good harbor at Colon, where violent
+storms often occur.
+
+"I want to get some pictures of the breakwater," Blake had said,
+since he and his chum were to present, in reels, a story of a
+complete trip through the Canal, and the breakwater was really the
+starting point. It extends out into the Caribbean Sea eleven
+thousand feet.
+
+"And you are taking pictures now?" asked Mr. Alcando, as Blake and
+Joe set up a camera in the bow of the boat.
+
+"That's what we're doing. Come here and we'll give you lesson
+number one," invited Blake, clicking away at the handle. "I will
+gladly come!" exclaimed the Spaniard, and soon he was deep in the
+mysteries of the business.
+
+There was not much delay at the breakwater, as the boys were
+anxious to get to the Canal proper, and into the big locks. A
+little later their tug was steaming along the great ditch, five
+hundred feet wide, and over forty feet deep, which leads directly
+to the locks. This ditch, or start of the Canal proper, is about
+seven miles long, and at various points of interest along the way
+a series of moving pictures was taken.
+
+"And so at last we are really on the Panama Canal!" cried Joe as
+he helped Blake put in a fresh reel of unexposed film, Mr. Alcando
+looking on and learning "points."
+
+"That's what you are," the captain informed them, "and, just ahead
+of you are the locks. Now you'll see something worth 'filming,' as
+you call it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+ALMOST AN ACCIDENT
+
+"What's that big, long affair, jutting out so far from the locks?"
+asked Blake, when the tug had approached nearer.
+
+"That's the central pier," the captain informed him. "It's a sort
+of guide wall, to protect the locks. You know there are three
+locks at this end; or, rather, six, two series of three each. And
+each lock has several gates. One great danger will be that
+powerful vessels may ram these gates and damage them, and, to
+prevent this, very elaborate precautions are observed. You'll soon
+see. We'll have to tie up to this wall, or we'll run into the
+first protection, which is a big steel chain. You can see it just
+ahead there."
+
+Joe and Blake, who had gotten all the pictures they wanted of the
+approach to the lock, stopped grinding away at the handle of the
+camera long enough to look at the chain.
+
+These chains, for there are several of them, each designed to
+protect some lock gate, consist of links made of steel three
+inches thick. They stretch across the locks, and any vessel that
+does not stop at the moment it should, before reaching this
+chain, will ram its prow into it.
+
+"But I'm not taking any such chances," Captain Watson informed the
+boys. "I don't want to be censured, which might happen, and I
+don't want to injure my boat."
+
+"What would happen if you did hit the chain?" asked Blake. They
+had started off again, after the necessary permission to enter the
+locks had been signaled to them. Once more Blake and Joe were
+taking pictures, showing the chain in position.
+
+"Well, if I happened to be in command of a big vessel, say the
+size of the _Olympic_, and I hit the chain at a speed of a mile
+and a half an hour, and I had a full load on, the chain would stop
+me within about seventy feet and prevent me from ramming the lock
+gate."
+
+"But how does it do it?" asked Joe.
+
+"By means of machinery," the captain informed him. "Each end of
+the chain fender goes about a drum, which winds and unwinds by
+hydraulic power. Once a ship hits the chain its speed will
+gradually slacken, but it takes a pressure of one hundred tons to
+make the chain begin to yield. Then it will stand a pressure up to
+over two hundred and fifty tons before it will break. But before
+that happens the vessel will have stopped."
+
+"But we are not going to strike the chain, I take it," put in Mr.
+Alcando.
+
+"Indeed we are not," the captain assured him. "There, it is being
+lowered now."
+
+As he spoke the boys saw the immense steel-linked fender sink down
+below the surface of the water.
+
+"Where does it go?" asked Blake.
+
+"It sinks down in a groove in the bottom of the lock," the captain
+explained. "It takes about one minute to lower the chain, and as
+long to raise it."
+
+"Well, I've got that!" Blake exclaimed as the handle of his camera
+ceased clicking. He had sufficient views of the giant fender. As
+the tug went on Captain Watson explained to the boys that even
+though a vessel should manage to break the chain, which was almost
+beyond the bounds of possibility, there was the first, or safety
+gate of the lock. And though a vessel might crash through the
+chain, and also the first gate, owing to failure to stop in the
+lock, there would be a second gate, which would almost certainly
+bring the craft to a stop.
+
+But even the most remote possibility has been thought of by the
+makers of the great Canal, and, should all the lock-gates be torn
+away, and the impounded waters of Gatun Lake start to rush out,
+there are emergency dams that can be put into place to stop the
+flood.
+
+These emergency dams can be swung into place in two minutes by
+means of electrical machinery, but should that fail, they can be
+put into place by hand in about thirty minutes.
+
+"So you see the Canal is pretty well protected," remarked Captain
+Watson, as he prepared to send his tug across the place where the
+Chain had been, and so into the first of the three lock basins.
+
+"Say! This is great!" cried Blake, as he looked at the concrete
+walls, towering above him. They were moist, for a vessel had
+recently come through.
+
+Now the tug no longer moved under her own steam, nor had it been
+since coming alongside the wall of the central pier. For all
+vessels must be towed through the lock basins, and towed not by
+other craft, but by electric locomotives that run alongside, on
+the top of the concrete walls.
+
+Two of these locomotives were attached to the bow of the tug, and
+two to the stern. But those at the stern were not for pulling, as
+Joe at first supposed, for he said:
+
+"Why, those locomotives in back are making fast to us with wire
+hawsers. I don't see how they can push with those."
+
+"They're not going to," explained Captain Watson. "Those in the
+stern are for holding back, to provide for an emergency in case
+those in front pull us too fast."
+
+"Those who built the Canal seem to have thought of everything,"
+spoke Blake with much enthusiasm.
+
+"You'll think so, after you've seen some more of the wonders," the
+tug captain went on with a smile. "Better get your cameras ready,"
+he advised, "they'll be opening and closing the gates for us now,
+and that ought to make good pictures, especially when we are
+closed in the lock, and water begins to enter."
+
+"How does it come in?" asked Joe. "Over the top?"
+
+"No, indeed. They don't use the waterfall effect," answered Blake,
+who had been reading a book about the Canal. "It comes in from the
+bottom; doesn't it, Captain Watson?"
+
+"Yes, through valves that are opened and closed by electricity. In
+fact everything about the lock is done by electricity, though in
+case of emergency hand power can be used. The water fills the lock
+through openings in the floor, and the water itself comes from
+Gatun Lake. There, the gate is opening!"
+
+The boys saw what seemed to be two solid walls of steel slowly
+separated, by an unseen power, as the leaves of a book might open.
+In fact the gates of the locks are called "leaves." Slowly they
+swung back out of the way, into depressions in the side walls of
+the locks, made to receive them.
+
+"Here we go!" cried the captain, the tug began to move slowly
+under the pull of the electric locomotives on the concrete wall
+above them. "Start your cameras, boys!"
+
+Blake and Joe needed no urging. Already the handles were clicking,
+and thousands of pictures, showing a boat actually going through
+the locks of the Panama Canal, were being taken on the long strip
+of sensitive film.
+
+"Oh, it is wonderful!" exclaimed Mr. Alcando. "Do you think--I
+mean, would it be possible for me to--"
+
+"To take some pictures? Of course!" exclaimed Blake, generously.
+"Here, grind this crank a while, I'm tired."
+
+The Spaniard had been given some practice in using a moving
+picture camera, and he knew about at what speed to turn the
+handle. For the moving pictures must be taken at just a certain
+speed, and reproduced on the screen at the same rate, or the
+vision produced is grotesque. Persons and animals seem to run
+instead of walk. But the new pupil, with a little coaching from
+Blake, did very well.
+
+"Now the gates will be closed," said the tug captain, "and the
+water will come in to raise us to the level of the next higher
+lock. We have to go through this process three times at this end
+of the Canal, and three times at the other. Watch them let in the
+water."
+
+The big gates were not yet fully closed when something happened
+that nearly put an end to the trip of the moving picture boys to
+Panama.
+
+For suddenly their tug, instead of moving forward toward the front
+end of the lock, began going backward, toward the slowly-closing
+lock gates.
+
+"What's up?" cried Blake.
+
+"We're going backward!" shouted Joe.
+
+"Yes, the stern locomotives are pulling us back, and the front
+ones seem to have let go!" Captain Watson said. "We'll be between
+the lock gates in another minute. Hello, up there!" he yelled,
+looking toward the top of the lock wall. "What's the matter?"
+
+Slowly the tug approached the closing lock gates. If she once got
+between them, moving as they were, she would be crushed like an
+eggshell. And it seemed that no power on earth could stop the
+movement of those great, steel leaves.
+
+"This is terrible!" cried Mr. Alcando. "I did not count on this in
+learning to make moving pictures."
+
+"You'll be in tighter places than this," said Blake, as he thought
+in a flash of the dangers he and Joe had run.
+
+"What'll we do?" asked Joe, with a glance at his chum.
+
+"Looks as though we'd have to swim for it if the boat is smashed,"
+said Blake, who remained calm. "It won't be hard to do that. This
+is like a big swimming tank, anyhow, but if they let the other
+water in--"
+
+He did not finish, but they knew what he meant. Slowly and
+irresistibly the great lock gates were closing and now the tug had
+almost been pulled back between them. She seemed likely to be
+crushed to splinters.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+IN THE JUNGLE
+
+"What will we do with the cameras, Blake? The films, too, they
+will all be spoiled--we haven't enough waterproof cases!" cried
+Joe to his chum, as the boat, through some accident or failure,
+backed nearer and nearer to the closing steel gates.
+
+"Will we really have to jump overboard?" asked the Spaniard. "I am
+not a very excellent swimmer."
+
+But Blake, at whom these questions seemed directed, did not have
+to answer them. For, after a series of confused shouts on the top
+of the concrete wall above them the movement of the boat, as well
+as the slow motion of the lock gates, ceased. It was just in time,
+for the rudder of the tug was not more than a few feet away from
+the jaws of steel.
+
+"You're all right now," a man called down to those on the tug,
+from the wall over their heads. "Something went wrong with the
+towing locomotives. There's no more danger."
+
+"Well, I'm glad to know that," answered Captain Watson gruffly.
+"You might just as well kill a man as scare him to death. What was
+the matter, anyhow?"
+
+"Well, all of our machinery isn't working as smoothly as we'll
+have it later," the canal engineer explained. "Some of our signals
+went wrong as you were being towed through, and you went backward
+instead of forward. Then it took a minute or so to stop the lock
+gates. But you're all right now, and you'll go on through."
+
+Blake and Joe looked at each other and smiled in relief, and Mr.
+Alcando appeared to breathe easier. A little later the tug was
+again urged forward toward the front lock gates. Then the closing
+of those at her stern went on, until the vessel was in a square
+steel and concrete basin--or, rather, a rectangular one, for it
+was longer than it was wide, to lend itself to the shape of the
+vessels. As Blake had said, it was like a big swimming tank.
+
+"Now we'll go up," Captain Watson said. "You can't get any
+pictures in here, I suppose?" he added.
+
+"We can show the water bubbling up as it fills the lock," said
+Blake. "Water always makes a pretty scene in moving pictures, as
+it seems to move at just the right rate of speed. We'll take a
+short strip of film, Joe, I guess."
+
+The tug did not occupy a whole section of the lock, for they are
+built to accommodate vessels a thousand feet long. To economize
+time in filling up such a great tank as that would be the locks
+are subdivided by gates into small tanks for small vessels.
+
+"It takes just forty-six gates for all the locks," explained
+Captain Watson, while Blake and Joe were getting their camera in
+position, and the men at the locks were closing certain water
+valves and opening others. "Each lock has two leaves, or gates,
+and their weight runs anywhere from three hundred to six hundred
+tons, according to its position. Some of the gates are forty-seven
+feet high, and others nearly twice that, and each leaf is
+sixty-five feet wide, and seven feet thick."
+
+"Think of being crushed between two steel gates, of six hundred
+tons each, eighty feet high, sixty-five feet wide and seven feet
+thick," observed Joe.
+
+"I don't want to think of it!" laughed Blake. "We are well out of
+that," and he glanced back toward the closed and water-tight lock
+gates which had so nearly nipped the tug.
+
+"Here comes the water!" cried the captain. There was a hissing and
+gurgling sound, and millions of bubbles began to show on the
+surface of the limpid fluid in which floated the _Nama_. The water
+came in from below, through the seventy openings in the floor of
+each lock, being admitted by means of pipes and culverts from the
+upper level.
+
+As the water hissed, boiled and bubbled while it flowed in Blake
+took moving pictures of it. Slowly the _Nama_ rose. Higher and
+higher she went until finally she was raised as high as that
+section of the lock would lift her. She went up at the rate of two
+feet a minute, though Captain Watson explained that when there was
+need of hurry the rate could be three feet a minute.
+
+"And we have two more locks to go through?" asked Joe.
+
+"Yes, two more here at Gatun, and three at Miraflores; or, rather,
+there is one lock at Pedro Miguel, where we go down thirty and a
+third feet, and then we go a mile to reach the locks at
+Miraflores.
+
+"There we shall have to go through two locks, with a total drop of
+fifty-four and two-thirds feet," Captain Watson explained. "The
+system is the same at each place."
+
+The tug was now resting easily in the basin, but some feet above
+the sea level. Blake and Joe had taken enough moving pictures of
+this phase of the Canal, since the next scenes would be but a
+repetition of the process in the following two locks that would
+lift the _Nama_ to the level of Gatun Lake.
+
+"But I tell you what we could do," Blake said to his chum.
+
+"What's that--swim the rest of the way," asked Joe, "and have Mr.
+Alcando make pictures of us?"
+
+"No, we've had enough of water lately. But we could get out on top
+of the lock walls, and take pictures of the tug going through the
+lock. That would be different."
+
+"So it would!" cried Joe. "We'll do it!"
+
+They easily obtained permission to do this, and soon, with their
+cameras, and accompanied by Mr. Alcando, they were on the concrete
+wall. From that vantage point they watched the opening of the lock
+gates, which admitted the _Nama_ into the next basin. There she
+was shut up, by the closing of the gates behind her, and raised to
+the second level. The boys succeeded in getting some good pictures
+at this point and others, also, when the tug was released from the
+third or final lock, and steamed out into Gatun Lake. There was
+now before her thirty-two miles of clear water before reaching
+Miraflores.
+
+"Better come aboard, boys," advised Captain Watson, "and I'll take
+you around to Gatun Dam. You'll want views of that."
+
+"We sure will!" cried Blake.
+
+"Isn't it all wonderful!" exclaimed Joe, who was deeply impressed
+by all he saw.
+
+"It is, indeed!" agreed the Spaniard. "Your nation is a powerful
+and great one. It is a tremendous achievement."
+
+Aboard the tug they went around toward the great dam that is
+really the key to the Panama Canal. For without this dam there
+would be no Gatun Lake, which holds back the waters of the Chagres
+River, making a big lake eighty-five feet above the level of the
+ocean. It is this lake that makes possible the operation of a lock
+canal. Otherwise there would have to be a sea-level one, and
+probably you boys remember what a discussion there was, in
+Congress and elsewhere, about the advantages and disadvantages of
+a sea-level route across the Isthmus.
+
+But the lock canal was decided on, and, had it not been, it is
+probable that the Canal would be in process of making for many
+years yet to come, instead of being finished now.
+
+"Whew!" whistled Joe, as they came in sight of the dam. "That sure
+is going some!"
+
+"That's what it is!" cried Captain Watson, proudly, for he had had
+a small part in the work. "It's a mile and a half long, half a
+mile thick at the base, three hundred feet through at the
+waterline, and on top a third of that."
+
+"How high is it?" asked Joe, who always liked to know just how big
+or how little an object was. He had a great head for figures.
+
+"It's one hundred and five feet high," the captain informed him,
+"and it contains enough concrete so that if it were loaded into
+two-horse wagons it would make a procession over three times
+around the earth."
+
+"Catch me! I'm going to faint!" cried Blake, staggered at the
+immensity of the figure.
+
+"That dam is indeed the key to the whole lock," murmured Mr.
+Alcando, as he looked at the wonderful piece of engineering. "If
+it were to break--the Canal would be ruined."
+
+"Yes, ruined, or at least destroyed for many years," said Captain
+Watson solemnly. "But it is impossible for the dam to break of
+itself. No waters that could come into the lake could tear it
+away, for every provision has been made for floods. They would be
+harmless."
+
+"What about an earthquake?" asked Joe. "I've read that the
+engineers feared them."
+
+"They don't now," said the captain. "There was some talk, at
+first, of an earthquake, or a volcanic eruption, destroying the
+dam, but Panama has not been visited by a destructive earthquake
+in so long that the danger need not be considered. And there are
+no volcanoes near enough to do any harm. It is true, there might
+be a slight earthquake shock, but the dam would stand that. The
+only thing that might endanger it would be a blast of dynamite."
+
+"Dynamite!" quickly exclaimed Mr. Alcando. "And who would dare to
+explode dynamite at the dam?"
+
+"I don't know who would do it, but some of the enemies of the
+United States might. Or someone who fancied the Canal had damaged
+him," the captain went on.
+
+"And who would that be?" asked Blake in a low tone.
+
+"Oh, someone, or some firm, who might fancy that the Canal took
+business away from them. It will greatly shorten certain traffic
+and trade routes, you know."
+
+"Hardly enough to cause anyone to commit such a crime as that, do
+you think?" asked the Spaniard.
+
+"That is hard to answer," went on the tug commander. "I know that
+we are taking great precautions, though, to prevent the dam, or
+the locks, from being damaged. Uncle Sam is taking no chances.
+Well, have you pictures enough?"
+
+"I think so," answered Blake. "When we come back we'll stop off
+here and get some views from below the dam, showing the spillway."
+
+"Yes, that ought to be interesting," the captain agreed.
+
+The tug now steamed on her way out into Gatun Lake, and there a
+series of excellent views were obtained for the moving picture
+cameras. Mr. Alcando was allowed to do his part. He was rapidly
+learning what the boys could teach him.
+
+"Of course it could never happen," the Spaniard said, when the
+cameras had been put away, for the views to be obtained then were
+of too much sameness to attract Joe or Blake, "it would never
+happen, and I hope it never does; but if it did it would make a
+wonderful picture; would it not?" he asked.
+
+"What are you talking about?" asked Blake.
+
+"The Gatun Dam," was the answer. "If ever it was blown up by
+dynamite it would make a wonderful scene."
+
+"Too wonderful," said Joe grimly. "It would be a terrible crime
+against civilization to destroy this great canal."
+
+"Yes, it would be a great crime," agreed the Spaniard in a low
+voice. A little later he went to his stateroom on the tug, and
+Blake and Joe remained on deck.
+
+"Queer sort of a chap; isn't he?" said Joe.
+
+"He sure is--rather deep," agreed his chum.
+
+"Are you boys going into the jungle?" asked the tug captain that
+afternoon.
+
+"Yes, we want to get a few views showing life in the woods,"
+answered Blake. "Why?"
+
+"Well, the reason I asked is that I can take you to the mouth of
+the Chagres River and from there you won't have so much trouble
+penetrating into the interior. So if you're going--"
+
+"I think we had better go; don't you?" asked Blake of his chum.
+
+"Surely, yes. We might get some fine pictures. They'll go well
+with the Canal, anyhow; really a sort of part of the series we're
+taking."
+
+"All right, then, I'll leave you in the jungle," the captain said.
+
+A day or so later, stops having been made to permit the boys to
+film certain scenes they wanted, the tug reached Gamboa, where
+they stopped, to plan a trip into the interior.
+
+Then, one morning, with their cameras loaded with film, they
+started off for a brief trip into the jungle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+IN DIRE PERIL
+
+A small launch had been provided for the use of Blake and Joe in
+going into the jungle, the first part of their trip being along
+the Chagres River. The tug on which they had come thus far was not
+suitable.
+
+Accordingly they had transferred what baggage they needed to the
+launch, and with their moving picture cameras, with shelter tents,
+food, supplies and some West Indian negroes as helpers, they were
+prepared to enjoy life as much as possible in the jungle of the
+Isthmus.
+
+"You boys don't seem to mind what you do to get pictures,"
+commented Mr. Alcando, as they sat in the launch, going up the
+stream, the existence of which made possible Gatun Lake.
+
+"No, you get so you'll do almost anything to get a good film,"
+agreed Blake.
+
+"This is easy compared to some of the things we've done," Joe
+remarked. "You'll become just as fascinated with it as we are, Mr.
+Alcando."
+
+"I hope so," he admitted, "for I will have to penetrate into a
+much wilder jungle than this if I take the views our company
+wants. Perhaps I can induce you to come to South America and make
+films for us in case I can't do it," he concluded.
+
+"Well, we're in the business," remarked Blake with a smile. "But
+you'll get so you can take for yourself just as good pictures as
+we can."
+
+"Do you really think so?" asked the Spaniard, eagerly.
+
+"I'm sure of it," Blake said.
+
+The little suspicions both he and Joe had entertained of their
+companion seemed to have vanished. Certainly he neither did nor
+said anything that could be construed as dangerous. He was a
+polished gentleman, and seemed to regard the boys as his great
+friends. He often referred to the runaway accident.
+
+As for the odd, ticking box, it seemed to have been put carefully
+away, for neither Blake nor Joe saw it, nor had they heard the
+click of it when they went near Mr. Alcando's possessions.
+
+The first night in the jungle was spent aboard the boat. It was
+pleasant enough, mosquito canopies keeping away the pests that are
+said to cause malaria and yellow fever, among other things. But,
+thanks to the activities of the American sanitary engineers the
+mosquitoes are greatly lessened in the canal zone.
+
+"And now for some real jungle life!" cried Blake the next day, as
+the little party set off into the forest, a group of laborers with
+machetes going ahead to clear the way.
+
+For several miles nothing worth "filming" was seen, and Blake and
+Joe were beginning to feel that perhaps they had had their trouble
+for nothing. Now and then they came to little clearings in the
+thick jungle, where a native had chopped down the brush and trees
+to make a place for his palm-thatched and mud-floored hut. A few
+of them clustered about formed a village. Life was very simple in
+the jungle of Panama.
+
+"Oh, Blake, look!" suddenly cried Joe, as they were walking along
+a native path. "What queer insects. They are like leaves."
+
+The boys and Mr. Alcando saw what seemed to be a procession of
+green leaves making its way through the jungle.
+
+"Those are real leaves the ants carry," explained the guide, who
+spoke very good English. "They are called leaf-cutting ants, and
+each one of them is really carrying a leaf he has cut from some
+tree."
+
+On closer inspection the boys saw that this was so. Each ant
+carried on its back a triangular leaf, and the odd part, or,
+rather, one of the odd features, was that the leaf was carried
+with the thin edge forward, so it would not blow in the wind.
+
+"What do they do with 'em?" asked Joe. "Eat 'em, or make houses of
+'em?"
+
+"Neither," replied the guide. "The ants put the leaves away until
+they are covered with a fungus growth. It is this fungus that the
+ants eat, and when it has all been taken from the leaves they are
+brought out of the ant homes, and a fresh lot of leaves are
+brought in. These ants are bringing in a fresh lot now, you see."
+
+"How odd!" exclaimed Blake. "We must get a picture of this, Joe."
+
+"We sure must!" agreed his chum.
+
+"But how can you take moving pictures of such small things as
+ants?" asked Mr. Alcando.
+
+"We'll put on an enlarging lens, and get the camera close to
+them," explained Blake, who had had experience in taking several
+films of this sort for the use of schools and colleges.
+
+A halt was called while the camera was made ready, and then, as
+the ants went on in their queer procession, carrying the leaves
+which looked like green sails over their backs, the film clicked
+on in its indelible impression of them, for the delight of
+audiences who might see them on the screen, in moving picture
+theaters from Maine to California.
+
+"Well, that was worth getting," said Blake, as they put away the
+camera, and went on again. "I wonder what we'll see next?"
+
+"Have you any wild beasts in these jungles?" asked Mr. Alcando of
+the Indian guide.
+
+"Well, not many. We have some deer, though this is not the best
+time to see them. And once in a while you'll see a--"
+
+"What's that?" suddenly interrupted Blake, pointing through the
+thick growth of trees. "I saw some animal moving then. Maybe it
+was a deer. I'd like to get a picture of it."
+
+There was a movement in the underbrush, and a shouting among the
+native carriers.
+
+"Come on!" cried Joe, dashing ahead with a camera.
+
+"Better wait," advised Mr. Alcando. "It might be something
+dangerous."
+
+"It's only some tapirs, I think," the guide said. "They are
+harmless."
+
+"Then we'll film them," decided Blake, though the mere fact of
+harm or danger being absent did not influence him.
+
+Both he and Joe had taken pictures of dangerous wild animals in
+Africa, and had stood at the camera, calmly turning the handle,
+when it seemed as though death was on its way toward them in
+horrible form. Had occasion demanded it now they would have gone
+on and obtained the pictures. But there could be no danger from
+the tapirs.
+
+The pictures obtained, however, were not very satisfactory. The
+light was poor, for the jungle was dense there, and the tapirs
+took fright almost at first, so the resultant film, as Blake and
+Joe learned later, when it was developed, was hardly worth the
+trouble they took. Still, it showed one feature of the Panama
+jungle.
+
+All about the boys was a wonderful and dense forest. There were
+many beautiful orchids to be seen, hanging from trees as though
+they really grew, as their name indicates, in the air. Blake and
+Joe took views of some of the most beautiful. There was one, known
+as the "Holy Ghost" which only blooms twice a year, and when the
+petals slowly open there is seen inside them something which
+resembles a dove.
+
+"Let's get some pictures of the next native village we come to,"
+suggested Blake, as they went on after photographing the orchids
+and the tapirs.
+
+"All right, that ought to go good as showing a type of life here,"
+Joe agreed. And they made a stop in the next settlement, or
+"clearing," as it more properly should be called.
+
+At first the native Indians were timid about posing for their
+pictures, but the guide of the boys' party explained, and soon
+they were as eager as children to be snapped and filmed.
+
+"This is the simple life, all right," remarked Blake, as they
+looked at the collection of huts. "Gourds and cocoanut shells for
+kitchen utensils."
+
+That was all, really, the black housekeeper had. But she did not
+seem to feel the need of more. The Panama Indians are very lazy.
+If one has sufficient land to raise a few beans, plantains and
+yams, and can catch a few fish, his wants are supplied. He burns
+some charcoal for fuel, and rests the remainder of the time.
+
+"That is, when he doesn't go out to get some fresh meat for the
+table," explained the guide.
+
+"Meat? Where can he get meat in the jungle, unless he spears a
+tapir?" asked Blake.
+
+"There's the iguana," the guide said, with a laugh.
+
+"Do they eat them?" cried Joe, for several times in the trip
+through the jungles he had jumped aside at a sight of the big
+lizards, which are almost as large as cats. They are probably the
+ugliest creatures in existence, if we except the horned toad and
+the rhinoceros.
+
+"Eat them! I should say they did!" cried the guide. "Come over
+here."
+
+He led the way toward a hut and there the boys saw a most
+repulsive, and, to them, cruel sight. There were several of the
+big iguanas, or lizards, with their short legs twisted and crossed
+over their backs. And, to keep the legs in this position the sharp
+claw of one foot was thrust through the fleshy part of another
+foot. The tail of each iguana had been cut off.
+
+"What in the world do they do that for?" asked Blake.
+
+"That's how they fatten the iguanas," the guide said. "The natives
+catch them alive, and to keep them from crawling off they fasten
+their legs in that manner. And, as the tail isn't good to eat,
+they chop that off."
+
+"It's cruel!" cried Joe.
+
+"Yes, but the Indians don't mean it so," the guide went on. "They
+are really too lazy to do anything else. If some one told them it
+was work to keep the lizards as they do, instead of just shutting
+them up in a box to stay until they were needed to be killed for
+food, they'd stop this practice. They'd do anything to get out of
+work; but this plan seems to them to be the easiest, so they keep
+it up."
+
+"Is iguana really good eating?" asked Joe.
+
+"Yes, it tastes like chicken," the guide informed them. "But few
+white persons can bring themselves to eat it."
+
+"I'd rather have the fruits," said Mr. Alcando. The boys had eaten
+two of the jungle variety. One was the _mamaei_, which was about
+as large as a peach, and the other the _sapodilla_, fruit of the
+color of a plum. The seeds are in a jelly-like mass.
+
+"You eat them and don't have to be afraid of appendicitis," said
+the Spaniard with a laugh.
+
+Several views were taken in the jungle "village," as Joe called
+it, and then they went farther on into the deep woods.
+
+"Whew! It's hot!" exclaimed Joe, as they stopped to pitch a camp
+for dinner. "I'm going to have a swim." They were near a
+good-sized stream.
+
+"I'm with you," said Blake, and the boys were soon splashing away
+in the water, which was cool and pleasant.
+
+"Aren't you coming in?" called Blake to Mr. Alcando, who was on
+shore.
+
+"Yes, I think I will join you," he replied. He had begun to
+undress, when Blake, who had swum half-way across the stream, gave
+a sudden cry.
+
+"Joe! Joe!" he shouted. "I'm taken with a cramp, and there is an
+alligator after me. Help!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+IN CULEBRA CUT
+
+Joe sprang to his feet at the sound of his chum's voice. He had
+come ashore, after splashing around in the water, and, for the
+moment, Blake was alone in the river.
+
+As Joe looked he saw a black, ugly snout, and back of it a
+glistening, black and knobby body, moving along after Blake, who
+was making frantic efforts to get out of the way.
+
+"I'm coming, Blake! I'm coming!" cried Joe, as he ran to the edge
+of the stream, with the intention of plunging in.
+
+"You will be too late," declared Mr. Alcando. "The alligator will
+have him before you reach him. Oh, that I was a good swimmer, or
+that I had a weapon."
+
+But Joe did not stay to hear what he said. But one idea was in his
+mind, that of rescuing his chum from peril. That he might not be
+in time never occurred to him.
+
+Blake gave a gurgling cry, threw up his hands, and disappeared
+from sight as Joe plunged in to go to his rescue.
+
+"It's got him--the beast has him!" cried the Spaniard, excitedly.
+
+"No, not yet. I guess maybe he sank: to fool the alligator," said
+the guide, an educated Indian named Ramo. "I wonder if I can stop
+him with one shot?" he went on, taking up a powerful rifle that
+had been brought with the camp equipment.
+
+Joe was swimming out with all his power, Blake was nowhere to be
+seen, and the alligator was in plain sight, heading for the spot
+where Blake had last been observed.
+
+"It's my only chance!" muttered Ramo. "I hope the boy stays under
+water."
+
+As he spoke the guide raised the rifle, took quick but careful
+aim, and fired. There was no puff of smoke, for the new
+high-powered, smokeless powder was used. Following the shot, there
+was a commotion in the water. Amid a smother of foam, bright red
+showed.
+
+"You hit him, Ramo!" cried the Spaniard. "You hit him!"
+
+"I guess I did," the Indian answered. "But where is Blake?"
+
+That was what Joe was asking himself as he plunged on through the
+stream, using the Australian crawl stroke, which takes one through
+the water at such speed. Just what Joe could do when he reached
+his chum he did not stop to think. Certainly the two would have
+been no match for the big alligator.
+
+But the monster had met his match in the steel-jacketed
+mushrooming bullet. It had struck true and after a death struggle
+the horrid creature sank beneath the surface just as Blake shot
+up, having stayed under as long as he could.
+
+"All right, Blake! Here you are! I'm with you!" cried Joe,
+changing his course to bring himself to his chum. "Are you all
+right?"
+
+"Yes, except for this cramp. The alligator didn't get near enough
+to do any damage. But where is he?"
+
+"Ramo shot him," answered Joe, for he had seen the creature sink
+to its death. "You're all right now. Put your hand on my shoulder,
+and I'll tow you in."
+
+"Guess you'll have to. I can't seem to swim. I dived down when I
+saw how near the beast was getting, thinking I might fool him. I
+hated to come up, but I had to," Blake panted.
+
+"Well, you're all right now," Joe assured him, "but it was a close
+call. How did it happen?"
+
+"I'm sure I don't know," said Blake, still out of breath from
+trying to swim under water. "If I'd known there were alligators in
+this river I'd never have gone so far from shore."
+
+"That's right," agreed Joe, looking around as though to make sure
+no more of the creatures were in sight.
+
+He saw none. On the shore stood Ramo, the guide, with ready rifle.
+
+"Feel better now?" asked Joe.
+
+"Yes, the cramp seems to be leaving me. I think I went in swimming
+too soon after eating those plantains," for they had been given
+some of the yellow bananas by a native when they stopped at his
+hut for some water. "They upset me," Blake explained. "I was
+swimming about, waiting for you to come back and join me, when I
+saw what I thought was a log in the water. When it headed for me I
+thought it was funny, and then, when I saw what it was, I realized
+I'd better be getting back to shore. I tried, but was taken with a
+fierce cramp. You heard me just in time."
+
+"Yes," responded Joe, as he and Blake reached water shallow enough
+to wade in, "but if it hadn't been for Ramo's gun--well, there
+might be a different story to tell."
+
+"And one that wouldn't look nice in moving pictures," Blake went
+on with a laugh. "You did me a good turn," he said to Ramo a
+little later, as he shook hands with the dusky guide. "I shan't
+forget it."
+
+"Oh, it wasn't anything to pop over an alligator that way," Ramo
+returned. "I've often done it for sport. Though I will admit I was
+a bit nervous this time, for fear of hitting you."
+
+"I wish I had been the one to shoot it," said the Spaniard.
+
+"Why?" asked Joe, as he sat down on the warm sandy bank of the
+stream to rest.
+
+"Why, then I should have repaid, in a small measure, the debt I am
+under to you boys for saving my life. I shall never forget that."
+
+"It wasn't anything," declared Blake quickly. "I mean, what we did
+for you."
+
+"It meant a great deal--to me," returned the Spaniard quietly, but
+with considerable meaning in his tone. "Perhaps I shall soon be
+able to--but no matter. Are there many alligators in this stream?"
+he asked of Ramo.
+
+"Oh, yes, more or less, just as there are in most of the Panaman
+rivers. But I never knew one to be so bold as to attack any one in
+daylight. Mostly they take dogs, pigs, or something like that.
+This must have been a big, hungry one."
+
+"You'd have thought so if you were as close to him as I was,"
+spoke Blake with a little shudder.
+
+No one else felt like going in swimming just then, and the two
+boys dressed. Blake had fully recovered from the cramp that had so
+nearly been his undoing.
+
+For a week longer they lived in the jungle, moving from place to
+place, camping in different locations and enjoying as much as they
+could the life in the wild. Blake and Joe made some good moving
+picture films, Mr. Alcando helping them, for he was rapidly
+learning how to work the cameras.
+
+But the views, of course, were not as good as those the boys had
+obtained when in the African jungle. These of the Panama wilds,
+however, were useful as showing the kind of country through which
+the Canal ran, and, as such, they were of value in the series of
+films.
+
+"Well, we'll soon be afloat again," remarked Blake, one night,
+when they had started back for Gamboa. "I've had about enough
+jungle."
+
+"And so have I," agreed Joe, for the last two days it had rained,
+and they were wet and miserable. They could get no pictures.
+
+Their tug was waiting for them as arranged and, once more on
+board, they resumed their trip through the Canal.
+
+Soon after leaving Gamboa the vessel entered a part of the
+waterway, on either side of which towered a high hill through
+which had been dug a great gash.
+
+"Culebra Cut!" cried Blake, as he saw, in the distance Gold Hill,
+the highest point. "We must get some pictures of this, Joe."
+
+"That's right, so we must. Whew! It is a big cut all right!" he
+went on. "No wonder they said it was harder work here than at the
+Gatun Dam. And it's here where those big slides have been?"
+
+"Yes, and there may be again," said Blake.
+
+"I hope not!" exclaimed Captain Watson. "They are not only
+dangerous, but they do terrible damage to the Canal and the
+machinery. We want no more slides."
+
+"But some are predicted," Blake remarked.
+
+"Yes, I know they say they come every so often. But now it would
+take a pretty big one to do much damage. We have nearly tamed
+Culebra."
+
+"If there came a big slide here it would block the Canal,"
+observed Mr. Alcando, speculatively.
+
+"Yes, but what would cause a slide?" asked the captain.
+
+"Dynamite could do it," was the low-voiced answer.
+
+"Dynamite? Yes, but that is guarded against," the commander said.
+"We are taking no chances. Now, boys, you get a good view of
+Culebra," and he pointed ahead. Blake and Joe were soon busy with
+their cameras, making different sets of views.
+
+"Hand me that other roll of film; will you, please?" asked Blake
+of the Spaniard, who was helping them. "Mine is used up."
+
+As Mr. Alcando passed over the box he muttered, though possibly he
+was unaware of it:
+
+"Yes, dynamite here, or at the dam, would do the work."
+
+"What--what's that?" cried Blake, in surprise.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+THE COLLISION
+
+Judging by Mr. Alcando's manner no one would have thought he had
+said anything out of the ordinary. But both Blake and Joe had
+heard his low-voiced words, and both stared aghast at him.
+
+"What's that you said?" asked Blake, wondering whether he had
+caught the words aright.
+
+"Dynamite!" exclaimed Joe, and then Blake knew he had made no
+mistake.
+
+Somewhat to the surprise of himself and his chum the Spaniard
+smiled.
+
+"I was speaking in the abstract, of course," he said. "I have a
+habit of speaking aloud when I think. I merely remarked that a
+charge of dynamite, here in Culebra Cut, or at Gatun Dam, would so
+damage the Canal that it might be out of business for years."
+
+"You don't mean to say that you know of any one who would do such
+a thing!" cried Blake, holding the box of unexposed film that the
+Spaniard had given him.
+
+"Of course not, my dear fellow. I was speaking in the abstract, I
+tell you. It occurred to me how easy it would be for some enemy to
+so place a charge of explosive. I don't see why the Canal is not
+better guarded. You Americans are too trusting!"
+
+"What's that?" asked Captain Watson, coming up at this juncture.
+
+"I was merely speaking to the boys about how easy it would be to
+put a charge of dynamite here in the cut, or at the dam, and
+damage the Canal," explained Mr. Alcando. "I believe they thought
+I meant to do it," he added with a laugh, as he glanced at the
+serious faces of the two moving picture boys.
+
+"Well,--I--er,--I--," stammered Blake. Somewhat to his own
+surprise he did find himself harboring new suspicions against Mr.
+Alcando, but they had never before taken this form. As for Joe, he
+blushed to recall that he had, in the past, also been somewhat
+suspicious of the Spaniard. But now the man's frank manner of
+speaking had disarmed all that.
+
+"Dynamite, eh!" exclaimed the captain. "I'd just like to see any
+one try it. This canal is better guarded than you think, my
+friend," and he looked meaningly at the other.
+
+"Oh, I have no doubt that is so," was the quick response. "But it
+seems such a simple matter for one to do a great damage to it.
+Possibly the indifference to guarding it is but seeming only."
+
+"That's what it is!" went on Captain Watson. "Dynamite! Huh! I'd
+like to see someone try it!" He meant, of course, that he would
+not like to see this done, but that was his sarcastic manner of
+speaking.
+
+"What do you think of him, anyhow?" asked Joe of Blake a little
+later when they were putting away their cameras, having taken all
+the views they wanted.
+
+"I don't know what to say, Joe," was the slow answer. "I did think
+there was something queer about Alcando, but I guess I was wrong.
+It gave me a shock, though, to hear him speak so about the Canal."
+
+"The same here. But he's a nice chap just the same, and he
+certainly shows an interest in moving pictures."
+
+"That's right. We're getting some good ones, too."
+
+The work in Culebra Cut, though nearly finished, was still in such
+a state of progress that many interesting films could be made of
+it, and this the boys proposed to do, arranging to stay a week or
+more at the place which, more than any other, had made trouble for
+the canal builders.
+
+"Well, it surely is a great piece of work!" exclaimed Blake, as he
+and Joe, with Mr. Alcando and Captain Watson, went to the top of
+Gold Hill one day. They were on the highest point of the small
+mountain through which the cut had to be dug.
+
+"It is a wonderful piece of work," the captain said, as Blake and
+Joe packed up the cameras they had been using. "Think of it--a cut
+nine miles long, with an average depth of one hundred and twenty
+feet, and in some places the sides are five hundred feet above the
+bottom, which is, at no point, less than three hundred feet in
+width. A big pile of dirt had to be taken out of here, boys."
+
+"Yes, and more dirt will have to be," said Mr. Alcando.
+
+"What do you mean?" asked the tug commander quickly, and rather
+sharply.
+
+"I mean that more slides are likely to occur; are they not?"
+
+"Yes, worse luck!" growled the captain. "There have been two or
+three small ones in the past few weeks, and the worst of it is
+that they generally herald larger ones."
+
+"Yes, that's what I meant," the Spaniard went on.
+
+"And it's what we heard," spoke Blake. "We expect to get some
+moving pictures of a big slide if one occurs."
+
+"Not that we want it to," explained Joe quickly.
+
+"I understand," the captain went on with a smile. "But if it _is_
+going to happen you want to be here."
+
+"Exactly," Blake said. "We want to show the people what a slide in
+Culebra looks like, and what it means, in hard work, to get rid of
+it."
+
+"Well, it's hard work all right," the captain admitted, "though
+now that the water is in, and we can use scows and dredges,
+instead of railroad cars, we can get rid of the dirt easier. You
+boys should have been here when the cut was being dug, before the
+water was let in."
+
+"I wish we had been," Blake said. "We could have gotten some dandy
+pictures."
+
+"That's what you could," went on the captain. "It was like looking
+at a lot of ants through a magnifying glass. Big mouthfuls of dirt
+were being bitten out of the hill by steam shovels, loaded on to
+cars and the trains of cars were pulled twelve miles away to the
+dumping ground. There the earth was disposed of, and back came the
+trains for more. And with thousands of men working, blasts being
+sent off every minute or so, the puffing of engines, the tooting
+of whistles, the creaking of derricks and steam shovels--why it
+was something worth seeing!"
+
+"Sorry we missed it," Joe said. "But maybe we'll get some pictures
+just as good."
+
+"It won't be anything like that--not even if there's a big slide,"
+the captain said, shaking his head doubtfully.
+
+Though the Canal was practically finished, and open to some
+vessels, there was much that yet remained to be done upon it, and
+this work Blake and Joe, with Mr. Alcando to help them at the
+cameras, filmed each day. Reel after reel of the sensitive
+celluloid was exposed, packed in light-tight boxes and sent North
+for development and printing. At times when they remained in
+Culebra Cut, which they did for two weeks, instead of one, fresh
+unexposed films were received from New York, being brought along
+the Canal by Government boats, for, as I have explained, the boys
+were semi-official characters now.
+
+Mr. Alcando was rapidly becoming expert in handling a moving
+picture camera, and often he went out alone to film some simple
+scene.
+
+"I wonder how our films are coming out?" asked Blake one day,
+after a fresh supply Of reels had been received. "We haven't heard
+whether Mr. Hadley likes our work or not?"
+
+"Hard to tell," Joe responded. But they knew a few days later, for
+a letter came praising most highly the work of the boys and,
+incidentally, that of Mr. Alcando.
+
+"You are doing fine!" Mr. Hadley wrote. "Keep it up. The pictures
+will make a sensation. Don't forget to film the slide if one
+occurs."
+
+"Of course we'll get that," Joe said, as he looked up at the
+frowning sides of Culebra Cut. "Only it doesn't seem as if one was
+going to happen while we're here."
+
+"I hope it never does," declared Captain Watson, solemnly.
+
+As the boys wanted to make pictures along the whole length of the
+Canal, they decided to go on through the Pedro Miguel and
+Miraflores locks, to the Pacific Ocean, thus making a complete
+trip and then come back to Culebra. Of course no one could tell
+when a slide would occur, and they had to take chances of filming
+it.
+
+Their trip to Pedro Miguel was devoid of incident. At those locks,
+instead of "going up stairs" they went down, the level gradually
+falling so their boat came nearer to the surface of the Pacific. A
+mile and a half farther on they would reach Miraflores.
+
+The tug had approached the central pier, to which it was tied,
+awaiting the services of the electrical locomotives, when back of
+them came a steamer, one of the first foreign vessels to apply to
+make the trip through the Isthmus.
+
+"That fellow is coming a little too close to me for comfort,"
+Captain Watson observed as he watched the approaching vessel.
+
+Blake and Joe, who were standing near the commander at the pilot
+house, saw Mr. Alcando come up the companionway and stand on deck,
+staring at the big steamer. A little breeze, succeeding a dead
+calm, ruffled a flag at the stern of the steamer, and the boys saw
+the Brazilian colors flutter in the wind. At the same moment Mr.
+Alcando waved his hand, seemingly to someone on the steamer's
+deck.
+
+"Look out where you're going!" suddenly yelled Captain Watson.
+Hardly had he shouted than the steamer veered quickly to one side,
+and then came a crash as the tug heeled over, grinding against the
+concrete side of the central pier.
+
+"We're being crushed!" yelled Blake.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+THE EMERGENCY DAM
+
+The crashing and splintering of wood, the grinding of one vessel
+against the other at the concrete pier, the shrill tooting of the
+whistles, and the confused shouts of the respective captains of
+the craft made a din out of which it seemed order would never
+come.
+
+"If I could only get this on a film!" said Joe to himself during a
+calm moment. But the cameras were below in the cabin, and the tug
+was now careened at such an angle that it was risky to cross the
+decks. Besides Joe must think of saving himself, for it looked as
+though the tug would be crushed and sunk.
+
+"Pull us out of here!" yelled Captain Watson to the man on the
+lock wall in charge of the electrical towing locomotives. "Pull us
+out!"
+
+That seemed one way out of the trouble, for the _Nama_ was being
+crushed between the Brazilian steamer and the wall. But the order
+had come too late, for now the tug was wedged in, and no power
+could move her without tearing her to pieces, until the pressure
+of the big steamer was removed.
+
+So, wisely, the men in charge of the towing machines did not
+follow Captain Watson's orders.
+
+"Over this way!" cried Blake to his chum, and to Mr. Alcando, who
+were standing amid-ships. Joe was at the bow, and because that was
+narrower than the main portion of the tug, it had not yet been
+subjected to the awful pressure.
+
+But there was no need of Joe or the others, including Captain
+Watson, changing their positions. The Brazilian ship now began
+drawing away, aided by her own engines, and by the tow ropes
+extending from the other side of the lock wall. The _Nama_, which
+had been partly lifted up in the air, as a vessel in the Arctic
+Ocean is lifted when two ice floes begin to squeeze her, now
+dropped down again, and began settling slowly in the water.
+
+"She's sinking!" cried Blake. "Our cameras--our films, Joe!"
+
+"Yes, we must save them!" his chum shouted.
+
+"I'll help!" offered the Spaniard. "Are we really sinking?"
+
+"Of course!" shouted Captain Watson. "How could anything else
+happen after being squeezed in that kind of a cider press? We'll
+go to the bottom sure!"
+
+"Leave the boat!" yelled one of the men on top of the lock wall.
+"We're going to tow you out of the way, so when you sink you won't
+block the lock!"
+
+"Let's get out our stuff!" Blake cried again, and realizing, but
+hardly understanding, what was happening, the boys rushed below to
+save what they could.
+
+Fortunately it was the opening of many seams, caused by the
+crushing process, rather than any great hole stove in her, that
+had brought about the end of the _Nama_. She began to sink slowly
+at the pier, and there was time for the removal of most of the
+articles of value belonging to the boys and Mr. Alcando.
+
+Hastily the cameras, the boxes of exposed and unexposed film, were
+hoisted out, and then when all had been saved that could be
+quickly put ashore, the tug was slowly towed out of the way, where
+it could sink and not be a menace to navigation, and without
+blocking the locks.
+
+"Poor _Nama_" murmured Captain Watson. "To go down like that, and
+not your own fault, either," and he looked over with no very
+friendly eyes toward the Brazilian steamer, which had suffered no
+damage more than to her paint.
+
+"You can raise her again," suggested one of the lock men.
+
+"Yes, but she'll never be the same," sorrowfully complained her
+commander. "Never the same!"
+
+"How did it happen?" asked Blake. "Was there a misunderstanding in
+signals?"
+
+"Must have been something like that," Captain Watson answered.
+"That vessel ought to have stayed tied up on her own side of the
+lock. Instead she came over here under her own steam and crashed
+into me. I'm going to demand an investigation. Do you know anyone
+on board her?" he asked quickly of the Spaniard. "I saw you waving
+to someone."
+
+"Why, yes, the captain is a distant relative of mine," was the
+somewhat unexpected answer. "I did not know he was going to take
+his vessel through the Canal, though. I was surprised to see him.
+But I am sure you will find that Captain Martail will give you
+every explanation."
+
+"I don't want explanations--I want satisfaction!" growled the tug
+captain.
+
+"There goes the _Nama_," called Blake, pointing to the tug.
+
+As he spoke she began to settle more rapidly in the water, but she
+did not sink altogether from sight, as she was towed toward the
+shore, and went down in rather shallow water, where she could be
+more easily reached for repairs.
+
+"It was a narrow escape," Joe said. "What are we to do now, Blake?
+Too bad we didn't get some moving pictures of that accident."
+
+"Well, maybe it's a good thing we didn't," returned his chum. "The
+Canal is supposed to be so safe, and free from the chance of
+accidents, that it might injure its reputation if a picture of a
+collision like that were shown. Maybe it's just as well."
+
+"Better," agreed Captain Watson. "As you say, the Canal is
+supposed to be free from accidents. And, when everything gets
+working smoothly, there will be none to speak of. Some of the
+electrical controlling devices are not yet in place. If they had
+been that vessel never could have collided with us."
+
+"I should think her captain would know better than to signal for
+her to proceed under her own power in the Canal lock," spoke Joe.
+
+"Possibly there was some error in transmitting signals on board,"
+suggested Mr. Alcando. And later they learned that this was,
+indeed, the case; or at least that was the reason assigned by the
+Brazilian commander for the accident. His vessel got beyond
+control.
+
+"Well, it's lucky she didn't ram the gates, and let out a flood of
+water," said Joe to Blake a little after the occurrence.
+
+"Yes, if that had happened we'd have had to make pictures whether
+we wanted to or not. But I wonder what we are going to do for a
+boat now?"
+
+However, that question was easily settled, for there were other
+Government vessels to be had, and Blake, Joe and Mr. Alcando, with
+their cameras, films and other possessions, were soon transferred,
+to continue their trip, in the _Bohio_, which was the name of the
+new vessel. The _Nama_ was left for the wrecking crew.
+
+"Well, this isn't exactly the quiet life we looked for in the
+canal zone; is it, Blake?" asked Joe that night as he and his chum
+were putting their new stateroom to rights.
+
+"Hardly. Things have begun to happen, and I've noticed, Joe, that,
+once they begin, they keep up. I think we are in for something."
+
+"Do you mean a big slide in Culebra Cut?"
+
+"Well, that may be only part of it. I have a feeling in my bones,
+somehow or other, that we're on the eve of something big."
+
+"Say, for instance--"
+
+"I can't," answered Blake, as Joe paused. "But I'm sure something
+is going to happen."
+
+"No more collisions, I hope," his chum ventured. "Do you know,
+Blake, I've wondered several times whether that one to-day was not
+done on purpose."
+
+Blake stared at his chum, and then, to Joe's surprise replied:
+
+"And I've been thinking the same thing."
+
+"You have?" Joe exclaimed. "Now I say--"
+
+"Hush!" cautioned Blake quickly, "he's coming!"
+
+The door of their stateroom opened, and Mr. Alcando entered. He
+had a room across the corridor.
+
+"Am I intruding?" he asked. "If I am--"
+
+"Not at all. Come in," answered Blake, with a meaning look at his
+chum.
+
+"I wanted to ask you something about making double exposures on
+the same film," the Spaniard went on. "You know what I mean; when
+a picture is shown of a person sitting by a fireside, say, and
+above him or her appears a vision of other days."
+
+"Oh, yes, we can tell you how that is done," Joe said, and the
+rest of the evening was spent in technical talk.
+
+"Well, what were you going to say about that collision?" asked Joe
+of Blake when Mr. Alcando had left them, at nearly midnight.
+
+"I don't think it's exactly safe to say what I think," was Blake's
+response. "I think he is--suspicious of us," he finished in a
+whisper. "Let's watch and await developments."
+
+"But what object could he--"
+
+"Never mind--now," rejoined Blake, with a gesture of caution.
+
+Several busy days followed the sinking of the _Nama_. The moving
+picture boys went through the Miraflores locks, making some fine
+films, and then proceeded on to the Pacific Ocean breakwater, thus
+making a complete trip through the Canal, obtaining a series of
+pictures showing scenes all along the way. They also took several
+views in the city of Panama itself.
+
+Of course theirs was not the first vessel to make the complete
+trip, so that feature lost something of its novelty. But the boys
+were well satisfied with their labors.
+
+"We're not through, though, by any means," said Blake. "We have to
+get some pictures of Gatun Dam from the lower side. I think a few
+more jungle scenes, and some along the Panama Railroad, wouldn't
+go bad."
+
+"That's right," agreed Joe.
+
+So they prepared to make the trip back again to Colon.
+
+Once more they were headed for the locks, this time to be lifted
+up at Miraflores, instead of being let down. They approached the
+central pier, were taken in charge by the electrical locomotives,
+and the big chain was lowered so they could proceed.
+
+Just as the lower gate was being swung open to admit them to the
+lock, there was a cry of warning from above.
+
+"What's that?" cried Joe.
+
+"I don't know," Blake answered, "but it sounds as though something
+were going to happen. I didn't have all those feelings for
+nothing!"
+
+Then came a cry:
+
+"The upper gate! The upper gate is open! The water is coming down!
+Put the emergency dam in place! Quick!"
+
+Joe and Blake looked ahead to see the upper gates, which were
+supposed to remain closed until the boat had risen to the upper
+level, swing open, and an immense quantity of foamy water rush
+out. It seemed about to overwhelm them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+THE BIG SLIDE
+
+For a short space there was a calm that seemed more thrilling than
+the wildest confusion. It took a few seconds for the rush of water
+to reach the _Bohio_, and when it did the tug began to sway and
+tug at the mooring cables, for they had not yet been cast off to
+enable it to be towed.
+
+Blake rushed toward the lower cabin.
+
+"Where are you going?" cried Joe.
+
+"To get the cameras," replied his chum, not pausing. "This is a
+chance we mustn't miss."
+
+"But we must escape! We must look to ourselves!" shouted Mr.
+Alcando. "This is not time for making moving pictures."
+
+"We've got to make it this time!" Joe said, falling in with Blake.
+"You'll find you've got to make moving pictures when you _can_,
+not when you _want_ to!"
+
+To do justice to Mr. Alcando he was not a coward, but this was
+very unusual for him, to make pictures in the face of a great
+danger--to stand calmly with a camera, turning the crank and
+getting view after view on the strip of celluloid film, while a
+flood of water rushed down on you. It was something he never
+dreamed of.
+
+But he was not a "quitter," which word, though objectionable as
+slang, is most satisfactorily descriptive.
+
+"I'll help!" the young Spaniard cried, as he followed Blake and
+Joe down to where the cameras and films were kept.
+
+On came the rush of water, released by the accidental opening of
+the upper lock gates before the lower ones were closed. The waters
+of Gatun Lake were rushing to regain the freedom denied them by
+the building of the locks.
+
+But they were not to have their own way for long. Even this
+emergency, great as it was, unlikely as it was to happen, had been
+foreseen by those who built the Canal.
+
+"The dam! Swing over the emergency dam!" came the cry.
+
+The _Bohio_ was now straining and pulling at her cables.
+Fortunately they were long enough to enable her to rise on the
+flood of the rushing water, or she might have been held down, and
+so overwhelmed. But she rose like a cork, though she plunged and
+swayed under the influence of the terrible current, which was like
+a mill race.
+
+"Use both cameras!" cried Blake, as he and Joe each came on deck
+bearing one, while Mr. Alcando followed with spare reels of film.
+"We'll both take pictures," Blake went on. "One set may be
+spoiled!"
+
+Then he and his chum, setting up their cameras on the tripods,
+aimed the lenses at the advancing flood, at the swung-back gates
+and at the men on top of the concrete walls, endeavoring to bring
+into place the emergency dam.
+
+It was a risky thing to do, but then Blake and Joe were used to
+doing risky things, and this was no more dangerous than the
+chances they had taken in the jungle, or in earthquake land.
+
+On rushed the water. The tug rose and fell on the bosom of the
+flood, unconfined as it was by the restraining gates. And as the
+sturdy vessel swayed this way and that, rolling at her moorings
+and threatening every moment to break and rush down the Canal,
+Blake and Joe stood at their posts, turning the cranks. And beside
+them stood Mr. Alcando, if not as calm as the boys, at least as
+indifferent to impending fate.
+
+Captain Wiltsey of the _Bohio_ had given orders to run the engine
+at full speed, hoping by the use of the propeller to offset
+somewhat the powerful current. But the rush of water was too great
+to allow of much relief.
+
+"There goes the emergency dam!" suddenly cried Blake.
+
+"Gone out, you mean?" yelled Joe above the roar of waters.
+
+"No, it's being swung into place. It'll be all over in a few
+minutes. Good thing we got the pictures when we did."
+
+Across the lock, about two hundred feet above the upper gate, was
+being swung into place the steel emergency dam, designed to meet
+and overcome just such an accident as had occurred.
+
+These dams were worked by electricity, and could be put in place
+in two minutes; or, if the machinery failed, they could be worked
+by hand, though taking nearly half an hour, during which time much
+damage might be done. But in this case the electrical machinery
+worked perfectly, and the dam, which when not in use rested
+against the side of the lock wall, and parallel with it, was swung
+across.
+
+Almost at once the rush of water stopped, gradually subsiding
+until the tug swung easily at her mooring cables.
+
+"Whew!" whistled Blake in relief, as he ceased grinding at the
+crank of his moving picture camera. "That was going some!"
+
+"That's what!" agreed Joe. "But I guess we got some good films."
+
+"You certainly deserved to!" exclaimed Mr. Alcando, with shining
+eyes. "You are very brave!"
+
+"Oh, it's all in the day's work," spoke Blake. "Now I wonder how
+that happened?"
+
+"That's what I'd like to know," said Captain Wiltsey. "I must look
+into this."
+
+An inquiry developed the fact that a misplaced switch in some
+newly installed electrical machinery that controlled the upper
+lock gate was to blame. The lock machinery was designed to be
+automatic, and as nearly "error proof" as anything controlled by
+human beings can be. That is to say it was planned that no vessel
+could proceed into a lock until the fender chain was lowered, and
+that an upper gate could not be opened until a lower one was
+closed. But in this case something went wrong, and the two gates
+were opened at once, letting out the flood.
+
+This, however, had been foreseen, and the emergency dam provided,
+and it was this solid steel wall that had saved the lock from
+serious damage, and the _Bohio_ from being overwhelmed.
+
+As it was no harm had been done and, when the excitement had
+calmed down, and an inspection made to ascertain that the gates
+would now work perfectly, the tug was allowed to proceed.
+
+"Well, what are your plans now, boys?" asked Mr. Alcando on the
+day after the lock accident.
+
+"Back to Culebra Cut," answered Blake. "We have orders to get a
+picture of a big slide there, and we're going to do it."
+
+"Even if you have to make the slide yourself?" asked the Spaniard
+with a short laugh.
+
+"Not much!" exclaimed Blake. "I'd do a good deal to get the kind
+of moving pictures they want, but nothing like that. There have
+been some rains of late, however, and if things happen as they
+often have before in the Cut there may be a slide."
+
+"Yes, they do follow rains, so I am told," went on the Spaniard.
+"Well, I do not wish your Canal any bad luck, but if a slide does
+occur I hope it will come when you can get views of it."
+
+"In the daytime, and not at night," suggested Joe.
+
+For several days nothing of interest occurred. Blake and Joe sent
+back to New York the films of the mad rush of waters through the
+lock, and also dispatched other views they had taken. They had
+gone to Culebra Cut and there tied up, waiting for a slide that
+might come at any time, and yet which might never occur. Naturally
+if the canal engineers could have had their way they would have
+preferred never to see another avalanche of earth descend.
+
+Mr. Alcando had by this time proved that he could take moving
+pictures almost as well as could the boys. Of course this filming
+of nature was not all there was to the business. It was quite
+another matter to make views of theatrical scenes, or to film the
+scene of an indoor and outdoor drama.
+
+"But I do not need any of that for my purpose," explained Mr.
+Alcando. "I just want to know how to get pictures that will help
+develope our railroad business."
+
+"You know that pretty well now," said Blake. "I suppose you will
+soon be leaving the Canal--and us."
+
+"Not until I see you film the big slide," he replied. "I wish you
+all success."
+
+"To say nothing of the Canal," put in Joe.
+
+"To say nothing of the Canal," repeated the Spaniard, and he
+looked at the boys in what Blake said afterward he thought was a
+strange manner.
+
+"Then you haven't altogether gotten over your suspicions of him?"
+asked Joe.
+
+"No, and yet I don't know why either of us should hold any against
+him," went on Joe's chum. "Certainly he has been a good friend
+and companion to us, and he has learned quickly."
+
+"Oh, yes, he's smart enough. Well, we haven't much more to do
+here. A slide, if we can get one, and some pictures below Gatun
+Dam, and we can go back North."
+
+"Yes," agreed Blake.
+
+"Seen anything of Alcando's alarm clock model lately?" asked Joe,
+after a pause.
+
+"Not a thing, and I haven't heard it tick. Either he has given up
+working on it, or he's so interested in the pictures that he has
+forgotten it."
+
+Several more days passed, gloomy, unpleasant days, for it rained
+nearly all the time. Then one morning, sitting in the cabin of the
+tug anchored near Gold Hill, there came an alarm.
+
+"A land slide! A big slide in Culebra Cut! Emergency orders!"
+
+"That means us!" cried Blake, springing to his feet, and getting
+out a camera. "It's our chance, Joe."
+
+"Yes! Too bad, but it had to be, I suppose," agreed his chum, as
+he slipped into a mackintosh, for it was raining hard.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+JOE'S PLIGHT
+
+From outside the cabin of the tug came a confused series of
+sounds. First there was the swish and pelt of the rain, varied as
+the wind blew the sheets of water across the deck. But, above it
+all, was a deep, ominous note--a grinding, crushing noise, as of
+giant rocks piling one on top of the other, smashing to powder
+between them the lighter stones.
+
+"What will happen?" asked Mr. Alcando, as he watched Joe and Blake
+making ready. They seemed to work mechanically--slipping into
+rubber boots and rain coats, and, all the while, seeing that the
+cameras and films were in readiness. They had brought some
+waterproof boxes to be used in case of rain--some they had found
+of service during the flood on the Mississippi.
+
+"No one knows what will happen," said Blake grimly. "But we're
+going to get some pictures before too much happens."
+
+"Out there?" asked the Spaniard, with a motion of his hand toward
+the side of the big hill through which the Canal had been cut.
+
+"Out there--of course!" cried Joe. "We can't get moving pictures
+of the slide in here."
+
+He did not intend to speak shortly, but it sounded so in the
+stress of his hurry.
+
+"Then I'm coming!" said Mr. Alcando quietly. "If I'm to do this
+sort of work in the jungle, along our railroad, I'll need to have
+my nerve stiffened."
+
+"This will stiffen it all right," returned Blake, sternly, as a
+louder sound from without told of a larger mass of the earth
+sliding into the waters of the Canal, whence the drift had been
+excavated with so much labor.
+
+It was a bad slide--the worst in the history of the
+undertaking--and the limit of it was not reached when Joe and
+Blake, with their cameras and spare boxes of film, went out on
+deck.
+
+The brown-red earth, the great rocks and the little stones, masses
+of gravel, shale, schist, cobbles, fine sand--all in one
+intermingled mass was slipping, sliding, rolling, tumbling,
+falling and fairly leaping down the side of Gold Hill.
+
+"Come on!" cried Blake to Joe.
+
+"I'm with you," was the reply.
+
+"And I, also," said Mr. Alcando with set teeth.
+
+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.
+
+"I'll go on a little farther," said Joe. "We'll get views from two
+different places."
+
+"What can I do?" asked the Spaniard, anxious not only to help his
+friends, but to learn as much as he could of how moving pictures
+are taken under adverse circumstances.
+
+"You stay with Blake," suggested Joe. "I've got the little camera
+and I can handle that, and my extra films, alone and with ease.
+Stay with Blake."
+
+It was well the Spaniard did.
+
+With a rush and roar, a grinding, crashing sound a large mass of
+earth, greater in extent than any that had preceded, slipped from
+the side of the hill.
+
+"Oh, what a picture this will make!" cried Blake,
+enthusiastically.
+
+He had his camera in place, and was grinding away at the crank,
+Mr. Alcando standing ready to assist when necessary.
+
+"Take her a while," suggested Blake, who was "winded" from his
+run, and carrying the heavy apparatus.
+
+The big portion of the slide seemed to have subsided, at least
+momentarily. Blake gave a look toward where Joe had gone. At that
+moment, with a roar like a blast of dynamite a whole section of
+the hill seemed to slip away and then, with a grinding crash the
+slanting earth on which Joe stood, and where he had planted the
+tripod of his camera, went out from under him.
+
+Joe and his camera disappeared from sight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+AT GATUN DAM
+
+"Look!" cried Mr. Alcando. He would have said more--have uttered
+some of the expressions of fear and terror that raced through his
+mind, but he could not speak the words. He could only look and
+point.
+
+But Blake, as well as the Spaniard, had seen what had happened,
+and with Blake to see was to act.
+
+"Quick!" he cried. "We've got to get him out before he smothers!
+Pack up this stuff!"
+
+As he spoke he folded the tripod legs of his camera, and laid it
+on top of a big rock, that seemed firmly enough imbedded in the
+soil not to slip from its place. Then, placing beside it the spare
+boxes of film, and throwing over them a rubber covering he had
+brought, Blake began to run across the side of the hill toward the
+place where Joe had last been seen.
+
+"Come on!" cried Blake to Mr. Alcando, but the Spaniard needed no
+urging. He had laid with Blake's the boxes of film he carried, and
+the two were now speeding to the rescue.
+
+"Go get help!" cried Joe to an Indian worker from the tug, who had
+followed to help carry things if needed. "Go quick! Bring
+men--shovels! We may have to dig him out," he added to Mr.
+Alcando.
+
+"If--if we can find him," replied the other in low tones.
+
+"Go on--run!" cried Joe, for the Indian did not seem to
+understand. Then the meaning and need of haste occurred to him.
+
+"_Si, seņor_, I go--_pronto_!" he exclaimed, and he was off on a
+run.
+
+Fortunately for Blake and Mr. Alcando, the worst of the slide
+seemed to be over. A big mass of the hill below them, and off to
+their right, had slid down into the Canal. It was the outer edge
+of this that had engulfed Joe and his camera. Had he been directly
+in the path of the avalanche, nothing could have saved him. As it
+was, Blake felt a deadly fear gripping at his heart that, after
+all, it might be impossible to rescue his chum.
+
+"But I'll get him! I'll get him!" he said fiercely to himself,
+over and over again. "I'll get him!"
+
+Slipping, sliding, now being buried up to their knees in the soft
+mud and sand, again finding some harder ground, or shelf of shale,
+that offered good footing, Blake and the Spaniard struggled on
+through the rain. It was still coming down, but not as hard as
+before.
+
+"Here's the place!" cried Blake, coming to a halt in front of
+where several stones formed a rough circle. "He's under here."
+
+"No, farther on, I think," said the Spaniard.
+
+Blake looked about him. His mind was in a turmoil. He could not be
+certain as to the exact spot where Joe had been engulfed in the
+slide, and yet he must know to a certainty. There was no time to
+dig in many places, one after the other, to find his chum. Every
+second was vital.
+
+"Don't you think it's here?" Blake asked, "Try to think!"
+
+"I am!" the Spaniard replied. "And it seems to me that it was
+farther on. If there was only some way we could tell--"
+
+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.
+
+Beyond him another big slide had occurred, and between him and Mr.
+Alcando, and this last shift of the soil, was a ridge of rocks
+that held them to their places.
+
+Down in a mass of mud went another portion of the hill, and when
+it had ceased moving Blake gave a cry of joy. For there, lying in
+a mass of red sand, was Joe himself, and beside him was the
+camera, the tripod legs sticking out at grotesque angles.
+
+"Joe! Joe!" yelled Blake, preparing to leap toward his chum.
+
+"Be careful!" warned Mr. Alcando. "There may be danger--"
+
+But no known danger could have held Blake back.
+
+"He is there!" Blake cried. "We were digging in the wrong place."
+
+"I thought so," said the Spaniard. But Blake did not stay to
+listen to him. Now he was at Joe's side. The slide had laid bare a
+ledge of rock which seemed firm enough to remain solid for some
+time.
+
+"Joe! Joe!" cried Blake, bending over his chum. And then he saw
+what it was that had probably saved Joe's life. The boy's big
+rubber coat had been turned up and wound around his head and face
+in such a manner as to keep the sand and dirt out of his eyes,
+nose and mouth. And, also wrapped up in the folds of the garment,
+was the camera.
+
+Rapidly Blake pulled the coat aside. Joe's pale face looked up at
+him. There was a little blood on the forehead, from a small cut.
+The boy was unconscious.
+
+"Joe! Joe!" begged Blake. "Speak to me! Are you all right?"
+
+He bared his chum's face to the pelting rain--the best thing he
+could have done, for it brought Joe back to consciousness--slowly
+at first, but with the returning tide of blood the fainting spell
+passed.
+
+"We must get him to the boat," said Mr. Alcando, coming up now.
+
+"Are you hurt? Can you walk?" asked Blake.
+
+Joe found his voice--though a faint voice it was.
+
+"Yes--yes," he said, slowly. "I--I guess I'm all right."
+
+There seemed to be no broken bones. Mr. Alcando took charge of the
+camera. It was not damaged except as to the tripod.
+
+"What happened?" asked Joe, his voice stronger now.
+
+"You were caught in the slide," Blake informed him. "Don't think
+about it now. We'll have you taken care of."
+
+"I--I guess I'm all right," Joe said, standing upright. "That coat
+got wound around my face, and kept the dirt away. I got a bad
+whack on the head, though, and then I seemed to go to sleep. Did I
+get any pictures?"
+
+"I don't know. Don't worry about them now."
+
+"We--we missed the best part of the slide, I guess," Joe went on.
+"Too bad."
+
+"It's all right!" his chum insisted. "I was filming away up to the
+time you went under. Now, let's get back."
+
+By this time the crowd of men, including Captain Wiltsey, had
+arrived. But there was nothing for them to do. The slide had
+buried Joe, and another slide had uncovered him, leaving him
+little the worse, save for a much-muddied suit of clothes, and a
+bad headache, to say nothing of several minor cuts and bruises. It
+was a lucky escape.
+
+Back to the tug they went, taking the cameras with them. Joe was
+given such rough and ready surgery and medical treatment as was
+available, and Captain Wiltsey said he would leave at once for
+Gatun, where a doctor could be obtained.
+
+Fortunately the blockading of the Canal by the slide did not stop
+the _Bohio_ from continuing her journey. The slide was north of
+her position.
+
+"I do hope we got some good films," said Joe, when he had been
+made as comfortable as possible in his berth.
+
+"I think we did," Blake said. "Your camera was protected by the
+rubber coat, and mine wasn't hurt at all."
+
+Later the boys learned that though they had missed the very best,
+or rather the biggest, part of the slide, still they had on their
+films enough of it to make a most interesting series of views.
+
+Late that afternoon Joe was in the care of a physician, who
+ordered him to stay in bed a couple of days. Which Joe was very
+willing to do. For, after the first excitement wore off, he found
+himself much more sore and stiff than he had realized.
+
+They were at Gatun now, and there Blake planned to get some views
+of the big dam from the lower, or spillway side.
+
+"But first I'm going back to the slide," he said. "I want to get
+some views of the dredgers getting rid of the dirt."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+
+MR. ALCANDO'S ABSENCE
+
+Blake spent a week at Culebra Cut, making pictures of the removal
+of the great mass of earth that had slid into the water. The chief
+engineer, General George W. Goethals, had ordered every available
+man and machine to the work, for though the Canal had not been
+formally opened, many vessels had started to make trips through
+it, and some of them had been blocked by the slide. It was
+necessary to get the dirt away so they could pass on their voyage.
+
+So with dredges, with steam shovels, and hydraulic pumps, that
+sucked through big flexible pipes mud and water, spraying it off
+to one side, the work went on. Blake had Mr. Alcando to help him,
+and the Spaniard was now expert enough to render valuable
+assistance. While Blake was at one scene, getting views of the
+relief work, his pupil could be at another interesting point.
+
+Blake had telegraphed to New York that the one picture above all
+others desired had been obtained--that of a big slide in the
+Culebra Cut. He did not tell how Joe had nearly lost his life in
+helping get the films, for Blake was modest, as was his chum, and,
+as he said, it was "all in the day's work."
+
+Joe was left to recover from the shock and slight injuries at
+Gatun, while Blake and Mr. Alcando were at Culebra. For the shock
+to the young moving picture operator had been greater than at
+first supposed, though his bodily injuries were comparatively
+slight.
+
+"Well, what's next on the programme?" asked Joe of Blake, about
+two weeks after the accident, when Blake had returned from
+Culebra. Most of the work there was done, and the Canal was again
+open, save to vessels of extreme draught.
+
+"I guess we'll go on making pictures of Gatun Dam now; that is, if
+you're well enough," spoke Blake. "How do you feel?"
+
+"Pretty fair. How did Alcando make out?"
+
+"All right. He's learning fast. We can trust him with a camera
+now, out alone."
+
+"That's good. I say, Blake," and Joe's voice took on a
+confidential tone, "you haven't noticed anything strange about
+him, have you?"
+
+"Strange? What do you mean?"
+
+"I mean while he was off there with you. Anything more about that
+alarm clock of his? And did anything more develop about his
+knowing the captain of that vessel that sunk the _Nama_?"
+
+"No, that was only coincidence, I think. Why, I can't say that
+I've noticed anything suspicious about him, Joe, if that's what
+you mean," and Blake's voice had a questioning tone.
+
+"That's what I do mean," spoke Joe. "And if you haven't I have."
+
+"Have what?"
+
+"I've been watching Alcando since you and he came back, and I
+think he's decidedly queer."
+
+"Suspicious, you mean?"
+
+"I mean he acts as though something were going to happen."
+
+"Another landslide?" asked Blake with a laugh. "No chance of that
+here at Gatun Dam."
+
+"No, but something else could happen, I think."
+
+"You mean the--dam itself?" asked Blake, suddenly serious.
+
+"Well, I don't exactly know what I do mean," Joe said, and his
+voice was troubled. "I'll tell you what I noticed and heard, and
+you can make your own guess."
+
+"Go on," invited Blake. "I'm all ears, as the donkey said."
+
+"It's no laughing matter," retorted his chum. "Haven't you
+noticed since you and Alcando came back," he went on, "that he
+seems different, in a way. He goes about by himself, and, several
+times I've caught him looking at the dam as though he'd never seen
+it before. He is wonderfully impressed by it."
+
+"Well, anybody would be," spoke Blake. "It's a wonderful piece of
+engineering. But go on."
+
+"Not only that," resumed Joe, "but I've heard him talking to
+himself a lot."
+
+"Well, that's either a bad sign, or a good one," laughed his chum.
+"They say when a fellow talks to himself he either has money in
+the bank, or he's in love. You can take your choice."
+
+"Not when it's the kind of talk I overheard Alcando having with
+himself," Joe resumed. "I went out on the dam yesterday, and I saw
+him looking at it. He didn't see me, but I heard him muttering to
+himself."
+
+"What did he say?" Blake wanted to know.
+
+"I didn't hear it all," was Joe's answer, "but I caught two
+sentences that made me do a lot of thinking. They were these: 'I
+just hate to do it, though I'll have to, I suppose. But I'll not
+put the blame on'--" and Joe came to a pause.
+
+"Well, go on," urged Blake.
+
+"That's all there was," Joe continued. "I couldn't hear any more.
+What do you suppose he meant?"
+
+"He might have meant nothing--or anything," Blake remarked slowly.
+"It sounds to me as though he meant that he had made a failure of
+the moving picture business, and was going to quit. That must be
+it. He meant that he had to give it up, though he hated to, and
+that he wouldn't blame us for not giving him better instruction."
+
+"Could he have meant that?"
+
+"He could," Blake replied, "for, to tell you the truth, he'll
+never be a good operator. He hasn't a correct eye for details, and
+he can't focus worth a cent, though that might be overcome in
+time. He does well enough for ordinary work, but when it comes to
+fine details he isn't in it. I found that out back there at
+Culebra when he was working with me. Of course he was a lot of
+help, and all that, but he's a failure as a moving picture
+operator."
+
+"I'm sorry to hear that," said Joe, with genuine sympathy.
+
+"So am I to have to come to that conclusion," Blake went on. "I
+guess he knows it, too, for he said as much to me. So I guess
+that's what his talking to himself meant."
+
+"Perhaps it did. Well, we did our best for him."
+
+"We surely did, and I guess he appreciates that. He said so,
+anyhow."
+
+"And so you're going to get some Gatun pictures and then
+quit--eh?"
+
+"That's it, Joe, and the sooner we get them the sooner we can get
+back home. I've had all I want of Panama. Not that it isn't a nice
+place, but we've seen all there is to see."
+
+"We might try a little more of the jungle."
+
+"We got enough of those pictures before," Blake declared. "No, the
+dam will wind it up, as far as we're concerned."
+
+If Mr. Alcando felt any sorrow over his failure as a moving
+picture operator he did not show it when next he met the boys. He
+was quite cheerful.
+
+"Are you fully recovered, Joe?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, sure! I'm all right again."
+
+"I only wish I could have had a hand in rescuing you," the
+Spaniard went on. "It would have been a manner of paying, in a
+slight degree, the debt I owe you boys. But fate took that out of
+my hands, and you were saved by the same sort of slide that
+covered you up."
+
+"Yes, I guess I was born lucky," laughed Joe.
+
+Preparations for taking several views of the big Gatun Dam from
+the lower, or spillway side, were made. One afternoon Mr. Alcando
+asked if he would be needed in making any views, and when Blake
+told him he would not, the Spaniard went off by himself, taking a
+small camera with him.
+
+"I'm going to try my luck on my own hook," he said.
+
+"That's right," encouraged Blake. "Go it on your own
+responsibility. Good luck!"
+
+"He's trying hard, at all events," said Joe, when their
+acquaintance had left them.
+
+"Yes," agreed Joe. "He wants to make good."
+
+Several times after this Mr. Alcando went off, by himself for more
+or less prolonged absences. Each time he took a camera with him.
+
+It was a small machine, made more for amateurs than for
+professionals, but it gave good practice.
+
+"How are you coming on?" asked Blake one day, when Mr. Alcando
+returned after a trip which, he said, had taken him to Gatun Dam.
+
+"Oh, pretty well, I think," was the answer, as the Spaniard set
+down his camera and carrying case. "I got some good scenes, I
+believe. When are you going to make the last of the spillway
+views?"
+
+Blake did not answer. He was listening to a curious sound. It was
+a ticking, like that of an alarm clock, and it came from the
+interior of the carrying case that held extra reels of film for
+the little camera Mr. Alcando had.
+
+Blake felt himself staring at the black box.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+
+A WARNING
+
+"What is the matter?" asked Mr. Alcando, as he noted Blake's
+intent look. "Is something--?" He did not finish.
+
+"That sound--in the film-case--" began Blake.
+
+"Oh, my alarm clock--yes!" exclaimed the Spaniard. "I take it out
+with me on my trips. Often, when I have finished taking pictures,
+I try to do a little work on it. There is one feature I can't seem
+to perfect, and I hope some day to stumble on it. Without it the
+clock is a failure. I had it with me to-day, but I could make no
+progress--none at all. I think I shall put it away again," and
+taking with him the case, from which came that curious ticking
+noise, he went to his stateroom.
+
+Blake shook his head. He did not know what to think.
+
+"He'll never make a good moving picture operator," he said to
+himself. "You've got to give your whole mind to it, and not be
+monkeying with inventions when you set out to get views. An alarm
+clock!
+
+"Suppose he does perfect it? There are enough on the market now,
+and I don't believe there's a fortune in any of 'em. He might much
+better stick to what he set out to learn. Well, it isn't any of my
+business, I suppose. Joe and I have done all we can."
+
+Several times after this the Spaniard went off by himself, to make
+simple moving picture views with the little camera. But, whether
+or not he took along the curious brass-bound box, with the metal
+projections, which he said was an alarm clock, was something Blake
+or Joe could not discover. For Blake had told Joe of Alcando's
+confession.
+
+Certainly if Alcando did take his model with him, he did not wind
+it up until leaving the boys, for no ticking sound came from the
+case.
+
+The Canal was now as it had been before the big slide. Vessels
+were passing to and fro, though in some parts of the waterway much
+finishing work remained to be done. Blake and Joe took some views
+of this, and also "filmed" the passage of the various ships to
+make their pictures of wider appeal when they would be shown at
+the Panama Exposition. Mr. Alcando did his share, and, for a time
+seemed to show a great interest in his work, so that Blake had
+hopes the Spaniard would really become a good operator. But
+something was always lacking, and it was not altogether effort on
+the part of the pupil.
+
+The time was approaching when Blake and Joe must bring their work
+to an end. They had accomplished what they set out to do, and word
+came back from New York, where their films had been sent for
+development, that they were among the best the boys had ever
+taken.
+
+"Well, I will soon be leaving you," said Mr. Alcando to the chums,
+one day. "I have heard from my railroad firm, and they are anxious
+for me to come back and begin making pictures there."
+
+"His friends are going to be sadly disappointed in him," thought
+Blake. "It's too bad. He'll make a failure of those views. Well,
+if he does they may send for Joe and me, and that will be so much
+more business for us, though I'm sorry to see him make a fizzle of
+it."
+
+But Mr. Alcando appeared to have no fears on his own account. He
+was cheerfully optimistic.
+
+"I shall want several cameras, of different kinds," he said to the
+boys. "Perhaps you can recommend to me where to get some."
+
+"Yes," spoke Joe. "We'll help you pick them out if you are going
+back to New York."
+
+"I am not so sure of that," the Spaniard said. "I will know in a
+few days when I hear from my railroad friends. I expect a letter
+shortly."
+
+There was some little delay in getting the pictures Blake wanted
+of the Gatun Dam. Certain work had to be done, and Blake wanted to
+show the complete and finished structure. So he decided to wait.
+
+About a week after the above conversation with Mr. Alcando, the
+Spaniard came to the boys, waving an open letter in his hand. The
+mail had just come in, bringing missives to Blake and Joe. Some
+were of a business nature, but for each boy there was an envelope,
+square and of delicate tint--such stationery as no business man
+uses. But we need not concern ourselves with that. We all have our
+secrets.
+
+"I have my marching orders," laughed the Spaniard. "I leave you
+this week, for my own particular jungle. Now I must arrange to get
+my cameras."
+
+"We'll help you," offered Joe, and then, with the catalogue of a
+moving picture supply house before them, the boys sat down to plan
+what sort of an outfit would best be suited to the needs of Mr.
+Alcando. He was not limited as to money, it was evident, for he
+picked out the most expensive cameras possible to buy.
+
+"I wish you boys would come and see me, when I get to work taking
+views along our railroad line," he said. "It isn't altogether a
+selfish invitation," he added with a laugh, "for I expect you
+could give me good advice, and correct some of my mistakes."
+
+"I'm afraid we won't get a chance to go to South America," Blake
+answered.
+
+With a tentative list of what he needed, Mr. Alcando went to write
+a letter to his railroad officials, asking them to order his
+outfit for him.
+
+As Blake pushed back his chair, intending to leave the cabin to
+seek his own stateroom, he saw, on the floor, a piece of paper.
+Idly he picked it up, and, as he saw it was part of a letter to
+the Spaniard he folded it, to hand to him. But, as he did so he
+caught sight of a few words on it. And those words made him stare
+in wonder. For Blake read:
+
+"Stuff is all ready for you. You had better do the job and get
+away. There is some fine scenery in Europe."
+
+Saying nothing to his chum about it, Blake went with the letter
+toward the Spaniard's stateroom. He was not in, but Blake put the
+paper on a desk, with some others, and came out hastily.
+
+"I wonder what that meant?" he thought to himself. "That must
+have been his orders to come back to Brazil and make the pictures.
+But if he goes at it that way--just to do the job and get away, he
+won't have much success. And to think of going to make films of
+European scenery when he isn't really capable of it."
+
+"Well, some of these foreigners think they know it all when they
+have only a smattering of it," mused Blake. "Though Alcando isn't
+as bad that way as lots of others. Well, we've done our best with
+him. And how unjust all our suspicions were--Joe's and mine. I
+wonder what he really did think he was up to, anyhow?"
+
+The next day Blake and Joe were busy making many important views
+of the big dam, which held back the waters of the Chagres River,
+creating Gatun Lake. The Spaniard, too, was busy with his
+preparations for leaving. He was away from the boys nearly all
+day, coming back to the boat, which they made their headquarters,
+in the evening.
+
+"Get any pictures?" asked Blake. "If you have we'll pack up your
+reel and send it to New York with ours. Where's the little camera
+and case?"
+
+Mr. Alcando stopped short, as though struck.
+
+"By Jove!" he cried. "I left it out at the dam. I was making some
+views there, and used up all the film. Then I got to working on my
+alarm clock, and forgot all about the camera and film case. I left
+them out there, and my clock, too. I'll go right back and get
+them!"
+
+He turned to leave the cabin, but, as he did so, Captain Wiltsey
+entered. He paid no attention to the Spaniard, but, addressing
+Blake and Joe said:
+
+"Boys, I have a little task for you. Have you any flash-light
+powder?"
+
+"Flash-light powder? Yes, we have some," Blake said. "But we can't
+use it for moving pictures. It doesn't last long enough."
+
+"Perhaps it will last long enough for what I want," the captain
+said.
+
+"If you'll excuse me, I'll go back and get the camera I was so
+careless as to leave out," spoke Mr. Alcando.
+
+"I'm glad he's gone," Captain Wiltsey said, as the cabin door
+closed. "I'd rather tell this to just you boys. I've just had a
+queer warning," he said.
+
+"A warning?" repeated Joe.
+
+"Yes, about Gatun Dam. There's a rumor that it is going to be
+destroyed!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+THE FLASHLIGHT
+
+For an instant the moving picture boys could hardly grasp the
+meaning of the fateful words spoken by Captain Wiltsey. But it
+needed only a look at his face to tell that he was laboring under
+great excitement.
+
+"The Gatun Dam to be destroyed," repeated Joe. "Then we'd better
+get--"
+
+"Do you mean by an earthquake?" asked Blake, breaking in on his
+chum's words.
+
+"No, I don't take any stock in their earthquake theories," the
+captain answered. "That's all bosh! It's dynamite."
+
+"Dynamite!" cried Joe and Blake in a breath.
+
+"Yes, there are rumors, so persistent that they cannot be denied,
+to the effect that the dam is to be blown up some night."
+
+"Blown up!" cried Blake and Joe again.
+
+"That's the rumor," continued Captain Wiltsey. "I don't wonder you
+are astonished. I was myself when I heard it. But I've come to get
+you boys to help us out."
+
+"How can we help?" asked Blake. "Not that we won't do all we can,"
+he added hastily, "but I should think you'd need Secret Service
+men, detectives, and all that sort of help."
+
+"We'll have enough of that help," went on the tug boat commander,
+who was also an employee of the commission that built the Canal.
+"But we need the peculiar help you boys can give us with your
+cameras."
+
+"You mean to take moving pictures of the blowing up of the dam?"
+asked Joe.
+
+"Well, there won't be any blowing up, if we can help it," spoke
+the captain, grimly. "But we want to photograph the attempt if it
+goes that far. Have you any flashlight powder?"
+
+"Yes," Blake answered. "Or, if not, we can make some with
+materials we can easily get. But you can't make more than a
+picture or two by flashlight."
+
+"Couldn't you if you had a very big flashlight that would last for
+several minutes?"
+
+"Yes, I suppose so."
+
+"Well, then, figure on that."
+
+"But I don't understand it all," objected Blake, and Joe, too,
+looked his wonder. Both were seeking a reason why the captain had
+said he was glad Mr. Alcando had gone out to get the camera he had
+forgotten.
+
+"I'll explain," said Mr. Wiltsey. "You have no doubt heard, as we
+all have down here, the stories of fear of an earthquake shock. As
+I said, I think they're all bosh. But of late there have been
+persistent rumors that a more serious menace is at hand. And that
+is dynamite.
+
+"In fact the rumors have gotten down to a definite date, and it is
+said to-night is the time picked out for the destruction of the
+dam. The water of the Chagres River is exceptionally high, owing
+to the rains, and if a breach were blown in the dam now it would
+mean the letting loose of a destructive flood."
+
+"But who would want to blow up the dam?" asked Blake.
+
+"Enemies of the United States," was the captain's answer. "I don't
+know who they are, nor why they should be our enemies, but you
+know several nations are jealous of Uncle Sam, that he possesses
+such a vitally strategic waterway as the Panama Canal.
+
+"But we don't need to discuss all that now. The point is that we
+are going to try to prevent this thing and we want you boys to
+help."
+
+"With a flashlight?" asked Blake, wondering whether the captain
+depended on scaring those who would dare to plant a charge of
+dynamite near the great dam.
+
+"With a flashlight, or, rather, with a series of them, and your
+moving picture cameras," the captain went on. "We want you boys to
+get photographic views of those who will try to destroy the dam,
+so that we will have indisputable evidence against them. Will you
+do it?"
+
+"Of course we will!" cried Blake. "Only how can it be done? We
+don't know where the attempt will be made, nor when, and
+flashlight powder doesn't burn very long, you know."
+
+"Yes, I know all that," the captain answered. "And we have made a
+plan. We have a pretty good idea where the attempt will be
+made--near the spillway, and as to the time, we can only guess at
+that.
+
+"But it will be some time to-night, almost certainly, and we will
+have a sufficient guard to prevent it. Some one of this guard can
+give you boys warning, and you can do the rest--with your
+cameras."
+
+"Yes, I suppose so," agreed Blake.
+
+"It will be something like taking the pictures of the wild animals
+in the jungle," Joe said. "We did some of them by flashlight, you
+remember, Blake."
+
+"Yes, so we did. And I brought the apparatus with us, though we
+haven't used it this trip. Now let's get down to business. But
+we'll need help in this, Joe. I wonder where Alcando--?"
+
+"You don't need him," declared the captain.
+
+"Why not?" asked Joe. "He knows enough about the cameras now,
+and--"
+
+"He's a foreigner--a Spaniard," objected the captain.
+
+"I see," spoke Blake. "You don't want it to go any farther than
+can be helped."
+
+"No," agreed the captain.
+
+"But how did you and the other officials hear all this?" Joe
+wanted to know.
+
+"In a dozen different ways," was the answer. "Rumors came to us,
+we traced them, and got--more rumors. There has been some
+disaffection among the foreign laborers. Men with fancied, but not
+real grievances, have talked and muttered against the United
+States. Then, in a manner I cannot disclose, word came to us that
+the discontent had culminated in a well-plotted plan to destroy
+the dam, and to-night is the time set.
+
+"Just who they are who will try the desperate work I do not know.
+I fancy no one does. But we may soon know if you boys can
+successfully work the cameras and flashlights."
+
+"And we'll do our part!" exclaimed Blake. "Tell us where to set
+the cameras."
+
+"We can use that automatic camera, too; can't we?" asked Joe.
+
+"Yes, that will be the very thing!" cried Blake. They had found,
+when making views of wild animals in the jungle, as I have
+explained in the book of that title, that to be successful in some
+cases required them to be absent from the drinking holes, where
+the beasts came nightly to slake their thirst.
+
+So they had developed a combined automatic flashlight and camera,
+that would, when set, take pictures of the animals as they came to
+the watering-place. The beasts themselves would, by breaking a
+thread, set the mechanism in motion.
+
+"The flashlight powder--I wonder if we can get enough of that?"
+spoke Joe. "It'll take quite a lot."
+
+"We must get it--somehow," declared the captain. "I fancy we have
+some on hand, and perhaps you can make more. There is quite a
+chemical laboratory here at the dam. But we've got to hustle. The
+attempt is to be made some time after midnight."
+
+"Hustle it is!" cried Blake. "Come on, Joe."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+THE TICK-TICK
+
+"Put one camera here, Joe."
+
+"All right, Blake. And where will you have the other?"
+
+"Take that with you. Easy now. Don't make a noise, and don't speak
+above a whisper!" cautioned Blake Stewart. "You'll work one
+machine, and I'll attend to the other. We'll put the automatic
+between us and trust to luck that one of the three gets something
+when the flash goes off."
+
+The two boys, with Captain Wiltsey, had made their way to a
+position near the spillway, below the great Gatun Dam. It was an
+intensely dark night, though off to the west were distant flashes
+of lightning now and then, telling of an approaching storm. In the
+darkness the boys moved cautiously about, planting their cameras
+and flashlight batteries to give the best results.
+
+They had had to work quickly to get matters in shape before
+midnight. Fortunately they were not delayed by lack of magnesium
+powder, a large quantity having been found in one of the
+laboratories. This was quickly made up into flashlight cartridges,
+to be exploded at once, or in a series, by means of a high
+voltage storage battery.
+
+The moving picture cameras had been put in place, Blake to work
+one and Joe the other, while the automatic, which was operated by
+clockwork, once the trigger-string was broken, also setting off
+the continuous flashlight, was set between the two boys, to
+command a good view of the dam, and of whoever should approach to
+blow it up.
+
+It now lacked an hour of midnight when, so the rumors said, the
+attempt was to be made. Of the nature of these rumors, and of how
+much truth there was in them, the boys could only guess. They did
+not ask too much, knowing that there might be Government secrets
+it would not be wise for them to know.
+
+But that certain level-headed men did "take stock" in those rumors
+was evident, for elaborate preparations had been made to protect
+the dam. The preparations were conducted with as much secrecy as
+possible in order that the conspirators might not become aware of
+them.
+
+"We don't want to scare them off," explained Captain Wiltsey.
+"That may seem a strange thing to say," he went on, "but it is the
+truth. Of course we don't want the dam blown up, or even slightly
+damaged, but it will be better to let them make the attempt, and
+catch them red-handed, than just to scare them off before they
+make a try. Because, if we do that they may only come back again,
+later, when we're not ready for them. But if we let them see we
+are prepared and can catch some of them at work, it will end the
+conspiracy."
+
+"That's right!" agreed Blake. "Well, we'll do all we can to help
+make the capture. We'll capture their likenesses on the films,
+anyhow, and you'll know who they are."
+
+"Which will be something," the captain said. "We haven't been able
+as yet to discover the identity of any of them. They have kept
+very secret, and worked very much in the dark."
+
+It had been arranged, among Captain Wiltsey and his helpers, that
+they were to give a certain signal when they discovered the
+dynamiters at work, and then the boys would set off their
+flashlights and begin to work their hand cameras. The automatic
+one, of course, would need no attention, provided the miscreants
+went near enough the net-work of strings to break one and so set
+the mechanism in motion. But that was problematical, and, as Joe
+said, they would have to "trust to luck."
+
+And so the preparations for receiving the midnight callers went
+on. Joe and Blake worked in silence, making ready for their part
+in it. All about the boys, though they could neither see nor hear
+them, were Uncle Sam's men--soldiers, some of them--stationed near
+where, so rumor said, the attempt was to be made to explode the
+dynamite.
+
+"We really ought to have another helper," said Blake,
+thoughtfully. "There is one place we can't get in focus no matter
+how we try, with the three machines we have. If we had another
+automatic it would be all right, but we have only the one. Another
+hand camera would do, but we'd have to get someone to work it. I
+would suggest we get Mr. Alcando, but you don't seem to want him.
+He could easily take charge of one."
+
+"It is better to have no foreigners," replied the captain. "Not
+that Mr. Alcando might not be all right, for he seems a nice chap.
+But he is a Spaniard, or, rather a South American, and some of the
+South Americans haven't any too much love for us; especially since
+the Canal was built."
+
+"Why?" asked Blake.
+
+"Oh, for various reasons. Some of them have lost trade because it
+shortens routes. But there, I must go and see if all the men are
+in place." Captain Wiltsey left him, and once more the moving
+picture boy resumed his vigil. All about him was silence and
+darkness. As well as he could he looked to see that his camera was
+pointing in the right direction, and that it set firmly on the
+tripod, the legs of which were driven into the ground.
+
+"I'll just step over and see how Joe is," thought Blake. He judged
+it lacked half an hour yet of midnight.
+
+He found Joe busy mending a broken wire that ran from the battery
+to the flashlight powder chamber.
+
+"Just discovered it," Joe whispered. "Lucky I did, too, or it
+would have failed me just when I needed it."
+
+"Is it fixed?" asked Blake, as his chum straightened up in the
+darkness.
+
+"Yes, it'll do for a while, though it's only twisted together.
+Say, but isn't it dark?"
+
+"It sure is," agreed Blake.
+
+Together they stood there near the great dam. There came to their
+ears the splashing of water over the spillway, for the lake was
+high, and much was running to waste.
+
+"Well, I guess I'll be getting back," said Blake in a low voice.
+"No telling when things will happen now."
+
+As he started to go away Joe remarked:
+
+"Where are you wearing your watch? I can hear it over here."
+
+"Watch! I haven't mine on," Blake answered. "You can't see it in
+the dark, so I left it on the boat."
+
+"Well, something is ticking pretty loud, and it isn't mine," Joe
+said, "for I did the same as you, and left it in my cabin. But
+don't you hear that noise?"
+
+They both listened. Clearly to them, through the silence of the
+night, came a steady and monotonous tick--tick-tick--
+
+"It's the clockwork of the automatic camera," Blake whispered.
+
+"It can't be," answered Joe. "That's too far off. Besides, it's a
+different sound."
+
+They both listened intently.
+
+"Tick! Tick! Tick!" came to them through the dark silence.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+MR. ALCANDO DISAPPEARS
+
+For several seconds Blake and Joe stood there--without
+moving--only listening. And that strange noise they heard kept up
+its monotonous note.
+
+"Hear it!" whispered Joe.
+
+"Yes," answered Blake. "The brass box--the box--he had!"
+
+"Yes," whispered Joe. All the suspicions he had had--all those he
+had laughed at Blake for harboring, came back to him in a rush.
+The brass-bound box contained clockwork. Was it an alarm after
+all? Certainly it had given an alarm now--a most portentous alarm!
+
+"We've got to find it!" said Blake.
+
+"Sure," Joe assented. "It may go off any minute now. We've got to
+find it. Seems to be near here."
+
+They began looking about on the ground, as though they could see
+anything in that blackness. But they were trying to trace it by
+the sound of the ticks. And it is no easy matter, if you have ever
+tried to locate the clock in a dark room.
+
+"We ought to give the alarm," said Blake.
+
+"Before it is too late," assented Joe. "Where can it be? It seems
+near here, and yet we can't locate it."
+
+"Get down on your hands and knees and crawl around," advised
+Blake. In this fashion they searched for the elusive tick-tick.
+They could hear it, now plainly, and now faintly, but they never
+lost it altogether. And each of them recognized the peculiar
+clicking sound as the same they had heard coming from the
+brass-bound box Mr. Alcando had said was his new alarm clock.
+
+"Hark!" suddenly exclaimed Blake.
+
+Off to the left, where was planted the automatic camera, came a
+faint noise. It sounded like a suppressed exclamation. Then came
+an echo as if someone had fallen heavily.
+
+An instant later the whole scene was lit up by a brilliant
+flash--a flash that rivaled the sun in brightness, and made Blake
+and Joe stare like owls thrust suddenly into the glare of day.
+
+"The dynamite!" gasped Joe, unconsciously holding himself in
+readiness for a shock.
+
+"The flashlight--the automatic camera!" cried Blake. There was no
+need for silence now.
+
+The whole scene was brilliantly lighted, and remained so for many
+seconds. And in the glare of the magnesium powder the moving
+picture boys saw a curious sight.
+
+Advancing toward the dam was a solitary figure, which had come to
+halt when the camera went off with the flashlight. It was the
+figure of a man who had evidently just arisen after a fall.
+
+"Mr. Alcando!" gasped Joe.
+
+"The Spaniard!" fairly shouted Blake.
+
+Then, as the two chums looked on the brilliantly lighted scene,
+knowing that the camera was faithfully taking pictures of every
+move of their recent pupil, the boys saw, rushing toward Alcando,
+a number of the men and soldiers who had been in hiding.
+
+"He's surrounded--as good as caught," Blake cried. "So he's the
+guilty one."
+
+"Unless there's a mistake," spoke Joe.
+
+"Mistake! Never!" shouted his chum. "Look--the brass box!"
+
+The glare of the distant flashlight illuminated the ground at
+their feet, and there, directly in front of them, was the ticking
+box. From it trailed two wires, and, as Blake looked at them he
+gave a start.
+
+The next moment he had knelt down, and with a pair of pliers he
+carried for adjusting the mechanism of his camera severed the
+wires with a quick snap. The ticking in the box still went on, but
+the affair was harmless now. It could not make the electrical
+current to discharge the deadly dynamite.
+
+"Boys! Boys! Where are you?" cried Captain Wiltsey.
+
+"Here!" cried Blake. "We've stopped the infernal machine!"
+
+"And we've got the dynamiter. He's your friend--"
+
+The rest of the words died away as the light burned itself out.
+Intense blackness succeeded.
+
+"Come on!" cried Joe. "They've got him. We won't have to work the
+hand cameras. The automatic did it!"
+
+They stumbled on through the darkness. Lanterns were brought and
+they saw Mr. Alcando a prisoner in the midst of the Canal guards.
+The Spaniard looked at the boys, and smiled sadly.
+
+"Well, it--it's all over," he said. "But it isn't as bad as it
+seems."
+
+"It's bad enough, as you'll find," said Captain Wiltsey grimly.
+"Are you sure the wires are disconnected, boys?" he asked.
+
+"Sure," replied Blake, holding out the brass box.
+
+"Oh, so you found it," said the Spaniard. "Well, even if it had
+gone off there wouldn't have been much of an explosion."
+
+"It's easy enough to say that--now," declared the captain.
+
+But later, when they followed up the wires which Blake had
+severed, which had run from the brass-bound box to a point near
+the spillway of the dam, it was found that only a small charge of
+dynamite had been buried there--a charge so small that it could
+not possibly have done more than very slight damage to the
+structure.
+
+"I can't understand it," said Captain Wiltsey. "They could just as
+well have put a ton there, and blown the place to atoms, and yet
+they didn't use enough to blow a boulder to bits. I don't
+understand it."
+
+"But why should Mr. Alcando try to blow up the dam at all?" asked
+Blake, "That's what I can't understand."
+
+But a little later they did, for the Spaniard confessed. He had to
+admit his part in the plot, for the moving pictures, made by the
+automatic camera, were proof positive that he was the guilty one.
+
+"Yes, it was I who tried to blow up the dam," Alcando admitted,
+"but, as you have seen, it was only to be an attempt to damage it.
+It was never intended to really destroy it. It was an apparent
+attempt, only."
+
+"But what for?" he was asked.
+
+"To cause a lack of confidence in the Canal," was the unexpected
+answer. "Those I represent would like to see it unused. It is
+going to ruin our railroad interests."
+
+Then he told of the plot in detail.
+
+Alcando was connected, as I have told you, with a Brazilian
+railroad. The road depended for its profits on carrying goods
+across South America. Once the Canal was established goods could
+be transported much more cheaply and quickly by the water route.
+The railroad owners knew this and saw ruin ahead of them if the
+Canal were to be successful. Consequently they welcomed every
+delay, every accident, every slide in Culebra Cut that would put
+off the opening of the great waterway.
+
+But the time finally came when it was finished, and a success.
+Then one of the largest stockholders of the railroad, an
+unprincipled man, planned a plot. At first his fellow stockholders
+would not agree to it, but he persuaded them, painting the ruin of
+their railroad, and saying only slight damage would be done to the
+Canal.
+
+His plan was to make a slight explosion, or two or more of them,
+near Culebra Cut or at the great dam. This, he anticipated, would
+cause shippers to regard the Canal with fear, and refuse to send
+their goods through it. In that way the railroad would still hold
+its trade.
+
+Alcando was picked for the work. He did not want to undertake it,
+but he was promised a large sum, and threats were made against
+him, for the originator of the plot had a certain hold over him.
+
+"But I was to throw the blame on innocent parties if I could," the
+Spaniard went on, in his confession. "Also I was to select a means
+of causing the explosion that would not easily be detected. I
+selected moving pictures as the simplest means. I knew that some
+were to be made of the Canal for Government use, and I thought if
+I got in with the moving picture operators I would have a good
+chance, and good excuse, for approaching the dam without being
+suspected. After I had accomplished what I set out to do I could,
+I thought, let suspicion rest on the camera men.
+
+"So I laid my plans. I learned that Mr. Hadley's firm had received
+the contract to make the views, and, by inquiries, through spies,
+I learned who their principal operators were. It was then I came
+to you boys," he said. "Ashamed as I am to confess it, it was my
+plan to have the blame fall on you."
+
+Blake and Joe gasped.
+
+"But when you saved my life at the broken bridge that time, of
+course I would not dream of such a dastardly trick," the Spaniard
+resumed. "I had to make other plans. I tried to get out of it
+altogether, but that man would not let me. So I decided to
+sacrifice myself. I would myself blow up the dam, or, rather, make
+a little explosion that would scare prospective shippers. I did
+not care what became of me as long as I did not implicate you. I
+could not do that.
+
+"So I changed my plans. Confederates supplied the dynamite, and I
+got this clock-work, in the brass-bound box, to set it off by
+means of electrical wires. I planned to be far away when it
+happened, but I would have left a written confession that would
+have put the blame where it belonged.
+
+"I kept the battery box connections and clockwork inside the small
+camera I carried. Tonight all was in readiness. The dynamite was
+planted, and I set the mechanism. But something went wrong with
+it. There was too much of a delay. I came back to change the
+timer. I broke the string connections you made, and--I was caught
+by the camera. The news had, somehow, leaked out, and I was
+caught. Well, perhaps it is better so," and he shrugged his
+shoulders with seeming indifference.
+
+"But please believe me when I say that no harm would have come to
+you boys," he went on earnestly, "nor would the dam have been
+greatly damaged.
+
+"It was all a terrible plot in which I became involved, not all
+through my own fault," went on the Spaniard, dramatically. "As
+soon as I met you boys, after you had saved my life, I repented of
+my part, but I could not withdraw. The plans of this scoundrel
+--yes, I must call him so, though perhaps I am as great--his
+plans called for finding out something about the big guns that
+protect the Canal. Only I was not able to do that, though he
+ordered me to in a letter I think you saw."
+
+Blake nodded. He and Joe were beginning to understand many strange
+things.
+
+"One of the secret agents brought me the box containing the
+mechanism that was to set off the dynamite," the Spaniard resumed.
+"You nearly caught him," he added, and Blake recalled the episode
+of the cigar smoke. "I had secret conferences with the men engaged
+with me in the plot," the conspirator confessed. "At times I
+talked freely about dynamiting the dam, in order to throw off the
+suspicions I saw you entertained regarding me. But I must explain
+one thing. The collision, in which the tug was sunk, had nothing
+to do with the plot. That was a simple accident, though I did know
+the captain of that unlucky steamer.
+
+"Finally, after I had absented myself from here several times, to
+see that all the details of the plot were arranged, I received a
+letter telling me the dynamite had been placed, and that, after I
+had set it off, I had better flee to Europe."
+
+Blake had accidentally seen that letter.
+
+"I received instructions, the time we were starting off on the
+tug," went on Alcando, "that the original plot was to be changed,
+and that a big charge of dynamite was to be used instead of a
+small one.
+
+"But I refused to agree to it," he declared. "I felt that, in
+spite of what I might do to implicate myself, you boys would be
+blamed, and I could not have that if the Canal were to suffer
+great damage. I would have done anything to protect you, after
+what you did in saving my worthless life," he said bitterly. "So I
+would not agree to all the plans of that scoundrel, though he
+urged me most hotly.
+
+"But it is all over, now!" he exclaimed with a tragic gesture. "I
+am caught, and it serves me right. Only I can be blamed. My good
+friends, you will not be," and he smiled at Blake and Joe. "I am
+glad all the suspense is at an end. I deserve my punishment. I did
+not know the plot had been discovered, and that the stage was set
+to make so brilliant a capture of me. But I am glad you boys had
+the honor.
+
+"But please believe me in one thing. I really did want to learn
+how to take moving pictures, though it was to be a blind as to my
+real purpose. And, as I say, the railroad company did not want to
+really destroy the dam. After we had put the Canal out of business
+long enough for us to have amassed a fortune we would have been
+content to see it operated. We simply wanted to destroy public
+confidence in it for a time."
+
+"The worst kind of destruction," murmured Captain Wiltsey. "Take
+him away, and guard him well," he ordered the soldiers. "We will
+look further into this plot to-morrow."
+
+But when to-morrow came there was no Mr. Alcando. He had managed
+to escape in the night from his frail prison, and whither he had
+gone no one knew.
+
+But that he had spoken the truth was evident. A further
+investigation showed that it would have been impossible to have
+seriously damaged the dam by the amount of dynamite hidden. But,
+as Captain Wiltsey said, the destruction of public confidence
+would have been a serious matter.
+
+"And so it was Alcando, all along," observed Blake, a few days
+later, following an unsuccessful search for the Spaniard.
+
+"Yes, our suspicions of him were justified," remarked Blake. "It's
+a lucky thing for us that we did save his life, mean as he was. It
+wouldn't have been any joke to be suspected of trying to blow up
+the dam."
+
+"No, indeed," agreed Blake. "And suspicion might easily have
+fallen on us. It was a clever trick. Once we had the Government
+permission to go all over with our cameras, and Alcando, as a
+pupil, could go with us, he could have done almost anything he
+wanted. But the plot failed."
+
+"Lucky it did," remarked Joe. "I guess they'll get after that
+railroad man next."
+
+But the stockholder who was instrumental in forming the plot, like
+Alcando, disappeared. That they did not suffer for their parts in
+the affair, as they should have, was rumored later, when both of
+them were seen in a European capital, well supplied with money.
+How they got it no one knew.
+
+The Brazilian Railroad, however, repudiated the attempt to damage
+the Canal, even apparently, laying all the blame on the two men
+who had disappeared. But from then on more stringent regulations
+were adopted about admitting strangers to vital parts of the
+Canal.
+
+"But we're through," commented Blake one day, when he and Joe had
+filmed the last views of the big waterway. "That Alcando was a
+'slick' one, though."
+
+"Indeed he was," agreed Joe. "The idea of calling that a new alarm
+clock!" and he looked at the brass-bound box. Inside was a most
+complicated electrical timing apparatus, for setting off charges
+of explosive. It could be adjusted to cause the detonation at any
+set minute, giving the plotter time to be a long way from the
+scene.
+
+And, only because of a slight defect, Alcando would have been far
+from the scene when the little explosion occurred at Gatun Dam.
+
+Once more the great Canal was open to traffic. The last of the
+slide in Culebra Cut had been taken out, and boats could pass
+freely.
+
+"Let's make a trip through now, just for fun," suggested Blake to
+Joe one day, when they had packed up their cameras.
+
+Permission was readily granted them to make a pleasure trip
+through to Panama, and it was greatly enjoyed by both of them.
+
+"Just think!" exclaimed Blake, as they sat under an awning on the
+deck of their boat, and looked at the blue water, "not a thing to
+do."
+
+"Until the next time," suggested Joe.
+
+"That's right--we never do seem to be idle long," agreed Blake. "I
+wonder what the 'next time' will be?"
+
+And what it was, and what adventures followed you may learn by
+reading the next volume of this series, to be called "The Moving
+Picture Boys Under the Sea; Or, The Treasure on the Lost Ship."
+
+"Here you go, Blake!" cried Joe, a few days later. "Letter for
+you!"
+
+"Thanks. Get any yourself?"
+
+"Yes, one."
+
+"Huh! How many do you want?" asked Blake, as he began reading his
+epistle. "Well, I'll soon be back," he added in a low voice, as he
+finished.
+
+"Back where?" asked Joe.
+
+"To New York."
+
+And so, with these pleasant thoughts, we will take leave of the
+moving picture boys.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Moving Picture Boys at Panama
+by Victor Appleton
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MOVING PICTURE BOYS AT PANAMA ***
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