"Yes," a.s.sented 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 bra.s.s-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 pa.s.sed over his face. He reached in among the bed clothes and picked up the curious bra.s.s-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 bra.s.s-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 ca.n.a.l. 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 bra.s.s-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 ash.o.r.e for a brief visit, the steamer dropped anchor in the excellent harbor of Colon, at the Atlantic end of the great Panama Ca.n.a.l.

A storm was impending as the ship made her way up the harbor, but as the boys and the other pa.s.sengers looked at the great break-water, constructed to be one of the protections to the Ca.n.a.l, 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.