"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 ca.n.a.l 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 ca.n.a.l 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 debris.

"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 Ca.n.a.l for the pa.s.sage 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," a.s.sented 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," a.s.sented 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."