ANOTHER SURPRISE
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."
SOMETHING QUEER
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."
"Youaregetting 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 mañana—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.
IN NEW YORK
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 believethat, 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 hetriedto 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 aspy," 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!"
OFF FOR PANAMA
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 thanthat."
"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 wearegoing 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 anawfulhurry," 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.