"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.