MR. ALCANDO’S ABSENCE
Blake spent a week at Culebra Cut, making pictures of the removal
of the great mass of earth that had slid into the water. The chief
engineer, General George W. Goethals, had ordered every available man
and machine to the work, for though the Canal had not been formally
opened, many vessels had started to make trips through it, and some of
them had been blocked by the slide. It was necessary to get the dirt
away so they could pass on their voyage.
So with dredges, with steam shovels, and hydraulic pumps, that sucked
through big flexible pipes mud and water, spraying it off to one side,
the work went on. Blake had Mr. Alcando to help him, and the Spaniard
was now expert enough to render valuable assistance. While Blake was
at one scene, getting views of the relief work, his pupil could be at
another interesting point.
Blake had telegraphed to New York that the one picture above all others
desired had been obtained--that of a big slide in the Culebra Cut. He
did not tell how Joe had nearly lost his life in helping get the films,
for Blake was modest, as was his chum, and, as he said, it was “all in
the day’s work.”
Joe was left to recover from the shock and slight injuries at Gatun,
while Blake and Mr. Alcando were at Culebra. For the shock to the young
moving picture operator had been greater than at first supposed, though
his bodily injuries were comparatively slight.
“Well, what’s next on the programme?” asked Joe of Blake, about two
weeks after the accident, when Blake had returned from Culebra. Most of
the work there was done, and the Canal was again open, save to vessels
of extreme draught.
“I guess we’ll go on making pictures of Gatun Dam now; that is, if
you’re well enough,” spoke Blake. “How do you feel?”
“Pretty fair. How did Alcando make out?”
“All right. He’s learning fast. We can trust him with a camera now, out
alone.”
“That’s good. I say, Blake,” and Joe’s voice took on a confidential
tone, “you haven’t noticed anything strange about him; have you?”
“Strange? What do you mean?”
“I mean while he was off there with you. Anything more about that alarm
clock of his? And did anything more develop about his knowing the
captain of that vessel that sunk the _Nama_?”
“No, that was only coincidence, I think. Why, I can’t say that I’ve
noticed anything suspicious about him, Joe, if that’s what you mean,”
and Blake’s voice had a questioning tone.
“That’s what I do mean,” spoke Joe. “And if you haven’t I have.”
“Have what?”
“I’ve been watching Alcando since you and he came back, and I think
he’s decidedly queer.”
“Suspicious, you mean?”
“I mean he acts as though something were going to happen.”
“Another landslide?” asked Blake with a laugh. “No chance of that here
at Gatun Dam.”
“No, but something else could happen, I think.”
“You mean the--dam itself?” asked Blake, suddenly serious.
“Well, I don’t exactly know what I do mean,” Joe said, and his voice
was troubled. “I’ll tell you what I noticed and heard, and you can make
your own guess.”
“Go on,” invited Blake. “I’m all ears, as the donkey said.”
“It’s no laughing matter,” retorted his chum. “Haven’t you noticed
since you and Alcando came back,” he went on, “that he seems different,
in a way. He goes about by himself, and, several times I’ve caught
him looking at the dam as though he’d never seen it before. He is
wonderfully impressed by it.”
“Well, anybody would be,” spoke Blake. “It’s a wonderful piece of
engineering. But go on.”
“Not only that,” resumed Joe, “but I’ve heard him talking to himself a
lot.”
“Well, that’s either a bad sign, or a good one,” laughed his chum.
“They say when a fellow talks to himself he either has money in the
bank, or he’s in love. You can take your choice.”
“Not when it’s the kind of talk I overheard Alcando having with
himself,” Joe resumed. “I went out on the dam yesterday, and I saw him
looking at it. He didn’t see me, but I heard him muttering to himself.”
“What did he say?” Blake wanted to know.
“I didn’t hear it all,” was Joe’s answer, “but I caught two sentences
that made me do a lot of thinking. They were these: ‘I just hate to do
it, though I’ll have to, I suppose. But I’ll not put the blame on’--”
and Joe came to a pause.
“Well, go on,” urged Blake.
“That’s all there was,” Joe continued. “I couldn’t hear any more. What
do you suppose he meant?”
“He might have meant nothing--or anything,” Blake remarked slowly.
“It sounds to me as though he meant that he had made a failure of
the moving picture business, and was going to quit. That must be it.
He meant that he had to give it up, though he hated to, and that he
wouldn’t blame us for not giving him better instruction.”
“Could he have meant that?”
“He could,” Blake replied, “for, to tell you the truth, he’ll never
be a good operator. He hasn’t a correct eye for details, and he can’t
focus worth a cent, though that might be overcome in time. He does well
enough for ordinary work, but when it comes to fine details he isn’t in
it. I found that out back there at Culebra when he was working with me.
Of course he was a lot of help, and all that, but he’s a failure as a
moving picture operator.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” said Joe, with genuine sympathy.
“So am I to have to come to that conclusion,” Blake went on. “I guess
he knows it, too, for he said as much to me. So I guess that’s what his
talking to himself meant.”
“Perhaps it did. Well, we did our best for him.”
“We surely did, and I guess he appreciates that. He said so, anyhow.”
“And so you’re going to get some Gatun pictures and then quit--eh?”
“That’s it, Joe, and the sooner we get them the sooner we can get back
home. I’ve had all I want of Panama. Not that it isn’t a nice place,
but we’ve seen all there is to see.”
“We might try a little more of the jungle.”
“We got enough of those pictures before,” Blake declared. “No, the dam
will wind it up, as far as we’re concerned.”
If Mr. Alcando felt any sorrow over his failure as a moving picture
operator he did not show it when next he met the boys. He was quite
cheerful.
“Are you fully recovered, Joe?” he asked.
“Oh, sure! I’m all right again.”
“I only wish I could have had a hand in rescuing you,” the Spaniard
went on. “It would have been a manner of paying, in a slight degree,
the debt I owe you boys. But fate took that out of my hands, and you
were saved by the same sort of slide that covered you up.”
“Yes, I guess I was born lucky,” laughed Joe.
Preparations for taking several views of the big Gatun Dam from the
lower, or spillway side, were made. One afternoon Mr. Alcando asked
if he would be needed in making any views, and when Blake told him he
would not, the Spaniard went off by himself, taking a small camera with
him.
“I’m going to try my luck on my own hook,” he said.
“That’s right,” encouraged Blake. “Go it on your own responsibility.
Good luck!”
“He’s trying hard, at all events,” said Joe, when their acquaintance
had left them.
“Yes,” agreed Joe. “He wants to make good.”
Several times after this Mr. Alcando went off by himself for more or
less prolonged absences. Each time he took a camera with him.
It was a small machine, made more for amateurs than for professionals,
but it gave good practice.
“How are you coming on?” asked Blake one day, when Mr. Alcando returned
after a trip which, he said, had taken him to Gatun Dam.
“Oh, pretty well, I think,” was the answer, as the Spaniard set down
his camera and carrying case. “I got some good scenes, I believe. When
are you going to make the last of the spillway views?”
Blake did not answer. He was listening to a curious sound. It was a
ticking, like that of an alarm clock, and it came from the interior of
the carrying case that held extra reels of film for the little camera
Mr. Alcando had.
Blake felt himself staring at the black box.