OFF FOR PANAMA
There was a moment of silence following Mr.
Piper's gloomy prediction, and then Miss Shay, with a laugh, cried
out:
"Oh, what a shame! I'd keep still if I couldn't say anything nicer
than _that_."
"Not very cheerful; is he?" spoke Joe.
"About the same as usual," commented Blake, drily.
"Well, it's true, just the same!" declared C.C. Piper, with an air
of conviction.
"'The truth is not to be spoken--at all times,'" quoted Miss
Pierce.
"Good for you!" whispered Joe.
C.C. seemed a little put out at all the criticism leveled at him.
"Ahem!" he exclaimed. "Of course I don't mean that I want to see
you boys caught in a landslide--far from it, but--"
"But, if we _are_ going to be caught that way, you hope there will
be moving pictures of it; don't you, C.C.?" laughed Blake. "Now,
there's no use trying to get out of it!" he added, as the gloomy
actor stuttered and stammered. "We know what you mean. But where
is Mr. Ringold; or Mr. Hadley?"
"They're around somewhere," explained Miss Shay, when the other
members of the company, with whom they had spent so many happy and
exciting days, had offered their greetings. "Are you in such a
hurry to see them?" she asked of Blake.
"Oh, not in such an _awful_ hurry," he answered with a laugh, as
Birdie Lee came out of a dressing room, smiling rosily at him.
"I guess not!" laughed Miss Shay.
Soon the interval between the scenes of the drama then being
"filmed," or photographed, came to an end. The actors and
actresses took their places in a "ball room," that was built on
one section of the studio floor.
"Ready!" called the manager to the camera operator, and as the
music of an unseen orchestra played, so that the dancing might be
in perfect time, the camera began clicking and the action of the
play, which included an exciting episode in the midst of the
dance, went on. It was a gay scene, for the ladies and gentlemen
were dressed in the "height of fashion."
It was necessary to have every detail faithfully reproduced, for
the eye of the moving picture camera is more searching, and
far-seeing, than any human eye, and records every defect, no
matter how small. And when it is recalled that the picture thrown
on the screen is magnified many hundred times, a small defect, as
can readily be understood, becomes a very large one.
So great care is taken to have everything as nearly perfect as
possible. Blake and Joe watched the filming of the drama,
recalling the time when they used to turn the handle of the camera
at the same work, before they were chosen to go out after bigger
pictures--scenes from real life. The operator, a young fellow;
whom both Blake and Joe knew, looked around and nodded at them,
when he had to stop grinding out the film a moment, to allow the
director to correct something that had unexpectedly gone wrong.
"Don't you wish you had this easy job?" the operator asked.
"We may, before we come back from Panama," answered Blake.
A little later Mr. Ringold and Mr. Hadley came in, greeting the
two boys, and then began a talk which lasted for some time, and in
which all the details of the projected work, as far as they could
be arranged in advance, were gone over.
"What we want," said Mr. Hadley, "is a series of pictures about
the Canal. It will soon be open for regular traffic, you know,
and, in fact some vessels have already gone through it. But the
work is not yet finished, and we want you to film the final
touches.
"Then, too, there may be accidents--there have been several small
ones of late, and, as I wrote you, a man who claims to have made a
study of the natural forces in Panama declares a big slide is due
soon.
"Of course we won't wish the canal any bad luck, and we don't for
a moment want that slide to happen. Only--"
"If it does come you want it filmed!" interrupted Blake, with a
laugh.
"That's it, exactly!" exclaimed Mr. Ringold.
"You'll find plenty down there to take pictures of," said Mr.
Hadley. "We want scenes along the Canal. Hire a vessel and take
moving pictures as you go along in her. Go through the Gatun
locks, of course. Scenes as your boat goes in them, and the waters
rise, and then go down again, ought to make a corking picture!"
Mr. Hadley was growing enthusiastic.
"Get some jungle scenes to work in also," he directed. "In short,
get scenes you think a visitor to the Panama Canal would be
interested in seeing. Some of the films will be a feature at the
Panama Exposition in California, and we expect to make big money
from them, so do your best."
"We will!" promised Joe, and Blake nodded in acquiescence.
"You met the young Spaniard who had a letter of introduction to
you; did you not?" asked Mr. Hadley, after a pause.
"Yes," answered Blake. "Met him under rather queer circumstances,
too. I guess we hinted at them in our letter."
"A mere mention," responded Mr. Hadley. "I should be glad to hear
the details." So Blake and Joe, in turn, told of the runaway.
"What do you think of him--I mean Mr. Alcando?" asked the moving
picture man.
"Why, he seems all right," spoke Joe slowly, looking at Blake to
give him a chance to say anything if he wanted to. "I like him."
"Glad to hear it!" exclaimed Mr. Hadley heartily. "He came to us
well recommended and, as I think I explained, our company is under
obligations to concerns he and his friends are interested in, so
we were glad to do him a favor. He explained, did he not, that his
company wished to show scenes along the line of their railroad, to
attract prospective customers?"
"Yes, he told us that," observed Joe.
"What's the matter, Blake, haven't you anything to say?" asked Mr.
Hadley in a curious voice, turning to Joe's chum. "How does the
Spaniard strike you?"
"Well, he seems all right," was Blake's slow answer. "Only I
think--"
"Blake thinks he's an international spy, I guess!" broke in Joe
with a laugh. "Tell him about the 'big guns,' Blake."
"What's that?" asked Mr. Hadley, quickly.
Whereupon Blake told of the wind-blown letter and his first
suspicions.
"Oh, that's all nonsense!" laughed Mr. Hadley. "We have
investigated his credentials, and find them all right. Besides,
what object would a South American spy have in finding out details
of the defenses at Panama. South America would work to preserve
the Canal; not to destroy it. If it were some European nation now,
that would be a different story. You don't need to worry, Blake."
"No, I suppose it is foolish. But I'm glad to know you think Mr.
Alcando all right. If we've got to live in close companionship
with him for several months, it's a comfort to know he is all
right. Now when are we to start, how do we go, where shall we make
our headquarters and so on?"
"Yes, you will want some detailed information, I expect," agreed
the moving picture man. "Well, I'm ready to give it to you. I have
already made some arrangements for you. You will take a steamer to
Colon, make your headquarters at the Washington Hotel, and from
there start out, when you are ready, to get pictures of the Canal
and surrounding country. I'll give you letters of introduction, so
you will have no trouble in chartering a tug to go through the
Canal, and I already have the necessary government permits."
"Then Joe and I had better be packing up for the trip," suggested
Blake.
"Yes, the sooner the better. You might call on Mr. Alcando, and
ask him when he will be ready. Here is his address in New York,"
and Mr. Hadley handed Blake a card, naming a certain uptown hotel.
A little later, having seen to their baggage, and handed their
particular and favorite cameras over to one of the men of the film
company, so that he might give them a thorough overhauling, Blake
and Joe went to call on their Spanish friend.
"Aren't you glad to know he isn't a spy, or anything like that?"
asked Joe of his chum.
"Yes, of course I am, and yet--"
"Still suspicious I see," laughed Joe. "Better drop it."
Blake did not answer.
Inquiry of the hotel clerk gave Blake and Joe the information that
Mr. Alcando was in his room, and, being shown to the apartment by
a bell-boy, Blake knocked on the door.
"Who's there? Wait a moment!" came in rather sharp accents from a
voice the moving picture boys recognized as that of Mr. Alcando.
"It is Blake Stewart and Joe Duncan," said the former lad. "We
have called--"
"I beg your pardon--In one moment I shall be with you--I will
let you in!" exclaimed the Spaniard. The boys could hear him
moving about in his apartment, they could hear the rattle of
papers, and then the door was opened.
There was no one in the room except the young South American
railroad man, but there was the odor of a strong cigar in the
apartment, and Blake noticed this with surprise for, some time
before, Mr. Alcando had said he did not smoke.
The inference was, then, that he had had a visitor, who was
smoking when the boys knocked, but there was no sign of the caller
then, except in the aroma of the cigar.
He might have gone into one of the other rooms that opened from
the one into which the boys looked, for Mr. Alcando had a suite in
the hotel. And, after all, it was none of the affair of Blake or
Joe, if their new friend had had a caller.
"Only," said Blake to Joe afterward, "why was he in such a hurry
to get rid of him, and afraid that we might meet him?"
"I don't know," Joe answered. "It doesn't worry me. You are too
suspicious."
"I suppose I am."
Mr. Alcando welcomed the boys, but said nothing about the delay in
opening his door, or about the visitor who must have slipped out
hastily. The Spaniard was glad to see Blake and Joe, and glad to
learn that they would soon start for Panama.
"I have much to do, though, in what little time is left," he said,
rapidly arranging some papers on his table. As he did so, Blake
caught sight of a small box, with some peculiar metal projections
on it, sticking out from amid a pile of papers.
"Yes, much to do," went on Mr. Alcando. And then, either by
accident or design, he shoved some papers in such a way that the
small box was completely hidden.
"We have just come from Mr. Hadley," explained Joe, and then he
and Blake plunged into a mass of details regarding their trip,
with which I need not weary you.
Sufficient to say that Mr. Alcando promised to be on hand at the
time of the sailing of the steamer for Colon.
In due time, though a day or so later than originally planned,
Blake and Joe, with their new Spanish friend, were on hand at the
pier. Mr. Alcando had considerable baggage, and he was to be
allowed the use of an old moving picture camera with which to "get
his hand in." Blake and Joe, of course had their own machines,
which had been put in perfect order. There were several of them
for different classes of work.
Final instructions were given by Mr. Hadley, good-bys were said,
and the boys and Mr. Alcando went aboard.
"I hope you have good luck!" called Birdie Lee to Blake, as she
waved her hand to him.
"And so do I," added Mabel Pierce to Joe.
"Thanks!" they made answer in a chorus.
"And--look--out--for--the--big slides!" called Mr. Piper after
them, as the steamer swung away from the pier.
"Gloomy to the last!" laughed Blake.
So they were off for Panama, little dreaming of the sensational
adventures that awaited them there.