THE SECRET CONFERENCE
Blake was silent a moment after making this portentous
announcement. Then he leaned forward, with the evident intention
of picking up the curious, ticking box.
"Look out!" cried Joe, grasping his chum's hand.
"What for?" Blake wanted to know.
"It might be loaded--go off, you know!"
"Nonsense!" exclaimed Blake. "It's probably only some sort of
foreign alarm clock, and he stuffed it in there so the ticking
wouldn't keep him awake. I've done the same thing when I didn't
want to get up. I used to chuck mine under the bed, or stuff it in
an old shoe. What's the matter with you, anyhow? You act scared,"
for Joe's face was actually white--that is as white as it could be
under the tan caused by his outdoor life.
"Well, I--I thought," stammered Joe. "Perhaps that was a--"
"Who's getting suspicious now?" demanded Blake with a laugh. "Talk
about me! Why, you're way ahead!"
"Oh, well, I guess I did imagine too much," admitted Joe with a
little laugh. "It probably is an alarm clock, as you say. I wonder
what we'd better do with it? If we leave it there--"
He was interrupted by the opening of the stateroom door and as
both boys turned they saw their Spanish friend standing on the
threshold staring at them.
"Well!" he exclaimed, and there was an angry note in his voice--a
note the boys had never before noticed, for Mr. Alcando was of a
sunny and happy disposition, and not nearly as quick tempered as
persons of his nationality are supposed to be.
"I suppose it does look; as though we were rummaging in your
things," said Blake, deciding instantly that it was best to be
frank. "But we heard a curious ticking noise when we came down
here, and we traced it to your bunk. We didn't know what it might
be, and thought perhaps you had put your watch in the bed, and
might have forgotten to take it out. We looked, and found this--"
"Ah, my new alarm clock!" exclaimed Mr. Alcando, and what seemed
to be a look of relief passed over his face. He reached in among
the bed clothes and picked up the curious brass-bound ticking box,
with its many little metallic projections.
"I perhaps did not tell you that I am a sort of inventor," the
Spaniard went on. "I have not had much success, but I think my new
alarm clock is going to bring me in some money. It works on a new
principle, but I am giving it a good test, privately, before I try
to put it on the market."
He took the brass-bound, ticking box from the bed, and must have
adjusted the mechanism in a way Blake or Joe did not notice, for
the "click-click" stopped at once, and the room seemed curiously
still after it.
"Some day I will show you how it works," the young Spaniard went
on. "I think, myself, it is quite what you call--clever."
And with that he put the box in a trunk, and closed the lid with a
snap that threw the lock.
"And now, boys, we will soon be there!" he cried with a gay laugh.
"Soon we will be in the beautiful land of Panama, and will see the
marvels of that great canal. Are you not glad? And I shall begin
to learn more about making moving pictures! That will please me,
though I hope I shall not be so stupid a pupil as to make trouble
for you, my friends, to whom I owe so much."
He looked eagerly at the boys.
"We'll teach you all we know, which isn't such an awful lot," said
Joe. "And I don't believe you'll be slow."
"You have picked up some of it already," went on Blake, for while
delaying over making their arrangements in New York the boys and
their pupil had gone into the rudiments of moving picture work.
"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.