It was no part of Ned’s intention, however, to follow the intruder through the jungle. He was now waiting to make sure of the general direction the fellow was taking. He listened some moments longer, until the sounds grew very faint indeed, and then took the path which led from the cottage to a fairly well-made road ending five miles away at one of the streets of Gatun.
“You’re gettin’ the wrong steer,” Jimmie said, as they moved along. “You’ll have to go around the world if you catch him by going this way.”
“The fellow is making for the hills,” explained Ned, “and we may be able to catch him as he comes out of the jungle.”
The boys made good speed along the cleared lane until they came to a rolling, grassy hill, one of many leading up to the summit. Then they turned off to the east, still keeping their pace but taking precautions against being seen, as the night was clearer now than before, and a moon looked down from the sky.
Finally Ned paused in a little valley on a gentle slope.
It was one of the wonderful nights rarely experienced save under the equator, or very close to the middle girdle of the globe. The luxuriant growths of the jungle seemed to be breathing in long, steady pulsations, so uniform was the lifting and falling of the night breeze.
Now and then the call of a night bird or the cry of a wild animal in the thickets came through the heavy air. From the distance came the clamor of the greatest work the world has ever undertaken. The thud and creaking of machinery mingled with the primitive noises of the forest. And far away over the cut flared the white light of the great electric globes which lighted the workers on their tasks.
As the boys looked forth from their depression in the side of the slope, two men came around the rise of the hill and stood at the edge of the jungle, not more than half a dozen yards away. Almost at the same instant it became apparent that some one was floundering about in the thicket immediately in front of them.
A low whistle cut the air, and then the creepers parted and a man’s head and shoulders appeared. Ned and Jimmie crouched lower in their dent in the grassy hill.
The man emerged from the thicket and stood with the others, tearing clinging vines and leaves from his clothing as he did so.