Presently the two swung down into a valley, and then twin lights like those of a great touring car showed over a rise.
“What do you think of that?” asked Jimmie. “There must be a good road there.”
The car came on a few yards after the lamp showed, and the two men clambered aboard. In five minutes the motor car was speeding toward Gatun.
“Two for the city and one for the tall timber,” Jimmie snickered, as the car moved out of view. “There’s the solitary individual watching them from the summit.”
As the boy spoke the man who had laid the bomb so unsuccessfully faced away to the east and disappeared down the slope. It was not difficult to keep track of him, although the necessity for concealment was imperative, and the fellow proceeded at a swift pace for an hour.
At the end of that time he was in a lonely section of country, where rounded knolls were surrounded by the dense growth of the jungle. In spite of the wildness of the spot, however, Ned saw that civilization had at some distant time made its mark there. Here and there low, broken walls of brick lifted from the grass, and the vegetation was not quite so luxuriant. In numerous places, as they advanced, the boys saw that the ground had once been leveled off as if to make way for a building, the ruins of which were still to be seen.
“One of the ruined cities of the Isthmus,” Jimmie whispered. “If Peter could see this he would know all about it.”
“It wasn’t a very large city,” laughed Ned.
“There’s the ruins of a temple over there,” insisted the boy. “There’s a wall standing yet. And there’s the man we want going into it.”
As the boy spoke the man they were following disappeared behind the wall. Before he could be restrained Jimmie wiggled forward to the foot of the ruin. Nestor saw him peering around the end of the line of brick and hastened forward.