“If you have any weapons give them to me,” the other said, gruffly, paying no attention to the question.
“All right,” Tommy said, handing out a revolver. “It is a heavy thing to carry, anyway. Where are you going to take me?”
“Straight ahead,” cried the captor, with a frown. “Straight ahead. I’ll tell you when to turn and when to stop.”
“You seem to have an accommodating disposition,” laughed Tommy. “Why didn’t you stop the cook, who went out a little while ago? Perhaps he would have been glad of your company.”
“We are not interested in the cook,” came the answer, and Tommy smiled as he thought that at least one point of the ruse had met with success.
“That cook will be fired for leaving the cottage,” grinned Tommy, making the deception as complete as possible.
In the meantime the motor car containing the five boys and the messenger was speeding on its way toward Gatun and the Culebra cut. When Jack came out on the road the machine was disappearing from sight, but he managed to keep track of it from the hilltops for a considerable distance.
The messenger was full of talk, his evident intention being to keep the boys interested. In spite of the attention paid them, however, Frank and Harry Stevens managed to hold a conversation on the back seat.
“This is carrying out Ned’s theory with a vengeance,” Harry remarked. “If we get dumped into the big cut we’ll charge it up to him.”