"He's a foreigner—a Spaniard," objected the captain.
"I see," spoke Blake. "You don't want it to go any farther than can be helped."
"No," agreed the captain.
"But how did you and the other officials hear all this?" Joe wanted to know.
"In a dozen different ways," was the answer. "Rumors came to us, we traced them, and got—more rumors. There has been some disaffection among the foreign laborers. Men with fancied, but not real grievances, have talked and muttered against the United States. Then, in a manner I cannot disclose, word came to us that the discontent had culminated in a well-plotted plan to destroy the dam, and to-night is the time set.
"Just who they are who will try the desperate work I do not know. I fancy no one does. But we may soon know if you boys can successfully work the cameras and flashlights."
"And we'll do our part!" exclaimed Blake. "Tell us where to set the cameras."
"We can use that automatic camera, too; can't we?" asked Joe.
"Yes, that will be the very thing!" cried Blake. They had found, when making views of wild animals in the jungle, as I have explained in the book of that title, that to be successful in some cases required them to be absent from the drinking holes, where the beasts came nightly to slake their thirst.
So they had developed a combined automatic flashlight and camera, that would, when set, take pictures of the animals as they came to the watering-place. The beasts themselves would, by breaking a thread, set the mechanism in motion.