"Well, what do you think about it all?" asked Joe, as he and his chum sat on the shady porch an hour or so after the exciting incidents I have just narrated.
"I hardly know," answered Blake. "I guess I'll have another go at Mr. Hadley's letter. I didn't half read it."
He took the missive from his pocket, and again perused it. It contained references to other matters besides the projected Panama trip, and there was also enclosed a check for some work the moving picture boys had done.
But as it is with the reference to the big canal that we are interested we shall confine ourselves to that part of Mr. Hadley's letter.
"No doubt you will be surprised," he wrote, "to learn what I have in prospect for you. I know you deserve a longer vacation than you have had this summer, but I think, too, that you would not wish to miss this chance.
"Of course if you do not want to go to Panama I can get some other operators to work the moving picture cameras, but I would rather have you than anyone I know of. So I hope you will accept.
"The idea is this: The big canal is nearing completion, and the work is now at a stage when it will make most interesting films. Then, too, there is another matter—the big slides. There have been several small ones, doing considerable damage, but no more than has been counted on.
"I have information, however, to the effect that there is impending in Culebra Cut a monstrous big slide, one that will beat anything that ever before took place there. If it does happen I want to get moving pictures, not only of the slide, but of scenes afterward, and also pictures showing the clearing away of the débris.
"Whether this slide will occur I do not know. No one knows for a certainty, but a man who has lived in Panama almost since the French started the big ditch, claims to know a great deal about the slides and the causes of them. He tells me that certain small slides, such as have been experienced, are followed—almost always after the same lapse of time—by a much larger one. The larger one is due soon, and I want you there when it comes.
"Now another matter. Some time after you get this you will be visited by a Spanish gentleman named Vigues Alcando. He will have a letter of introduction from me. He wants to learn the moving picture business, and as he comes well recommended, and as both Mr. Ringold and I are under obligations to people he represents, we feel that we must grant his request.