"I wish I had been the one to shoot it," said the Spaniard.
"Why?" asked Joe, as he sat down on the warm sandy bank of the stream to rest.
"Why, then I should have repaid, in a small measure, the debt I am under to you boys for saving my life. I shall never forget that."
"It wasn't anything," declared Blake quickly. "I mean, what we did for you."
"It meant a great deal—to me," returned the Spaniard quietly, but with considerable meaning in his tone. "Perhaps I shall soon be able to—but no matter. Are there many alligators in this stream?" he asked of Ramo.
"Oh, yes, more or less, just as there are in most of the Panaman rivers. But I never knew one to be so bold as to attack any one in daylight. Mostly they take dogs, pigs, or something like that. This must have been a big, hungry one."
"You'd have thought so if you were as close to him as I was," spoke Blake with a little shudder.
No one else felt like going in swimming just then, and the two boys dressed. Blake had fully recovered from the cramp that had so nearly been his undoing.
For a week longer they lived in the jungle, moving from place to place, camping in different locations and enjoying as much as they could the life in the wild. Blake and Joe made some good moving picture films, Mr. Alcando helping them, for he was rapidly learning how to work the cameras.
But the views, of course, were not as good as those the boys had obtained when in the African jungle. These of the Panama wilds, however, were useful as showing the kind of country through which the Canal ran, and, as such, they were of value in the series of films.