“Well, what do you think of it, Blake?”

Blake drew a long breath, and replied, questioningly: 

“What do you think of it?”

“I asked you first!” laughed Joe.  “No, but seriously, what do you make of it all?”

“Make of it?  You mean going to Panama?”

“Yes, and this chap Alcando.  What do you think of him?”

Blake did not answer at once.

“Well?” asked Joe, rather impatiently.

“Did anything—­that is, anything that fellow said—­or did—­strike you as being—­well, let’s say—­queer?” and Blake looked his chum squarely in the face.

“Queer?  Yes, I guess there did!  Of course he was excited about the runaway, and he did have a narrow escape, if I do say it myself.  Only for us he and Hank would have toppled down into that ravine.”

“That’s right,” assented Blake.

“But what struck me as queer,” resumed Joe, “was that he seemed put out because it was we who saved him.  He acted—­I mean the Spaniard did—­as though he would have been glad if someone else had saved his life.”

“Just how it struck me!” cried Blake.  “I wondered if you felt the same.  But perhaps it was only because he was unduly excited.  We might have misjudged him.”

“Possibly,” admitted Joe.  “But, even if we didn’t, and he really is sorry it was we who saved him, I don’t see that it need matter.  He is probably so polite that the reason he objects is because he didn’t want to put us to so much trouble.”

“Perhaps,” agreed Blake.  “As you say, it doesn’t much matter.  I rather like him.”

“So do I,” assented Joe.  “But he sure is queer, in some ways.  Quite dramatic.  Why, you’d think he was on the stage the way he went on after he learned that we two, who had saved him, were the moving picture boys to whom he had a letter of introduction.”

“Yes.  I wonder what it all meant?” observed Blake.

The time was to come when he and Joe were to learn, in a most sensational manner, the reason for the decidedly queer actions of Mr. Alcando.

For some time longer the chums sat and talked.  But as the day waned, and the supper hour approached, they were no nearer a decision than before.

“Let’s let it go until morning,” suggested Blake.

“I’m with you,” agreed Joe.  “We can think better after we have ‘slept on it.’”

Joe was later than Blake getting up next morning, and when he saw his chum sitting out in a hammock under a tree in the farmyard, Joe noticed that Blake was reading a book.

“You’re the regular early worm this morning; aren’t you?” called Joe.  “It’s a wonder some bird hasn’t flown off with you.”

“I’m too tough a morsel,” Blake answered with a laugh.  “Besides, I’ve been on the jump too much to allow an ordinary bird the chance.  What’s the matter with you—­oversleep?”

“No, I did it on purpose.  I was tired.  But what’s that you’re reading; and what do you mean about being on the jump?”