“What made you act so funny, Blake, when you picked up that piece of paper?” asked Joe, when they had alighted from their motor cycle at the Baker homestead a little later.

“Well, to tell you the truth, Joe, I was a bit suspicious.”

“What about; that gun business?”

“Yes,” and Blake’s voice was serious.

“Buttermilk and corn cakes!” cried Joe with a laugh.  “You don’t mean to say you think this fellow is an international spy; do you?  Trying to get secrets of the United States fortifications at the Canal?”

“Well, I don’t know as I exactly believe that, Joe, and yet it was strange someone should be writing to him about the big guns.”

“Yes, maybe; but then he explained it all right.”

“You mean he tried to explain it.”

“Oh, well, if you look at it that way, of course you’ll be suspicious.  But I don’t believe anything of the sort.  It was just a blunder of someone who didn’t know how, trying to write the English language.

“It’s all nonsense to think he’s a spy.  He came to Mr. Hadley well recommended, and you can make up your mind Mr. Hadley wouldn’t have anything to do with him if there was something wrong.”

“Oh, well, I don’t exactly say he’s a spy,” returned Blake, almost wavering.  “Let it go.  Maybe I am wrong.”

“Yes, I think you are,” said Joe.  “I like that chap, and I think we’ll have fine times together.”

“We’ll have hard work, that’s one thing sure,” Blake declared.  “It isn’t going to be easy to get good pictures of the big ditch.  And waiting for one of those Culebra Cut slides is going to be like camping on the trail of a volcano, I think.  You can’t tell when it’s going to happen.”

“That’s right,” agreed Joe with a laugh.  “Well, we’ll do the best we can, old man.  And now let’s go on a picnic, or something, to finish out our vacation.  We won’t get another this year, perhaps.”

“Let’s go down and see how they’re coming on with the new bridge, where the horse tried to jump over the ravine,” suggested Blake, and, a little later they were speeding in that direction.

The final week of their stay in the country went by quickly enough, and though the boys appreciated their vacation in the quiet precincts of Central Falls, they were not altogether sorry when the time came to leave.

For, truth to tell, they were very enthusiastic about their moving picture work, and though they were no fonder of a “grind” than any real boys are, they were always ready to go back to the clicking cranks that unwound the strips of celluloid film, which caught on its sensitive surface the impressions of so many wonderful scenes.

They called at the hotel one evening to tell Mr. Alcando that they were going to New York the following day, and that he could, if he wished, accompany them.  But they found he had already left.  He had written them a note, however, in which he said he would meet them in the metropolis at the offices of the moving picture concern, and there complete plans for the trip to Panama.