“And one that wouldn’t look nice in moving pictures,” Blake went on with a laugh.  “You did me a good turn,” he said to Ramo a little later, as he shook hands with the dusky guide.  “I shan’t forget it.”

“Oh, it wasn’t anything to pop over an alligator that way,” Ramo returned.  “I’ve often done it for sport.  Though I will admit I was a bit nervous this time, for fear of hitting you.”

“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.

“Well, we’ll soon be afloat again,” remarked Blake, one night, when they had started back for Gamboa.  “I’ve had about enough jungle.”

“And so have I,” agreed Joe, for the last two days it had rained, and they were wet and miserable.  They could get no pictures.

Their tug was waiting for them as arranged and, once more on board, they resumed their trip through the Canal.

Soon after leaving Gamboa the vessel entered a part of the waterway, on either side of which towered a high hill through which had been dug a great gash.

“Culebra Cut!” cried Blake, as he saw, in the distance Gold Hill, the highest point.  “We must get some pictures of this, Joe.”

“That’s right, so we must.  Whew!  It is a big cut all right!” he went on.  “No wonder they said it was harder work here than at the Gatun Dam.  And it’s here where those big slides have been?”