The Moving Picture Boys at Panama; Or, Stirring Adventures Along the Great Canal

by Victor Appleton

  CHAPTER XXV

  MR. ALCANDO DISAPPEARS

  For several seconds Blake and Joe stood there--withoutmoving--only listening. And that strange noise they heard kept upits monotonous note.

  "Hear it!" whispered Joe.

  "Yes," answered Blake. "The brass box--the box--he had!"

  "Yes," whispered Joe. All the suspicions he had had--all those hehad laughed at Blake for harboring, came back to him in a rush.The brass-bound box contained clockwork. Was it an alarm afterall? Certainly it had given an alarm now--a most portentous alarm!

  "We've got to find it!" said Blake.

  "Sure," Joe assented. "It may go off any minute now. We've got tofind it. Seems to be near here."

  They began looking about on the ground, as though they could seeanything in that blackness. But they were trying to trace it bythe sound of the ticks. And it is no easy matter, if you have evertried to locate the clock in a dark room.

  "We ought to give the alarm," said Blake.

  "Before it is too late," assented Joe. "Where can it be? It seemsnear here, and yet we can't locate it."

  "Get down on your hands and knees and crawl around," advisedBlake. In this fashion they searched for the elusive tick-tick.They could hear it, now plainly, and now faintly, but they neverlost it altogether. And each of them recognized the peculiarclicking sound as the same they had heard coming from thebrass-bound box Mr. Alcando had said was his new alarm clock.

  "Hark!" suddenly exclaimed Blake.

  Off to the left, where was planted the automatic camera, came afaint noise. It sounded like a suppressed exclamation. Then camean echo as if someone had fallen heavily.

  An instant later the whole scene was lit up by a brilliantflash--a flash that rivaled the sun in brightness, and made Blakeand Joe stare like owls thrust suddenly into the glare of day.

  "The dynamite!" gasped Joe, unconsciously holding himself inreadiness for a shock.

  "The flashlight--the automatic camera!" cried Blake. There was noneed for silence now.

  The whole scene was brilliantly lighted, and remained so for manyseconds. And in the glare of the magnesium powder the movingpicture boys saw a curious sight.

  Advancing toward the dam was a solitary figure, which had come tohalt when the camera went off with the flashlight. It was thefigure of a man who had evidently just arisen after a fall.

  "Mr. Alcando!" gasped Joe.

  "The Spaniard!" fairly shouted Blake.

  Then, as the two chums looked on the brilliantly lighted scene,knowing that the camera was faithfully taking pictures of everymove of their recent pupil, the boys saw, rushing toward Alcando,a number of the men and soldiers who had been in hiding.

  "He's surrounded--as good as caught," Blake cried. "So he's theguilty one."

  "Unless there's a mistake," spoke Joe.

  "Mistake! Never!" shouted his chum. "Look--the brass box!"

  The glare of the distant flashlight illuminated the ground attheir feet, and there, directly in front of them, was the tickingbox. From it trailed two wires, and, as Blake looked at them hegave a start.

  The next moment he had knelt down, and with a pair of pliers hecarried for adjusting the mechanism of his camera severed thewires with a quick snap. The ticking in the box still went on, butthe affair was harmless now. It could not make the electricalcurrent to discharge the deadly dynamite.

  "Boys! Boys! Where are you?" cried Captain Wiltsey.

  "Here!" cried Blake. "We've stopped the infernal machine!"

  "And we've got the dynamiter. He's your friend--"

  The rest of the words died away as the light burned itself out.Intense blackness succeeded.

  "Come on!" cried Joe. "They've got him. We won't have to work thehand cameras. The automatic did it!"

  They stumbled on through the darkness. Lanterns were brought andthey saw Mr. Alcando a prisoner in the midst of the Canal guards.The Spaniard looked at the boys, and smiled sadly.

  "Well, it--it's all over," he said. "But it isn't as bad as itseems."

  "It's bad enough, as you'll find," said Captain Wiltsey grimly."Are you sure the wires are disconnected, boys?" he asked.

  "Sure," replied Blake, holding out the brass box.

  "Oh, so you found it," said the Spaniard. "Well, even if it hadgone off there wouldn't have been much of an explosion."

  "It's easy enough to say that--now," declared the captain.

  But later, when they followed up the wires which Blake hadsevered, which had run from the brass-bound box to a point nearthe spillway of the dam, it was found that only a small charge ofdynamite had been buried there--a charge so small that it couldnot possibly have done more than very slight damage to thestructure.

  "I can't understand it," said Captain Wiltsey. "They could just aswell have put a ton there, and blown the place to atoms, and yetthey didn't use enough to blow a boulder to bits. I don'tunderstand it."

  "But why should Mr. Alcando try to blow up the dam at all?" askedBlake, "That's what I can't understand."

  But a little later they did, for the Spaniard confessed. He had toadmit his part in the plot, for the moving pictures, made by theautomatic camera, were proof positive that he was the guilty one.

  "Yes, it was I who tried to blow up the dam," Alcando admitted,"but, as you have seen, it was only to be an attempt to damage it.It was never intended to really destroy it. It was an apparentattempt, only."

  "But what for?" he was asked.

  "To cause a lack of confidence in the Canal," was the unexpectedanswer. "Those I represent would like to see it unused. It isgoing to ruin our railroad interests."

  Then he told of the plot in detail.

  Alcando was connected, as I have told you, with a Brazilianrailroad. The road depended for its profits on carrying goodsacross South America. Once the Canal was established goods couldbe transported much more cheaply and quickly by the water route.The railroad owners knew this and saw ruin ahead of them if theCanal were to be successful. Consequently they welcomed everydelay, every accident, every slide in Culebra Cut that would putoff the opening of the great waterway.

  But the time finally came when it was finished, and a success.Then one of the largest stockholders of the railroad, anunprincipled man, planned a plot. At first his fellow stockholderswould not agree to it, but he persuaded them, painting the ruin oftheir railroad, and saying only slight damage would be done to theCanal.

  His plan was to make a slight explosion, or two or more of them,near Culebra Cut or at the great dam. This, he anticipated, wouldcause shippers to regard the Canal with fear, and refuse to sendtheir goods through it. In that way the railroad would still holdits trade.

  Alcando was picked for the work. He did not want to undertake it,but he was promised a large sum, and threats were made againsthim, for the originator of the plot had a certain hold over him.

  "But I was to throw the blame on innocent parties if I could," theSpaniard went on, in his confession. "Also I was to select a meansof causing the explosion that would not easily be detected. Iselected moving pictures as the simplest means. I knew that somewere to be made of the Canal for Government use, and I thought ifI got in with the moving picture operators I would have a goodchance, and good excuse, for approaching the dam without beingsuspected. After I had accomplished what I set out to do I could,I thought, let suspicion rest on the camera men.

  "So I laid my plans. I learned that Mr. Hadley's firm had receivedthe contract to make the views, and, by inquiries, through spies,I learned who their principal operators were. It was then I cameto you boys," he said. "Ashamed as I am to confess it, it was myplan to have the blame fall on you."

  Blake and Joe gasped.

  "But when you saved my life at the broken bridge that time, ofcourse I would not dream of such a dastardly trick," the Spaniardresumed. "I had to make other plans. I tried to get out of italtogether, but that man would not let me. So I decided tosacrifice myself. I would myself blow up the dam, or, rather, makea little explosion that
would scare prospective shippers. I didnot care what became of me as long as I did not implicate you. Icould not do that.

  "So I changed my plans. Confederates supplied the dynamite, and Igot this clock-work, in the brass-bound box, to set it off bymeans of electrical wires. I planned to be far away when ithappened, but I would have left a written confession that wouldhave put the blame where it belonged.

  "I kept the battery box connections and clockwork inside the smallcamera I carried. Tonight all was in readiness. The dynamite wasplanted, and I set the mechanism. But something went wrong withit. There was too much of a delay. I came back to change thetimer. I broke the string connections you made, and--I was caughtby the camera. The news had, somehow, leaked out, and I wascaught. Well, perhaps it is better so," and he shrugged hisshoulders with seeming indifference.

  "But please believe me when I say that no harm would have come toyou boys," he went on earnestly, "nor would the dam have beengreatly damaged.

  "It was all a terrible plot in which I became involved, not allthrough my own fault," went on the Spaniard, dramatically. "Assoon as I met you boys, after you had saved my life, I repented ofmy part, but I could not withdraw. The plans of this scoundrel--yes, I must call him so, though perhaps I am as great--hisplans called for finding out something about the big guns thatprotect the Canal. Only I was not able to do that, though heordered me to in a letter I think you saw."

  Blake nodded. He and Joe were beginning to understand many strangethings.

  "One of the secret agents brought me the box containing themechanism that was to set off the dynamite," the Spaniard resumed."You nearly caught him," he added, and Blake recalled the episodeof the cigar smoke. "I had secret conferences with the men engagedwith me in the plot," the conspirator confessed. "At times Italked freely about dynamiting the dam, in order to throw off thesuspicions I saw you entertained regarding me. But I must explainone thing. The collision, in which the tug was sunk, had nothingto do with the plot. That was a simple accident, though I did knowthe captain of that unlucky steamer.

  "Finally, after I had absented myself from here several times, tosee that all the details of the plot were arranged, I received aletter telling me the dynamite had been placed, and that, after Ihad set it off, I had better flee to Europe."

  Blake had accidentally seen that letter.

  "I received instructions, the time we were starting off on thetug," went on Alcando, "that the original plot was to be changed,and that a big charge of dynamite was to be used instead of asmall one.

  "But I refused to agree to it," he declared. "I felt that, inspite of what I might do to implicate myself, you boys would beblamed, and I could not have that if the Canal were to suffergreat damage. I would have done anything to protect you, afterwhat you did in saving my worthless life," he said bitterly. "So Iwould not agree to all the plans of that scoundrel, though heurged me most hotly.

  "But it is all over, now!" he exclaimed with a tragic gesture. "Iam caught, and it serves me right. Only I can be blamed. My goodfriends, you will not be," and he smiled at Blake and Joe. "I amglad all the suspense is at an end. I deserve my punishment. I didnot know the plot had been discovered, and that the stage was setto make so brilliant a capture of me. But I am glad you boys hadthe honor.

  "But please believe me in one thing. I really did want to learnhow to take moving pictures, though it was to be a blind as to myreal purpose. And, as I say, the railroad company did not want toreally destroy the dam. After we had put the Canal out of businesslong enough for us to have amassed a fortune we would have beencontent to see it operated. We simply wanted to destroy publicconfidence in it for a time."

  "The worst kind of destruction," murmured Captain Wiltsey. "Takehim away, and guard him well," he ordered the soldiers. "We willlook further into this plot to-morrow."

  But when to-morrow came there was no Mr. Alcando. He had managedto escape in the night from his frail prison, and whither he hadgone no one knew.

  But that he had spoken the truth was evident. A furtherinvestigation showed that it would have been impossible to haveseriously damaged the dam by the amount of dynamite hidden. But,as Captain Wiltsey said, the destruction of public confidencewould have been a serious matter.

  "And so it was Alcando, all along," observed Blake, a few dayslater, following an unsuccessful search for the Spaniard.

  "Yes, our suspicions of him were justified," remarked Blake. "It'sa lucky thing for us that we did save his life, mean as he was. Itwouldn't have been any joke to be suspected of trying to blow upthe dam."

  "No, indeed," agreed Blake. "And suspicion might easily havefallen on us. It was a clever trick. Once we had the Governmentpermission to go all over with our cameras, and Alcando, as apupil, could go with us, he could have done almost anything hewanted. But the plot failed."

  "Lucky it did," remarked Joe. "I guess they'll get after thatrailroad man next."

  But the stockholder who was instrumental in forming the plot, likeAlcando, disappeared. That they did not suffer for their parts inthe affair, as they should have, was rumored later, when both ofthem were seen in a European capital, well supplied with money.How they got it no one knew.

  The Brazilian Railroad, however, repudiated the attempt to damagethe Canal, even apparently, laying all the blame on the two menwho had disappeared. But from then on more stringent regulationswere adopted about admitting strangers to vital parts of theCanal.

  "But we're through," commented Blake one day, when he and Joe hadfilmed the last views of the big waterway. "That Alcando was a'slick' one, though."

  "Indeed he was," agreed Joe. "The idea of calling that a new alarmclock!" and he looked at the brass-bound box. Inside was a mostcomplicated electrical timing apparatus, for setting off chargesof explosive. It could be adjusted to cause the detonation at anyset minute, giving the plotter time to be a long way from thescene.

  And, only because of a slight defect, Alcando would have been farfrom the scene when the little explosion occurred at Gatun Dam.

  Once more the great Canal was open to traffic. The last of theslide in Culebra Cut had been taken out, and boats could passfreely.

  "Let's make a trip through now, just for fun," suggested Blake toJoe one day, when they had packed up their cameras.

  Permission was readily granted them to make a pleasure tripthrough to Panama, and it was greatly enjoyed by both of them.

  "Just think!" exclaimed Blake, as they sat under an awning on thedeck of their boat, and looked at the blue water, "not a thing todo."

  "Until the next time," suggested Joe.

  "That's right--we never do seem to be idle long," agreed Blake. "Iwonder what the 'next time' will be?"

  And what it was, and what adventures followed you may learn byreading the next volume of this series, to be called "The MovingPicture Boys Under the Sea; Or, The Treasure on the Lost Ship."

  "Here you go, Blake!" cried Joe, a few days later. "Letter foryou!"

  "Thanks. Get any yourself?"

  "Yes, one."

  "Huh! How many do you want?" asked Blake, as he began reading hisepistle. "Well, I'll soon be back," he added in a low voice, as hefinished.

  "Back where?" asked Joe.

  "To New York."

  And so, with these pleasant thoughts, we will take leave of themoving picture boys.

  THE END