The remark was greeted with shouts of laughter, and then the boys in the handsome clubroom of the Black Bear Patrol, in the city of New York, settled down to a serious discussion of the topic of the evening. There were seven present, Ned Nestor and Jimmie McGraw, of the Wolf Patrol; George Tolford, Harry Stevens, Glen Howard, and Jack Bosworth, of the famous Black Bear Patrol; and Peter Fenton, of the Panther Patrol. They ranged in age from thirteen to seventeen, Jimmie being the youngest and Ned Nestor the oldest of the group.

They were all enthusiastic Boy Scouts, and their clubrooms were well supplied with boxing gloves, foils, and footballs, as well as weapons and articles necessary on camping expeditions. The clubroom in which the boys were assembled on this gusty night in early April was situated in the upper part of the fine residence of Jack’s father, on Fifth avenue. The Black Bear Patrol was composed almost entirely of the sons of very wealthy parents, and the boys were off to the woods and waters whenever opportunity offered.

In company with Lieutenant Gordon, of the United States Secret Service, and Frank Shaw, a member of the Black Bear Patrol, whose arrival was momentarily expected, the boys present had, on the previous day, returned from a series of unusual and exciting experiences in Mexico, and now they were discussing a proposed plan for an excursion to the Canal Zone. Of course they could make the trip if they desired, but what they wanted was to go in the company of Lieutenant Gordon, sent there on a secret mission by the Secretary of War.

“Aw, come on, Ned, an’ be a good feller,” Jimmie McGraw urged, as Nestor expressed a doubt as to the advisability of taking the boys on the Canal Zone trip, to which he had been invited by the lieutenant, both as assistant and companion. “Let us go! We’ll talk the lieutenant into letting us go along if you’ll say a good word for us.”

During the trip to Mexico to which reference has been made, Ned Nestor had succeeded in averting serious complications between the government of that rebellious republic and the government of the United States. Through his efforts a threatened raid across the Rio Grande from the Mexican side had been checked on the very border, and the secret service men associated with him did not hesitate to declare that his tact and activity had done much to prevent a war between the two countries.

Before leaving the scene of their operations in Mexico, Lieutenant Gordon had been ordered to New York on important official business. Only an inkling of what that official business was contained in his letter of instructions. Only the bare fact that complications in the Canal Zone were placing the Panama Canal in danger was conveyed to him. Later, after his arrival in New York, he had learned that the government suspected plots to destroy the great Gatun dam by the use of explosives.

Only a hint of the threatened danger had been conveyed to the War department, but that was enough to set on foot the investigation of which Lieutenant Gordon was to be the head. One of the lieutenant’s first acts after receiving his instructions was to secure the services of Ned Nestor, being guided in this by the wonderful success of the boy’s efforts in Mexico.

Thus it chanced that on this night every boy who had had the good fortune to share in the Mexican adventures was importuning Nestor to use his influence with the lieutenant in order that they might all be taken into the party. They had already gained the consent of their parents, Nestor, individually, was willing, and it only remained to convince Lieutenant Gordon that they could be of use to him and the government on the Canal Zone.

“If you don’t loosen up and take us with you,” Harry Stevens declared, with a grin in the direction of his companions, “we’ll give you a chase to the equator. You know how you found Jimmie in George’s bed? Well, if you don’t take us along with you, you’ll find us all in your bed before you get to Panama.”

“It seems a pity to unload such a mess of wild animals on the people of the Zone,” laughed Nestor, “but we’ll leave it all to Lieutenant Gordon. Lavish your honeyed words and smiles on him!”

“What’s it all about, anyway?” demanded Jimmie. “It’s something concerning the big canal, I know, for I heard you two talking of explosives at the Gatun dam.”

“We all heard that,” cried Jack Bosworth. “You can’t keep secrets from us. What is it all about? Is some one trying to blow up the big dam?”

Nestor looked into the faces of the boys with serious eyes. He had not suspected that they knew anything definite regarding the secret mission, and was annoyed to think that he in part might be to blame for the leak which had been discovered.

“Is that what you’re going for?” asked Harry Stevens. “Are you going to mix with governmental affairs again? Because we’ve got to go if you are. Honest, now, we won’t say a word if you tell us.”

“Do you all promise that?” asked Nestor.

“Sure we do,” came in chorus.

“Well, then,” Nestor went on, “we don’t know much about the matter, except that there are hostile influences at work down there, directed against the canal. We do not know the proposed point of attack, but presume that the big dam is in the greatest danger. We do not even know where to look for the plotters, or whether they are Americans or of foreign birth. The motive for the contemplated destruction of the great waterway is not even surmised. In fact, for all we know, this may be a scare, but the thing is serious enough to call for rigid investigation, so down there we go.”

“Sure you can’t get along without us!” cried Jimmie. “If you want to know who is at the bottom of it all, just ask me. It’s the railroads. I’ve heard men say the canal would have been finished years ago only for the determined opposition of the transcontinental lines.”

“Much you know about it!” cried Harry Stevens. “If anybody should ask you where to look for the trouble, put your finger on the map of Japan. The little brown men are digging under the Gatun dam if any one is.”

“It does not seem possible that either the Japanese government or the railroad interests would descend to such despicable work,” Nestor said. “I won’t believe it of either of them until I have absolute proof.”

“It would be going some to blow up the Gatun dam,” Peter Fenton cut in. “Why, when finished, that dam will be more than a hundred feet high, and will cover one hundred and sixty-four square miles with water. Its purpose is to huddle the highland streams into a lake which will become a part of the canal. This lake will cover plantations, small farms, villages, and even the present right of way of the Panama railroad.”

“If they succeed in blowing up the Gatun dam,” Jack said, “there will be no Canal Completion Exposition in San Francisco in four years. That would be a shame, for we were all going.”

“Think of all that land being put down in the bed of a lake!” Harry Stevens exclaimed. “We ought to have taken a tip when the canal was first talked about and bought up that property. Uncle Sam would have bought it of us at a fancy price. Just think of a sure-thing speculation like that.”

Peter Fenton, known as the Encyclopedia, sat back in his chair and laughed until his face was as red as the painted snout of the black bear which looked down from a shield on the wall. The boys shook him up until he regained the power of speech.

“If you boys had been one year old when the Panama Canal was first mentioned,” he managed to say, choking back his laughter, “you would now stand at the venerable age of four hundred and sixteen years.”

“I guess you get your history in the dream book,” Jimmie cried.

“Nixy dream book,” declared Peter, with the dignity which comes of much knowledge. “The Spaniards who lived in the Province of New Granada, on the Isthmus of Darien, as it was then called, planned a ship canal across the neck in the year 1518, and there has been talk of the big ditch ever since.”

“Then it takes a long time to get at the job,” suggested Jimmie. “The trench could have been scooped out with a teaspoon in less than four hundred years.”

“Wait until you get down there! You’ll see what impression your teaspoon would make. I’ve been reading up since I’ve returned to New York, and know something about the size of the job. The canal will cost millions more than Congress figured on, and the job is going ahead without graft, at that.”

“Still,” Harry Stevens interrupted, “it would have been a wise move to have annexed a lot of that land.”

“If your speculation had developed when the first talk of the canal was heard,” Peter went on, “you would have had to do business with King Ferdinand, of Spain. He would have put the soil on the bargain counter for you one day and shot you up the next. That wouldn’t have been so cheerful.”

“Nice party to do business with,” laughed Harry.

“He was next to his king job, all right,” Peter continued. “He was there with the gunpowder when any subject stood to put anything over on him. He caused Columbus to be returned to Spain in chains, and permitted one of his officials to shoot up the first white man who ever looked out on the Pacific from the divide of the Isthmus. He carried things by a large majority, did Ferdinand.”

“It was his queen who put her jewels in soak to buy a ship for Columbus,” commented Jack Bosworth. “I read about it when I was laid up with my broken arm. You remember the time the horse climbed into my motor car?”

“The police say you never stopped running until you bumped against one of the White Mountains,” laughed Harry. “Who was this white man who first climbed the divide?” he asked; “as I’m going down there, I want to know. I may set up a monument to his memory.”

“Don’t be too sure about going,” warned Glen Howard. “Lieutenant Gordon may kick on the whole bunch of us.”

“Then we’ll all go down in my motor boat,” replied Harry. “You can’t keep me out of the Canal Zone when there’s things doing.”

“The man’s name was Balboa,” said Peter, in answer to the question, as he smiled at this tardy recognition of the services of the explorer. “He went broke at St. Domingo, one day in the year 1510, and hired a fellow to head him up in a wine cask and put the cask on board a ship bound for Darien. He made the trip, all right, and landed broke, but in three years he was captain of the precinct, as they say in Manhattan, and on his way to the Pacific. He looked out on the big ocean for the first time on the 26th of September, 1513. Some say it was the 25th. I don’t know which is right.”

The door of the clubroom now opened and Lieutenant Gordon entered. He was a man of not more than thirty, with a stern though not forbidding face and an alert military figure. His brown eyes lighted up with sudden humor as he dodged the clamorous boys, and dropped into a chair.

“What about it?” asked Jimmie, who seemed to be a favorite with the officer. “Do we go with you, or do we trail along in the motor boat?”

“The man higher up,” began the lieutenant, “says you may go with me if you will try to – ”

There was no necessity for the lieutenant going on with the sentence. He had warned the boys so many times as to their conduct on the Isthmus, if permitted to go with the secret service men, that they now knew in advance what he was going to say, and they repeated his former admonitions with shouts of laughter.

“All right,” said the lieutenant, trying to look dignified, “if you won’t listen you can’t go.”

“Go on an’ talk your chin off,” shouted Jimmie. “We’ll listen to every word until our arms drop to the floor.”

“Never mind that now,” laughed the officer. “I’m too busy at present to speak the advice you’ll all forget before I’m out of the room. Where is Frank Shaw? I came here to see him.”

“He was coming down to-night,” George Tolford replied, “but it is so late now that he may not be here. Anything special?”

“Why, yes,” was the reply. “I want to know what he has been saying to his father about the difficulty in the Canal Zone.”

“Why, he doesn’t know anything to tell,” said Nestor, “not even as much as the boys here now know, for I have talked the situation over with them but not with him.”

“What do they know regarding the situation?” asked the lieutenant, apprehensively.

“Nothing except that the Panama canal is threatened by some unknown influence.”

“Well,” said the lieutenant, thoughtfully, “some one has been leaking, and it seems as if our first move in the game must be made right here in New York.”

“It wasn’t Frank that leaked,” Jimmie asserted, in defense of his friend. “He wouldn’t do such a thing, and he couldn’t tell what he didn’t know, anyway,” with which logical conclusion the boy turned his back to the group.

“There is something wrong somewhere,” Lieutenant Gordon said. “Wait until I tell you what took place this afternoon and you will agree with me.”

CHAPTER II.
THEFT OF THE EMERALD NECKLACE

“Early this afternoon,” the lieutenant went on as the boys gathered about him, “I was interviewed by a reporter for the Daily Planet.”

“Frank’s father owns that newspaper,” Jimmie suggested.

“Yes,” said the officer, “and that is why I thought Frank might know something of the origin of the inquiry. The reporter was not slow in getting at the point he was in my rooms to discuss. Almost the first question he asked me was this: ‘Is it true that the government has ordered you to the Canal Zone to investigate an alleged plot to blow up the Gatun dam?’ Coming from a reporter, as it did, the question knocked me all in a heap.”

Ned Nestor leaned forward with a new interest showing in his face.

“I should think so,” he said. “What did you tell him?”

“I tried to bluff him out at first, but soon learned that he knew more about the Zone situation than I did. He didn’t get much information from me, but I learned from him that the Daily Planet is wise to the whole situation, as the boys say. Now, the question is this: ‘Where did the editor secure his information?’ I asked him in so many words, but he only laughed at me.”

“The place to go for that information,” Nestor suggested, “is to the editor himself. Mr. Shaw would, of course, know all about it.”

“That is exactly what I thought,” said the lieutenant, “so I lost no time in getting to the editorial rooms. Mr. Shaw was there, and treated me very courteously, but the only satisfaction I could get from him was the information that he knew something of what was going on, and was doing his best to secure enough facts regarding the matter for a news story.”

“I may be able to get more than that out of him,” George ventured.

“I doubt it,” the lieutenant said, “for he is afraid some rival newspaper will get an inkling of the matter and beat him out on the sensation he is preparing. It seems that his men have discovered documentary evidence of some sort, papers which might be of great value in the hands of the government.”

“Wouldn’t he give you a hint as to the contents of the papers?” asked Ned.

“No; he wouldn’t even give me an idea as to the parties he suspects. I think he might have done that, in the interest of good government. Well, of course his information is his own, but he might have trusted me not to betray his confidence to his rivals. I must confess that I don’t like his attitude in the matter.”

“The papers may contain nothing the government could use,” Ned observed, “although their value to the newspaper may be great.”

“I would like to get a look at them, all the same,” said Gordon.

“I wish he would call off his reporters,” Ned went on. “If they go about the city asking the questions they asked of you, the plotters will soon know that they are being watched, and that will make their capture more difficult.”

“That is the idea,” exclaimed the lieutenant. “Perhaps we can get him to let the case alone for a few days.”

“That is doubtful,” Ned said, “but there is one ray of light in the situation. If the plotters find out that the editor of the Daily Planet has documentary evidence against them, they may try to steal the papers, and so disclose their identity.”

“I would steal them myself if I got a chance,” laughed Gordon. “The government needs every pointer it can get.”

“Better let the others try first,” advised Nestor, with a smile. “It really does begin to look as if the first move in this Panama game might be made right here in New York.”

“I’d like to know where Shaw got the pointer,” Gordon said, in a moment. “I thought at first that Frank might have let out something in asking permission to go to the Zone.”

“He doesn’t know a thing about it,” Jimmie put in, warm in the defense of his friend. “How could he drop a hint, then?”

“There was something said about the situation in Panama before we left the Sierra del Fierro mountains in Mexico,” said Nestor, “but I can’t for the life of me tell just what it was.”

“It was nothing definite,” said Harry Stevens, “for I had forgotten all about it. There was some talk about our going to the Canal Zone, but nothing was decided on, and the plot against the government wasn’t mentioned. At least that is my best recollection of the talk there.”

“There was something more than that said,” the lieutenant observed, “but that is unimportant now. The thing to do, if we can, is to stop this investigation by the Daily Planet. The reporters will let the cat out of the bag and the interests back of the plot will either act immediately, before we can check them, or delay the matter until everything in connection with it is forgotten.”

“If the papers collected by the Daily Planet people give any inkling of the motive which is leading the plotters on,” Nestor said, “we really ought to get hold of them.”

“I believe you are as bad as the lieutenant, and would steal them yourself if you got a chance,” grinned Jimmie.

“I would at least try to get a look at them,” was the reply.

“Look here, fellows!” George Tolford cried, excitedly, “I think I know where Mr. Shaw got his pointer. It is this way: Mr. Shaw is interested in Zone property, and owns a large block of stock in an emerald mine. He spent most of the past winter on the Isthmus, and there is where he unearthed the story. You take it from me that this is right.”

“That view of the case makes it all the more imperative that we learn the contents of the papers Mr. Shaw has,” said the lieutenant, rising and pacing the room excitedly. “If he got his information on the Isthmus, it is more than likely that it points out not only the motive but also the interest which is planning the outrage. I must send some high official to talk with Mr. Shaw. He is interested in an emerald mine, you say?” he asked.

“Sure he is,” replied George Tolford. “Frank told me all about it not long ago, at the time he showed me an emerald necklace his father gave him.”

“An emerald necklace,” repeated Jimmie. “What you gettin’ at? Boys don’t wear necklaces.”

“This emerald necklace,” George went on, “is as old as the hills. Frank says the stones were taken out of a mine in a valley in the interior of Colombia four hundred years ago. There are twenty-five stones, each weighing over six carats. Taken separately, the stones are worth a thousand each, and together their price is fabulous. Frank says the necklace formerly belonged to some secret order of natives, and that $100,000 has been offered for it because of the perfectly matched stones, and because of its wonderful history. It is a peach, I can tell you that, and Frank will never go broke as long as he sticks to it.”

“I didn’t know that there were any emeralds down that way,” Glen Howard said. “We will bring a couple of carloads back with us.”

“Emeralds down that way!” repeated Peter Fenton. “Why, the best emeralds in the world are found in South America. The very best are found in veins traversing clay-slate, hornblende slate, and granite, in a little valley not far from Bogota, the capital of the United States of Colombia. Inferior stones are found imbedded in mica slate in Europe. You see I’ve been reading up on South America.”

“It looks that way,” laughed Lieutenant Gordon. “I must get a look at Frank’s emerald necklace before I leave New York.”

“We may find one like it in the ruins of Spanish Panama,” said Peter.

“Guess there ain’t many ruins around Panama,” declared Jimmie. “Not many ruins anywhere Uncle Sam’s soldiers are.”

“Just the same,” persisted Peter, “the Panama built by the Spaniards in the year 1518 is now in ruins, unless it has been restored since the Americans took possession of the Canal Zone. It lies six miles to the northeast of the present city of that name.”

“I wish Frank would drop in to-night,” the lieutenant said, after a pause. “I have an idea that he might suggest something of value just now, some way in which his father may be reached. We are leaving for the Zone on Thursday morning, so have only one more day in the city, consequently there is no time to lose.”

The boys fairly shrieked their appreciation of the information that they were to depart for the Isthmus so soon, and gathered about Lieutenant Gordon with extended hands.

“But you must understand this,” the lieutenant said, returning the greetings heartily, “you are not supposed to be in my company at all. I may need to talk with some of you, but if I do it will be in a casual manner, just as one tourist might address another. I am traveling alone, understand. I shall stop at the Tivoli, at Ancon, a short distance from Panama, and you will have a cottage in the jungle, near Gatun.”

“And we are to ramble about wherever we like?” asked Harry.

“Wherever you like,” was the reply, “only you must not look me up unless in case of serious trouble. I’ll communicate with you when necessary.”

The boys all agreed to the conditions readily enough; they would have consented to almost any arrangement in order to be taken on the trip. After the details were disposed of, Ned called the lieutenant aside and asked him a most surprising question:

“Are you really thinking of trying to steal those papers?”

“I’ve a great mind to make the attempt,” was the smiling reply. “We need them in our business, and, besides, the government has plenty of men here who may as well be working on this case as any other.”

“This is on the theory that the papers may reveal to you the nature of the plot and the names of the plotters?”

“That is the idea, exactly. I have no doubt now that Mr. Shaw secured his pointers while on the Isthmus, and the papers doubtless contain information which it might take us months to procure. Yes, I think I shall set men at work on the case to-morrow. Besides getting the papers, we will rob Shaw of his sensation. A publication of the situation just now would be a calamity.”

“I think,” Nestor said, modestly, “that I see a way to accomplish the ends you seek without resorting to larceny. Will you promise me that you will do nothing further in the matter of the documents until I have talked with you again on the subject?”

“But it is imperative that we act quickly,” protested the lieutenant.

“I understand that,” Nestor replied, “but, all the same, I think I see a way to gain our ends by keeping out of the way at present. Will you promise?”

“Oh, yes! Have your own way about it. I can set the men at work just before we leave New York, and the information contained in the papers can be sent to me by code. Have your own way, my boy.”

“Thank you,” Nestor said, and the two returned to the main room. The ’phone in a closet near the door was ringing sharply, and Harry Stevens entered the closet and shut the door. In a moment exclamations of dismay and surprise were heard issuing from the other side of the closed door, and then Harry bounced back into the room, his face white, his eyes shining with excitement.

“What is it?” asked half a dozen voices.

“Lieutenant Gordon and Ned are wanted at Shaw’s house at once,” the boy said. “Go on the run, boys, for there is something stirring there. Mr. Shaw has been chloroformed, the servants knocked about like tenpins, and Frank’s emerald necklace has been stolen. We’ll wait here for news.”

“And so,” the lieutenant said, looking Nestor in the eyes, “you were waiting for the interests back of this thing to show their hand by trying to get the papers.”

“Yes,” replied Nestor, “I had an idea the interests would try to do a little stealing on their own hook.”

“But if they have secured the papers – ”

The lieutenant hesitated, and Nestor went on:

“If they have secured the papers, they know no more now than they did before. They are not out after information concerning their own plots. They are trying to reduce the outside supply of knowledge about their movements.”

“There was nothing said about papers being stolen, was there?” asked the lieutenant. “Perhaps the necklace really was the point of attack.”

Nestor turned to George Tolford.

“Do you know where Frank kept his necklace?” he asked.

“Sure I do,” was the quick reply. “He kept it in a hinky-dinky little safe up in his room. I told him he was foolish to take such a risk with it.”

“Did he keep the safe locked?”

“Locked! Not half the time. He would rush in there, open it up, and then run all over the house, leaving the door swinging.”

Nestor and the lieutenant now left the room, after asking the boys to wait there for a short time. Once out on the street, the lieutenant remarked:

“If the necklace was kept in Frank’s room, why did the thief take the pains to chloroform Mr. Shaw, who must have been in his own room?”

Nestor shrugged his shoulders for reply. That was a point he had already considered. Again the lieutenant asked a question:

“If the papers had been taken, wouldn’t that have been mentioned the very first thing? Wouldn’t Mr. Shaw think first of recovering them?”

“I don’t know,” replied Nestor. “The thing for us to do now is to find out who it was that entered the Shaw house to-night, and what was taken besides the necklace.”