While Ned and Jimmie were wondering how they were to escape from the subterranean chamber, Frank Shaw sat in the private room in the old house on the road to the Culebra cut, facing the gentleman of military carriage and wondering what would be the next move in the complicated game.

“How long have you known Lieutenant Gordon?” the man asked. “I beg your pardon,” he said, without giving the boy opportunity to answer the question, “but I have not yet told you who I am, and you can hardly be expected to answer questions asked by an unknown person, especially when so much is at stake. I am Colonel Sharrow, of the United States army, detailed on Canal Zone duty.”

The man’s manners were frank and engaging, his personal appearance that of an officer in the service, yet Frank did not trust him. He did not believe that Lieutenant Gordon had sent for the boys. He did not make answer to the question asked concerning the lieutenant, and it was asked again, in this way:

“Have you known Lieutenant Gordon long?”

“A very short time,” was the reply.

“You were with him in Mexico?”

“I met him in Mexico. I did not go there with him, nor did I travel in his company, except on the way out.”

“Do you think he is entirely loyal to the government?” was the next question.

“I think he is,” was the short reply.

“I am glad to hear you say that,” Colonel Sharrow continued. “I should be sorry to change the good opinion I have formed of Lieutenant Gordon.”

“It seems to me,” Frank said, indignantly, “that you are inviting an adverse opinion concerning him.”

“Not at all,” was the pleasant reply. “It was my purpose, in making the remark I did, to test your loyalty to my very good friend.”

There was a short silence in the room, during which Frank could hear his friends moving about excitedly in the adjoining apartment. If they were conversing, they were doing so in whispers, as no words could be heard.

“Lieutenant Gordon,” the Colonel said, “is very much devoted to the service, and is especially interested in the investigation upon which he is now engaged. By the way, he seems to have a very able assistant in the person of Ned Nestor.”

“Ned can help some,” Frank replied, delighted at this appreciation of his chum.

Colonel Sharrow did not seem to be a bad fellow, after all.

“I suppose Ned will be here with the lieutenant?” Frank asked, then.

The Colonel hesitated, smiling more pleasantly than ever.

“To tell you the truth,” he said, “the messenger did not tell you the exact truth. Ned is not with the lieutenant.”

“Then this is a trap,” exclaimed Frank, rising to his feet.

The Colonel laughed heartily.

“You are an impetuous young fellow,” he said.

“You will be telling me next,” the boy said, “that we are not to meet the lieutenant here.”

“You are not to meet him here,” was the calm reply.

Frank moved toward the door.

“Then I’ll be going,” he said.

“In a moment,” said the Colonel, stepping forward. “Wait until you hear what I say, and then you may pursue whatever course seems good to you. You were in deadly danger, out there in the cottage, and we thought best to get you away. We knew, too, that you were too loyal to leave the place in defiance of orders, and so we used this ruse to bring you here, to the protection of your friends. If Nestor had been at the cottage we might have explained the situation to him. What time did he leave?”

“Don’t you know what time he left, and why he went?” demanded Frank, all his former suspicions returning.

“We only know that he was not there at daybreak,” was the reply, “and so we brought you away. Why did he leave so suddenly?”

Frank looked the Colonel in the eyes unflinchingly, determined to have the truth out of him, and asked:

“And so you don’t know where he is now?”

The Colonel did not reply, and Frank knew that there was no necessity for continuing the conversation. He was satisfied that the Colonel was one of the plotters, perhaps the leader, that Ned’s departure from the cottage had not been detected by the man he had followed into the jungle, and that his friend, at least up to daybreak, had not fallen into the hands of the enemy.

He saw in an instant how the case stood. The plotters, spying about the cottage at daybreak, had noted the absence of Ned. Fearful that he had departed on some errand which might seriously affect their own interests, they had resolved to bring the others away and learn from them, if possible, where Ned had gone.

As the reader has doubtless suspected, this was the exact truth. The plotters, at the time the boys were taken from the cottage, did not know where Ned was. He had not been seen following the would-be murderer, nor had any information from the bomb-boom disclosed his presence there.

Colonel Sharrow had regarded the “pumping” of the boy as certain of success, and was not a little surprised when he failed to go into the details of the incident which had taken Ned and Jimmie away from the cottage. It had seemed certain to him that the boy would hasten into an excited account of the peril of the situation. He did not know how the bomb had been discovered, or how it had been taken from under the floor of the cottage, but he knew that it had been done.

He had depended upon Frank to tell him all about it, and to explain where Ned had gone and why he had left the cottage in the night. He was greatly worried over the disappearance of the boy, for he did not know what had been discovered regarding the attempted destruction of the cottage and the consequent murder of the boys. He did not know what steps Ned might be taking to discover the author of the attempted outrage of the previous night. Besides, he was curious to know just how the destruction of the cottage had been averted.

“We do not know where Ned is,” the Colonel said, in reply to Frank’s question. “We thought you might assist us in finding him.”

“How?” was the sharp demand.

“By telling us what took place at the cottage last night, and where Ned went when he left – also what time he left the cottage.”

“I thought so,” Frank said, when the case had thus plainly been stated. “I had an idea you wanted to know what steps are being taken to bring you and your bomb-thrower to justice. Well, I refuse to tell you anything about it.”

The Colonel was not yet ready to appear under his true colors. He had one more issue to discuss with the boy, and hoped to meet with better success than he had in the other matter.

“You don’t seem to understand the situation, or to trust me,” he said. “You do not appreciate the peril your friend may be in. If you did, you would tell us all you know about the incident. Now, there is another thing I wish to discuss with you. You are the son of the owner of the Daily Planet?”

Frank nodded.

“Have you communicated with your father recently?”

“Not since our arrival on the Isthmus.”

“Then you have not heard from him since your arrival here?”

“I have not.”

“And consequently do not know of the peril he is in?”

Frank started and turned pale. He knew that this information, like that concerning Ned and the lieutenant, might be false, but he was anxious just the same.

“What peril is he in?” he asked, and the other smiled to think he had struck fire at last.

“Well, it seems that he is accumulating proof against the men who are said to be planning to destroy the big canal, over yonder, and is getting on the wrong track. The men he is about to accuse of complicity in the plot are justly indignant, and are preparing to dynamite his building in case any copy concerning them is sent to the composing room.”

“You seem to be conversant with the affairs of these men,” Frank suggested, with a frown. “Are you one of the men who sneaked into our home and chloroformed father and stole my necklace?”

“I heard something about that,” the Colonel said, “and wondered at it. However, we are not discussing past incidents. What I desire you to do is to communicate with your father, in the cipher you sometimes use in your correspondence, and inform him of what I have just told you. Say to him that he is mistaken in the men, and that his building will be destroyed if he attempts to publish the alleged facts he has on hand.”

“I think,” Frank said, “that I can trust his good judgment. He can take care of himself.”

“Then you refuse to send the message?”

“I certainly do.”

“You seem to be a fat, healthy sort of a boy,” laughed the other, changing the subject, apparently, with a suddenness which astonished the boy.

“I have no cause to complain,” Frank said.

“How long do you think you can live without food?” was the next question.

Frank saw the meaning of the fellow in his angry eyes and dropped back into his chair. The boys in the next room were now talking excitedly, and some of the exclamations could be heard.

“If you don’t open the door we’ll break it down.”

That was Harry Stevens. The reply was too faint to be heard.

“What are you doing to Frank, anyway?”

That was Harry Stevens’ voice again. The question was immediately followed by a bang on the door.

“Keep back,” a voice said. “This gun is loaded.”

The situation was a serious one, and Frank blamed himself for getting into such a trap. If he had remained at the cottage, he thought, there would have been no immediate danger to his friends.

“Perhaps, after a week’s fast, you might have strength enough left to write such a communication to your father as I suggest?”

The manner was unbearable, the tone insulting, and Frank could hardly restrain himself from attacking the fellow.

“In a week,” he said, his eyes flashing, “you and your associates will be in some federal prison.”

“You talk bravely,” said the other, “and I observe that you are glancing about in search of some way out of this, to you, disagreeable situation. Spare your pains! Even if you could vanquish me and my associate in the next room, you could not leave the house. It is guarded by a dozen picked men.”

“Is that as true as the other things you have said?” asked the boy.

The Colonel laughed until his face turned red and his sides shook.

“You are a bright boy,” he said. “It is quite a pleasure to do business with you. A very capable boy.”

He went to the door of the room and looked out.

“Where are the men?” he asked.

The dwarf, who had been sitting on a rude table near the door, swinging his short legs in the air, looked up with a slight frown.

“I haven’t got ’em,” he said.

“Well, see if you can find them.”

The dwarf, called Jumbo by those who knew him, got off the table and pointed to a window.

“Use your eyes,” he said.

Three men stood there looking in. In the road in front stood the automobile in which the party had reached the house. On a hilltop perhaps sixty rods away a little spurt of dust indicated the approach of another motor car.

The Colonel beckoned to the men to enter. As they stepped inside three more men entered from a rear door. They were all dusky, hungry-looking fellows, with snaky black hair and shrinking black eyes. They were dressed in tattered clothes, and carried revolvers in plain view.

“Quite an army,” Frank said.

“This old house,” the Colonel began, a sneer on his thin lips, “is larger than you may think. At the top of a wing which stretches back toward the jungle there is a room where Spanish prisoners were once confined. With your permission I’ll escort you boys there, advising you, in the meantime, to think the situation over carefully.”

The puff of dust on the distant hilltop grew more pronounced, and the chug-chug of a swiftly moving motor reached the ears of those in the ancient structure.

CHAPTER X.
A DELEGATION OF BOY SCOUTS

The three men who entered the subterranean chamber where Ned and Jimmie were hidden did not go to work at the forge, neither did they illuminate the place with such poor means as were at hand. Instead, they settled down in sullen silence by the dying fire in the forge. What little talk there was could not be understood by the lads for the reason that it was conducted in Spanish.

Ned was waiting in the hope that they would soon take their departure, but they seemed to be in no hurry to do so. Finally it was disclosed, in a few words of broken English, that they were waiting for some persons of importance to appear.

“If they don’t get a move on pretty soon,” Jimmie whispered, “we’ll have to make a break of some kind. If we don’t get out directly there won’t be any newspaper building in the Shaw family, and Uncle Sam won’t have any more Gatun dam than a robin.”

“We must wait until the last moment,” Ned replied. “The guards out there would shoot us down before we could reach the head of the stairs. We can’t rush them from below.”

It was a long and anxious wait there in the underground room, especially as so much depended on the boys getting out. They had no idea what had happened to the boys left at the cottage, or what was taking place in New York. The only thing in their favor was that the workmen did not light the torches which lay about. Such an act would have led to their discovery and precipitated a struggle at once.

“See if you can’t reach one of them bombs,” Jimmie giggled, nudging Ned in the ribs. “I want to eat it.”

“I have about reached that stage myself,” Ned replied. “I never was so empty in my life. We’ll have to do something before long.”

“Suppose I start an’ run?” suggested Jimmie.

“You’ll get a breakfast of lead if you do,” Ned replied. “Sit still.”

Again the boys sat back in their corner to wait, huddled together for the sake of companionship, and wondering what had become of their chums at the cottage.

“They ought to be here by this time,” Jimmie complained, in a whisper. “I left plenty of instructions regarding the route.”

The little fellow did not, of course, know that the boys were at that moment in the ancient house near the Culebra cut, nor that an automobile was speeding over a hill to the north of the old structure – watched by his friends with anxious interest.

“Something may have happened to them,” Ned said. “It seems to me that this case is set on automatic springs. The slightest move on our part brings out a bang from the other side. Our opponents are industrious chaps, and that’s no fabrication. They keep going every minute of the time.”

“And they’ve won every trick so far,” grumbled Jimmie.

“Yes, but the game is not out yet,” Ned replied, hopefully.

“I should think these gazabos would get tired of waitin’ an’ go away,” Jimmie said, after another long silence.

“They are taking turns sleeping,” Ned replied. “I heard one of them snoring a few minutes ago.”

Jimmie settled back again, rubbing his stomach dolefully, and the place seemed to grow darker before his eyes. When he awoke again Ned was pulling at his arm, and there was a great shouting and pounding at the door.

“Wake up and get your gun out,” Ned said. “There’s going to be something started here in a minute.”

“What is it?” demanded the boy, sleepily.

“The others have come,” Ned replied, “and there’ll be lights in here directly.”

“I’m so wasted away with hunger,” Jimmie said, “that they’ll have to shoot pretty straight to hit me.”

One of the men by the forge now began stirring the embers preparatory to lighting a torch, and the others made for the door.

It looked as if there would be open battle in a moment, but in that moment a shot came from the outside, followed by a faint cheer.

The three men who had waited in the chamber drew together, close to the sullen light of the forge, the torches unlighted in their hands. They seemed to be whispering together, and the boys saw them turn their faces toward a corner not far from the forge.

Two more shots came from outside, and then a voice cried, in English:

“Open the door, you chumps.”

“That’s Jack Bosworth,” cried Jimmie, bounding toward the entrance.

Ned followed the boy’s movement for an instant, and then faced back toward the forge, where the three workmen had stood. The last one was just disappearing through an opening in the wall, and, with a bound the boy was after him. A heavy plank door snapped shut in his face.

Then the front door was thrust open, and Frank, and Jack, and Harry, and Glen, and Peter dashed through, shouting at the top of their voices. Jack even lifted up his chin and howled “In the prison cell I sit.”

“Prison nothin’,” Jimmie exclaimed, indignantly. “We was just goin’ out to find you fellers.”

“That’s what the guard at the door said,” cried Jack. “He told us that you were expected out any minute.”

The lads danced about like mad creatures for a moment, and then settled down to meet the situation in which they found themselves.

“Where are the guards?” asked Ned.

“If they are still going at the pace they set out in,” laughed Frank, “they must be pretty near up to San Francisco by this time. I never saw such running in my life.”

“Why didn’t you capture them?” asked Jimmie.

“For the same reason you did not capture the men who were inside,” laughed Frank.

“But we did capture ’em,” insisted Jimmie. “We’ve got ’em locked up in a chamber that opens from that corner.”

“Is that true?” asked Frank.

“Yes,” replied Ned. “It is true that they went into a chamber over there, but the door is locked on the other side.”

“We’ll soon remedy that,” Jack observed, and in a short time the boys were pounding away at the plank door with a heavy sledge which had evidently been used in cutting up the gas-pipe.

When the door was down a narrow passage was revealed. This, followed by the boys, led to an opening at the bottom of the knoll on which the temple had been built. The men who had operated the bomb factory had escaped, every one of them, and Ned turned away in disgust at the luck which seemed to pursue him.

“Every man of them got away,” he grumbled.

“What you kicking about?” demanded Jack, pulling away at the pile of pipe which was evidently the makings of a supply of bombs. “You captured their artillery.”

“They can make more,” Ned replied.

“And the maps he found,” Jimmie cried. “Maps showing how to blow up a Gatun dam and a New York newspaper office. All marked out. Just like lessons on blowing things up from a correspondence school.”

Frank was all attention immediately. He had heard something like that before that day, and asked a score of questions in a breath.

When the story of the drawings was told the boys gathered about Ned while he pointed out the lines drawn in what purported to be a sketch of the basement of the Daily Planet building. Frank declared that the dots made in the drawing were located exactly at steel and concrete foundation points. The plan of destruction had evidently been prepared by some one familiar with the structure.

“It strikes me,” Frank said, after a moment’s inspection of the drawings, “that we’d better get out of here and reach a cable office. One of the plotters was kind enough to tell me what they were about to do, and this looks like they mean to keep their word, for once in their lives, at least.”

“We’d better be getting out of this, anyway,” Jack put in, “for those chaps are sure to come back and bring a gang with them. Suppose we go back to the cottage and see what has been doing there?”

“I thought you came from the cottage here,” Ned said.

“No,” was the reply. “We left the road leading from Gatun at the point where you two left it last night.”

“I’ll bet you saw my signs in twigs,” Jimmie said.

“We sure did,” was the reply, “and we found your signs in stone out there on the stone pavement, and Jack bunted one of the guards in the head with the third rock.”

“But I don’t understand this,” Ned said. “Where have you boys been this morning?”

“This morning,” declared Frank. “It is most night now.”

“I’ll tell you,” grinned Jack, “they went and got taken prisoners by a martinet of a fellow and a dwarf, and I had to go and get them out. Say! But you wait a second, and I’ll produce my modest assistant.”

He stepped to the edge of the jungle and whistled shrilly, and the next moment a slender boy of perhaps fifteen stood by his side, gazing at the group, now on the pavement of what had at one time been the court of the temple, with something of fear in his dark eyes. He was dressed in clothes which were much too large for him, and his manner indicated that he was not at ease in the company of the well-dressed Boy Scouts.

“This is Gastong,” Jack explained. “He’s capable of doing a running stunt that would make an express train look like it was hitched to the scenery. Gastong,” he added, turning the boy around so that he faced the others, “this is the company of bold, bad men you’ve enlisted in. What patrol did you say you belonged to?”

“The Owl, Philadelphia,” was the reply.

“Gee,” cried Jimmie. “Looks to me like he was a piece of the Isthmus.”

“This,” explained Jack, with the voice and manner of one standing on a box before a tent and touting for a curiosity, “is Gastong, the boy tramp of the Isthmus. If he had a place to sleep he would run away from it before night. If he went to bed with a dime in his pocket he’d dream it was there and get up and spend it. If he was set to digging in a mine he’d chop his way through and come out on the other side and run away. If he was – ”

Frank clapped a hand over the speaker’s mouth and marched him away.

“We’ve got no time for stump speeches,” he said. “The gazabos we drove off when we arrived will come back with reinforcements, and – and there you are.”

“I’m dying to know what has been happening,” Ned said, with a laugh. “It looks to me as if you boys had been in something of a mess yourselves.”

“Time enough for that when we get back to the cottage,” Jack said. “Come on, Gastong, and we’ll lead the bunch to the festive board. I hope the cook will be there. Say, but why don’t you fellows compliment me on me fine appearance in this menial rig?”

“You haven’t given us time to say a word,” laughed Jimmie. “You look like the cook, indeed, you do; and you make me hungry.”

“That is another story for the cottage,” Jack said, and the boys hastened off toward the camp which had proved such a source of danger to them.

When they came in sight of the place they were astonished at seeing Lieutenant Gordon and the cook sitting side by side on the screened porch. The cook was still dressed in Jack’s clothes, and the lieutenant, who had evidently just arrived, was speaking rapidly, as if laboring under great excitement.