over them a rubber covering he had
brought, Blake began to run across the side of the hill toward the
place where Joe had last been seen.

"Come on!" cried Blake to Mr. Alcando, but the Spaniard needed no
urging. He had laid with Blake's the boxes of film he carried, and
the two were now speeding to the rescue.

"Go get help!" cried Joe to an Indian worker from the tug, who had
followed to help carry things if needed. "Go quick! Bring
men--shovels! We may have to dig him out," he added to Mr.
Alcando.

"If--if we can find him," replied the other in low tones.

"Go on--run!" cried Joe, for the Indian did not seem to
understand. Then the meaning and need of haste occurred to him.

"_Si, senor_, I go--_pronto_!" he exclaimed, and he was off on a
run.

Fortunately for Blake and Mr. Alcando, the worst of the slide
seemed to be over. A big mass of the hill below them, and off to
their right, had slid down into the Canal. It was the outer edge
of this that had engulfed Joe and his camera. Had he been directly
in the path of the avalanche, nothing could have saved him. As it
was, Blake felt a deadly fear gripping at his heart that, after
all, it might be impossible to rescue his chum.

"But I'll get him! I'll get him!" he said fiercely to himself,
over and over again. "I'll get him!"

Slipping, sliding, now being buried up to their knees in the soft
mud and sand, again finding some harder ground, or shelf of shale,
that offered good footing, Blake and the Spaniard struggled on
through the rain. It was still coming down, but not as hard as
before.

"Here's the place!" cried Blake, coming to a halt in front of
where several stones formed a rough circle. "He's under here."

"No, farther on, I think," said the Spaniard.

Blake looked about him. His mind was in a turmoil. He could not be
certain as to the exact spot where Joe had been engulfed in the
slide, and yet he must know to a certainty. There was no time to
dig in many places, one after the other, to find his chum. Every
second was vital.

"Don't you think it's here?" Blake asked, "Try to think!"

"I am!" the Spaniard replied. "And it seems to me that it was
farther on. If there was only some way we could tell--"

The sentence trailed off into nothingness. There was really no way
of telling. All about them was a dreary waste of mud, sand,
boulders, smaller stones, gravel and more mud--mud was over
everything. And more mud was constantly being made, for th