e rain
had not ceased.

"I'm going to dig here!" decided Blake in desperation, as with his
bare hands he began throwing aside the dirt and stones. Mr.
Alcando watched him for a moment, and then, as though giving up
his idea as to where Joe lay beneath the dirt, he, too, started
throwing on either side the clay and soil.

Blake glanced down the hill. The Indian messenger had disappeared,
and, presumably, had reached the tug, and was giving the message
for help. Then Blake bent to his Herculean task again. When next
he looked up, having scooped a slight hole in the side of the
hill, he saw a procession of men running up--men with picks and
shovels over their shoulders. He saw, too, a big slice of the hill
in the Canal. The wonderful waterway was blocked at Culebra Cut.

Blake thought little of that then. His one idea and frantic desire
was to get Joe out.

"They'll never get here in time," said Mr. Alcando in a low voice.
"We'll never get him out in time."

"We--we must!" cried Blake, as again he began digging.

Mr. Alcando had spoken the truth. The men could not get there in
time--Joe could not be dug out in time--if it had depended on
human agencies. For not only was Blake unaware of the exact spot
where his chum lay buried, but, at least so it seemed, there had
been such a mass of earth precipitated over him that it would
mean hours before he could be gotten out.

However, fate, luck, Providence, or whatever you choose to call
it, had not altogether deserted the moving picture boys. The very
nature of the slide, and the hill on which it had occurred, was in
Joe's favor. For as Blake, after a despairing glance at the
approaching column of men, bent again to his hopeless task, there
was a movement of the earth.

"Look out!" cried Mr. Alcando.

He would have spoken too late had what happened been of greater
magnitude. As it was Blake felt the earth slipping from beneath
his feet, and jumped back instinctively. But there was no need.

Beyond him another big slide had occurred, and between him and Mr.
Alcando, and this last shift of the soil, was a ridge of rocks
that held them to their places.

Down in a mass of mud went another portion of the hill, and when
it had ceased moving Blake gave a cry of joy. For there, lying in
a mass of red sand, was Joe himself, and beside him was the
camera, the tripod legs sticking out at grotesque angles.

"Joe! Joe!" yelled Blake, preparing to leap toward his chum.

"Be