emain at the Central Falls hotel for a week or more, or
until you have fully made up your mind about the Panama trip,"
said Mr. Alcando on leaving the boys, "and I shall come out,
whenever you send me word, to learn of your decision. That it may
be a favorable one I need hardly say I hope," he added with a low
bow.

"We'll let you know as soon as we can," promised Blake. "But my
chum and I will have to think it over. We have hardly become
rested from taking flood pictures."

"I can well believe that, from what I have heard of your strenuous
activities."

"Well, what do you think about it all?" asked Joe, as he and his
chum sat on the shady porch an hour or so after the exciting
incidents I have just narrated.

"I hardly know," answered Blake. "I guess I'll have another go at
Mr. Hadley's letter. I didn't half read it."

He took the missive from his pocket, and again perused it. It
contained references to other matters besides the projected Panama
trip, and there was also enclosed a check for some work the moving
picture boys had done.

But as it is with the reference to the big canal that we are
interested we shall confine ourselves to that part of Mr. Hadley's
letter.

"No doubt you will be surprised," he wrote, "to learn what I have
in prospect for you. I know you deserve a longer vacation than you
have had this summer, but I think, too, that you would not wish to
miss this chance.

"Of course if you do not want to go to Panama I can get some other
operators to work the moving picture cameras, but I would rather
have you than anyone I know of. So I hope you will accept.

"The idea is this: The big canal is nearing completion, and the
work is now at a stage when it will make most interesting films.
Then, too, there is another matter--the big slides. There have
been several small ones, doing considerable damage, but no more
than has been counted on.

"I have information, however, to the effect that there is
impending in Culebra Cut a monstrous big slide, one that will beat
anything that ever before took place there. If it does happen I
want to get moving pictures, not only of the slide, but of scenes
afterward, and also pictures showing the clearing away of the
debris.

"Whether this slide will occur I do not know. No one knows for a
certainty, but a man who has lived in Panama almost since the
French started the big ditch, claims to know a great deal about
the slides and the causes of them. He tells m