I didn't suppose they'd be open so early in
the morning."

"They weren't. I had to wait, and I was the first customer, if you
can call it that."

"You _are_ getting studious!" laughed Joe. "Great Scott! Look at
what he's reading!" he went on as he caught a glimpse of the title
of the book. "'History of the Panama Canal' Whew!"

"It's a mighty interesting book!" declared Blake. "You'll like
it."

"Perhaps--if I read it," said Joe, drily.

"Oh, I fancy you'll want to read it," went on Blake,
significantly.

"Say!" cried Joe, struck with a sudden idea. "You've made up your
mind to go to Panama; haven't you?"

"Well," began his chum slowly, "I haven't fully decided--"

"Oh, piffle!" cried Joe with a laugh. "Excuse my slang, but I know
just how it is," he proceeded. "You've made up your mind to go,
and you're getting all the advance information you can, to spring
it on me. I know your tricks. Well, you won't go without me; will
you?"

"You know I'd never do that," was the answer, spoken rather more
solemnly than Joe's laughing words deserved. "You know we promised
to stick together when we came away from the farms and started in
this moving picture business, and we have stuck. I don't want to
break the combination; do you?"

"I should say not! And if you go to Panama I go too!"

"I haven't actually made up my mind," went on Blake, who was,
perhaps, a little more serious, and probably a deeper thinker than
his chum. "But I went over it in my mind last night, and I didn't
just see how we could refuse Mr. Hadley's request.

"You know he started us in this business, and, only for him we
might never have amounted to much. So if he wants us to go to
Panama, and get views of the giant slides, volcanic eruptions, and
so on, I, for one, think we ought to go."

"So do I--for two!" chimed in Joe. "But are there really volcanic
eruptions down there?"

"Well, there have been, in times past, and there might be again.
Anyhow, the slides are always more or less likely to occur. I was
just reading about them in this book.

"Culebra Cut! That's where the really stupendous work of the
Panama Canal came in. Think of it, Joe! Nine miles long, with an
average depth of 120 feet, and at some places the sides go up 500
feet above the bed of the channel. Why the Suez Canal is a farm
ditch alongside of it!"

"Whew!" whistled Joe. "You're there with the facts already,
Blake."

"They're so interesting I couldn't help but rememb