"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
torc