nds of the jungle. I want the skins for rugs. Guess
they will look pretty poor in our patrol room. What?"

"I'll come back with you in the daylight," Peter said, "if you'll come
away now."

Leaving the glade where they had encountered such dangers, the boys moved
toward the canal line, keeping the moon, now well toward the horizon, at
their back.

"If we had done this before," Jimmie said, as they forced their way
through clusters of clinging vines, "we would be at home in bed now."

"But we wouldn't have had the jaguar rugs coming to us," answered Peter.
"Glad I didn't think of it before."

Presently they came to the top of a little hill in the jungle and looked
out over the country ahead. There were no canal lights in the distance.
Afar off they could see a faint streak of dawn.

"I don't believe we're going right, after all," Jimmie said.

"We must keep a little more to the left," Peter replied. "The line of the
canal runs almost southeast here, and we are going east. We'll strike it
quicker if we turn to the north."

"This ain't much like the Great White Way at daylight," commented Jimmie,
as a great creeper settled about his neck, having been pulled from a tree
by his companion.

"I don't see what we're doing in here in the night, anyway," Peter
observed. "We didn't come down here to get big game, but to prevent
enemies of the government getting gay and blowing up the Gatun dam. Whew!
They might have blowed it up while we've been shooting snakes and cats.
Guess there's one of the explosions now."

A rumbling came toward them from the east. It was such a rumbling as one
hears when great masses of fireworks are set off at once. Such a rumbling
as one hears in war, when the rifles are speaking along a line of infantry
and cannons are roaring out above their patter. The ground shook, and
birds, frightened, fled from tree boughs with strange cries.

"Something has gone up," Jimmie said. "I wish we could see over the tops
of that next line of trees."

"Sounds like the crack of doom," Peter observed. "I wish we could get out
of the tall timber and see what's going on."

"There's a white light," Jimmie cried, excitedly. "That must be the
workings."

"That's a cloud, just touched with dawn," Peter replied. "There's no sight
of the canal yet. If we could only get out to the cut we'd soon be home."

"Home?" repeated Jimmie, in disgust, "we're more'n fifty miles from camp,
the way the roads run. If we can get