arations for the morning meal, filling the air with tantalizing odors
of cooking food, they sat in serious consultation with no thought of
breakfast in their minds.

"What ought we to do?" asked Jack.

"Go and look him up," suggested George Tolford.

"He may have become lost in the jungle," Peter Fenton remarked. "Suppose
we go out into the jungle and fire our guns?"

"I'm afraid it is worse than that," Glen Howard remarked. "We ought to let
Lieutenant Gordon know about it."

"I am afraid Ned wouldn't like that," Frank said.

While the boys discussed ways and means a dusky youth of perhaps twenty
was seen approaching the cottage on a run. His dress was half American and
half native, but his face was wholly Spanish. He paused when he discovered
the boys on the porch and held out his hands, as if to show that his
mission was a peaceful one. Frank motioned to him to approach and opened
the screened porch door for him to enter.

"Good-morning, gentlemen," he said, in excellent English. "I am from
Lieutenant Gordon."

"Then I think you're the fellow we are looking for," Jack said.

"He wants you to join him up at the Culebra cut," the youngster continued.
"The two who left the cottage last night are there waiting for you."

"Glory be!" shouted Jack. "We were just wondering what had become of
them."

"They wandered out to Gatun and came upon the lieutenant," said the
messenger.

"In the night?" asked Peter, suspiciously.

"A little while before daybreak," was the ready reply.

"We'll go and get ready for the journey," Frank said, but at the door he
beckoned to Jack and they walked away together.

"What do you think of him?" asked Frank.

"Why, he seems to be all right," was the reply. "At any rate he knows
about the boys going away in the night and not coming back."

"The man they followed away would know that, too," Frank said.

Jack looked his friend in the face for a moment and scratched his head.

"Say," he asked, "do you think this is a stall?"

"I don't like the looks of the fellow," was the reply. "Besides, what
would the boys be doing up at the Culebra cut?"

"If you think it is crooked we won't go," Jack observed.

"Another thing," Frank went on, "we were to have nothing to do with
Lieutenant Gordon while on the Isthmus. We were to roam about at our own
sweet will and pick up what information we could. So it doesn't seem
likely that he would send for us all to meet him at the Culebra cut. Do