agree with them, so they are taking the rest cure. I was a find for them,
all right. They've got money enough to live on for a month, and I've got
to wire Dad for more soap."

"It is a pleasure to bump into a nice, bright little boy like you,"
grinned Jimmie, standing in the doorway with a great slice of bread in his
hand. "Here you had an army big enough to surround that old ruin, an' yet
you went an' let the fellers get away. An' we've been blowed up, an'
locked up, an' chased in motor cars, an' gone without our eatin's, an'
nothin' doin'. Up to date we're about as useless on the Isthmus as an
elephant's ear on an apple pie--big enough to be in the way, but not good
enough to become part of the diversion."

There was now a call from the cook, and there was no further talk of the
situation for the next half hour. The lieutenant was fully as active at
the table as the others, and the newcomer, Gastong, as Jack persisted in
calling him, seemed to forget that he had invaded the kitchen half an hour
before and paid his respects to a pan of baked beans. After the meal a
council was called on the porch.

"You all understand," Lieutenant Gordon said, "that you cannot remain here
without being constantly on guard?"

"Of course," Frank said.

"And you know that the men who have been seen in connection with this plot
will now disappear from the game and new men take their places?"

"That is the worst feature of the case," Ned said, thoughtfully. "My
theory worked first rate up to a certain point. I was put in communication
with some of the underlings in the plot, just as I planned I should be,
but they all got away. The men who are at the head of this conspiracy will
not permit the fellows who have appeared in one of the roles to appear
again. We haven't gained a thing."

"Except a more definite knowledge of the purposes of the plotters,"
suggested the lieutenant. "We know now that it is the Gatun dam that is
threatened, and that the newspaper building in New York will soon become a
mass of ruins unless some action is taken at once."

"Also we know where they made their bombs," said Jack.

"But we don't know where they will make them in future," said Frank.

"Well, what about staying here?" asked the lieutenant.

"We are doubtless as safe here as anywhere," Jack suggested.

"Of course I want to stay here," the irrepressible Jimmie put in. "I
haven't got on speakin' terms with the scenery yet."

"There may be anot