ther. "Have they come back?"

"No," replied Ned, filled with a sickening sense of helplessness, "they
have not returned. Come inside the screen and speak low, so as not to wake
the others."

Gastong rose slowly to his feet and walked stumblingly to the porch. Once
inside he dropped into a chair.

"I have run a long distance," he said, by way of apology for his weakened
condition. "I'm all in."

"What is it about the boys?" Ned demanded, clutching the other by the
arm.

"I stopped at the old house," began Gastong, but Ned cut him short.

"About the boys," he said, shaking him fiercely. "What about the boys?"

"They are either in the hands of your enemies or lost in the jungle."

The words were spoken shrinkingly, as if the news conveyed might be of his
own making.

"Where did you leave them?"

"I stopped at the old house," began the other again, "and remained there
only a few minutes. Then I went on toward the Culebra cut and came upon a
friend who told me what had taken place."

"Well! Well! Well!"

"The boys stopped at the cut, this side of the high point, and were there
accosted by Gostel. Oh, you don't know Gostel?"

"No, no," was the impatient reply. "Who the dickens is Gostel?"

"He is a spy, a Jap who has been hanging about the Isthmus ever since the
beginning of the work."

Ned was thinking fast. This might mean something tangible. He had never
heard of Gostel before.

"Well, what of Gostel?" he asked.

"He talked with the boys for a time and invited them to become his guests
for the night. He referred them to Lieutenant Gordon. I got it from my
friend who heard all their talk."

"And they went away with him?"

Ned's voice was harsh and high, and the boys in the cottage were heard
moving about, as if awakened by his voice.

"No, they didn't go away with him. They became suspicious of him, and when
he went for his car they ran away into the jungle. A mad thing to do. A
crazy thing for boys to do, for strangers. There is death in the jungle."

"And why didn't you go in after them?" asked Ned.

"What could I do alone?" asked the other, with a little shiver of
apprehension.

"If you know the country--"

Gastong interrupted with a gesture of impatience.

"Knowing the country couldn't help me, not with Gostel and his men
trailing into the jungle after the boys."

There was a new fear creeping into Ned's heart, and he was beginning to
realize that there are perils more to be dreaded tha