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Ned lost no time in getting to the buffet, where he found Gastong, sitting in conversation with a trampish-looking fellow who seemed to be somewhat under the influence of liquor. He beckoned to Ned when he entered the room and made room for him on the leather rest at his side. "This is Tommy, the cook," he said, when Ned was seated. "Your cook." "You ought to join the force," laughed Ned.
"Cripes!" cried Jimmie, and he was away in a second, attacking the great dish of pork and beans which stood on the table in the cookroom. "Gastong," continued Jack, looking longingly into the cook room, "was born on the Isthmus, and knows all about conditions here, but he's too aristocratic to mix with the inhabitants for any great length of time.
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.
There was at least another member of the party who seemed to think just as they did, for when the machine purred out into the rough road leading from the path to Gatun the slight figure of Gastong vaulted into the back seat with the boys and motioned to them to remain quiet. "What's up?" whispered Jimmie. "Perhaps he wouldn't let me go," suggested the other.
"It was clever of the lieutenant," laughed Ned. "Suppose you now turn your attention to him? He may need the help of the Boy Scouts to get out of a hole himself." "I reckon you could help him, all right," Gastong replied, confidently, but still with a look of anxiety on his face. "He has a heap of confidence in you, Mr. Nestor, but he thought best to take every precaution for your welfare.
"This," explained Jack, with the voice and manner of one standing on a box before a tent and touting for a curiosity, "is Gastong, the boy tramp of the Isthmus. If he had a place to sleep he would run away from it before night. If he went to bed with a dime in his pocket he'd dream it was there and get up and spend it.
"When we saw the boys go into that old house, we knew there was something crooked going on, and Gastong said to me that if I wouldn't give him away he would put me wise to a bunch of hoboes that were camping out in the jungle, too lazy to work, and just about ripe for a scrap. So we rounded up the hoboes and made a break for the old house." "That's all," cried Frank.
"I can't understand what all this mystery is about," Tony exclaimed. "When did you see Gastong last?" asked Ned. "Oh, about half an hour ago. He was in the hotel then, flying around like a hen minus her head. He asked for you, and said he'd be in the buffet when you came."
Then it must have been two o'clock he heard the quick beat of running feet, and directly Gastong, as Jack had fancifully named his new acquaintance, came spurting into the cleared space. He stopped running when he reached the middle of the cutaway spot and, seeing Ned on the porch, beckoned to him.
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."
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