Ashes were knocked out of pipe stems, and the men at once rolled themselves in their blankets. Then Jim and the comrade who was to watch with him shouldered their rifles, and with pouches filled with ammunition, attached to the belts round their waists, marched towards the stream. "You get aboard," said Jim. "I'll make along to the lagoon. When an hour has passed I'll come and take your place." He wended his way through the jungle, and presently was on the bank of the lagoon, admiring its broad expanse of rippling water, which looked so solemn and so beautiful beneath the silvery rays of the moon. Indeed, it was an enchanting scene, and had our hero been of a romantic turn of mind he might well have been excused for giving free rein to his fancy. But Jim was a hard, practical-minded fellow, with the world before him, and his way to make in it. It is not then to be wondered at that his mind strayed from the scene before him to the canal zone, to the gigantic undertaking America had determined on, to the host of workmen labouring there, and to the many problems which confronted them, problems undreamed of by Jim till yesterday, undreamed of now by thousands of Americans, yet problems, for all that, demanding the anxious thought and effort of the Commission staff, in whose able and painstaking hands lay the enormous enterprise. In his mind's eye Jim saw that hundred-ton steam digger again. He fancied himself in the driver's seat, with Harry watching every movement critically, and coaching his young pupil. His hands seemed to fall quite naturally on the levers, and then the hiss of steam came to his ears, just as it had done when he worked the enormous engine. "Was it all imagination?" To tell the truth he was getting not a little drowsy, but that peculiar hiss was so realistic that----"Gee!" he recovered from his brown study suddenly, and opened his eyes very wide. For there was reality in that hissing steam. He could actually hear it, not over loud, but without doubt steam or gas escaping from some narrow orifice. Moreover the sound came from the lagoon; yes, from the lagoon straight before him. A moment later a long, black shape stole into view from behind a mass of reed some few yards away, then lay still on the water. Silhouetted against the rippling surface he could make out the dusky outlines of a launch, her funnel amidships, the hood of the cab which sheltered passengers when a sea was running, and the little mast on which her flag drooped. And there were figures--two of them. They stood sharply displayed against the light, perched on the deck of the launch, surveying their surroundings. "Those villains; then they are here without a doubt. Gee, if they try to make out through the opening!" Jim crouched a trifle lower under the trees beneath which he had taken his station, and watched the launch and her passengers. And steadily, as he watched, the boat drew nearer and nearer.