“I sure do, Dad. The jungles of Africa, or the wilds of China--it’s all the same to us; isn’t it, Blake?” “It sure is. Count me in!” “And will you come with us?” asked Joe’s father. “I certainly will!” came the quick answer. “And we won’t lose any time,” added Joe. “We were going to engage passage to China; it will be just as easy to do so to Africa, though it may take a little longer. Now let’s get back to the boarding house and arrange the details.” And, while father and son, with the latter’s chum, are on their way back to the fishing hamlet, I will take the opportunity to make my new readers a little better acquainted with Joe and Blake--the moving picture boys--whose adventures they are soon to follow in the “Dark Continent.” The lads were first told of in the initial volume of this series, entitled “The Movie Boys on Call”; or “Filming the Perils of a great City.” In the beginning Blake Stewart worked for his uncle, Jonathan Haverstraw, in the village of Fayetteburg, in the middle part of New York State. Mr. Haverstraw had a farm, and on an adjoining one, owned by Zachariah Bradley, Joe Duncan worked. Joe thought himself without relatives, since from his earliest days he could remember none. Owing to the fact that Mr. Bradley found he could no longer pay Joe’s wages, and because Blake’s uncle decided to give up his farm and retire to a home for the aged, the two lads unexpectedly found themselves without positions at the same time, Blake having no other relative than Mr. Haverstraw. But, just at this time, a Mr. Calvert Hadley came to Fayetteburg with a theatrical company to take some moving pictures. The boys met him, and after some negotiations were engaged by him to go to New York. There they learned the business and helped Mr. Hadley, who was engaged in getting out a “moving picture newspaper,” showing the perils of the great city, odd scenes and happenings, train wrecks, burning buildings and the like. The boys liked the work very much, though often they were in great danger. They managed to cause the arrest of a reckless autoist who had smashed the carriage of Mrs. Betty Randolph, a Southern lady living in Fayetteburg, and, securing the reward she had offered, Blake and Joe bought moving picture cameras for themselves. Then they went into business on their own account, making all sorts of films to order. It was while engaged in this work that a strange commission came to them. The second volume of the series, called “The Movie Boys in the Wild West”; or “Stirring Days Among the Cowboys and Indians,” tells of this in detail. In brief, the boys one day learned that a number of the Moqui and Navajo Indians had left their reservations in Arizona, and had hidden themselves in the desert, there to go through some of their ancient dances and ceremonies.