Chapter V: Part 5

One thing was clear, at least: he could stay here no longer as the Cortlandts' guest--he had already incurred an obligation which he would have difficulty in discharging. Yet how could he explain his change of front? Mrs. Cortlandt, he felt sure, would understand and come to his assistance with good advice, but he shrank instinctively from laying the facts before her husband. It was a deuced unpleasant necessity, and he detested unpleasant necessities--necessities of any sort, in fact. Still, there was nothing else for it, so, conquering his sense of humiliation as best he could, he called up the Cortlandts' suite.

Edith answered, saying that her husband was out; then, in response to his request, she came down herself.

"What has gone wrong? Why this face of tragedy?" she inquired, as she seated herself beside him.

"I've received my Declaration of Independence. I've heard from my dad."

A look of quick understanding drove away the smile she had brought him, and her manner was one of grave sympathy as she took the letter he handed her.

She was clad in a crisp morning gown he had never seen, and he thought it became her extremely well. She looked very cool, very fresh, very much the fine lady. All in all, she seemed a person whose friendly interest might compensate for many woes.

"Well!" she remarked. "You do seem to be in trouble. What does it mean?"

Kirk told her everything without reserve, then showed her the newspapers in his hand. She scrutinized them with a quiet seriousness that seemed to make his trouble her own. "After all," she said at last, "if worse comes to worst, you can prove your innocence."

"I'm not so sure."

"Nonsense! Those boys can be found. What puzzles me is that Locke person. Who is he? Why was he followed? What has become of him?"

"I wish I knew."

"I can have inquiries made, but it will take time. Meanwhile, it seems you are safe, so the one important fact for the moment is that you are cast off." Turning her bright eyes upon him, she inquired, "How does it feel to be disinherited?"

"Blamed uncomfortable! I must tell Mr. Cortlandt at once."

"Let me," she offered, quickly. "I would not show any one that letter, if I were you, nor advertise the fact that you are in danger of arrest. It will be quite enough if I tell him that you have quarrelled with your father--he is a peculiar man."

Kirk signified his agreement.

"Now what do you intend doing?" she asked him.

"I'm going to work."

"Good! Good!" She clapped her hands gleefully.

"Oh, I don't WANT to," he protested, "but the old gentleman thinks I'm no good, and I'd like to show him he's wrong. After I've done that, I intend to loaf again--yes, and I'll know how to loaf by that time. Of course, I'll have to pay my debts, too."

"Poor Mr. Weeks!"

"Why poor?"

"He is terribly agitated to learn that we came to your rescue. He knows now that he really entertained an angel unaware, and his grief of soul is comical."

"Weeks isn't such a bad sort."

But her eyes showed a sudden flash of anger as she returned: "He deserves to be forced out of the service."

"That wouldn't do any good. His successor might be worse."

"Haven't you any resentment? I dislike placid people!"

"Plenty! If I get a crack at Alfarez---"

"Now don't allow your mind to dwell on that," she cautioned. "I think he is riding to a fall, as it is. What do you want to do?"

"Anything. I'm going to hunt a job this afternoon."

"What sort?"

"Something with big pay and no responsibility."

"Those positions are taken--by the army," she laughed. "What can you do?"

"I can take an automobile apart."

"And put it together again?"

"Oh no! I can sail a boat; I shoot pretty well; I waltz nicely; I row, swim, and box indifferently; and I play an atrocious hand at poker."

Mrs. Cortlandt nodded gravely. "You are also good company, you dress well, and you are an ornament to any hotel porch."

"Naturally, I refrained from mentioning those things, but, in addition, I smoke, drink, and swear. I am unsteady in my habits, and require a great deal of sleep. I think that completes the inventory."

"Of course, you will live beyond your salary?"

"Undoubtedly."

"Seriously, now, don't you really---?"

"Go ahead. Say it! Don't I know anything? No. I am too highly educated. You see, I took the full college course."

She drew her sharply pencilled brows together and pursed her lips in meditation, regarding him meanwhile with a look that was not all disapproval.

"Am I hopeless?" he inquired at length.

"Dear, no! Experience is a good thing, of course, and ability is even better, but neither is absolutely necessary in government work."

"Oh!"

"Provided---"

"What?"

"--You have influence. I was merely trying to think of the niche into which you would best fit."

"When a fellow hasn't any of those qualifications, then what? Take me, for instance."

"You have at least one."

"Which one?"

"Influence."

He shook his head. "My father wouldn't help."

"We'll have no difficulty in finding you a position."

"Jove! That's good news." He beamed at her with gratified surprise. "I had an idea I'd be going from door to door."

"How ridiculous! This is a government job; therefore it is saturated with politics. There are a great many good men on it, but there are also a large number of 'somebody's relatives.' Do you understand? Anything is possible here for a man with influence. If he has ability with it, he can go to the top. If he lacks ability--well, even then he can go to the top--it depends entirely upon the influence."

"But I haven't any--" Kirk began. Then, catching her look, he exclaimed: "Oh, say! WILL you help me? Really? That's too good to be true."

He shook her hand warmly, that being the natural outlet for his gratitude, and she smiled at him. "I wonder where I'd better start in," he said.

"There's not the slightest choice. All paths lead up the mountain, and if you go far enough you will reach the top. It would be quite easy if you knew something about the railroad business, for instance."

"Oh, I do. I've had that drilled into me ever since I was a child. I grew up with it--was soaked in it. My father made me learn telegraphy before he gave me a motor-boat."

"Why in the world didn't you say so?"

"Well, I have forgotten most of it," he confessed. "I had a railroad of my own, too, when I was twelve years old. I was president."

"Indeed!"

"I suppose it was in my blood. We kids stole the lumber for a track, and I got a hand-car from dad. We formed a close corporation, and, when another boy wanted to join, we made him go forth and steal enough boards to extend the line. We finally had nearly two miles, altogether, with switches, sidings, yards, and everything; then the fences in that neighborhood gave out. It was a gravity road--yes, there was extreme gravity in every department--we'd push the car up and ride down. We had a telephone system and semaphores, and ran on orders just like a real train. Grown people heard about it, and paid us five cents a ride, so we began to declare dividends every Saturday. Oh, it was a great success. We had a complete organization, too; president, directors, conductors, section-hands--the section-hands did all the work and rode between times."

"What happened to it?"

"One day we ran into a cow and broke the vice-president's leg. The board of directors also had his ear cut, and the indignant neighbors began to reclaim their fences. We lost a mile of track in one afternoon, and father decided it would be better for me to go to boarding-school. It was safer."

"I'll warrant you learned the rudiments of railroading, just the same."

"I learned everything," Kirk announced, decisively.

"Unfortunately, the P.R.R. has a president, so we can't start you in where you left off."

"He might need an assistant."

Mrs. Cortlandt laughed lightly. "While we are finding that out," she said, "I think you had better go over the line in daylight and really see what this work is like. That glimpse you had at Gatun is only a small part. Now, will you trust me to manage this for you, Mr. Anthony?"

"I should say I would, and I can't begin to tell you--"

"Oh, it's nothing." She rose to put her plans promptly into operation, this time extending her hands with the words: "Let me congratulate you. I really believe you are waking up, and without the woman's aid."

"But the woman is aiding me," he replied, warmly. "She's doing it all. You have started me moving, and I'll never be able to thank you." Then, as her eyes flashed to his with a look he had never seen before, he added: "Understand, though, I am going to work only because I must. I detest it."

XI

THE TRUTH ABOUT MRS. CORTLANDT

Edith Cortlandt was not the sort to permit delay. At lunch she introduced Kirk to the Master of Transportation of the Panama Railroad, saying:

"Mr. Runnels has offered to take you out through the Cut this afternoon, and explain the work to you."

Runnels, a straight, well-set-up, serious young man, bent a searching look upon Kirk, as he said, "Mrs. Cortlandt tells me you're going to be one of us."

"Yes."

The Master of Transportation took in the applicant fully, then nodded his head as if pleased with his inspection.

"That's good."

Anthony was drawn to the speaker instantly, for there was no affectation about him. He was straightforward and open, little given to the kind of small talk that serves in so many cases to conceal character. He produced the effect of a busy and forceful man; one could feel energy radiating from him, and his voice had a ring of authority. Like every one down here who was doing something, he talked of little besides the Big Job, even when Mr. Cortlandt joined the trio. As the two younger men rose to leave, Edith playfully admonished him to teach his protege the entire detail of the railroad business and have him back in time for dinner, to which he agreed.

"She's wonderful," he remarked a moment later, as he and Kirk descended the hotel steps together. "She told Colonel Jolson he'd just have to find you a position, and I have been delegated to show you about."

"You don't say. I supposed there were plenty of openings."

"Not good ones. However, she usually gets what she wants. If I'm not a good guide, you must put it down to inexperience."

"The Cortlandts seem to have considerable influence for outsiders. I thought I'd have to begin at the bottom."

Runnels glanced at his companion quickly.

"Outsiders! You don't call them outsiders?"

"I never quite figured out who they are. Funny, by-the-way, how everybody says 'they' in referring to them."

"Oh, she's the whole team. Cortlandt's a nice fellow--but--Did you really think that she'd let you start at the bottom?"

"Why, yes."

"I guess you don't know her."

"You're right; I do not."

"Well, she knows everybody and everything in this country. She's the whole diplomatic service. Take the Colombian trouble, for instance--"

"What trouble?"

"When Panama seceded. She manipulated that, or at least Steve Cortlandt did under her direction. She was the brains of the whole affair, however, and those New York lawyers merely did what she told them. It was one of the cleverest exploits on record. Colombia wouldn't let us build the Canal, so Panama seceded. War was declared, but the United States interfered in time to prevent bloodshed. One Chinaman was killed, I believe, by dropping a flat-iron on his toe, or something, and by the time the excitement had died out we had begun digging. She knows Central America like the palm of her hand. When she says Kirk Anthony wants a position, we hirelings jump about and see that he gets it. Oh, you'll have any job you want."

"Well!" The recipient of this good news congratulated himself silently. "I wish you'd tell me something more about her."

"There isn't time just now; our motor is waiting. But we have the whole afternoon ahead of us."

The two passed through the railroad gates and took their places in the little car. When they were under way, Runnels went on: "I'm supposed to show you this end of the work and tell you what it all means."

"Then please start at the beginning. You see, I probably know less about it than anybody living."

"Of course you know the general lay-out?"

"I tell you I don't know a thing. There's no use four-flushing."

Runnels smiled at this candor. "Well, the ditch will be about fifty miles long, and, roughly speaking, the work is in three parts--the dredging and harbor-building at sea-level on each end of the Canal, the lock-work, and the excavations on the upper levels. That dam you saw building at Gatun will form a lake about thirty miles long--quite a fish-pond, eh? When a west-bound ship arrives, for instance, it will be raised through the Gatun locks, three of them, and then sail along eighty-five feet above the ocean, across the lake and into a channel dug right through the hills, until it reaches the locks at Pedro Miguel. Then it will be lowered to a smaller lake five miles long, then down again to the level of the Pacific. An east-bound ship will reverse the process. Get the idea?"

"Sure. It sounds easy."

"Oh, it's simple enough. That's what makes it so big. We've been working at it five years, and it will take five years more to complete it. Before we began, the French had spent about twenty years on the job. Now a word, so you will have the general scheme of operation in your head. The whole thing is run by the Isthmian Canal Commission--six men, most of whom are at war with one another. There are really two railroad systems--the I. C. C., built to haul dirt and rock and to handle materials in and out of the workings, and the Panama Railroad, which was built years ago during the California gold rush and bought by our government at the time of that terrible revolution I told you about. The latter is a regular system, hauls passengers and freight, but the two work together. You will start in with the P. R. R., Mr. Anthony, under my despotic sway."

"I know a little about railroading."

"So much the better. There's a big railroad man by your name in the States. Are you related?"

"I believe so," Kirk answered, quietly. "Go ahead with the lesson."

"The Canal Zone is a strip of land ten miles wide running across the Isthmus--really an American colony, you know, for we govern it, police it, and all that. As for the work itself, well, the fellows at the two ends of the Canal are dredging night and day to complete their part, the lock-builders are laying concrete like mad to get their share done first, the chaps in the big cut are boring through the hills like moles and breaking steam-shovel records every week, while we railroad men take care of the whole shooting-match. Of course, there are other departments--sanitary, engineering, commissary, and so forth--all doing their share; but that is the general scheme. Everybody is trying to break records. We don't think of anything except our own business. Each fellow believes the fate of the Canal depends upon him. We've lost interest in everything except this ditch, and while we realize that there is such a place as home, it has become merely a spot where we spend our vacations. They have wars and politics and theatres and divorces out there somewhere, but we don't care. We've lost step with the world, we've dropped out. When the newspapers come, the first thing we look for is the Panama news. We're obsessed by this job. Even the women and the children feel it--you'll feel it as soon as you become a cog in the machine. Polite conversation at dinner is limited to tons of rock and yards of concrete. Oh, but I'm tired of this concrete talk."

"Try the abstract for a change."

"It's interesting at first, then it gets tiresome. Lord! It's fierce."

"The work, too?"

"Everything! Every day you do the same thing; every day you see the same faces, hear the same talk; even the breeze blows from the same direction all the time, and the temperature stays at the same mark winter and summer. Every time you go out you see the same coach-drivers, the same Spiggoty policemen leaning against the same things; every time you come in you eat the same food, drink the same liquor, sit in the same chair, and talk about the same topics. Everything runs too smoothly. The weather is too damned nice. The thermometer lacks originality. We're too comfortable. Climate like that gets on a white man's nerves; he needs physical discomfort to make him contented. I'd give a forty-dollar dog to be good and cold and freeze my nose. Why, Doctor Gorgas has made us so sanitary that we can't even get sick. I'd hail an epidemic as a friend.

"It's even harder on the women folks, for they can't find anything to kick about, so they fuss with one another and with us. They have clubs, you know, to improve things, but there's nothing to improve. We had a social war recently over a button. One clique wanted a club emblem that would cost a dollar and a half, while the other faction were in favor of a dollar button. I tell you, it was serious. Then, too, we're all tagged and labelled like cans of salmon with the price-mark on--we can't four-flush. You can tell a man's salary by the number of rocking-chairs in his house, and the wife of a fellow who draws eighteen hundred a year can't associate with a woman whose husband makes twenty-five hundred. They are very careful about such things. We go to the same dances on the same dates, we dance with the same people to the same tunes by the same band, and when we get off in some corner of the same veranda in search of the same old breeze, which we know is blowing at precisely the same velocity from the usual quarter, our partners tell us that Colonel So-and-So laid four hundred twenty-seven more cubic yards of concrete this week than last, or that Steam Shovel Number Twenty-three broke the record again by eighty yards. It's hell!" He stopped, breathless.

"Why don't you quit?" suggested Anthony.

"Quit! What for? Good Lord! We LIKE it. Here we are at Pedro Miguel, by-the-way. We'll be into the Cut shortly."

To his left Anthony beheld another scene somewhat similar to the one at Gatun. Other movable steel cranes, with huge wide-flung arms, rose out of another chasm in which were extensive concrete workings. From a distance the towers resembled parts of a half-constructed cantilever bridge of tremendous height. Another army was toiling at the bottom of the pit, more cars shunted back and forth, more rock-crushers rumbled; but, before Kirk's eye had photographed more than a small part, the motor-car had sped past and was rolling out upon a bridge spanning the Canal itself. To the northward appeared an opening cut through the hills, and Runnels said, simply:

"Culebra!"

A moment later he announced: "We leave the P. R. R tracks here and switch in on the I. C. C. Now you'll begin to see something."

Down into the Cut the little car went, and at last Anthony saw the active pulsating heart of this stupendous undertaking. The low range was severed by a gorge blasted out by human hands. It was a mountain valley in the making. High up on its sides were dirt and rock trains, dozens of compressed-air drills, their spars resembling the masts of a fleet of catboats at anchor--behind these, grimy, powerful steam shovels which rooted and grunted quite like iron hogs. Along the tracks at various levels flowed a constant current of traffic; long lines of empty cars crept past the shovels, then, filled to overflowing, sped away northward up the valley, to return again and again. Nowhere was there any idleness, nowhere a cold machine or a man at rest. On every hand was smoke and steam and sweat. The drills chugged steadily, the hungry iron hogs gouged out the trails the drills had loosened, the trains rolled past at intervals of a moment or so. Lines of electric wire, carried upon low wooden "shears," paralleled the tracks, bearing the white-hot sparks that rent the mountain. At every switch a negro flagman crouched beneath a slanting sheet of corrugated iron, seeking shelter alike from flying fragments and the blazing sun. From beneath the drills came occasional subterranean explosions; then geysers of muddy water rose in the air. Under the snouts of the steam shovels "dobe" shots went off as bowlders were riven into smaller fragments. Now and then an excited tooting of whistles gave warning of a bigger blast as the flagmen checked the flow of traffic, indicating with arms upraised that the ground was "coming up." Thereupon a brief lull occurred; men hid themselves, the work held its breath, as it were. But while the detonations still echoed, and before the flying missiles had ceased to shower, the human ants were moiling at their hills once more, the wheels were turning again, the jaws of the iron hogs were clanking.

Through this upheaval the motor-car penetrated, dodging trains of "flats," which moved sluggishly to afford them passage up and down over the volcanic furrows at the bottom of the gorge or along some shelf beneath which the foundations were being dug. At times a shovel reached out its five-yard steel jaw and gently cleared the rails of debris, or boosted some bowlder from the path with all the skill of a giant hand and fingers. Up and down the canon rolled spasmodic rumblings, like broadsides from a fleet of battle-ships.

"Somebody with a head for figures has estimated what it costs the government to send a motor-car like this through the Cut in working hours," Runnels said. "I don't remember the exact amount, but it was some thousands of dollars."

"Delays to trains, I suppose?"

"Yes. A minute here, thirty seconds there. Every second means a certain number of cubic yards unremoved, and holds back the opening of the Canal just so much. You have postponed a great event several minutes, Mr. Anthony."

"It's the first important thing I ever did."

"Our little nine-mile trip will cost Uncle Sam more than a brace of tickets from New York to 'Frisco and back again, including Pullmans and travelling expenses."

Mile after mile the sight-seers rolled on, past scenes of never-varying activity--past more shovels, more groups of drills, more dirt trains, more regiments of men--Runnels explaining. Kirk marvelling until he was forced to exclaim:

"I had no idea it was so big. It doesn't seem as if they'd ever finish it."

"Oh, we'll finish it if we're let alone. Every year, you know, we receive a batch of senators and congressmen who come down to 'inspect' and 'report.' Sometimes they spend as much as a week on the job, and frequently learn to distinguish which is the Gatun dam and which the Culebra cut, but not always. Some of them don't know yet. Nevertheless, they return to Washington and tell us how to proceed. Having discovered that the Panama climate is good and the wages high, they send down all their relatives. It's too bad Colonel Gorgas did away with the yellow fever.

"You see there is too much politics in it; we never know how long our jobs will last. If some senator whose vote is needed on an administration matter wanted my position for his wife's brother, he could get it. Suppose the president of the Clock-Winders' Union wanted to place his half-sister's husband with the P. R. R. He'd call at the White House and make his request. If he were refused, he'd threaten to call a strike of his union and stop every clock on the Isthmus. He'd get the job all right."

"Of course, that is an exaggeration."

"Not at all. It has been done--is being done right along. The half-sister's husband comes down here and takes a job away from some fellow who may be entitled to promotion."

"I suppose I'm an example."

Runnels looked at him squarely before answering, "You are," said he, "although I wasn't thinking of you when I spoke. It's something we all feel, however."

Anthony flushed as he answered: "I don't remember ever taking anything I wasn't entitled to, and I didn't think when I was shoved in here that I'd shove some other fellow out."

"That's about what will happen. The good positions are filled by good men, for the most part, but Mrs. Cortlandt has asked it, and you're elected. You don't mind my frankness, I hope?"

"Certainly not. I just didn't happen to look at it in this light." Kirk felt a vivid sense of discomfort as the keen eyes of his companion dwelt upon him. "As a matter of fact, I dare say I don't need a good job half as badly as some of these married fellows. I suppose there is room at the bottom, and a fellow can work up?"

"If he has it in him."

"I think I'll start there."

"Oh, come, now," laughed the Master of Transportation, "that sort of thing isn't done. You have the chance, and you'd be foolish to let it slip. I don't blame you; I'd do the same under the circumstances. It's merely a condition we've all got to face."

"Just the same, I don't like the idea. I'd feel uncomfortable if I met some capable fellow whom I'd robbed of his chance. It's hard work to be uncomfortable, and I don't like hard work, you know."

Runnels shook his head doubtfully as if questioning the genuineness of this attitude.

"I'm afraid you're a poor business man," he said.

"Rotten!" Kirk admitted. "But I've an idea I can make good if I try."

"If you feel that way, I certainly will help you," said the other, warmly. "Of course, I'll try to help you anyhow, but--I like your spirit. With Mrs. Cortlandt to back me up, I'll see you go forward as fast as you deserve."

By now they were out of the Cut and once more upon the main line at Bas Obispo, heading back toward the Pacific.

"You asked me to tell you something about her," Runnels continued.

"Yes."

"I'm not sure my information is entirely correct, but, knowing who she is, I think I understand why she is in Panama. It is politics--big politics. The Spiggoties have an election next year, and it is necessary to get our wires well laid before it comes off. General Alfarez will probably be the next president."

"Alfarez! Not Ramon?"

"His father. You know we Americans occupy a peculiar position here, set down as we are in the midst of an alien people who hate us. Oh, they hate us, all right--all except a few of the better class."

"Why?"

"There are a good many reasons. For one thing, there's a sort of racial antipathy. You don't like them, do you? Well, they don't like you, either, and the same feeling exists from Mexico to Patagonia, although it is strongest in these regions. It is partly the resentment of an inferior race, I suppose. Then, too, when we stole Panama we made the Colombians sore, and all Central America besides, for they realized that once we Yankees got a foothold here we'd hang on and not only dominate this country but all the neighboring republics as well. That's just what we're beginning to do; that's why the Cortlandts are here. The stage is clearing for a big political drama, Mr. Anthony, which may mean the end of Latin Central America."

"I had gathered something of the sort--but I had no idea there was so much in it."

"The United States must protect its Canal, and to that end it is building 'stone quarries' on Ancon Hill which are really fortifications. American capital is coming in here, too, and in order to protect the whole thing we must dominate Panama itself. Once that is done, all the countries between here and the Texas border will begin to feel our influence. Why, Costa Rica is already nothing but a fruit farm owned by a Boston corporation. Of course, nobody can forecast the final result, but the Mexicans, the Hondurans, the Guatemalans, and the others have begun to feel it, and that's why the anti-American sentiment is constantly growing. You don't read much about it in the papers, but just live here for a while and you'll find out."

"Oh, I have," Kirk acknowledged, dryly. "But we don't want these jungle countries."

"That's where you're wrong. By-and-by we'll need room to expand, and when that time comes we'll move south, not north or west. Tropical America is richer than all our great Northwest, and we'll grab it sooner or later. Meanwhile our far-sighted government is smoothing the way, and there's nobody better fitted for the preliminary work than Mr. Stephen Cortlandt, of Washington, D. C., husband and clerk of the smartest woman in the business of chaperoning administrations."

"Oh, see here, now, Cortlandt is more than a clerk."

"He's an errand-boy. He knows it, she knows it, and a few other people know it. He's the figurehead behind which she works. She's a rich woman, she loves the game--her father was the greatest diplomat of his time, you know--and she married Cortlandt so she could play it. Any other man would have served as well, though I've heard that he showed promise before she blotted him out and absorbed him. But now he's merely her power of attorney."

Anthony pursed his lips into a whistle of astonishment. As usual, he reflected, his judgment had been strictly college-made.

"It's been a good thing for him," Runnels ran on, evidently warmed to his subject. "She's made his reputation; he has money and position. For my part, I'd rather remain insignificant and have a real wife, even if she does have hysterics over a club button."

"Don't they love each other?"

"Nobody knows. She's carved out of ice, and, as for him, well, gratitude is a good deal like rust--in time it destroys the thing it clings to. I suppose I'm talking too much, but others would tell you the same things. I consider her the smartest woman I ever met, and I admire her immensely. You are mighty fortunate to be her friend. She'll force you to the top in spite of yourself."

"I'm not sure I like that. It doesn't sound good."

"Oh, don't misconstrue what I've said," Runnels hastened to add. "She isn't that sort."

"I didn't mean that," said Kirk, briefly, and lapsed into a silence from which he roused only to discuss the details of his coming work.

It was with quite a different eye that he looked upon his host and hostess that evening. To his genuine liking for the latter was now added a worshipful admiration and a boyish gratification at her regard, which rather put her at a distance. When she questioned him on their way to the Plaza for the band concert later in the evening, he told her of his trip and of Runnels' kindness.

"It's all settled," said he. "I'm going to work in a few days as train collector."

"What?" Mrs. Cortlandt turned upon him sharply. "Runnels didn't offer you that sort of position?" Her eyes were dark with indignation. Kirk promptly came to the defence of his new friend.

"No, I asked for it."

"Oh, I see. Well, he will do much better by you than that."

"I don't want anything better to start with."

"But, my dear boy, a collector is merely a conductor. He takes tickets."

"Sure! I can DO that. I might fail at something hard."

"No, no, no! I'll see that you don't fail. Don't you understand?"

"I understand a lot more than I did, Mrs. Cortlandt. That's why I don't want to rob some chap of a job he's entitled to, and I sha'n't. There's a collector quitting shortly."

She stared at him curiously for a moment before inquiring:

"Is that really the reason, or do you think the work will be easier?"

Kirk stirred uncomfortably. "Oh, I'm not trying to dodge anything," he maintained. "On the contrary, the most amazing thing has happened--something I can't quite understand. I--I really want to work. Funny, isn't it? I didn't know people ever got that way, but--I'd like to help build this Canal."

"But a CONDUCTOR! Why, you're a gentleman."

"My dad was a brakeman."

"Don't be foolish. Runnels talks too much. He'll offer you something better than that."

"The high-salaried positions are well filled now, and most of the fellows are married."

"A new position will be created."

But Kirk was obdurate. "I'd prefer to start in as confidential adviser to the Canal Commission, of course, but I'd be a 'frost,' and my father would say 'I told you so.' I must make good for his sake, even if it's only counting cars or licking postage-stamps. Besides, it isn't exactly the square thing to take money for work that somebody else does for you. When a man tried for the Yale team he had to play football, no matter who his people were. If some capable chap were displaced to put in an incapable fellow like me, he'd be sore, and so would his friends; then I'd have to lick them. We'd have a fine scrap, because I couldn't stand being pointed out as a dub. No, I'll go in through the gate and pay my admission."

"Do you realize that you can't live at the Tivoli?"

"I hadn't thought about that, but I'll live where the other fellows do."

"No more good dinners, no drives and little parties like this."

"Oh, now, you won't cut me out just because I pull bell-cords and you pull diplomatic wires? Remember one of our champion pugilists was once a sailor."

Mrs. Cortlandt laughed with a touch of annoyance.

"It is utterly ridiculous, and I can't believe you are in earnest."

"I am, though. If I learn to be a good conductor, I'd like to step up. I'm young. I can't go back to New York; there's plenty of time for promotion."

"Oh, you'll have every chance," she declared. "But I think a few weeks in cap and buttons will cure you of this quixotic sentiment. Meanwhile I must admit it is refreshing." She stared unseeingly at the street lights for a moment, then broke out as a new thought occurred to her: "But see here, Kirk, don't the collectors live in Colon?"

"I don't know," he replied, startled and flattered by her first use of his given name.

"I'll look it up to-morrow. You know I--Mr. Cortlandt and I will be in Panama, and I prefer to have you here. You see, we can do more for you." A little later she broke into a low laugh.

"It seems strange to go driving with a conductor."

As they reclined against the padded seat of their coach, lulled by the strains of music that came to them across the crowded Plaza and argued their first difference, it struck the young man that Edith Cortlandt was surprisingly warm and human for a woman of ice. He fully felt her superiority, yet he almost forgot it in the sense of cordial companionship she gave him.

XII

A NIGHT AT TABOGA

Despite his great contentment in Mrs. Cortlandt's society, Kirk found himself waiting with growing impatience for his active duties to begin. There was a restlessness in his mood, moreover, which his desire to escape from a situation of rather humiliating dependence could not wholly explain. Curiously enough, this feeling was somehow connected with the thought of Edith herself. Why this should be so, he did not trouble to inquire. They had become the best of good friends, he told himself--a consummation for which he had devoutly wished--yet, for some indefinable reason, he was dissatisfied. He did not know that their moment of perfect, unspoiled companionship had come and gone that evening in the Plaza.

Every relation into which sentiment enters at all has its crisis or turning-point, though it may pass unobserved. Perhaps they are happiest who heed it least. Certainly, morbid self-analysis was the last fault of which Kirk could be accused. If he had a rule of action, it was simply to behave naturally, and, so far, experience had justified him in the belief that behaving naturally always brought him out right in the end.

He decided that he needed exercise, and determined to take a tramp through the country; but on the evening before the day he had set for his excursion his plans were upset by a note from Mrs. Cortlandt, which the clerk handed him. It ran:

DEAR KIRK,--Stephen has arranged an outing for all three of us, and we are counting on you for to-morrow. It will be a really, truly picnic, with all the delightful discomforts of such affairs. You are not to know where we are going until we call for you at eight.

Faithfully and mysteriously yours, EDITH CORTLANDT.

The recipient of this kind invitation tossed it aside with a gesture of impatience. For the moment he experienced a kind of boyish resentment at having his intentions thwarted that seemed out of proportion to the cause. Whether he would have felt the same if Edith's husband were not to be one of the party was a question that did not occur to him. At all events, the emotion soon passed, and he rose the next morning feeling that an outing with the Cortlandts would be as pleasant a diversion for the day as any other.

Promptly at eight Edith appeared upon the hotel porch. She was alone.

"Where's Mr. Cortlandt?" he inquired.

"Oh, some men arrived last night from Bocas del Toro and telephoned that they must see him to-day on a matter of importance."

"Then he's coming later?"

"I hardly think so. I was terribly disappointed, so he told me to go without him. Now, I shall have to make up to you for his absence, if I am able."

"That's the sort of speech," Kirk laughed, "that doesn't leave a fellow any nice answer. I'm sorry he couldn't come, of course, and awfully glad you did. Now, where is to be the scene of our revel?"

"Taboga," she said, with eyes sparkling. "You've never been there, but it's perfectly gorgeous. Please call a coach, our boat is waiting--and don't sit on the lunch."

Kirk obeyed, and they went clattering down the deserted brick street. Edith leaned back with a sigh.

"I'm so glad to get away from that hotel for a day. You've no idea how hard it is to be forever entertaining a lot of people you care nothing about, or being entertained by people you detest. I've smiled and smirked and cooed until I'm sick; I want to scowl and grind my teeth and roar."

"Still politics, I suppose?"

"Yes, indeed; we don't dare talk about it. If you only knew it, Kirk, you've capsized the political calculations of the Panama Conservative Party."

"I didn't know I had ever even rocked the boat."

"It runs back to your affair with Ramen." She glanced toward the coach driver, suggesting the need of reticence.

"Really, did that effect it?"

"Rather. At any rate, it gave an excuse for setting things in motion. There had been some doubt about the matter for a long time, and I was only too glad to exert my influence in the right direction, but--this is a picnic to an enchanted island, and here we are talking politics! We mustn't be so serious. School is out, and it's vacation. I want to romp and play and get my face dirty."

Kirk readily fell in with her mood, and by the time they reached the water-front they were laughing like two children. Down through a stone arch they went, and out upon a landing beneath the sea wall. In front of them the placid waters of the bay were shimmering, a myriad of small boats thronged the harbor. There were coasting steamers, launches, sail-boats, skiffs, and canoes. Along the shore above the tide-line were rows of schooners fashioned from gigantic tree-trunks and capable of carrying many tons, all squatting upon the mud, their white sails raised to dry like the outstretched wings of resting sea-gulls.

The landing was thronged, and, at sight of the newcomers, loiterers gathered from all sides--a pirate throng, shouting a dozen dialects and forcing Kirk to battle lustily for his luggage. Stepping into a skiff, they were rowed to a launch, and a few moments later were gliding swiftly around the long rock-rib that guards the harbor, a copper-hued bandit at the wheel, a Nubian giant at the engine, and an evil, yellow-faced desperado sprawling upon the forward deck.

Looking back, they saw the city spread out in brilliant panorama, clear and beautiful in the morning radiance. Packed and dense it lay, buttressed by the weather-stained ramparts which legend says were built by the women while their husbands were at war, and backed by the green heights of Ancon, against which the foreign houses nestled. Set in the foreground, like an ivory carving, was the Government Theatre, while away beyond it loomed the Tivoli.

Noting armed sentinels pacing the sea wall at a certain spot, Kirk called his companion's attention to them.

"That's Chiriqui Prison, isn't it?" he asked.

"Yes. They say some of the dungeons are almost under the sea. It must be a terrible place."

"I've developed a morbid interest in jails," he remarked. "I'm quite an authority on them. I think, however, I won't experiment with this one--I don't like the view."

"Yes, it's an unhealthy spot, according to all accounts. I'm sure you'd get rheumatism, at least. By-the-way, do you notice the thickness of those walls? They say that a king of Spain was seen standing at his palace window one day staring anxiously toward the west. When a courtier presumed to ask him what he was looking at, he said, 'I am searching for those costly walls of Panama. They ought to be visible even from here.' They cost ten million dollars, you know, when dollars were worth a good deal more than they are now. Look! There's Taboga."

Following her gaze, Kirk beheld a mountain of amethyst rising out of the bay. Behind them the shores stretched away into misty distances, while low mountains, softened by a delicate purple, rolled up from the jungle plain. Ahead of them the turquoise waters were dotted by islets whose heights were densely overgrown, while sands of coral whiteness ringed their shore lines. Here and there a fleet of fishing-boats drifted. Far out in the roadstead lay two cruisers, slate-gray and grim. The waters over-side purled soothingly, the heavens beamed, the breeze was like a gentle caress. The excursionists lost themselves in silent enjoyment.

Even before they had come to anchor a dozen boatmen were racing for them and crying for their patronage. At the water's edge they saw a tiny village nestled close against the mountains, its tiled roofs rust-red and grown to moss, its walls faded by wind and weather to delicate mauves and dove colors and greens impossible to describe. Up against the slope a squat 'dobe chapel sat, while just beyond reach of the tide was a funny little pocket-size plaza, boasting a decrepit fountain and an iron fence eaten by the salt. Backing it all was a marvellous verdure, tipped up on edge, or so it seemed, and cleared in spots for pineapples.

The launch, when it came to rest, seemed suspended in air, and beneath it lay an entrancing sea-garden. Once the engine had stopped its clatter, a sleepy, peaceful silence settled over the harbor, unbroken by wheel or whistle, for in Taboga no one works and there are no vehicles.

"What a wonderful place!" exclaimed the young man, fervently. "Why, it's like a dream--it can't be real!" Then, as the boatmen renewed their begging, "I wonder which barge gentleman I had better hire."

"Take the little boy, please." Edith called to an urchin who was manfully struggling with a pair of oars twice his own length, whereupon the older boatmen began to shove off with many scowls and much grumbling.

"Our choice has offended these genial bandits," Kirk observed as he helped her to a seat. "When shall we tell the lad to bring us off?"

"Four o'clock," answered Mrs. Cortlandt. "I arranged with the captain to be ready at that hour, so, you see, we have the whole day ahead of us."

Across the limpid shallows they glided, bravely propelled by their nine-year-old oarsman, but when the bow of their skiff grated upon the bottom they were still some yards from the shore.

"Looks as if we'd have to wade," said Kirk, then called to one of the near-by boatmen to lend the child a hand. But the fellow replied gruffly in some unintelligible jargon.

"He says he carries HIS passengers ashore in his arms," Edith translated.

"Really? Competition is spirited even on this heavenly isle. Well, that's easy!" Anthony untied his low shoes, kicked them off, and rolled up his trousers.

"Permit me to help you," he said, "without embarrassing our pilot."

"Oh! I want to wade, too," the woman exclaimed, enviously, as he stepped out, "but--it's too pebbly."

She stood up and allowed him to gather her in his arms. Then for the first time she felt his strength as her body leaned to his. Slowly he picked his way ashore while she reclined in his embrace, her arms about his neck, her smooth cheek brushing his. A faint, intoxicating perfume she used affected him strangely, increasing the poignant sense of her nearness; a lock of her hair caressed him. When he deposited her gently upon her feet he saw her face had gone white and that she was trembling.

"Did I hurt you?" he queried, quickly.

"Oh no!" she answered, but as she turned away he saw her breathe as if for the first time since he had taken her up.

His own face was glowing as he waded back to fetch the lunch-basket and his foot-gear. Under the circumstances he had done the only natural, the only possible thing, yet it had queerly perturbed them both. There was an artificial note in their voices as they mounted to the village, and unconsciously they avoided each other's glances.

A narrow, crooked street, fronted by old stone houses, opened before them, and the many tints they had seen from a distance became more pronounced. Even the rough flags and cobbles under foot were of a faint lichen gray, chrome yellow, or pink, as if painted at cost of infinite labor. Out of dark, open doorways peered swarthy faces, naked bronze children scampered away on fat legs at their approach, and in one house were a number of cassocked priests droning in Spanish. Everywhere was the same slumberous content, the same peaceful buzz of bees and birds and soft-toned human voices.

The two visitors explored the village, even to the quaint, tawdry chapel, with its impossible blues and rusted gilt, and noon found them eager to investigate the contents of their lunch-basket. Taking a random path up the hill, they came at last to a spring of cool water, and here they spread their meal under a mango-tree bent beneath tons of fruit.

"Oh, it's intoxicating!" cried Edith, as she sank to a seat, feasting her eyes upon the scene below. "After lunch, shall we climb the mountain?"

"I'm ready for anything," Kirk assured her. "Maybe we'll go swimming. That seems to be the main occupation of the inhabitants."

Up the path toward them came two timid children, one bearing a pineapple half as large as himself, the other lugging an armful of strange fruit. Kirk bought their entire burden, and they scuttled away in high glee.

By now the spirit of the woods was in the picnickers; the gladness of the day possessed them wholly, and the afternoon sped quickly. If at times Kirk found his companion regarding him with a strangely timid, half-defiant look, he refused to connect it with the episode of their landing. It was a fleeting look, at most, gone almost before he surprised it, and, for the most part, Edith showed a seemingly quite natural gayety that helped him to forget his recent self-consciousness.

Promptly at four they came down the drunken little main street and out upon the beach. But no launch was in sight.

"Hello! Where's our boat?" exclaimed Kirk.

"The captain told me he'd be ready at four. Perhaps he has run over to Taboguilla or--" She hesitated, with a troubled frown.

"You told him to wait?"

"Distinctly." Seeing an idler in the square above she questioned him in Spanish. "This man says the launch left for Panama two hours ago." She turned tragic eyes upon Kirk.

"Do you think they intend to leave us?"

"I don't know. These people are liable to do any thing." Once more she questioned the loiterer. "It is just as I suspected," she explained; "they went on a Sunday spree. He says they came ashore and bought a lot of liquor, and he heard them quarrelling later."

"That means we'll have to get another boat."

"I don't know where we shall find one."

"Neither do I, but there must be some sort of craft that plies back and forth regularly."

"Only once or twice a week, I believe, and it belongs to the sanitarium." She nodded toward some buildings perched upon a point farther around the bay. "Mr. Cortlandt looked it up before leaving and found the boat doesn't run on Sundays, so he hired that launch. Perhaps we'd better wait awhile; our men may come back."

They found seats in the square and were grateful for the rest; but an hour passed and the sun was getting low, while no sign of their truant craft appeared.

"There must be sail-boats to be had," said Kirk; but on inquiry they learned that, although a few belonged to the island, they all happened to be away. He suggested that they hire a man to row them across.

"It's twelve miles," Edith demurred. "Do you think it would be safe?"

He scanned the twilit sea and gave up the idea; for the afternoon trades, balmy and soothing as they were, had lifted a swell that would prove difficult for a skiff to navigate. Uneasily they settled themselves for a further wait. At last, as the sun was dipping into a bed of gold, Kirk broke out:

"Gee whiz! We've got to do SOMETHING. Mr. Cortlandt will be getting worried."

"In all probability he won't know anything about it until too late to come for us. He is dining with these people from Bocas, and may not get back to the Tivoli before midnight."

"Nice fix we're in!" remarked Anthony. "I'd like to lay hands on that captain."

"We may have to stay here all night!"

"Well, at least we have a haven of refuge. They'll take us in at the hospital."

"I don't care to ask them. There's some one up there I don't wish to see. That's why I didn't go near the place to-day."

"You know best, of course. But, see here, don't you think you'd better go up there--"

"Not for worlds! We must find some other way." She began to pace back and forth in the dusk. "How unfortunate it is!"

"Is it because--I'm with you?" questioned the young man, with an effort. "Is that why you don't want to apply there?"

"No, no. Stephen's particular enemy is in charge up there. I detest the man, and the feeling is mutual, I believe." She sighed, and her glance fell. "We can't spend the night outdoors."

"Of course not, but--"

"What?"

He laughed to hide his embarrassment. "I'm wondering--what people will say."

"Oh, you mustn't be troubled about that. It isn't your fault, you know, anyhow. Besides, people won't say anything because they won't know anything about it--if we stay away from that sanitarium."

In the effort to put him at his ease, her own distress seemed to vanish, and Kirk immediately felt more cheerful.

"It's getting along toward dinner-time," he said, "so let's see what we can find in the way of food. You can be sheltered in one of these houses, I suppose, though from the looks I'd almost prefer the night air."