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."