s United States
Territory. From being the abode of fever and pestilence, it had been
transformed into one of the healthiest places in the world. Mosquitoes
had been exterminated and the dreaded scourge of "Yellow Jack" wiped out
completely. It was a cosmopolitan district, where all the nations of the
world met together and all classes were to be found, from the highest to
the lowest. But over this mixed and often turbulent population, the
civil and military arms of the United States, ruled with such strength
and wisdom, as to make it a model for the world's imitation. The city
was bright, clean, animated, abounding in amusements and diversions; but
lawlessness and disorder were unsparingly repressed. The boys were
delighted at the novelty of what they saw and heard, and it was late when
they went to their rooms, with an eager anticipation of all that awaited
them on their trip across the isthmus.

For this trip from end to end of the canal was one of the most cherished
features of their general plan. They wanted to study it at their
leisure--the dams, the locks, the gates, the lakes, the feeders, the
spillways, the attractions--the thousand and one things that made it the
marvel of the twentieth century. And they vowed to themselves that what
their eyes did not take in would not be worth seeing.

Colon, itself, held them for two more days, and during that time they
lost one of their party. Wah Lee--for that they had discovered to be
their Chinaman's name--had justified his statement that he had "flends
in Panama." They had rather suspected that these alleged friends
resembled the mythical Mrs. Harris, whose chief claim to fame was that
"there wasn't no such person." They were agreeably surprised, therefore,
when, before they had been twenty-four hours in the city, he told them
that, through one of his "flends," he had found employment in the
household of a wealthy Japanese residing in the suburbs. He would have
gladly stayed with the boys, to whom he had become greatly attached. But
although they were fond of him, and got a good deal of amusement from his
quaint ways, they had really no need of him, and he was a clog on their
freedom of movement. They wanted to be footloose--to go where they
pleased and when they pleased--and they were glad to learn that he was
so well provided for.

"Me clome and slee you melly times," he assured them, benignantly.

"Sure thing, old boy," answered Tom. "We're always