rift in at your
ears."

"I left headquarters before the Captain had time to explain," I
suggested.

"Oh!" said the Lieutenant. "Well, here it is in a spectacle-case, as
our friend Kipling would put it. We're on our way to Culebra Island.
There are now in quarantine there three men who arrived yesterday from
South America. They are members of the party of the murdered president.
To-day there will arrive and also be put in hock the three gents whose
names you have there. Now we have a private inside hunch that the three
already here have come up particularly and specifically to prepare for
the funeral of the three who are arriving. Which is no hair off our
brows, except it's up to us to see they don't pull off any little
stunts of that kind on Zone territory."

At least this police business was starting well; if this was a sample
it would be a real job.

The train had stopped and we were climbing the steps of Balboa police
station; for without the co-operation of the "Admiral of the Pacific
Fleet" we could not reach Culebra Island.

"By the way, I suppose you're well armed?" asked the Lieutenant in his
high querulous voice, as we drank a last round of ice-water preparatory
to setting out again.

"Em--I've got a fountain pen," I replied. "I haven't been a policeman
twenty minutes yet, and I was appointed in a hurry."

"Fine!" cried "the Admiral" sarcastically, snatching open the door of a
closet beside the desk. "With a warm job like this on hand! You know
what these South Americans are--" with a wink at the Lieutenant that
was meant also for Castillo, who stood with his felt hat on the back of
his head and a far-away look in his eyes.

"Yah, mighty dangerous--around meal time," said the Corporal; though at
the same time he drew from a hip pocket a worn leather holster
containing a revolver, and examined it intently.

Meanwhile "the Admiral" had handed me a massive No. 88 "Colt" with
holster, a box of cartridges, and a belt that might easily have served
as a horse's saddle-girth. When I had buckled it on under my coat the
armament felt like a small boy clinging about my waist.

We trooped on down a sort of railroad junction with a score of
abandoned wooden houses. It was here I had first landed on the Zone one
blazing Sunday nearly two months before and tramped away for some miles
on a rusty sandy track along a canal already filled with water till a
short jungle path led me into my first Zone town. Already tha