fresh the air and so
refreshing the breeze sweeping incessantly across from the Atlantic
that even the sweating was almost enjoyable. Hot! Yes, like June on the
Canadian border--though not like July. It is hot in St. Louis on an
August Sunday, with all the refreshment doors tight closed--to
strangers; hot in the cotton-fields of Texas, but with these plutonic
corners the heat of the Zone shows little rivalry.

The way led round a cone-shaped hill crowned by another military camp
with the Stars and Stripes flapping far above, until I came at last in
sight of the renowned Chagres, seven miles above Culebra, to all
appearances a meek and harmless little stream spanned by a huge new
iron bridge and forbidden to come and play in the unfinished canal by a
little dam of earth that a steam-shovel will some day eat up in a few
hours. Here, where it ends and the flat country begins, I descended
into the "cut," dry and waterless, with a stone-quarry bottom. A sharp
climb out on the opposite side and I plunged into rampant jungle, half
expecting snake-bites on my exposed ankles--another pre-conceived
notion--and at length falling into a narrow jungle trail that pitched
down through a dense-grown gully, came upon a fenced compound with
several Zone buildings on the banks of the Chagres, down to which
sloped a broad green lawn.

Here dwells hale and ruddy "Old Fritz," for long years keeper of the
fluviograph that measures and gives warning of the rampages of the
Chagres. Fritz will talk to you in almost any tongue you may choose, as
he can tell you of adventures in almost any land, all with a
captivating accent and in the vocabulary of a man who has lived long
among men and nature. Nor are Fritz' opinions those gleaned from other
men or the printed page. So we fell to fanning ourselves this January
afternoon on the screened and shaded veranda above the Chagres, and
"Old Fritz," lighting his pipe, raised his slippered feet to the screen
railing and, tossing away the charred remnant of a match, began:--

"Vidout var dere iss no brogress. Ven all der vorld iss at peace, all
der vorld goes to shleep."

Police headquarters looked all but deserted on Friday morning. There
had been "something doing" in Zone criminal annals the night before,
and not only "the Captain" but both "the Chief" and the Inspector were
"somewhere out along the line." I sat down in the arm-chair against the
wall. A half-hour, perhaps, had I read when "Eddie"--I