onials do not love us and, what is of far greater importance, do not
advance under our rule as they should.

Meanwhile there had gradually been reaching me "through the proper
channels," as everything does on the Zone even to our ice-water, the
various coupon-books and the like indispensable to Zone life and the
proper pursuit of plain-clothes duty. Distressing as are statistics the
full comprehension of what might follow requires the enumeration of the
odds and ends I was soon carrying about with me.

A brass-check; police badge; I. C. C. hotel coupon-book; Commissary
coupon-book; "120-Trip Ticket" (a booklet containing blank passes
between any stations on the P. R. R., to be filled out by holder)
Mileage book (purchased by employees at half rates of 2 1/2 cents a
mile for use when traveling on personal business) "24-Trip Ticket" (a
free courtesy pass to all "gold" employees allowing one monthly round
trip excursion over any portion of the line) Freight-train pass for the
P. R. R.; Dirt-train and locomotive pass for the Pacific division;
ditto for the Central division; likewise for the Atlantic division; (in
short about everything on wheels was free to the "gum-shoe" except the
"yellow car") Passes admitting to docks and steamers at either end of
the Zone; note-book; pencil or pen; report cards and envelopes (one of
which the plain-clothes man must fill out and forward to headquarters
"via train-guard" wherever night may overtake him--"the gum-shoe's
day's work," as the idle uniformed man facetiously dubs it).

Furthermore the man out of uniform is popularly supposed never to
venture forth among the populace without:

Belt, holster, cartridges, and the No. 38 "Colt" that reminds you of a
drowning man trying to drag you down; handcuffs; police whistle;
blackjack (officially he never carries this; theoretically there is not
one on the Isthmus. But the "gum-shoe" naturally cannot twirl a police
club, and it is not always policy to shoot every refractory prisoner).
Then if he chances to be addicted to the weed there is the
cigarette-case and matches; a watch is frequently convenient; and
incidentally a few articles of clothing are more or less indispensable
even in the dry season. Now and again, too, a bit of money does not
come amiss. For though the Canal Zone is a Utopia where man lives by
work-coupons alone, the detective can never know at what moment his
all-embracing duties may carry him away into the foreign land