uth."

"Well, we crossed over the ditch down here, didn't we, and struck into the
jungle from the west side of the Culebra cut?"

"Of course we did."

"Then if we keep the moon in the south, on our right, we'll come back to
the cut?"

"Sure. Anyway, we ought to."

"Well, Old Top, we've been walkin' for the last two hours with the moon on
our right, and we haven't got anywhere, have we? You don't see no lights
ahead of us, do you?"

There were no signs of the big cut. The great lights which blazed over the
workings were not to be seen. The noises of the digging, the dynamiting,
the pounding of the steam shovels, the nervous tooting of the dirt trains,
might have been a thousand miles away.

"You've got to show me," Peter said, after studying over the matter for a
moment. "That moon isn't on no stick on a Bowery stage. It is there in the
south, where it belongs, and if we continue to keep it on our right we'll
come to the canal in time. We are farther away than we thought for."

They struggled on through the jungle for another half hour, and then
stopped while Jimmie looked reproachfully at the moon.

"I'd like to know what kind of a country this is, anyway," he grumbled. "I
never saw the moon get off on a tear before."

"Except when you had it on the end of a stick," said Peter, with a noise
which was intended for a laugh, but which sounded more like a sigh of
disgust.

"Well, we've got to stay here until morning," Jimmie said, presently, "and
I'm so hungry that I could eat a boa constrictor right now."

"Quit!" cried Peter. "Don't talk about snakes, or you'll bring them down
on us."

"That was coarse, wasn't it?" observed Jimmie. "Well, I'll withdraw the
remark."

"If we stay here until morning," Peter said, dubiously, "how do we know
the sun won't rise in the west?"

"All right," Jimmie replied. "Guy me if you want to, but you'll find this
is no joke before we get through with it."

"I know that now," Peter replied. "I never was so tired in my life, and
I'd give a ten-dollar note for a drink of cold water."

The boys sat down on dry tree knuckles, buttressed roots rising three feet
from the soil, and discussed the situation gravely. After a short time
Peter got up with a start and began prancing about the little free space
where they were.

"I've got it!" he cried. "We're both chumps."

"They usually act that way when they're dyin' of hunger an' thirst,"
Jimmie said, dolefully. "Keep quiet, an'