wildly against going down for the third and last time.

Most annoying of all, "the Sloth" was not even a bona fide bachelor. He
proudly announced that, though he was a model of marital virtue, he had
not lived with his wife in many years. I never heard a man who knew him
by night ask why. It was close upon criminal negligence on the part of
the I.C.C. to overlook its opportunity in this matter. There were so
many, many uninhabited hilltops on the Zone where a private
Sloth-dwelling might have been slapped together from the remains of
falling towns at Gatun end; near it a grandstand might even have been
erected and admission charged. Or at least the daily climb to it would
have helped to reduce a push-ball figure, and thereby have improved the
general appearance of the Canal Zone force.

CHAPTER IV

One morning early in March "the boss" and I crossed the suspension
bridge over the canal. A handcar and six husky negroes awaited us, and
we were soon bumping away over temporary spurs through the jungle, to
strike at length the "relocation" opposite the giant tree near Bas
Obispo that marked the northern limit of our district.

The P.R.R., you will recall, has been operating across the Isthmus
since 1855. When the United States took over the Zone in 1904 it built
a new double-tracked line of five-foot gauge for nearly the whole
forty-seven miles. Much of this, however, runs through territory soon
to be covered by Gatun Lake, nearly all the rest of it is on the wrong
side of the canal. An almost entirely new line, therefore, is being
built through the virgin jungle on the South American side of the
canal, which is to be the permanent line and is known in Zone parlance
as the "relocation." This is forty-nine miles in length from Panama to
Colon, and is single track only, as freight traffic especially is
expected, very naturally, to be lighter after the canal is opened.
Already that portion from the Chagres to the Atlantic had been put in
use--on February fifteenth, to be exact; and the time was not far off
when the section within our district--from Gamboa to Pedro
Miguel--would also be in operation.

That portion runs through the wilderness a mile or more back from the
canal, through jungled hills so dense with vegetation one could only
make one's way through it with the ubiquitous machete of the native
jungle-dweller, except where tiny trails appear that lead to squatters'
thatched huts thrown together of tin, d