has scarcely noticed yet that the
canal is being dug, fell into our hands and was inexorably set down in
spite of all protest unless he could prove beyond question that he had
already been "taken" or lived beyond the Zone line.

Thus we scribbled incessantly on, even through the noon hour, dragging
gangs one by one away from their tasks, shaking laborers out of the
brief after-lunch siesta in a patch of shade. "The boss" was hampered
by having only two languages where ten were needed. In the early
afternoon he went on to Paraiso to feed himself and the traction power,
while I held the fort. Soon after rain fell, a sort of advance agent of
the rainy season, a sudden tropical downpour that ran in rivulets down
across the pink card-boards and my victims. Yet strange to note, the
writing of the medium soft pencil remained as clear and unsmudged as in
the driest weather, and so clean a rain was it that it did not even
soil my white cotton shirt. I continued unheeding, only to note with
surprise a few minutes later that the sun was shining on the dense
green jungle about me as brilliantly as ever and that I was dry again
as when I had set out in the morning.

"The boss" returned, and when I had eaten the crackers and the bottle
of pink lemonade he brought, we pushed on toward the Pacific. Till at
length in mid-afternoon we came to the top of the descent to Pedro
Miguel and knew that the end of our district was at hand. So powerful
was the breeze from the Atlantic that our six man-power engine sweated
profusely as they toiled against it, even on the downgrade of the
return to Empire.

To "Scotty" had been assigned my Empire "recalls" and I had been given
a new and virgin territory,--namely, the town of Paraiso. It lies
"somewhat back from the village street," that is, the P.R.R. Indeed,
trains do not deign to notice its existence except on Sundays. But
there is the temporary bridge over the canal which few engineers
venture to "snake her across" at any great speed, and the enumerator
housed in Empire need not even be a graduate "hobo" to be able to drop
off there a bit after seven in the morning and prance away up the
chamois path into the town.

Wherever on the Zone you espy a town of two-story skeleton screened
buildings scattered over hills, with winding gravel roads and trees and
flowers between there you may be sure live American "gold" employees.
Yet somehow the Canal Commission had dodged the monotony you expected,