in my work, forgot the hour until it was suddenly
recalled by the insistent, strident tooting of whistles that forewarns
the setting-off of the dynamite charges from the little red electric
boxes along the edge of the "cut." I turned back toward Paraiso and,
all but stumbling over little red-wound wires everywhere on the ground,
dodging in and out, running forward, halting or suddenly retreating, I
worked my way gradually forward, while all the world about me was
upheaving and spouting and belching forth to the heavens, as if I had
been caught in the crater of a volcano as it suddenly erupted without
warning. The history of Panama is strewn with "dynamite stories." Even
the French had theirs in their sixteen per cent, of the excavation of
Culebra; in American annals there is one for every week. Three days
before, one of my Empire friends set off one afternoon for a stroll
through the "cut" he had not seen for a year. In a retired spot he came
upon two negroes pounding an irregular bundle. "What you doing, boys?"
he inquired with idle curiosity. "Jes' a brealdn' up dis yere dynamite,
boss," languidly answered one of the blacks. My friend was one of those
apprehensive, over-cautious fellows so rare on the Zone. Without so
much as taking his leave he set off at a run. Some two car-lengths
beyond an explosion pitched him forward and all but lifted him off his
feet. When he looked back the negroes had left. Indeed neither of them
has reported for work since.

Then there was "Mac's" case. In his ambition for census efficiency
"Mac" was in the habit of stopping workmen wherever he met them. One
day he encountered a Jamaican carrying a box of dynamite on his head
and, according to his custom, shouted:

"Hey, boy! Had your census taken yet?"

"What dat, boss?" cried the Jamaican with wide-open eyes, as he threw
the box at "Mac's" feet and stood at respectful attention.

Somehow "Mac" lacked a bit of his old zealousness thereafter.

On the second day I pushed past Cucaracha, scene of the greatest
"slide" in the history of the canal when forty-seven acres went into
the "cut," burying under untold tons of earth and rock steam-shovels
and railroads, "Star" and "trypod" drills, and all else in
sight--except the "rough-necks," who are far too fast on their feet to
be buried against their will. One by one I dragged shovel gangs away to
a distance where my shouting could be heard, one by one I commanded
drillmen to shut off their d