of my
friend--who, by dint of cross-country runs in the jungle at noonday and
similar industrious efforts, worked up at last a temperature of 99
degrees and got his week at Taboga. I stuck immovable at 98.6 degrees.

Soon after five I had bidden Ancon farewell and set off on the last
ride across the Isthmus. There was a memory tucked away in every
corner. Corozal hotel was still rattling with dishes, Paraiso peeped
out from its lap of hills, Culebra with its penitentiary where
burglarizing negroes go, sunk away into the past. Railroad Avenue in
Empire was still lined with my "enumerated" tags; through an open door
I caught a glimpse of a familiar short figure, one foot resting lightly
and familiarly on a misapplied gas-pipe, the elbow crooked as if
something were held between the fingers. At Bas Obispo I strained my
eyes in vain to make out a familiar face in the familiar uniform, there
was a glimpse of "Old Fritz" water-gauge as we rumbled across the
Chagres, and the train churned away into the heavy green uninhabited
night.

Only once more was I aroused, as the lights of Gatun flashed up; then
we rolled past the noisy glaring corner of New Gatun and on to Colon.
In Cristobal police station I put badge and passes into a heavy
envelope and dropped them into the train-guard's box; then turned in
for my last night on the Zone. For the steamer already had her fires up
that would bear me, and him who was the studious corporal of
Miraflores, away in the morning to South America. My police days were
ended.

Then a last hand to you all, oh, Z. P. May you live long and continue
to do your duty frankly and unafraid. I found you men when I expected
only policemen. I reckon my days among you time well spent and I left
you regretting that I could stay no longer with you--and when I leave
any place with regret it must be possessed of some exceeding subtle
charm. But though the world is large, it is also small.

"So I'll meet you later on,
In the place where you have gone,
Where--"

Well, say at San Francisco in 1915, anyway, Hasta luego.

THE END

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Zone Policeman 88, by Harry A. Franck

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ZONE POLICEMAN 88 ***

***** This file should be named 4786.txt or 4786.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/4/7/8/4786/

Produced by Robert Rowe, Charle