ntree as worse than Benedict Arnold, because Arnold had
turned traitor for power and money; Aintree was a traitor through mere
weakness, because he could not say "no" to a bottle.

Only in secret Standish railed against Aintree. When his brother
policemen gossiped and jested about him, out of loyalty to the army he
remained silent. But in his heart he could not forgive. The man he had
so generously envied, the man after whose career he had wished to model
his own, had voluntarily stepped from his pedestal and made a swine of
himself. And not only could he not forgive, but as day after day
Aintree furnished fresh food for his indignation he felt a fierce
desire to punish.

Meanwhile, of the conduct of Aintree, men older and wiser, if less
intolerant than Standish, were beginning to take notice. It was after
a dinner on Ancon Hill, and the women had left the men to themselves.
They were the men who were placing the Panama Canal on the map. They
were officers of the army who for five years had not worn a uniform.
But for five years they had been at war with an enemy that never slept.
Daily they had engaged in battle with mountains, rivers, swamps, two
oceans, and disease. Where Aintree commanded five hundred soldiers,
they commanded a body of men better drilled, better disciplined, and in
number half as many as those who formed the entire army of the United
States. The mind of each was occupied with a world problem. They
thought and talked in millions--of millions of cubic yards of dirt, of
millions of barrels of cement, of millions of tons of steel, of
hundreds of millions of dollars, of which latter each received enough
to keep himself and his family just beyond the reach of necessity. To
these men with the world waiting upon the outcome of their endeavor,
with responsibilities that never relaxed, Aintree's behavior was an
incident, an annoyance of less importance than an overturned dirt train
that for five minutes dared to block the completion of their work. But
they were human and loyal to the army, and in such an infrequent moment
as this, over the coffee and cigars, they could afford to remember the
junior officer, to feel sorry for him, for the sake of the army, to
save him from himself.

"He takes his orders direct from the War Department," said the chief.
"I've no authority over him. If he'd been one of my workmen I'd have
shipped him north three months ago."

"That's it," said the surgeon, "he's no