"Just look at it!"

The lieutenant, after many warnings against getting in the way, and
against getting lost in the jungle, had just left Peter and Jimmie, and
the boys stood at the verge of the great Culebra cut, taking in the wonder
and the force of the marvelous scene.

Night and day, under the great white lights, the work went forward,
cutting a way for the commerce of the world. Night and day the human ants
bored into the earth. Continuously the blasting and scraping, the puffing
and the roaring, went on. Always the great steam shovels were biting into
the soil and the rock.

"That doesn't look like the deep blue sea down there, does it?" Peter went
on, "yet the largest vessels in the world will be sailing over here in
four years, sailing through this cut, and over a forest beyond the rise
there. It looks big, doesn't it? And it sounds big, too."

From where the boys stood there seemed to be a hopeless confusion of men
and machines, but they knew that back of all the hurry, and bustle, and
noise, was a great machine, a wonderful system, born in a human brain and
reaching its lines out to the smallest detail.

"When you sit on a fire-escape balcony, or in a park," Jimmie said, his
mind going back to the New York lounging places he knew best, "and read
about how many tons of earth have been removed during the week, you don't
sense it, do you? You've got to come down here and catch Uncle Sam at his
job."

While the boys talked of the marvelous thing before them a stranger of
quiet mien stood watching them from an elevation a few yards away. He was
a man of middle age, with brilliant black eyes, long, like those of an
Oriental, and a figure almost boyish in its proportions. He was neatly
dressed in a dark suit of some soft, expensive material, his linen was
spotless, and a diamond of great value and brilliancy glimmered in his
pure white tie.

He stood watching the boys for a moment listening to their talk, and then
approached them, softly, deferentially, yet with an air of frankness.

"It is a wonderful sight," he said, as he came to the edge of the cut
where the lads stood. "In all the world's life there has never been
anything like it."

The boys turned and looked the man over modestly, yet with sharp eyes. It
is not to be wondered at, after their experiences there, that they were
suspicious of all strangers. They both at first rather liked the looks of
the man.

"It is worth coming a long way to see,"