EBOOK ZONE POLICEMAN 88 ***
Produced by Robert Rowe, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
ZONE POLICEMAN 88
A CLOSE RANGE STUDY OF THE PANAMA CANAL AND ITS WORKERS
BY HARRY A. FRANCK
Author of "A Vagabond Journey Around the World" and "Four Months
Afoot in Spain"
TO A HOST OF GOOD FELLOWS THE ZONE POLICE
Quito, December 31, 1912
CHAPTER I
Strip by strip there opened out before me, as I climbed the
"Thousand Stairs" to the red-roofed Administration Building, the
broad panorama of Panama and her bay; below, the city of closely
packed roofs and three-topped plazas compressed in a scallop of
the sun-gleaming Pacific, with its peaked and wooded islands to
far Taboga tilting motionless away to the curve of the earth;
behind, the low, irregular jungled hills stretching hazily off
into South America. On the third-story landing I paused to wipe
the light sweat from forehead and hatband, then pushed open the
screen door of the passageway that leads to police headquarters.
"Emm--What military service have you had?" asked "the Captain,"
looking up from the letter I had presented and swinging half round
in his swivel-chair to fix his clear eyes upon me.
"None."
"No?" he said slowly, in a wondering voice; and so long grew the
silence, and so plainly did there spread across "the Captain's"
face the unspoken question, "Well, then what the devil are you
applying here for?" that I felt all at once the stern necessity of
putting in a word for myself or lose the day entirely.
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