The
real "mosquito man"--one of that dark band that spends its Zone
years with a wire hook and a screened bucket gathering evidence
against the defenseless mosquito for the sanitary department to
gloat over--was found not to fit the model even in hue. Moreover,
"mosquito men" are not accustomed to carry their devotion to duty
to the point of crawling under trunks in their quest.
For a few days following, the hunt led me through all Gatun and
vicinity. Now I found myself racing across the narrow plank
bridges above the yawning gulf of the locks, with far below tiny
men and toy trains, now in and out among the cathedral-like flying
buttresses, under the giant arches past staring signs of "DANGER!"
on every hand--as if one could not plainly hear its presence
without the posting. I descended to the very floor of the locks,
far below the earth, and tramped the long half-mile of the three
flights between soaring concrete walls. Above me rose the great
steel gates, standing ajar and giving one the impression of an
opening in the Great Wall of China or of a sky-scraper about to be
swung lightly aside. On them resounded the roar of the compressed-
air riveters and all the way up the sheer faces, growing smaller
and smaller as they neared the sky, were McClintic-Marshall men
driving into place red-hot rivets, thrown at them viciously by
negroes at the forges and glaring like comets' tails against the
twilight void.
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