Times were when duty called me into the squalid red-lighted
district of Colon and kept me there till the last train was gone.
Then there was nothing left but to pick my way through the night
out along the P.R.R. tracks to shout in at the yard-master's
window, "How soon y' got anything goin' up the line?" and,
according to the answer, return to read an hour or two in
Cristobal Y.M.C.A. or push on at once into the forest of box-cars
to hunt out the lighted caboose. Night freights do not stop at
Gatun, nor anywhere merely to let off a "gum-shoe." But just
beyond New Gatun station is a grade that sets the negro fireman to
sweating even at midnight and the big Mogul to straining every
nerve and sinew, and I did not meet the engineer that could drag
his long load by so swiftly but that one could easily swing off on
the road that leads to the police station.
Even on the rare days when "cases" gave out there was generally
something to while away the monotony. As, one morning an American
widely known in Gatun was arrested on a warrant and, chatting
merrily with his friend, Policeman ----, strolled over to the
station. There his friend Corporal Macey subdued his broad Irish
smile and ordered the deskman to "book him up." The latter was
reaching for the keys to a cell when the American broke off his
pleasant flow of conversation to remark;
"All right, Corporal, I'm going over to the house to get a few
things and write a few letters.
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