C. C. pay-
car, that bank on wheels guarded by a squad of Z. P., sprinkled
its half-million a day along the Zone. Then plain-clothes duty was
not merely to scan the embarking passengers but to ride out with
each train to one of the busy towns. There scores upon scores of
soil-smeared workmen swarmed over all the landscape with long
paper-wrapped rolls of Panamanian silver in their hands, while
flashily dressed touts and crooks of both sexes drifted out from
Panama with every train to worm their insidious way into wherever
the scent of coin promised another month free from labor. To add
to those crowded times the chief dissipation of the West Indian
during the few days following pay-day that his earnings last is to
ride aimlessly and joyously back and forth on the trains.
There is one advantage, though some policemen call it by quite the
opposite name, in being stationed at Ancon. When crime takes a
holiday and do-nothing threatens tropical dementia, or a man tires
of his native land and people a short stroll down the asphalt
takes him into the city of Panama. Barely across the street where
his badge becomes mere metal, and he must take care not to arrest
absent-mindedly the first violator of Zone laws--whom he is sure
to come upon within the first block--he notes that the English
tongue has suddenly almost disappeared.
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