Back in the hills there men died by scores trying to carry a ship
across the Isthmus, the Spanish viceroys passed with their rich
trains, there on some unknown knoll Balboa reached four hundred
years ago the climax of a career that began with stowing away in a
cask and ended under the headsman's ax--no end of it, down to the
"Forty-niners" going hopefully out and returning filled with gold
or disease, or leaving their bones here in the jungle before they
really were "Forty-niners"; on down to the railroad days with men
wading in swamps with survey kits, and frequently lying down to
die. Then if a bit of the future, too, could for a moment be
unveiled, and one might watch the first ship glide majestically
and silently into the canal and away into the jungle like some
amphibious monster.
It was along in those days that we were looking for a "murderous
assaulter." At a Saturday night dance in a native shack back in
Miraflores bush the usual riot had broken out about midnight and a
revolver had come into play. As a result there was a Peruvian
mulatto up in Ancon hospital who had been shot through the mouth,
the bullet being somewhere in his neck. It became my frequent
duty, among other Z. P.'s, to take suspects up the hill for
possible identification.
One morning I strolled into the station and fell to laughing.
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