I walked to
Pedro Miguel and, descending from the embankment of the main line,
"nailed" a dirt-train returning empty and stood up for a breezy
ride down through the "cut." It was the same old smoky, toilsome
place, a perceptible bit lower. As in the case of a small boy only
those can see its growth who have been away for a time. The train
stopped with a jerk at the foot of Culebra. I walked a half-mile
and caught a loaded dirt-train to Cascadas. The matter there to be
investigated required ten minutes. That over, I "got in touch" at
the nearest telephone, and the Corporal's voice called for my
immediate presence at headquarters. There chanced to be passing
through Cascadas at that moment a Panama-bound freight, the
caboose of which caught me up on the fly; and forty minutes later
I was racing up the long stairs.
There I learned among other things that a man I was anxious to
have a word with was coming in on the noon train, but would be
unavailable after arrival. I sprang into a cab and was soon
rolling away again, past the Chinese cemetery. At the commissary
crossing in East Balboa we were held up by an empty dirt-train
returning from the dump. I tossed a coin at the cabman and
scrambled aboard. The train raced through Corozal, down the grade
and around the curve at unslacking speed.
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