The Ne'er-Do-Well Part 24

When he had finally been prevailed upon to exchange his martial threats for a fresh paean of rejoicing, he fell in behind, declaring firmly that he intended to follow his new-found hero wherever he might go, though the course laid were straight for those infernal regions that played so large a part in his fancy.

In the midst of Kirk's expressions of grat.i.tude for the timely intercession of Cortlandt and his wife, the former surprised him by saying, in a genuinely hearty tone:

"My wife has told me all about you, Anthony, and I want you to come over to Panama as my guest until you hear from your father."

When Kirk informed him of the cablegram that had cast him adrift in Panama, leading indirectly to his entanglement with the dignity of Ramon Alfarez and the Spanish law, Cortlandt replied, rea.s.suringly:

"Oh, well, your father doesn't understand the facts in the case, that's all. You sit down like a sensible person and write him fully. It will be a great pleasure for us to have you at the Tivoli in the mean time."

Seeing a warm second to this invitation in Mrs. Cortlandt's eyes, Kirk accepted gracefully, explaining: "You know this is the first time I was ever up against hard luck, and I don't know just how to act."

"We've missed the four-thirty-five, so we will have to return the way we came," said Cortlandt. "I'd like to stop at Gatun on a business matter of some importance, and if you don't mind a half- hour's delay, we'll do so."

Kirk expressed entire acquiescence in any plans that suited the convenience of his rescuers, and the three pursued their way to the station. But here an unexpected embarra.s.sment arose. As they made ready to board Colonel Jolson's motor-car, they were annoyed to find that Allan insisted on going, too. He insisted, moreover, in such extravagant fas.h.i.+on that Mrs. Cortlandt at last was moved to say: "For Heaven's sake, let the poor thing come along." And thereafter the Jamaican boy sat on the step of the machine, his hat in hand, his eyes rolled wors.h.i.+pfully upon the person of his hero, his s.h.i.+ning face ever ready to break into a grin at a glance from Kirk.

Once more the little automobile took on the dignity of a regular train and sped out of the network of tracks behind Colon. As it gained speed Mrs. Cortlandt, to divert her guest's mind from his recent ordeal, began to explain the points of interest as they pa.s.sed. She showed him the old French workings where a nation's hopes lay buried, the mechanical ruins that had cost a king's ransom, the Mount Hope Cemetery, whither daily trains had borne the sacrifice before science had robbed the fever of its terrors.

She told him, also, something of the railroad's history, how it had been built to bridge the gap in the route to the Golden West, the manifold difficulties overcome in its construction, and the stupendous profits it had made. Having the blood of a railroad- builder in his veins, Anthony could not but feel the interest of all this, though it failed to take his attention wholly from the wonders of the landscape that slipped by on either side. It was his first glimpse of tropic vegetation, and he used his eyes to good advantage, while he listened politely to his informant.

The matted thickets, interlaced with vine and creeper, were all ablaze with blossoms, for this was the wet season, in which nature runs riot. Great trees of strange character rose out of the tangle, their branches looped with giant cables and burdened with flowering orchids or half hidden beneath other parasites. On every hand a vegetable warfare was in progress--a struggle for existence in which the strong overbore the weak--and every trunk was distorted by the scars of the battle. Birds of bright plumage flashed in the glades, giant five-foot lizards scuttled away into the marshes or stared down from the overhanging branches. A vivid odor of growing, blooming herbage reached the nostrils.

Just as Kirk had made up his mind that he could sit and watch this brilliant panorama forever, the jungle suddenly fell away, and the car sped up through low, gra.s.s-clad hills into a scattered city flung against the side of a wide valley. There was no sign here of Latin America; this was Yankeeland through and through. The houses, hundreds upon hundreds of them, were of the typical Ca.n.a.l Zone architecture, double-galleried and screened from foundation to eaves, and they rambled over the undulating pasture land in a magnificent disregard of distance. Smooth macadam roads wound back and forth, over which government wagons rolled, drawn by sleek army mules; flower gardens blazed forth in gorgeous colors; women and children, all clean and white and American, were sitting upon the porches or playing in the yards. Everywhere was a military neatness; the town was like the officers' quarters of a fort, the whole place spick and span and neatly groomed.

Colon had been surprisingly clean, but it was an unnatural cleanliness, as if the munic.i.p.ality had been scrubbed against its will. Gatun was to the manner born.

"Yonder are the locks." Cortlandt pointed to the west, and Kirk saw below him an impressive array of pyramidal steel towers, from the pinnacles of which stretched a spider's web of cables. Beneath this, he had a glimpse of some great activity, but his view was quickly cut off as the motor-car rumbled into a modern railway station.

"I'd like to have a. look at what's going on over yonder," he said.

"You will have time," Cortlandt answered. "Edith will show you about while I run in on Colonel Bland."

Out through the station-shed Kirk's hostess led him, then across a level sward, pausing at length upon the brink of a mighty chasm.

It took him a moment to grasp the sheer magnitude of the thing; then he broke into his first real expression of wonder:

"Why, I had no idea--Really, this is tremendous."

At his feet the earth opened in a giant, man-made canon, running from the valley above, through the low ridge and out below. Within it an army was at work. Along the margins of the excavation ran steel tracks, upon which were mounted the movable towers he had seen from a distance. These tapering structures bore aloft long, tautly drawn wire cables, spanning the gorge and supporting great buckets which soared at regular intervals back and forth, bearing concrete for the work below. Up and out of the depths tremendous walls were growing like the ma.s.sive ramparts of a mediaeval city; tremendous steel forms, braced and trussed and reinforced to withstand the weight of the countless tons, stood in regular patterns. In the floor of the chasm were mysterious pits, black tunnel mouths, in and out of which men crept like ants. Far across on the opposite lip of the hill, little electric trains sped to and fro, apparently without the aid of human hands. Everywhere was a steady, feverish activity.

From the commanding eminence where the sightseers stood the spectacle was awe-inspiring; for though the whole vast work lay spread out beneath them in what looked like a hopeless confusion, yet as their eyes followed it a great and magic system became manifest. The whole organism seemed animate with some slow, intricate intelligence. The metal skips careening across those dizzy heights regulated their courses to a hand's-breadth, deposited their burdens carefully, then hurried back for more; the shuttle trains that dodged about so feverishly, untended and unguided, performed each some vital function. The great conglomerate body was dead, yet it pulsated with a life of its own. Its effect of being governed by a single indwelling mind of superhuman capacity was overpowering.

Kirk heard Mrs. Cortlandt explaining: "The s.h.i.+ps will steam up from the sea through the dredged channel you see over yonder, then they will be raised to the level of the lake."

"What lake?"

"That valley"--she indicated the tropical plain between the hills, wherein floating dredges were at work--"will be an inland sea.

Those forests will be under water."

"Where is the Gatun dam I've heard so much about?"

She pointed out a low, broad ridge or hog-back linking the hills together.

"That is it. It doesn't look much like a dam, does it? But it is all hand-made. Those are rock trains out there, from Culebra."

"Oh, now I understand. Gee whiz, but this job is a whopper! Say, this is great!" Mrs. Cortlandt smiled. "It does wake up your patriotism, doesn't it? I'm glad to have a hand in building it."

"Are you helping to dig this ca.n.a.l?" Anthony regarded the woman curiously. She seemed very cool and well-dressed and independent for one engaged in actual work.

"Of course! Even though I don't happen to run a steam-shovel."

"Will they really finish it? Won't something happen?"

"It is already dug. The rest is merely a matter of excavation and concrete. The engineering difficulties have all been solved, and the big human machine has been built up. What is more important, the country is livable at last. Over at Ancon Hospital there is a quiet, hard-working medical man who has made this thing possible.

When the two oceans are joined together, and the job is finished, his will be the name most highly honored."

"It must be nice to do something worth while," Anthony mused, vaguely.

"To do anything," his companion observed, with a shade of meaning; then: "It is amusing to look back on the old Spanish statement that it would be impious to unite two oceans which the Creator of the world had separated."

Noting that the sun was setting beyond the distant jungles and the canon at his feet was filling with shadows, Kirk remarked, "It must be nearly time they quit work."

"This work doesn't stop. When it grows dark the whole place is lit by electricity, and the concrete continues to pour in just the same. It is wonderful then--like the mouth of a volcano. Batteries of search-lights play upon the men; the whole sky is like a furnace. You can see it for miles. Now I think we had better go back to the car."

In spite of his bodily misery, that night ride impressed itself strongly upon Anthony's mind. The black mystery of the jungles, the half-suggested glimpses of river and hill, the towns that flashed past in an incandescent blaze and were buried again in the velvet blackness, the strange odors of a new land riotous in its time of growth, all combined to excite his curiosity and desire for closer knowledge. And then the crowning luxury of a bath, clean clothes, and a good meal on white linen and china! As he dropped asleep that night he reflected contentedly that, after all, things have a way of coming right in this world for those who accept them cheerfully as they come.

X

A CHANGE OF PLAN

On the following morning Kirk despatched a long letter to his father, explaining, as well as he could, how he came to be in Panama, and giving a detailed account of the events that had befallen him since his arrival. He would have preferred to cable this message collect, but Mrs. Cortlandt convinced him that he owed a fuller explanation than could well be sent over the wires.

Although he took this means of relieving his father's anxiety, he was far from resigning himself to a further delay of his return.

On the contrary, he at once began an inquiry as to sailing dates, discovering, to his intense disgust, that no s.h.i.+p was scheduled to leave for New York within several days. He planned to borrow the pa.s.sage money from his friends, when the time came, and accompany his letter northward. Meanwhile he devoted his time to sight- seeing with his hostess.

The city was old, there were many places of historic interest, and, although Kirk cared little for such things, he found it easy to a.s.sume the virtue he did not possess. Moreover, there was something contagious in his companion's enthusiasm. Almost against his will he felt his appreciation growing, as he listened to her casual comments on the scenes they visited. Her husband, who seemed busily engaged in work that barely allowed him time for his meals, seldom accompanied them on their excursions, and the two were thrown much into each other's society.

Edith Cortlandt was a woman very sure of herself in most things. A situation that might have proved embarra.s.sing to one less tactful she accepted quite as a matter of course, rather enjoying the exercise of her influence, and never doubting her power to keep the friends.h.i.+p on any footing she chose. Kirk's frank, boyish grat.i.tude for the favors he had received made it easy for her to encourage the growth of an intimacy that she acknowledged charming, while she sincerely believed that he would be helped by it. Finding him responsive, she deliberately set herself to please him. She studied him covertly and set her moods to match his--not a difficult task, since he was merely a normal, healthy young man.

Always faultless in her attire, she took even more than ordinary pains with her appearance, and it was not long before Kirk was naively surprised to find that she no longer seemed older than he --that she was, in fact, an exceedingly handsome woman. This gradual metamorphosis depended more than anything else, perhaps, upon the girlish humor that now possessed her. She was no longer brilliant and chilly, but gay, smiling, and unaffected.

Daytimes, they rambled about the crooked streets, bargain-hunting in the Chinese shops, or drove beneath the stately royal palms of Ancon; evenings, they loitered about the cool verandas of the Tivoli or strolled down into the town to watch the crowds in the plazas. Once in a while Cortlandt went with them, but he was usually uncommunicative, and they scarcely felt his presence. On the few occasions when he gave himself rein, Kirk was compelled to feel for him a surprised and half-grudging respect. Unlike most silent men, when he did talk he talked easily and well.

Several days pa.s.sed thus, during which Anthony fully recovered from his experience at Colon. Then a s.h.i.+p arrived from New York, but before he had summoned courage to ask his friends for a loan he received, a letter forwarded from Colon by the American consul, a perusal of which not only dumfounded him, but entirely altered his plans.

It was typewritten, on plain stationery; there was neither heading nor signature, yet he knew quite well from whom it came. It read as follows:

Don't cable again, or the stupidity of the police may fail to protect you. The others got away safely and you would be mad to return alone. I can't and won't help you now. This time you went too far. You have made your bed, now lie in it. I don't believe in miracles, but if you can straighten up and make a man of yourself, I'll help you face this trouble; otherwise don't call on me for anything. I'm through.

Kirk reread this amazing epistle several times before its full significance struck him; then, when he realized what it meant, he felt himself break into a sweat of apprehension. That plain- clothes man had died! The police were looking for him. There could be no other explanation, else why had Higgins and the rest fled the country? Why had his father been so cautious in communicating with him? If it came to a trial, undoubtedly a jury would find him equally guilty with Higgins, for he had held the poor fellow's hands; it was he who had engineered the whole episode. Perhaps he was already indicted. Kirk saw himself accused of manslaughter, arrested, and tried. What could he do if his father refused to help? With money, almost anything could be achieved; without it, and particularly without his father's influence, what would happen? Evidently the Governor believed him guilty. In that case the young man knew that explanations would be futile. Even the letter he had sent would do no good. When Darwin K. Anthony said he was through, he was through.