caught in the crater of a volcano as it suddenly erupted without warning.  The history of Panama is strewn with “dynamite stories.”  Even the French had theirs in their sixteen per cent, of the excavation of Culebra; in American annals there is one for every week.  Three days before, one of my Empire friends set off one afternoon for a stroll through the “cut” he had not seen for a year.  In a retired spot he came upon two negroes pounding an irregular bundle.  “What you doing, boys?” he inquired with idle curiosity.  “Jes’ a brealdn’ up dis yere dynamite, boss,” languidly answered one of the blacks.  My friend was one of those apprehensive, over-cautious fellows so rare on the Zone.  Without so much as taking his leave he set off at a run.  Some two car-lengths beyond an explosion pitched him forward and all but lifted him off his feet.  When he looked back the negroes had left.  Indeed neither of them has reported for work since.

Then there was “Mac’s” case.  In his ambition for census efficiency “Mac” was in the habit of stopping workmen wherever he met them.  One day he encountered a Jamaican carrying a box of dynamite on his head and, according to his custom, shouted: 

“Hey, boy!  Had your census taken yet?”

“What dat, boss?” cried the Jamaican with wide-open eyes, as he threw the box at “Mac’s” feet and stood at respectful attention.

Somehow “Mac” lacked a bit of his old zealousness thereafter.

On the second day I pushed past Cucaracha, scene of the greatest “slide” in the history of the canal when forty-seven acres went into the “cut,” burying under untold tons of earth and rock steam-shovels and railroads, “Star” and “trypod” drills, and all else in sight—­except the “rough-necks,” who are far too fast on their feet to be buried against their will.  One by one I dragged shovel gangs away to a distance where my shouting could be heard, one by one I commanded drillmen to shut off their deafening machines, all day I dodged switching, snorting trains, clambered by steep rocky paths, or ladders from one level to another, howling above the roar of the “cut” the time-worn questions, straining my ear to catch the answer.  Many a negro did not know the meaning of the word “census,” and must have it explained to him in words of one syllable.  Many a time I climbed to some lofty rock ledge lined with drills and, gesticulating like a semaphore in signal practice, caught at last the wandering attention of a negro, to shout sore-throated above the incessant pounding of machines and the roaring of the Atlantic breeze: 

“Hello, boy!  Census taken yet?”

A long vacant stare, then at last, perhaps, the answer: 

“Oh, yes sah, boss.”

“When and where?”

“In Spanish Town, Jamaica, three year ago, sah.”

Which was not an attempt to be facetious but an answer in all seriousness.  Why should not one census, like one baptism, suffice for a life-time?  It was fortunate that enumerators were not accustomed to carry deadly weapons.