I was barely settled in Gatun when the train-guard handed me one of those frequent typewritten orders calling for the arrest of some straggler or deserter from the marine camp of the Tenth Infantry.  That very morning I had seen “the boss” of census days off on his vacation to the States—­from which he might not return —­and here I was coldly and peremptorily called upon to go forth and arrest and deliver to Camp Elliott on its hill “Mac,” the pride of the census, with a promise of $25 reward for the trouble.  “Mac” desert?  It was to laugh.  But naturally after six weeks of unceasing repetition of that pink set of questions “Mac’s” throat was a bit dry and he could scarcely be expected to return at once to the humdrum life of camp without spending a bit of that $5 a day in slaking a tropical thirst.  Indeed I question whether any but the prudish will loudly blame “Mac” even because he spent it a bit too freely and brought up in Empire dispensary.  Word of his presence there soon drifted down to the wily plain-clothes man of Empire district.  But it was a hot noonday, the dispensary lies somewhat up hill, and the uniformless officer of the Zone metropolis is rather thickly built.  Wherefore, stowing away this private bit of information under his hat, he told himself with a yawn, “Oh, I’ll drag him in later in the day,” and drifted down to a wide-open door on Railroad Avenue to spend a bit of the $25 reward in off-setting the heat.  Meanwhile “Mac,” feeling somewhat recovered from his financial extravagance, came sauntering out of the dispensary and, seeing his curly-headed friend strolling a beat not far away, naturally cried out, “Hello, Eck!” And what could Eck say, being a reputable Zone policeman, but: 

“Why, hello, Mac!  How they framin’ up?  Consider yourself pinched.”

Which was lucky for “Mac.”  For Eck had once worn a marine hat over his own right eye and, he knew from melancholy experience that the $25 was no government generosity, but “Mac’s” own involuntary contribution to his finding and delivery; so managed to slip most of it back into “Mac’s” hands.

Long, long after, more than six weeks after in fact, I chanced to be in Bas Obispo with a half-hour to spare, and climbed to the flowered and many-roaded camp on its far-viewing hilltop that falls sheer away on the east into the canal.  In one of the airy barracks I found Renson, cards in hand, clear-skinned and “fit” now, thanks to the regular life of this adult nursery, though his lost youth was gone for good.  And “Mac”?  Yes, I saw “Mac” too—­or at least the back of his head and shoulders through the screen of the guard-house where Renson pointed him out to me as he was being locked up again after a day of shoveling sand.