Only when Kirk appeared upon his rounds did he forego his haughty complacency.  Then his wide lips, which nature had shaped to a perpetual grin, curled back as they were intended, his smile lit up the car, and he burst into loud laughter.

“Enjoying yourself?” inquired his hero.

“Passably, sar, passably!” Then, with a painful assumption of seriousness:  “How is the train, sar, may I ahsk?”

“On time.”

“Rarely it is so, as a general thing.  It is fartunate h’indeed that you consented to run her this time.”

“In a hurry to get to Colon?”

“Quite so.  It is h’impartant that I h’arrive promptly to-day.  I have business h’affairs.”  His countenance assumed tortured lines as he endeavored to maintain his gravity, then failing in his attempt, he burst suddenly into a gale of merriment that sent forth a shower of peanuts and lemon candy.  “Praise God, boss, we are ’appy gentlemen to-day, are we not?”

Kirk found that the report of his good-fortune had spread far and wide; he was halted a score of times for congratulations; operators at the various stations yelled at him and waved their hands; Runnels wired “Hurrah!” at Gatun.  A certain respect was in these greetings, too, for he had suddenly become a character.

As yet, however, he had not fully considered what this windfall meant to him.  His first thought had been that he could now discharge his debts, go back to New York, and clear himself before the law.  Yet the more he thought of it the less eager he became to return.  Seven thousand five hundred dollars in gold to Kirk Anthony, of Panama, Collector, was a substantial fortune.  To Kirk Anthony, of Albany, Distributor, it was nothing.  Suppose he went home and squared his account with the police, what would he do then?  Nothing, as usual.  Here, he was proving that the Anthony breed was self-supporting, at least.  And there was another reason, the weightiest of all.  Long before he had reached the end of his run he realized that not one hundred times the amount of this capital prize would tempt him to leave Panama before he had seen Chiquita.

Chiquita was beginning to seem like a dream.  At times during the past week he had begun to wonder if she were not really a product of his own imagination.  His fancy had played upon her so extravagantly that he feared he would not know her if ever they came face to face.  His mental picture of her had lost all distinctness; her face was no longer clear-cut before his mind’s eye, but so blurred and hazy that even to himself he could not describe her with any accuracy.

This was most unsatisfactory, and he reproached himself bitterly for the involuntary faithlessness that could allow her image to grow dim.  He was almost without hope of seeing her again.  And then, with the inconsequence of dreams and sprites, she appeared to him.

It was but a glimpse he had, and a tantalizing flash of recognition from her eyes.  It happened in the dusk during the confusion that accompanied the arrival of No. 7 at Panama, and it came with a suddenness that stunned him.  The station was jammed with a roaring flood of negroes, another crowd was forcing its way through the exits in the high iron fence, the street was a crush of Spiggoty coaches.