The Hero of Panama: A Tale of the Great Canal

by F. S. Brereton

Jim's eyes enlarged and brightened at once. He was such a newcomer to the canal zone that promotion had seemed out of the question for a long time to come. He told himself many a time that he was content to work on as he was and wait like the rest for advancement.

"The wages are really good," he had said to Sadie, "and after I've paid everything there is quite a nice little sum over at the end of the week. I'm putting it by against a rainy day."

And here was promotion! By now he had learned the scale of wages and salaries that were paid all along the canal. Such matters were laid down definitely, and were decidedly on the liberal side. With a flush of joy he realized that, as chief of a section, he would be in receipt of just double the amount he had had when working the rock drill.

"And of course there'll be compensation for the accident, just the same as in the case of any other employee," added Phineas, trying to appear as if he had not noticed the tears of joy which had risen to Jim's eyes. For who is there of his age, imbued with the same keenness, with greater responsibilities on his young shoulders than falls to the lot of the average lad, who would not have gulped a little and felt unmanned by such glorious news? Consider the circumstances of our hero's life for some little time past. It had been a struggle against what had at times seemed like persistent bad fortune. First his father ruined, then the whole family compelled to leave their home and drift on the Caribbean. The loss of his father and then of his brother had come like final blows which, as it were, drove the lessons of his misfortunes home to Jim. And there was Sadie, at once a comfort and an anxiety. Jim alone stood between her and charity.

"There'll be compensation for the accident," continued Phineas, "and reward from the Commissioners for saving that train of passenger cars. You've got to remember that it is cheaper any day to smash up a spoil train than it is to wreck one carrying people. One costs a heap more to erect than the other. So there you saved America a nice little sum. I needn't say that if the people aboard had been killed, compensation would have amounted to a big figure. So the Commission has received powers from Washington to pay over 500 dollars. I rather think that'll make a nice little nest egg against the day you get married."

Phineas roared with laughter as he caught a glimpse of Jim's face after those last words. Indignation and contempt were written on the flushed features. Then our hero joined in the merriment. "Gee! If there ever was a lucky dog, it's me!" he cried. "Just fancy getting a reward for such a job! As for the nest egg and marrying, I've better things to do with that money. I'll invest it, so that Sadie shall have something if I'm unlucky enough next time not to escape under similar circumstances. Bein' married can wait till this canal's finished. Guess I've enough to do here. I'm going to stay right here till the works are opened and I've sailed in a ship from Pacific to Atlantic."

Phineas smiled, and, leaning across, gripped his young friend's hand and shook it hard. Open admiration for the pluck which our hero had displayed, now on more than one occasion, was transparent in the eyes of this American official. But there was more. Jim had caught that strange infection which seemed to have taken the place of the deadly yellow fever. It was like that pestilence, too, in this, that it was wonderfully catching, wonderfully quick to spread, and inflicted itself upon all and sundry, once they had settled down in the zone. But there the simile between this infection and that of the loathsome yellow fever ended. That keenness for the work, that determination to relax no energy, but to see what many thought a hopeless undertaking safely and surely accomplished, had, in the few months since he came to the canal zone, fastened itself upon Jim, till there was none more eager all along the line between the Pacific and the Atlantic.

"Yes," he repeated, "I'll stay right here till the canal's opened. By then that nest egg ought to be of respectable proportions."

A week later there was a vast gathering at the clubhouse, when one of the chief officials of the canal works presented Jim with a fine gold watch and chain to the accompaniment of thunderous applause from the assembled employees. At the same time the reward sent or sanctioned by the Government at Washington was handed over to him. A merry concert followed, and then the meeting broke up. It was to be Jim's last evening in the neighbourhood of Gatun.

"Of course you'll have to live in one of the hotels at Ancon," said Phineas, when discussing the matter, "for it is too long a journey from there to this part to make every day. It would interfere with your work. You can come along weekends, and welcome. Sadie'll stop right here; I won't hear of her leaving."