Colon, itself, held them for two more days, and during that time they lost one of their party. Wah Lee—for that they had discovered to be their Chinaman's name—had justified his statement that he had "flends in Panama." They had rather suspected that these alleged friends resembled the mythical Mrs. Harris, whose chief claim to fame was that "there wasn't no such person." They were agreeably surprised, therefore, when, before they had been twenty-four hours in the city, he told them that, through one of his "flends," he had found employment in the household of a wealthy Japanese residing in the suburbs. He would have gladly stayed with the boys, to whom he had become greatly attached. But although they were fond of him, and got a good deal of amusement from his quaint ways, they had really no need of him, and he was a clog on their freedom of movement. They wanted to be footloose—to go where they pleased and when they pleased—and they were glad to learn that he was so well provided for.
"Me clome and slee you melly times," he assured them, benignantly.
"Sure thing, old boy," answered Tom. "We're always glad to see you."
"Me play you back," said Wab Lee.
"Pay back nothing," responded Bert. "You don't owe us anything. You've worked your passage, all right."
"Me play you back," he repeated, as calmly as though they had not protested, and pattered off, after including them all in his irresistible smile.
"And he will," affirmed Dick, despairingly. "We're just clay in the hands of the potter, when we come up against that old heathen. If he says he'll pay you back, paid back you'll be, as surely as my name is Dick Trent."
Which proved to be true enough, although the payment was made in different coin and in an other fashion than they dreamed of at the moment.
Two days later, bright and early they took the train on the little railroad that runs from Colon to Panama. Their first stop was to be at the Gatun Dam and Locks, the mightiest structure of its kind in the world.
As they came in sight of it, the boys gasped in amazement and admiration. What they had read about it in cold type, had utterly failed to give them an adequate idea of the reality. Here was a work that might have been hammered out by Thor. There were the mighty gates, weighing each, from three hundred to six hundred tons. The locks each had four gates, seven feet thick and from forty-seven to seventy-nine feet high. The gates were operated by electricity and open or shut in less than two minutes, and absolutely without noise.