"What lake?"
"That valley"—she indicated the tropical plain between the hills, wherein floating dredges were at work—"will be an inland sea. Those forests will be under water."
"Where is the Gatun dam I've heard so much about?"
She pointed out a low, broad ridge or hog-back linking the hills together.
"That is it. It doesn't look much like a dam, does it? But it is all hand-made. Those are rock trains out there, from Culebra."
"Oh, now I understand. Gee whiz, but this job is a whopper! Say, this is great!" Mrs. Cortlandt smiled. "It does wake up your patriotism, doesn't it? I'm glad to have a hand in building it."
"Are you helping to dig this canal?" Anthony regarded the woman curiously. She seemed very cool and well-dressed and independent for one engaged in actual work.
"Of course! Even though I don't happen to run a steam-shovel."
"Will they really finish it? Won't something happen?"
"It is already dug. The rest is merely a matter of excavation and concrete. The engineering difficulties have all been solved, and the big human machine has been built up. What is more important, the country is livable at last. Over at Ancon Hospital there is a quiet, hard-working medical man who has made this thing possible. When the two oceans are joined together, and the job is finished, his will be the name most highly honored."