beside him. The negro glanced up and down the track, snatched up
the boys' drinking vessel, of which the wire hooked over the pail
was not after all the handle, and stooped to dip up a can of
water. The little fellow with the broom-stick, ceasing a useless
protest, reached a bit forward and tapped dreamily the rail in
front of him. The Jamaican suddenly sent the can of water some
rods down the track, danced an artistic buck-and-wing shuffle on
the thin air above his head, sat down on the back of his neck, and
after trying a moment in vain to kick the railroad out by the
roots, lay still.

By this time the sleuth was examining the broom-handle. From its
split end protruded an inch of telegraph wire, which chanced also
to be the same wire that hung over the edge of the galvanized
bucket. Close in front of the innocent little fellows ran a "third
rail!"

Then suddenly this life of anecdote and leisure ended. There was
thrust into my hands a typewritten-sheet and I caught the next
thing on wheels out to Corozal for my first investigation. It was
one of the most commonplace cases on the Zone. Two residents of my
first dwelling-place on the Isthmus had reported the loss of $150
in U. S. gold.

Easier burglary than this the world does not offer. Every bachelor
quarters on the Isthmus, completely screened in, is entered by two
or three screen-doors, none of which is or can be locked. In the
building are from twelve to twenty-four wide-open rooms of two or
three occupants each, no three of whom know one another's full
names or anything else, except that they are white Americans and