behind, the low, irregular jungled hills stretching hazily off
into South America. On the third-story landing I paused to wipe
the light sweat from forehead and hatband, then pushed open the
screen door of the passageway that leads to police headquarters.

"Emm--What military service have you had?" asked "the Captain,"
looking up from the letter I had presented and swinging half round
in his swivel-chair to fix his clear eyes upon me.

"None."

"No?" he said slowly, in a wondering voice; and so long grew the
silence, and so plainly did there spread across "the Captain's"
face the unspoken question, "Well, then what the devil are you
applying here for?" that I felt all at once the stern necessity of
putting in a word for myself or lose the day entirely.

"But I speak Spanish and--"

"Ah!" cried "the Captain," with the rising inflection of awakened
interest, "That puts another face on the matter."

Slowly his eyes wandered, with the far-away look of inner
reflection, to the vacant chair of "the Chief" on the opposite
side of the broad flat desk, then out the wide-open window and
across the shimmering roofs of Ancon to the far green ridges of
the youthful Republic, ablaze with the unbroken tropical sunshine.
The whirr of a telephone bell broke in upon his meditation. In
sharp, clear-cut phrases he answered the questions that came to
him over the wire, hung up the receiver, and pushed the apparatus