though at the same time he drew from a hip pocket a worn leather
holster containing a revolver, and examined it intently.

Meanwhile "the Admiral" had handed me a massive No. 88 "Colt" with
holster, a box of cartridges, and a belt that might easily have
served as a horse's saddle-girth. When I had buckled it on under
my coat the armament felt like a small boy clinging about my
waist.

We trooped on down a sort of railroad junction with a score of
abandoned wooden houses. It was here I had first landed on the
Zone one blazing Sunday nearly two months before and tramped away
for some miles on a rusty sandy track along a canal already filled
with water till a short jungle path led me into my first Zone
town. Already that seemed ancient history.

The police launch, manned by negro prisoners, with "the Admiral"
in a cushioned arm-chair at the wheel, was soon scudding away
across the sunlit harbor, the breakwater building of the spoil of
Culebra "cut" on our left, ahead the cluster of small islands
being torn to pieces for Uncle Sam's fortifications. The steamer
being not yet sighted, we put in at Naos Island, where the bulky
policeman in charge led us to dinner at the I. C. C. hotel, during
which the noonday blasting on the Zone came dully across to us.
Soon after we were landing at the cement sidewalk of the island--
where I had been a prisoner for a day in January as my welcome to
U. S. territory--and were being greeted by the pocket edition
doctor and the bay-windowed German who had been my wardens on that
occasion.