Again I looked on the Cut from above one morning before the breeze that blows across the Isthmus from nine o’clock in the morning until sundown, had driven out of it the mists of early dawn. From unseen depths filled with billowy vapor rose the clatter of strenuous toil by men and machines, softened somewhat by the fleecy material through which they penetrated. Of the workers no sign appeared until the growing heat of the sun and the freshening breeze began to sweep the Cut clear in its higher reaches, and there on the topmost terrace of Gold Hill, half a mile across the abyss from where I stood, was revealed a monster steam shovel digging away at the crest of the hill to lighten the weight that was crowding acres upon acres of broken soil into the canal below. It seemed like a mechanical device on some gigantic stage, as with noiseless ferocity it burrowed into the hillside, then shaking and trembling with the effort swung back its long arm and disgorged its huge mouthful on the waiting flat cars. The curtain of mist was slowly disappearing. From my lofty eyrie on an outjutting point of Contractor’s Hill it seemed as if the stage was being displayed, not by the lifting of a curtain, but rather by the withdrawal of a shield downward so that the higher scenery became first visible. One by one the terraces cut into the lofty hillsides were exposed to view, each with its line of tugging steam shovels and its rows of motionless empty cars, or rolling filled ones rumbling away to the distant dump. Now and again a sudden eruption of stones and dirt above the shield of fog followed in a few seconds by a dull boom told of some blast. So dense was the mist that one marvelled how in that narrow lane below, filled with railroad tracks, and with busy trains rushing back and forth men could work save at imminent danger of disaster. Death lurked there at all times and the gray covering of fog was more than once in the truest sense a pall for some poor mutilated human frame. [Illustration: _Photo by Underwood & Underwood_ A LIDGERWOOD UNLOADER AT WORK]