The Garrett party had noticed the earnestness and apparent preoccupation of the people. The news of the previous night had spread its sinister announcements through the papers of the country, carried to every village on the myriad fingered currents of the telegraph. It had left its impress in the serious, sombre and sometimes dully frowned faces of the men. “I feel sorry for the President,” said Sally. “The Canal seemed almost himself, and the people thought of it and him together. What will he do?” “The President,” answered Ned Garrett, “will not flinch. Ever since he went down to the Isthmus in 1906, and made the dirt fly, he has watched the Canal with his whole heart in it. He knew what it meant for the country, for the world, and now”--the speaker hesitated--“he will know what to say and do. How I believe in that man!” “But I can’t see,” continued Brig Barry, “that the idea of the Canal is lost. Let us suppose there is a shifting and readjustment down there. The two oceans are left behind, not much different, and if the isthmus breaks down, splits up, and goes to thunder, there’s water enough to cover the remains, and we have the Canal anyway.” “But it isn’t our Canal any more,” ejaculated Sally. “It seems,” said Mr. Garrett, “as if our grief had been premature. There is enough to worry over in this frightful catastrophe, and its limits no one to-day can correctly estimate, but as Brig says, the Canal idea is saved, or at least it seems reasonable to believe that it may be. If Nature makes a bigger canal, if she changes the face of the earth enough, as Leacraft told us last night, to unite the oceans and make a strait, the commercial union of the western and eastern continents is secured on a larger scale. Perhaps our national pride must suffer some, but the fact remains, though, it would have saved our exchequer a handsome outlay, if nature, consulting our financial happiness, had done her work a little earlier.” “If we’d only waited,” sighed Mrs. Garrett, ruefully. They had reached the edges of the throngs who stood in the sun, engrossing every coigne of vantage, and an orderly, examining their tickets, conducted them through a narrow lane of envious gazers to a stand of seats to the south of the President’s rostrum. From this position their eyes fell directly upon the amazing outpouring of the people, an ocean of individuals, hopelessly cancelled from any chance to hear the President’s voice, yet extending outward in a solemn silence, and but furtively invaded by those busy concomitants of such public gatherings--button men and popcorn merchants. For the most part such annoyances were inordinately thrust aside, but scurrying over the most distant outposts of the mammoth audience, their eager shapes were seen, and inconstantly, borne inward by the breeze, the shrill invitation of their voices was heard.