"Glad to see you again. How is the arm? I called at the hospital to see you, but you had flown off on that ridiculous voyage. Can you steer clear of landslides and revolutions for a while?" "I'll try, sir. I should like to lead a very quiet life. I can pitch again before long." The major glanced at the colonel and said impressively to Walter: "I shall give you a job in my department, not on account of your base-ball, mind you, but because you did a clever, plucky piece of work on Balboa wharf. Is that clearly understood?" "Be careful, or you will protest too much," laughed Colonel Gunther, as he returned to his desk. "I think there is no question that Goodwin has earned the right to a job in the Zone." Jack Devlin shook hands with Walter and whispered: "I had it in mind to put in a word myself. I want to break you in at firing a steam-shovel when you are strong and husky again. But it would have started another row over the base-ball end of it. Major Glendinning is a stubborn man to lock horns with. So long, my boy. Your luck has turned. I'll look you up on my first day off." "You are the best friend a fellow ever had," said Walter. Two days later he was put on the gold roll as a commissary clerk and assigned to the great warehouse in Cristobal, which was filled with groceries, dry-goods, hardware, shoes, crockery, candy, and what-not. It was one depot of the unique system of store-keeping conducted on a vast scale by a paternal government. After his breathless adventures, Walter was glad to work with all his might at the humdrum task of tallying the merchandise as it came in from the railroad cars. He was thus engaged when his father found him. Mr. Horatio Goodwin halted amid the boxes and barrels, and stood staring at his tall son as if to make sure that his vision had not tricked him. Walter dropped his tally-sheet, blinked in his turn and shouted: "Goodness gracious, father! Is it you or somebody else?" With this he made a violent assault on his parent, swung him clear of the floor in a bear-like hug, and set him down in a rumpled condition. "Are you really all right, Walter?" gasped Mr. Goodwin. "Of course I'm all right. Can't you see it for yourself? You can't lose me," Walter kept repeating as if he were firing minute-guns. "And what brought you way down here from Wolverton?" Mr. Goodwin tried to explain, but both were too excited to weave a coherent narrative, and after waving his hands helplessly the father cried: "We can tell all this later. I have come to take you home with me. A steamer sails for New York to-morrow." "To take me home with you?" Walter's face was dismal beyond words. This was a worse catastrophe than the landslide. "Why, father, you don't understand. Everything is coming my way. I am on the gold roll at seventy-five per month, and I intend to send 'most half of it home. I had a few little upsets, but that's all past. Do you honestly mean it?"