"Yes, sir. My father is a first-class man in every way, but times are dull at home and--and--" Walter mopped his face and floundered on, "you see, I happened to think that instead of my going home to the family, I might somehow manage to bring the family down here. It sounds foolish, but----" Major Glendinning was both touched and amused. He had heard of Walter's ambition to "give his father a lift." "You mean to insinuate that there might possibly be an opening for a first-class accountant and book-keeper in the canal organization?" he queried. "Can you recommend him?" "Very highly," was Walter's grave reply. "I have known him for seventeen years, and he can furnish the very best of references." "Bless me, but you are a sort of continuous performance," exclaimed Major Glendinning. "A really first-class accountant and book-keeper! Um-m! If you are a chip of the old block, your father deserves careful consideration. Such men are not any too easy to find for the office work of the various departments, even though the pay-rolls are full." "He is at the Washington Hotel in Colon," hopefully suggested Walter. "Of course, I am very anxious to stay on the job, and I don't want to disobey him----" "Perhaps you can persuade him to file a formal application," said Major Glendinning. Six weeks later a holiday crowd assembled in the base-ball park at Cristobal to see an important game of the Isthmian League series. These hundreds of cheerful, hearty Americans stood for something more than a keen interest in the most popular sport of their nation. They showed that the pestilential tropics had been conquered, that the northern races could live and work and play in health and comfort where once the fever-laden Chagres River had slain its thousands. When the bow-legged captain of the Cristobal nine, "Bucky" Harrison, led his men across the diamond for preliminary practice, the grandstand greeted the pitcher with particular applause. He was tall and rugged and of a pleasant countenance, and one might have heard the on-lookers remarking: "That is young Goodwin. Cristobal expects to win the championship with him." "He is in the commissary and doing very well, I understand." "His father has a position in the same department, and the family lives at Cristobal. The mother and sister are sitting over yonder. Do you see the pretty young girl with the fair hair and the pink cheeks? She is in the Zone high-school."