THE STEAM-SHOVEL MAN
"Yes, sir. Goodwin was working his passage to the Isthmus to look for a job and"
"Why didn't he let me know it on shipboard?" queried the colonel. "I was interested in him."
"He didn't have the nerve. You looked too big to him. To cut it short, he was tipped over by the same landslide that left me and poor old Twenty-six all spraddled out. He came out of Ancon hospital yesterday with no job and his arm tied up. And he wandered down to Balboa and caught General Quesada's steamer, the Juan Lopez, stealing commissary stores from the wharf to outfit a filibustering expedition. Quesada got hold of him and lugged him off to sea last night. It's surely a bad fix for Goodwin."
The colonel no longer smiled. His resolute mouth tightened beneath the short, white mustache. The blue eyes flashed. He listened to Alfaro's detailed confirmation of the story. With winning courtesy the colonel said to him:
"Your father, the Colombian minister of foreign affairs, has no love for the United States, I am told. Will you tell him, with my
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