"You've got it, siree," cried one of them. "You've jest put your finger on the very point I was about to ask."
"It's as clear as daylight," went on the official, "our young friend here saved the whole party by keeping his head well screwed down and his wits about him. If that motor had overheated, as any self-respecting engine might well have been expected to do under the circumstances, you were all goners. All dead, sir. Wiped out clean by those natives."
There came a grunt of acquiescence from the audience, while Jim went red to the roots of his hair.
"You don't happen to have got fixed on a special job yet awhile?" asked the official pointedly.
"I'm to take a steam digger away up by Culebra."
"And you wouldn't change, supposing I was to come forward with an offer? See here," said the official eagerly, "I'm from the machine shops 'way over at Gorgona. You've heard of them?"
Everyone in the canal zone had heard of these immense shops to which the official alluded, for there a great amount of engineering work was undertaken. In such a colossal task as this building of a canal between Panama and Colon, between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, the reader will readily comprehend that an enormous number of locomotives, steam diggers, and machinery of every sort and description was in constant operation, and that, like machinery all the world over, such implements break down on occasion and require repair. The works at Gorgona coped with all such matters, and was staffed by such keen engineers that they even did not stop at repairs of whatever description. There, in those sheds, engines were constructed, from the smallest bolt down to the heaviest crank shaft, according to the designs produced at the drawing offices at Gorgona. The workers on the canal had long since discovered that special machines were often required to deal with the special jobs they had in progress. And clever heads at Gorgona invented means to satisfy them. Witness the ingenious rail layer, without which the task of delving would have been much delayed; witness that other clever arrangement which did in seven minutes the work of a hundred men, and swept the dirt clear from a whole line of earth wagons.