Page:Ralph Paine--The Steam-Shovel Man.djvu/102

 of boxes, barrels, and crates moving with order and system.

At one berth a Pacific mail-boat from San Francisco was discharging supplies for the Canal Commission. Just beyond her, one of the Chilean Navigation Company's fleet was filling her holds for the long voyage down the west coast. Against her seaward side, as if waiting for room at the wharf, was moored a rusty little coastwise steamer flying the flag of the Panama Republic.

During a summer vacation from high-school, Walter had worked in the shipping-rooms of the Wolverton Mills. He knew something about this activity on the wharf. He thought himself capable of tallying freight and sorting consignments. Sharp-eyed and interested, he watched the hurly-burly of hard-driven industry. Presently he noticed something which awoke his curiosity. It seemed extremely odd. The freight trundled out of the Pacific mail-boat was piled compactly between two narrow aisles or runways on the wharf, convenient for transfer to the freight-cars of the Panama Railroad. Walter noted the marks on the boxes,