Then, like a bolt from the blue, came the fateful telegram from Washington, D.C. labor difficulties in construction-work at Camp Lewis would he report there at once as Government Mediator. Perhaps he would be back in a week! Surely he would be back in a week! So he packed just enough for a week, and off he went. One week!

You pull the string, and find that it wakes up half a dozen Departments, and finally communicates, say, with a friend of yours in the Telegraph, who once wrote some notes on the customs of the gold-washers when he was on construction-work in their part of the Empire. He may or may not be pleased at being ordered to write out everything he knows for your benefit. This depends on his temperament.

I had to make connections at Miami with a train which ran to the last point on the mainland, where the construction-work over the keys was going forward. And if I missed that last train, I would have to wait in Miami till morning.