"A rope!" he yelled. "Bring a rope. They've got the two hombres."

Men seemed to spring up out of the ground.

"Run, Pen, toward the upper camp!" cried Jim.

"I won't!" exclaimed Pen. "They won't shoot while a woman is standing here."

She plunged away from Jim and caught Suma-theek's arm. The old Indian smiled and shoved her behind him. Jim turned and stood shoulder to shoulder with the Apache chief. "Now work back until we're against the power house with the hombres back of us," he said.

By the time the crowd was massed, yelling and gesticulating on three sides of it, the little group was backed up against the concrete wall of the little substation.

Jim waved his arm. "Go home, boys; go home! You can't do any lynching while the Apaches are here!"

"Give us the hombres, Boss!" shouted a threatening voice, "or we'll have to be rough on you."

"Send the lady home," called someone else. "This is no job for a lady to see."

"Boss," said Suma-theek in Jim's ear, "you send your squaw out. She go up mountain back of town, find Apache there, tell all Apaches bring guns, come here, help take hombres to jail."

Jim looked at Pen and his face whitened. But Pen's nostrils dilated and her eyes sparkled. Pen was Irish.

"I'll go," said Pen. "Where is Henderson?"

"He ought to be back," said Jim. "Try to find him after you get the Apaches. Send anybody down you can reach." Then he shouted to the crowd, "Let the lady out!"

Jim and Suma-theek stood well above most of the mob. Jim was unarmed and the crowd knew it. But even had any man there been inclined to prevent Pen's exit he would rather have done so under a cocked gun than under the look in Jim's white face as he watched Pen's progress through the crowd. The men gave back respectfully. As soon as she was free of the crowd, Pen broke into a run. She darted back behind the line of tents up onto the mountainside.

There for an instant she paused and looked back. The five Indians were as motionless as the crouching black heaps they guarded. They held their guns in the hollow of their arms, while Jim, with raised arm, was speaking. Pen sobbed in her excitement. If Uncle Denny could see his boy!

She turned and ran up the trail like a little rabbit. It seemed to her that she never would reach the top. The camp sounds were faint and far before she reached the upper mesa and saw dimly a figure on a horse. It was an Indian who covered her with a gun as she panted up to him.

"Suma-theek and the Big Boss say for you to call in all the other Indians and come help them at the little power house. The whites are trying to lynch the hombres."

The Indian peered down into her face and grunted as he recognized her. Then he suddenly stood in his stirrups and raised the fearful cry that had emptied the moving picture hall.

"Ke-theek! Ke-theek! Ke-theek! (To me! To me! To me!)"

Pen stood by the pony's head, trembling yet exultant. This, then, she thought was the life men knew. No wonder Jim loved his job!

Up on the mesa top, the night wind rushed against the encircling stars. The Indian chuckled.

"Mexicans, they no bother whites tonight. They know Apache call, it heap devil."

The sound of hoofs began to beat in about the waiting two. "You go," said the Indian. "Back along upper trail, it safe."

Pen started on a run toward the upper camp.

The surging crowd round Jim and the Indians heard the wild cry from the mesa top and the shouts and threats were stilled as if by magic. There was a moment of restless silence. That cry was a primordial thing, as well understood by every man in the mob as if he had heard it always. It was the cry of the hunted and the hunter. It was the night cry of forests. It was war with naked hands, death under lonely skies.

Jim called: "Some one is bound to get killed if you boys don't clear out. I'm not armed but a number of you are and the Indians are. If there are any of my Makon boys here, I want them to come over here and help me."

"Coming, Boss!" called a voice. "Only a few of the best of us here."

"You'll stay where you are," roared a big Irishman.

"Rush 'em, boys! Rush 'em! They don't dare to shoot!"

Old Suma-theek absent-mindedly sighted his gun in the direction of the last remark.

"Get a ladder! Get on top of the station. Altogether, boys!"

Fighting through the mob, half a dozen men suddenly ranged themselves with the Indians.

"Come into us!" one of them shrieked. "I ain't had a fight since I killed six Irishmen on the Makon and ate 'em for breakfast."

There was a swaying, a sudden closing of the crowd, when down from the mesa rushed old Suma-theek's bucks. They swept the mob aside like flying sand and closed about the little group against the wall. They were a very splendid picture in the arc light, these forty young bucks with their flying hair and plunging ponies. The moment must have been one of unmixed joy to them as the whites gave back, leaving them the street width.

Jack Henderson rushed up in Jim's automobile just as the street cleared. Jim hurried to the machine. "Jack, did you see Mrs. Saradokis?"

"Took her home in the machine. Had to argue with her to make her go. That's why I'm late. Just got back from delivering the committee."

The color came back under Jim's tan. "Get up to the wall there, Jack, with the machine and put the two hombres into the tonneau with two Indians and Suma-theek in front. The mounted Indians will act as your guard for a few miles out. Hit the high places to Cabillo. I guess you'd better keep the guard all the way. I wouldn't like you to meet a posse without one."

Jack nodded and began to work his way among the ponies. In a moment's time the touring car, with the cowering human bundles in the tonneau, had crossed the river. The crowd disappeared rather precipitately into the tents, no one courting conversation with Jim. He walked quietly up the road home.

Early the next morning, Billy Underwood brought Murphy up to Jim's house.

"Sorry my posse didn't get there in time to help you out, Boss," said Bill regretfully. "We didn't hear of it till it was all over."

Jim nodded. "Keep up your quarantine for a while, Bill. We won't risk booze for several days. Now, Murphy, who backed you in the saloon business?"

"Fleckenstein's crowd."

"How long have you known Mr. Saradokis?"

"Met him for the first time last night," replied the ex-saloonkeeper.

Jim eyed the man skeptically and Murphy spoke with sudden heat. "That's on the level. I heard he was backing Fleckenstein and so I thought he'd help me get back at you. But he cursed me as I'll stand from no man because Underwood made a monkey of me by lugging me up there before you. No wonder his wife left the tent before he began, if that's his usual style. I'll get even with that dirty Greek."

Bill nodded. "Boss, that friend of yours has a vocabulary that'd turn a mule into a race horse."

"Murphy," said Jim, "you are Irish. My stepfather is an Irishman. He is the whitest gentleman that ever lived. It's hard for me to realize after knowing him that an Irishman can be doing the dirty work you are. But I suppose Ireland must breed men like you or Tammany would die."

Murphy hitched from one foot to the other. Jim went on in his quiet, slow way.

"I suppose you know pretty well what I'm up against on this Project. What would you do with Murphy if you were Manning?"

"I'd beat three pounds of dog meat off his face," replied Murphy, succinctly.

Jim shrugged his shoulders. "That would do neither of us any good. If I let you go, Murphy, will you give me your word of honor to let the Project absolutely alone?"

The Irishman gave Jim a quick look. "And would you take my word?"

"Not as a saloonkeeper, but as Irish, I would."

Murphy drew a long breath. "Thank you, Mr. Manning. I'll get off the Project if you say so. But I think you'd be wiser to give me a job below on the diversion dam where I can keep track of Fleckenstein and his crowd for you. I'll show you what it means to trust an Irishman, sir."

Jim suddenly flashed his wistful smile. "I knew you had the makings of a friend in you as soon as I saw how you took the cleaning up I gave you yesterday. I'll give you a note to my irrigation engineer. He needs a good man."

Bill and Murphy went out the door together. "I'll bet you the drinks, Bill," said Murphy, "that he never made you his friend."

"I ain't drinking. I'm his trusted officer," said Bill. "Get me? If you try any tricks on him——"

Bill stopped abruptly, for Murphy's fist was under his nose. "Did you hear him take my word like a gentleman?" he shouted. "I'd rather be dead than double cross him!"

"Aw, go on down to the diversion dam," said Bill, irritably. "I've got no time to listen to your talk. You heard him tell me to guard the place!"

A part of Jim's day's work, after his letters were answered and written in the morning, was to tramp over every portion of the job. The quarry, in the mountain to the north of the dam whence were being taken the giant rock for embedding in the concrete was his first care. The stone must be of the right quality and of proper weight and contour to bind well with the cement. The quarrying itself must be going forward rapidly and without waste. Then came the giant sand dump, where the dinkies had filled a canyon with the sand from the river bed. This was the supply that fed the always hungry mixer. After this the warehouse and the power house, the laboratories and the concrete mixer, the cableway towers and the superintendent's office, with all the thousand and one details, expected and unexpected, that made or marred the success of the dam, must be looked over. The last visit was always at the dam itself, where Jim spent most of the day.

On the afternoon after Jim had hired Murphy he stood on the section of the dam which now showed no signs of old Jezebel's strenuous visit. Jim was watching the job with his outer mind, while with his inner mind he turned over and over the things that Pen had said to him the night before the mask ball. Even in the excitement that followed the ball, Pen's scolding, as he called it, had never been entirely out of his thoughts. In spite of their sting, Jim realized that Pen's words had cleared his vision, had given him a sense of content that was comparable only to the feeling he had had on the night so many years ago that he had discovered his profession.

To find that the cause of his failure lay in himself and not in intangible forces without that he could not combat was strangely enough a very real relief. For Jim was taking Pen's review of his weaknesses as essential truth!

Suddenly, with his eyes fastened critically on a great stone block that was being carefully bedded on the section, he laughed aloud and whispered to himself:

"I feel just the way I used to when I got mad because I couldn't get compound interest and Dad straightened me out, giving me a good calling down as he did so. Pen! Pen! My dearest!"

Oscar Ames, picking his way carefully among the derricks and stone blocks, grunted when he saw the smile on Jim's face. Jim did not cease to smile when he saw Oscar.

"Come up here, Ames! I want your advice!"

Oscar grunted again, but this time as if someone had knocked his breath out of him. He paused, then came on up to where Jim was standing. Men were busy preparing the surface on which they stood for the next pouring. In the excavation below, the channeling machine was gouging out a trench for the heel of the dam. Pumps were working steadily, drawing seepage water from the excavation. Men swarmed everywhere, on derricks, on engines, with guide ropes for cableway loads, scouring and chipping rock and concrete surfaces, ramming and bolting forms into place, shifting motors, always hurrying yet always giving a sense of direction and purpose.

"She's coming along, Oscar," said Jim.

Oscar nodded. Something in Jim's tone made his own less pugnacious than usual as he said:

"What you using sand-cement for instead of the real stuff?"

"It's stronger," said Jim. "A very remarkable thing! We've been testing that out five or six years."

Jim's tone was very amiable. Oscar looked at him suspiciously and Jim laughed. "Thought we were working some kind of a cement graft?" Jim asked.

"Well, that's the common report!"

"Oh, for heaven's sake, Oscar!" exclaimed Jim disgustedly.

"Well, now," said Ames doggedly, "just why should sand-cement be stronger than the pure Portland?"

Jim scowled, started to speak with his old impatience, then changed his mind.

"You come up to the laboratory with me, Oscar. I'll give you a lesson on cement that will put a stop to this gossip at once. A man of your experience ought to know better."

Conflicting emotions showed in Oscar's face, boyish despite his fifty years. This was the first time Jim had used the man to man tone with Ames. He cleared his throat and followed the Big Boss up the trail to the little adobe laboratory. The young cement engineer looked curiously at Jim's companion.

"Mr. Field," said Jim, "this is Mr. Ames. He is one of the most influential men in the valley. He is giving practically all of his time to watching our work up here. He tells me the farmers feel that sand-cement isn't good. We will put in an hour showing Mr. Ames our tests and their results for the last five years, both here and on the Makon."

Field did not show his surprise at Jim's about-face. But he did say to himself as he went into the back room for his old reports, "Evidently the farmer is no longer to be told to go to Hades when he kicks. I wonder what's happened."

An hour later Jim and Oscar walked slowly up the trail toward Jim's house. Jim had invited Ames up for a further talk. Oscar had shown a remarkable aptitude for the details that Jim and Field had explained. And his pleasure at finally understanding the whole idea upon which Jim was basing his concrete work was such that Jim felt a very real remorse. He recalled almost daily questions from Oscar and other farmers that he had answered with a shortness that was often contemptuous.

"Now you see," Oscar said as they entered the cottage, "we'll actually save money on that. Wonderful thing, Mr. Manning, how mixing the sand and cement intimately enough, as you say, turns the trick. I'll tell the bunch down at Cabillo about that tomorrow."

Jim shoved a box of cigars at Oscar and surveyed him with his wistful smile. There were dark circles round Jim's eyes that in his childhood had told of nerve strain. Jim at that moment wondered what Iron Skull would have made of the present situation. He was silent so long that Oscar spoke a little impatiently:

"If you ain't going to talk, Mr. Manning, Jane is waiting for me and I got to see Mr. Sardox yet."

Jim pulled himself together, and, a little diffidently, handed Ames the Secretary's letter with the copy of his own.

"Tell me what you think of these," said Jim.

Oscar read the two letters carefully, then said: "I'd think more of 'em if I had any idea what either of you was driving at."

"It means just this," said Jim, "that unless the engineers and the farmers work together, the Reclamation Service will get what the water power trust is trying to give it, and that is, oblivion."

"Aha," said Oscar, "that's why you've been so decent to me today?"

"Yes," replied Jim simply.

Oscar's look of suspicion returned. Jim went on slowly and carefully. "It will be bad business if the Service fails. It will retard the government control of water power greatly, and there is enough possible water power in this country, Oscar, to turn every wheel in it and to heat and light every home in the land. If the Service fails it will show just one thing; that the farmers and engineers on the Projects are too selfish to get together for the country's good, that the farmer is a stupid cat's paw for the money interests and the engineer a spineless fool who won't fight."

"Look here, Manning," cried Oscar, "don't you think I'm justified in thinking about nothing but my own ranch, considering what it's cost me?"

"Don't you think," Jim returned, "that I'm justified in thinking about nothing but my dam and in letting the water power trust eat it and you up, considering how hard I work on the building itself?"

Oscar stared and chewed his cigar and Jim smoked in silence for a moment.

"Ames," he said finally, "I wonder if you will get this idea as quickly as you did the sand-cement one. America isn't like England or Germany or France. Over there the citizens of each country are practically of one race. Fundamentally, they think about the same way and want the same things. If one man or many neglect public duties it makes no permanent difference. Someone else will take up the duty some time, and in just about the same way that the negligent man would have done. But in America we have become a hodge-podge of every race. We have no national ideals. You can't tell me now of a single national ideal you and I are working for or even thinking about. You can't tell me what an American is, or I you. Get me?"

Oscar nodded, his tanned face keen with interest.

"Now the time has come when if you or I want any particular one of the old New England ideals to live in this country we have got to fight for it, start an educational campaign for it. If we don't, the Russian Jews or the Italians or the Syrians will change things to suit their own ideals. Now they may be all right. Their ideals may be as good as mine. They have every right to be here and to rule if they can. But I don't like the kind of government they stood for in their native countries.

"I'm a pig-headed Anglo-Saxon, full of an egotism that dies hard. I believe that the Reclamation Service idea is an outgrowth of the fine democracy that our fathers brought to New England. I believe that the folks that are going to inherit America can't afford to lose the idea of the Service and I'm going to fight for it now till they get me. Am I clear?"

"Sure," said Oscar. "Ain't I of Puritan stock myself?"

"That's why I'm talking to you," said Jim. "Now I take the central idea of the United States Reclamation Service to be this. It is a return to the old principle of the people governing themselves directly, of their assuming individual responsibility for the details and cost of governing. It is the fine outgrowth of the industrial lessons we have learned in the past years, combined with the town meeting idea, brought up to date.

"One central organization can do work better and cheaper, if it will, than a dozen competing interests. If the central organization is privately owned it demands a heavy profit. But if it is owned by the government it takes no profit. On a Project, free individuals voluntarily combine to do business and to directly administer the products of that business to themselves. The Service is merely the tool of the people on the Projects.

"Oscar, it's up to you and me. In antagonizing you farmers, I've opened the way for the enemies of the Service to reach you. And you, in being reached, are endangering the Service. Is it true that you are going to help Saradokis and Fleckenstein get your honest debts repudiated?"

The two men sat and stared at each other, Oscar with his years of unutterable labor behind him, his traditions that dealt with a constant hand-to-hand struggle with nature for his own existence; Jim with his long years of dreaming behind him and his awakening vision of social responsibility before him. Engineer and desert farmer, they were of widely differing characteristics, yet they had one fundamental quality in common. They both were producers. They were not little men. There was nothing parasitic in their outlook. They had always dealt with fundamental, primitive forces.

Suddenly Oscar leaned forward. "Are you trying to string me into saying the increased cost of the dam is all right?"

Jim tapped on the table. "Not five per cent of the increased cost but comes from the improvements you farmers have asked for. And not one cent of the cost of the entire Project but will be paid for by the water power produced and sold. You know that, Ames. Now pay attention."

Jim shook his finger in Oscar's face and said slowly and incisively:

"You farmers will never repudiate your honorable debts while I can fight. You are going to fight with me, Ames, to help me save the Service. You are going to put your shoulder to mine and fight as you did when the old dam was going out under your feet! Do you get that?"

Oscar opened his mouth but no words came. Then both men jumped to their feet as Mrs. Ames' gentle voice said from the kitchen door:

"Oscar will fight, or I'll leave him."



CHAPTER XXI

JIM GETS A BLOW

"The eagle has lived long in my side. He is cruel with talons built for seizing. Is this why so many nations choose him as their emblem?"

MUSINGS OF THE ELEPHANT.

Jane never had looked meeker or smaller or more desert worn than she did as she stood eying the two men; that is, meek except as to her eyes. These burned like sapphires in the sun. In them was concentrated the deathless energy that Penelope had found was Jane's chief characteristic.

"I've been sitting in the kitchen waiting for Mrs. Flynn and listening to you two talk. It was very interesting."

"Jane, you keep quiet," said Oscar.

"Come in and sit down, Mrs. Ames," said Jim, pulling forward a chair.

"Don't be too polite to me, Mr. Manning," said Jane. "I ain't used to it and it makes me nervous. I made up my mind while I heard you talk I'd get a few things off my chest. It may help both of you. I've often said, when Oscar was always telling me to keep quiet, that when I had something to say I'd say it."

Oscar looked very much mortified. "Jane," he said, "what's got into you?"

"Well, it isn't your politeness, that's sure. Funny now, that Mrs. Penelope and I both have nice manners while her husband and mine are both pigs as far as their ways to us go. There isn't a more popular man in the country than Oscar, but he keeps his popular ways all outside his own home."

Oscar and Jim looked at each other and waited. They both realized that the eruption was inevitable.

"Women are awful fools. Until I had running water put in against Oscar's wishes I lugged as many as thirty buckets of water a day for thirty years. I've carried water and I've chopped wood and I've had babies and I've come at your bidding, Oscar, but now, I'm going to complain. And it's not about my life either.

"I used to feel sorry for myself until I got to know Mrs. Pen. She has real trouble, but instead of getting peevish as I have over just Oscar's selfishness, she's let it make her see the world instead of herself. She has a sort of calm outlook on life. She has told me a dozen times that she looks at life as a great game and trouble as one of the hazards. That's golf talk. She says the only real sport to be got out of the game is to play it according to rule. And she says marriage seems to be one of the rules. Think of having the courage to talk that way about marriage! She's better than a book."

Mrs. Ames chuckled reminiscently. Then stared out at the desert and her lips moved in silence as if she found it hard to frame her next sentence.

"We've talked a lot about the Project, she and I. At first I was like Oscar, all for being afraid our ranch wasn't going to get as much and a little more than anyone else's. Then after she kept talking about it, all of a sudden I saw that I wasn't Jane Ames at all, drudging out my life in the sand. I'm a human being, struggling along with other human beings to make a living and be happy. And then I got the feeling that I wanted to help to make this whole Project the finest place on earth not only for myself but for everyone else.

"And then, just as I get started on something that's giving me my first chance since I was married to mix with people and do some real big work in the world, I find out that Oscar is getting all mixed up in deals that'll ruin Mr. Manning and the whole Project as far as our owning it goes."

"Jane!" shouted Oscar.

"Yes, Jane!" replied Mrs. Ames. "If you think I'm going to stand that kind of disgrace, if you think I'm going to keep quiet while my babies' father is a cat's paw for fellows like that Greek and Freet, you are mistaken. And I'm not going to shilly-shally about it. Oscar, you are going to begin right now fighting with Mr. Manning for the Project or I'll leave you."

Oscar jumped to his feet. "For the Lord's sake, Jane, don't talk that way! How did I know how you felt? You never talk to me.". Ames forgot Jim. He laid a knotted hand on Jane's shoulder. "Why, Jane, I've often thought if anything happened to you, I'd kill myself. I didn't have time to run in and tell you that every fifteen minutes. But I'll do it, now, by heck, if you want me to! You don't understand about me and Mr. Sardox, though."

Jane's burning eyes did not leave Oscar's face. "Oscar, you choose right now between the Freet crowd, and Mr. Manning and me."

There was that in Jane's eyes which caused Oscar to pale under his tan. "All right, Jane! All right! When you put it that way there is just one thing for me to do. I'll quit them."

Jane suddenly turned, and bowing her head against Oscar's arm she began to sob. "It would have torn my heart strings out to have left you, Oscar."

Jim watched the two with eyes that saw none too clearly.

Oscar smoothed Jane's hair and shook his head. "No use to tell a woman a secret. Jane, you went and told Mrs. Penelope about Freet, didn't you?"

Mrs. Ames wiped her eyes. "You told her yourself. You talked to the wrong flower girl at the ball. She came to me about it the first thing when she saw me today."

"Shucks!" said Oscar.

"How did you get in touch with Freet, Oscar?" asked Jim.

"Aw, I'll help you, Mr. Manning, but I won't tell you other people's business."

"All right, Oscar. It may interest you to know that I had received a note this morning from Freet saying he was coming down here to see me on business."

Oscar flushed. "Come on, Jane, let's be going. I'm much obliged to you for the cement talk. Why didn't you help me that way before, Mr. Manning?"

Jim laughed. "I didn't know enough to, Oscar. To tell the truth, a lady has been after me, too!"

"Mrs. Pen!" exclaimed Jane.

Jim nodded comically and Oscar with a sudden roar of laughter shook hands with Jim. "And women think they need the vote!" he said, leading Jane out the door.

That evening just as Jim was finishing his supper Pen walked into the living room. "Jim," she said, "did you know that Mr. Freet was coming?"

Jim pulled out a chair for Pen but she shook her head. "Yes, I had a letter from him. He wants to see my sand-cement work and one or two other new stunts I'm trying out."

Pen moistened her lips. "Jim, he's up at our tent now, talking with Sara. They say nothing before me, but—Still, I'm going to take Sara back to New York at once."

"We'll see what I can do first," said Jim. "I'll go up there now." He picked up his hat, then paused. "Pen, I haven't told you how much your talk the other night has done for me, or how—how I thank you for staying on here to help me after—after Wind Ridge. It is—I——"

"Jane told me about your talk with Oscar this afternoon. O Still, I'm so proud and so glad!"

Jim looked at Pen's glowing cheeks and at her parted scarlet lips. "Pen," he said suddenly, "I'm going to have Henderson give more mask balls. You are years younger since having a good dance, and it looks as if a dance will be the only chance I'll ever have to hug you for all the dear things you do for me!"

Then he fled out the door before Pen could answer. He walked in at the open door of the tent.

"Good evening, Mr. Freet," he said.

Arthur Freet rose nonchalantly. "Hello, Manning! Pleasure before duty. I had to get Saradokis' report on my New York deals before I came to see you."

"Oh, come across, Mr. Freet!" said Jim quietly. "I know about what you want and you'll have to approach me sooner or later, so let's get done with it."

Freet smiled broadly. "I always knew you'd come to your senses, Manning, if we gave you time. Well, our friend Saradokis is in touch with the New York office of the Transcontinental Water Power Company. They have a very tempting proposition to make to the farmers. They stand ready to outbid any competitor for the power you will develop on the Project."

"We'll let 'em bid, sure," replied Jim calmly. "I shall advertise for bids as soon as I am ready."

"That won't do," said Freet. "The only way to get away with this is to do it quietly. Hold the public off till the contract is signed."

Jim grunted. Sara eyed him without comment. Oscar spoke suddenly. "Now look here, Mr. Manning, I ain't as sore at you as I was. I guess, after our talk this afternoon, you think you're doing what's best for the valley. But you want to be fair about this. It may not look quite right, but it's the best thing for the farmers. We want to get all the money we can out of the power. You say yourself that's what will pay for the dam. And if these folks will give us twice what anyone else will, I say close the deal with them, any way you can."

"What's your price, Ames?" asked Jim clearly.

Oscar jumped to his feet. "In the old days," he roared, "no man would have lived to ask me that twice!"

Jim looked for a long moment into Oscar's eyes, then he drawled: "All right, Oscar, I apologize. Only you'd better leave national politics to your inferiors after this. What's your price, Mr. Freet?"

Arthur Freet laughed. "You can't get a rise out of me, Jim! My price is to see these Projects a financial success. Methods don't bother me, nor hard names."

Jim sat silent for a moment, then he turned suddenly on Sara. "Of course, you get a chunk of money, Sara. But there is something more in it than that for you. What are you trying to ruin me for, Sara?"

Again Sara seemed to see scarlet. "Didn't you spoil Pen's——"

"Keep that name out of this!" shouted Jim.

"Then don't ask me again why I hate you," returned Sara. "I told you once. But you are too superior, too one-sided, too egotistical, to see anyone but yourself!" He rose on one elbow.

"You were the closest friend I ever had and you turned me down without a chance to make myself right. You never sent me word in my living death. Do you suppose I enjoy this mental hell I live in? Did you ever dream you were nailed fast in your coffin? That's my life waking and sleeping. Why shouldn't I curse a God who could serve me such a trick? I would make every living thing a cripple, if I could, and I'd begin on you, you! I'll get you yet!"

Jim glanced at Oscar. The big desert farmer was staring at Sara, horror in every line of his face.

"Oh, come!" said Freet, "I didn't know you had anything personal in this, Mr. Saradokis. Manning and I are engineers, out for the good of the Projects."

"Whatever your motives are, Mr. Freet," said Jim, "I don't like your methods and haven't since the Makon days. The water power will be opened to public bids and if you try to force me I'll tell what I guess."

Freet laughed. "Don't be too sure of yourself, Jim! You are branded as my pupil. If I go, you will probably go."

"O hell!" said Jim, starting for the door. "I'd rather go if I've got to spend my life fighting fellows like you. In this instance, though, I'm boss. I have the sale of the water power in my control."

"Don't be too sure, Jim," said Freet, still smiling.

Oscar followed Jim from the tent. Neither of them spoke while on the way to Jim's house where Pen and Jane were sitting with Mrs. Flynn. But in the kitchen Oscar made Jim wait while he told the three women what had occurred in the tent house.

"Now all of you witness," he said, "that I'm through with that bunch. They played me for a sucker to influence the farmers against Mr. Manning and for the trust. When I think of the many different kinds of a fool I am I wish some good trained mule would come along and kick me."

"That's all right, Oscar," said Jim, "you've been no bigger fool than I have. We'll get busy now, won't we?"

Oscar flushed as Jim smiled at him. "Darn it, Mr. Manning," he said, "why haven't you looked at me that way before?" Then he laughed with the others.

Then Pen spoke very uncertainly: "This settles it, of course. I shall go back to New York at once with Sara."

The little group in the kitchen looked at Jim. His face was white and set.

"Wait a day or so, Pen. I must get some sort of a plan formulated."

"What am I to do with that man Freet hanging round?" asked Pen.

"Come down for a day or so with me, Mrs. Pen," said Mrs. Ames.

"That's a good idea," said Jim. "Freet won't stay after tomorrow, anyway. I can promise you that."

"And I'll look out for the caged hyena," said Mrs. Flynn. "If God lets me live to spare my life, he'll get a tongue lashing from me that'll give him new respect for the Irish."

Once more the group in the kitchen laughed, though tensely, and parted for the night.

The next day Freet put in on the dam with Jim. Jim treated him with courtesy, showing him everything that he asked to see. Freet was very complimentary and told Jim he was a credit to his teacher. After a visit to the quarry Jim said suggestively:

"You will want to take the six o'clock train, tonight, of course."

Freet hesitated. Jim went on dryly. "Under the circumstances, it is hardly in good taste for you to remain. It might look as if you and I were having a gentleman's agreement on the price of dams."

Freet laughed. "I had planned to take the six o'clock train. I quite finished my business with Saradokis last night. He's a brilliant business man. Too bad he has that silly whim about you."

Jim did not answer. He called to Henderson and asked him to have the automobile sent to the quarter house. He himself took Freet to the train. They talked construction work all the way and parted amiably. Then Jim returned to his belated office work.

The last letter that he opened was from the Director of the Service. It explained to Jim that while the Director had complete faith in Jim's engineering ability and integrity, Jim's unpopularity not only with the public but with the investigating committee made his resignation seem expedient for the good of the Service. It was with extreme regret and with full appreciation of what Jim had done for the Service that the Director asked for Jim's resignation, three months from date.

Jim folded the letter and put it in his pocket. Then he stared out of the door at the Elephant. The great beast was silent in the after-glow. A to-hee cheeped sleepily in a nearby cholla:

"O yahee! O yahai! Sweet as arrow weed in spring!"

Then Jim went slowly up the trail to his house, and, refusing his supper, went into his room and closed the door.



CHAPTER XXII

JIM PLANS A LAST FIGHT

"The coyotes are going leaving behind them bleaching bones. The Indians are going leaving a few arrow heads and water vessels. What will the whites leave?"

MUSINGS OF THE ELEPHANT.

Jim was angry. All night he lay staring into the dark with his wrath accumulating until it finally focused itself, not on the Director or on Sara or on the farmers, but on himself! He reviewed the years mercilessly. He saw how he had refused again and again to shoulder the responsibilities that belonged to him—belonged, because of his fitness to carry them. Charlie Tuck and Iron Skull both had done what they could to make him see, but wrapped in his futile dreams he had refused to look, and, he told himself, long before he had left Exham, his father had tried to set him on the right path but he always had put off the quest on which his father had sent him, always thrust it over into tomorrow when today was waiting for his start.

The very peak of his anger was reached when it suddenly came home to Jim that he had failed his father, had proved renegade to old Exham.

Three months! A cool dismissal after over eight years of his heart's blood had been given to the Service! Jim groaned, then sat erect.

"Serves you right, you dreaming fool! Nobody to blame but yourself! Three months! And in that time the farmers will elect Fleckenstein to Congress and the open fight for repudiation will be on!"

Jim groaned again. Then abruptly he jumped out of bed, turned on the light, and looked at the little picture of Pen on the wall.

"Pen," he said, "Fleckenstein shan't be elected! I'm going out of this Project, fighting like a hound. I've been a quitter all my life, I'll admit, but I'm going to put up my fists at the end. I'll rush the work here and I'll keep Fleckenstein out of Congress. I'll spend no time belly-aching but I'll stand up to this like a man. Honestly, I will, Penelope."

Dawn was coming in at the window. Jim filled the bathtub and took a cold plunge. The sun was just rimming the mountains when he began to tune up his automobile. He filled the tank with gasoline and cranked the engine and was starting out the door when old Suma-theek appeared. Jim stopped.

"Where you go, Boss?" asked the Indian.

A sudden desire to talk to Iron Skull's old friend made Jim say, "Get in and ride to the bridge with me, Suma-theek."

The chief clambered into the seat by Jim. "Suma-theek, the Big Boss at Washington has given me three months before I must leave the dam."

"Why?" asked Suma-theek.

"Because I darn well deserve it. I've got everybody here sore at me. Everybody on this Project hates me, so he's afraid it will hurt all the dams the Big Sheriff at Washington wants to build for all the whites."

"He's a heap fool, that Big Boss at Washington. All the people that know you love you in their hearts. It hurt your heart because you have leave dam?"

Jim nodded. The old Indian eyed him keenly. Then his lean, bronze face turned sad. "Why you suppose Great Spirit no care how much heart aches? Why you suppose he let that little To-hee bird all time sing love to you, then no let you have your love? Maybe, Boss Still, all those things you believe, all those things you work for, Great Spirit think no use. Huh?"

"The Great Spirit didn't explain anything to us, Suma-theek, but he gave us our dreams. I want to fix my tribe's dream so firmly it can never be forgotten. As for my own little dream of love, what does it matter?"

Suma-theek responded to Jim's wistful smile with an old man's smile of lost illusions. "Dreams are always before or behind. They are never here. You are young. Yours are before. Suma-theek is old. His are behind. Boss Still, you no sabez one thing. All great dreams of any tribe they built by man for love of woman."

Jim stared for a moment at the purple shadow of the Elephant. Then he stopped the machine at the bridge to let Suma-theek out. In a moment the machine was climbing the mesa on the road to Cabillo.

Jim always thrilled to his first view of Cabillo as he swung down into the valley. It is a little town lying on a desert plain three thousand feet above the sea. Flood or drought or utter loneliness had not prevailed to keep men from settling there. It is set in the vivid green of alfalfa field, of vineyards, and of orchards. Around about the town, the desert lies, rich, yellow, and to the east rise mountains that stand like deep purple organ pipes against the blue desert sky. It seemed to Jim this morning that the pipes had forever murmured with the wordless brooding music of the desert winds. That age after age they had been uttering vast harmonies too deep for human ears to hear, uttering them to countless generations of men who had come and gone like the desert sand.

In Cabillo Jim went, after a hasty breakfast, to see John Haskins. Haskins was a banker and a Harvard man who had come to Cabillo thirty years before with bad lungs. He was, Jim thought, an impartial, though keen, observer of events in the valley. He was in the banker's office but a few minutes.

"Mr. Haskins," he said, "do you consider fifty dollars an acre too heavy a debt for the farmers to carry on their farms?"

"Not for the experienced irrigation farmer," replied Haskins.

Jim paused thoughtfully. "Experienced! And not twenty per cent. of them will be experienced." He made an entry in his notebook, then asked, "Is ten years too short a time to give the farmers to pay for the dam?"

"Not with wise cropping."

"Is it possible to find sufficient water power market to practically pay for the dam, without reference to the crops?" Jim went on.

"Yes," answered Haskins.

"If a group of farmers and business men will assume a debt, voluntarily, then repudiate it, are they sufficiently responsible persons to assume for all time the handling of the irrigation system and water power the government is developing for them?" Jim's voice was slow and biting.

Haskins answered clearly, "No!"

Jim's last question made Haskins smile. "Is this an intelligent group of men, these farmers and business men?"

"Unusually so, especially the men who have been long in the desert and have struggled with its vicissitudes. Some of the Mexican farmers are difficult to handle, though, because they don't understand what the government is trying to do. For heaven's sake, Manning, why this catechism?"

Jim laughed. "Oh, I want your opinion to quote. I'm about to put up a fight against Fleckenstein."

"But that will be hardly proper, will it, considering your job? Not but what I think Fleckenstein ought to be fought!"

"Oh, I'm not going on the stump. I'm merely going to fight him by attending to certain portions of my job that I've always neglected."

Jim rose and Haskins shook his head ruefully. "More power to your elbow, old man. But nothing can beat Fleckenstein now, I'm afraid."

"I'm going to mighty well try it," said Jim as he hurried out the door.

His next visit was along the irrigation canal to a point where his irrigation engineer was watching the work on a small power station.

"Hello, Marlow, how is Murphy doing?"

Marlow laughed. "I made him timekeeper. He's assumed the duties of policeman, ward boss and of advertising agent for you."

"Where is he?" asked Jim.

"Coming right along the road there now."

Jim started the machine on to meet the stocky figure that Marlow pointed out.

Murphy grinned broadly as Jim invited him into the machine. "I want to talk to you, Murphy? How does the job go?"

"Aw, it's no job! It's a joy ride. I thought I knew every farmer in the county but I didn't. A new one turns up every day to tell the Little Boss how to irrigate."

"Murphy," said Jim, "how do you size up Fleckenstein?"

Murphy looked at Jim curiously. "Just like everyone else does, as a crook."

"How much pull has he with the farmers?"

Murphy shrugged his shoulders. "How much pull would the devil himself have if he promised repudiation? Tell me that, Boss!"

"Is the chap who is running against him any good?"

"Who, Ives? Is a bag of jelly an implement of war? What have you got on your mind, Boss?"

"Well, to tell the truth, Murphy, I've just come to! The election is just three months off, isn't it? I am going to try to lick Fleckenstein in that time."

"Can't be done, Boss, unless you'll take the stump yourself."

"Of course, that's out of the question," replied Jim. "But this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to see every farmer in the valley and have a good talk with him. I'm going to make him see this Project as I do. And I'm going to send for half a dozen of the best men in the Department of Agriculture to come out here and get the newcomers interested in scientific farming. I'm not going to mention Fleckenstein's name."

Murphy looked at Jim, then out at the irrigating ditch along which the machine was moving slowly. "Boss," he said, "go ahead if it'll ease you up any, but you might as well try to fight a hydrophobia skunk with a perfume atomizer as to try them high-brow methods on Fleckenstein."

Jim laughed. "Well, do you know of a better method, Murphy?"

"Yes, the good, old-fashioned way of putting up more whisky, more money and more free rides than the other fellow does."

Jim turned the machine back toward the power station. "Of course, you know that that is out of the question, Murphy."

"Well, what do you want me to do, Boss?" asked Murphy.

"Tomorrow is Sunday," said Jim. "I want you to come up to my house and discuss with me the characteristics of every man in the valley. I don't know anyone better qualified to know them."

"I'll be there," said Murphy, climbing from the machine. He watched Jim drive away. "There's something about him that gets under my skin," said the ex-saloonkeeper. "I'll be holding his hand, next. Poor snoozer! Think of him trying to fight mud like Fleckenstein. But I'll back him if it'll relieve his mind any."

Jim was back at the dam by mid-afternoon. He found Pen with Mrs. Flynn in the shining little kitchen of his adobe.

"Penelope," he said, "is there any way we can rob Sara of his poison fangs? Certainly sending him away will do little good. I have been thinking of giving him his choice of being under espionage or of being turned over to the government. I've played with him, Pen, a little too long. Now that it's too late, I'm going to lock the door."

Mrs. Flynn looked frightened. She never had seen this expression on Jim's face before. The scowl between his eyes was deep, his jaw was tense and his eyes were too large and too bright. But Pen's face flushed eagerly.

"You are angry at last, Jimmy! Thank heaven for that! We can watch Sara, easily, if you will use your authority. And oh, I do so want to stay and help! Your temper is touched at last, Jim. I am thankful to Freet for that."

Jim nodded grimly. "Will you go over to the tent with me? Or had I better have it out with Sara alone?"

"Neither," said Pen. "I'll settle him myself. I feel like having a scrap with someone. What else are you going to do, Still? Shall you report Freet?"

"That's out of the question. Freet is the least of my troubles, anyhow. I'll tell you all my plans." He looked from Mrs. Flynn, whose anxious eyes did not leave his face, to Pen, with her cheeks showing the scarlet of excitement. Something in their tense interest in him was suddenly very comforting to Jim and he smiled at them. And though it was a little strained it was the old flashing, sweet smile that those who knew him loved.

"I don't know how I'm to get through the next few weeks," he said, "unless you two are very kind and polite to me."

Mrs. Flynn suddenly threw her apron over her head. "God knows," she sobbed, "I've waited for you to smile this weary time! I've washed and mended all your clothes and cleaned your room and cooked everything I ever heard of and not a smile could I get. I thought you had something incurable!"

Jim made a long stride across the room and hugged Mrs. Flynn, boyishly. "Didn't you tell me you felt like my mother? Don't you know mothers have to see through their boy's stupidity and selfishness down to the real trouble that lies underneath? No one will do it but a mother!"

Mrs. Flynn wiped her eyes on her apron. "God knows I'm an old fool," she said. "Change that dirty khaki suit so's I can wash it."

Jim chuckled and turned to Pen. She was watching the little tableau with all her hungry heart in her eyes.

"Pen! Oh, my dearest!" breathed Jim. Then he paused with a glance at his near-mother, who immediately began to rattle the stove lids.

"Get out and take a walk, the two of you. God knows I'm a good Catholic, but there's some things—get out, the two of you! Let your nerves ease up a bit. Sure we all pound and twang like a wet tent in the wind."

Out on the trail Jim spoke a little breathlessly: "Pen! If you would just let me put my head down on your shoulder, if you'd put your dear cheek on mine and smooth my hair, the heaven of it would carry me through the next few weeks. Just that much, Pen, is all I'd ask for!"

Tears were in Pen's eyes as she looked up into the fine, pleading face. "Jim, I can't!"

"You wouldn't be taking it from Sara."

"Sara! Poor Sara! He wants no embraces from anyone! I'm no more married to Sara than a nurse to her patient. But I mean that as long as things are as they are, the honest thing, the safe thing, is for me not to—to—Oh, Jim, it's not square to any of us. We must keep on the straight, clear basis of friendship!"

But Jim had seen Pen's heart in her eyes and the call of it was almost more than his lonely heart could bear.

"Great heavens, Pen!" he cried. "Life is so short! We need each other so! What does it profit us or the world that all your wealth of tenderness should go untouched and all my hunger for it unsatisfied? If your touch on my hair will brace me for the fight of my life, why should you deny it to me?"

Pen tried to laugh. "Still, what's happened to your morals?"

Jim replied indignantly: "You can't apply a system of ethics to your cheek against mine except to say it's all wrong that I can't have you now, in my great need. And I warn you, Pen, I shall come to you thirsty until at last you give me what is mine. Only your cheek to mine is all I ask for, Penny."

Pen looked up at the pleading beauty of Jim's eyes. "Don't plead with me, Jim," she half whispered, "or I think my heart will break."

The two looked away from each other to the Elephant. The great beast seemed to sleep in the afternoon sun.

"Tell me about your plans, Still," said Pen, her voice not altogether steady.

"Murphy thinks I'm a fool," said Jim. "Perhaps I am. But Oscar Ames has been a good deal of a surprise to me: Just as soon as I took the trouble to explain the concrete matter to him, he got it instantly. And in a way he got my talk about the new social obligations you showed me."

Pen interrupted eagerly: "You don't know how much you did in that talk, Jim. Oscar has discovered you and he's as proud as Columbus. He has made me tell him everything I know about you. You see you have that rare capacity for making anyone you will take the trouble to talk to feel as if he was your only friend and confidant. Oscar has discovered that you are misunderstood, that he is the only person that really understands you and he's out now explaining to his neighbors how little they really know about concrete."

Jim looked surprised. "I don't know what I did, except to follow your instructions, but if it worked on Ames, it ought to work on the rest. I believe that after a few more talks with Ames, he will work against Fleckenstein, Pen, and that I will accomplish it by just talking the dam to him until he understands the technical side of it and the ideal I have about it. And if it will influence him, why not the others?"

Pen looked at him thoughtfully. "I believe you can do it, Jim. A sort of silent campaign, eh? And then what?"

"Well, if I can keep Fleckenstein out of Congress by those means, I believe that this project will never repudiate its debt! I am going to get the Department of Agriculture to send a group of experts out here at once. They will help not only the old farmers who over-irrigate but the new farmers who can't farm. And I'm going to get the farmers who have been successful to co-operate with the farmers who have failed. If I only had more time!

"You have three months before election," said Pen. "A lot can be done in three months."

Jim shrugged his shoulders. "I can only do my limit. Among other things I'm going to try to get the bankers and business men in Cabillo to fight the inflation of land values here on the Project. Incidentally, I'm going to keep on building my dam."

"How can I help?" asked Pen.

"I've told you how," said Jim, quietly.

"Oh, Still, that's not fair!" exclaimed Pen.

"Why not?" asked Jim, coolly. Pen flushed and looked away. They were nearing the tent house and she spoke hastily:

"I'll go in and talk with Sara."

"Better let me," said Jim.

"No," said Pen, "every woman has an inalienable right to bully and intimidate her own husband."

Jim laughed and left her, reluctantly. Pen went into the tent. Sara was looking flushed and tired. The look had been growing on him of late. He had been unusually tractable for a day or so and Pen's heart smote her as she greeted him. No matter how he tried her, Sara never ceased to be a pitiful and a tragic figure to her in his wrecked and aborted youth.

"Sara," she said, her voice very gentle and her touch very tender as she held a glass of water for him, "Jim wanted to come in and talk to you but I wouldn't let him."

Sara pushed the glass away. "Why not?"

"Because you and he quarrel so. Sara, it's a fair fight. You warned Jim that you would ruin him. He says you may have your choice of being watched or turned over to the authorities."

"He is a mutton head!" said Sara. "I suppose he thinks the crux of the matter is that seance with Freet. As if I'd do as coarse work as that! That's what I'd like, to be turned over to the authorities. Couldn't I tell a pretty story about the meeting with Freet up here? Freet actually thought Jim would come across with the contract! But that wasn't what I was after."

"Sara, when you talk like that, I despise you," said Pen.

"You despise me because I'm a cripple," returned Sara. "Why can't you be honest about it?"

"Don't you know me yet, Sara?" asked Pen, sitting down on the foot of his couch and looking at him entreatingly. "Don't you know that if you had taken your injury like a man, you'd have gotten a hold on my tenderness and respect that nothing could have destroyed? Sara, I've watched you degenerate for eight years, but I never realized to what a depth you had sunk until you came to the Project."

"What do you see in the Project," said Sara. "What does it really matter whether private or public interests control it? Who really cares?"

"Lots of people care. Jim cares."

"Pshaw!" sneered Sara. "All Jim Manning really cares about is his own pigheaded sense of race and nationality."

"Jim needs that sense for his propelling power," said Pen. "I believe that just as soon as a man loses his sense of nationality, he loses a lot of his social force. Love of country—a man that hasn't it lacks something very fine, like family pride and honor. Jim's sense of race is the keynote to his character. And just as much as the New Englanders have lost that sense, have they lost their grip on the trend of the nation. They are the type that can't do without it."

Sara eyed Pen curiously. She had turned to look out over the desert distances so that Sara saw her profile clean cut against the sky. She was only a girl and yet she had lived through much. Sara looked at her noble head, high arched above her ears; at her short nose and full soft mouth, at her straight brow, all blending in an outline that was that of the thinker, infinitely sad in its intelligence.

"That was a very highbrow statement of yours, Pen," he said, less harshly than usual. "How did you come to think about these things?"

Pen turned to look at him. "Marrying you made me," she said. "I had to use my mind. I had no family. I had no talents. I had to teach myself a sense of proportion that would keep you from wrecking me. I wanted to get to look at myself as one human living with millions of other humans and not as Pen, the center of her own universe." Pen laughed a little wistfully. "Since I couldn't mother children of my own, naturally, I had to mother the world."

Sara grunted. "Huh! Who can say my life has been altogether a failure?"

Sudden tears sprang to Pen's eyes. "Why, Sara, what a dear thing to say! And I thought you would remove my hair because of Jim's message."

The sneer returned to Sara's voice. "You ask Jim if he ever heard of locking the barn too late? Tell him to bring on his 'armed guards.'"

Pen was startled. "Sara, what have you done?"

Sara laughed. "If you and Jim don't know, I'm not the proper one to tell you! One of your gentleman friends is outside, evidently waiting for you."

Pen looked out. Old Suma-theek was standing on the trail, arms folded, watching the tent patiently. He had had one interview with Sara soon after the crippled man had appeared at the dam. The talk had been desultory and in Pen's presence, but never after could the old Indian be induced to come into the tent.

"He like a broken backed snake, your buck," he had said calmly to Pen, whom he had obviously adored from the first.

Pen came down the trail to see what Suma-theek wanted. She knew there was no hurrying him, so she sat down on a stone and waited. Suma-theek seated himself beside her and rolled a cigarette. After he had smoked half of it, he said:

"Boss Still Jim, he heap sad in his heart."

Pen nodded.

"You love him, Pen Squaw?" asked Suma-theek, earnestly.

"We all do," replied Pen. "He and I have known each other many, many years."

"Don't talky-talk!" cried Suma-theek impatiently. "I mean you love him with a big love?"

Pen looked into Suma-theek's face. She had grown very close to the old Indian. And then, as if the flood in her heart was beyond her control, she said:

"You will never tell, Suma-theek?" and as the Apache shook his head she went on eagerly, "I love him so much that after a while I must go away, old friend, or my heart will break!"

The old Indian shook his head wonderingly. "Whites are crazy fools," he groaned. "You sabez he be here only three months more?"

Pen started. "What do you mean, Suma-theek?"

"You no tell 'em!" warned the old chief. "He tell Suma-theek this morning. Big Boss in Washington tell 'em he only stay three months, then be on any Projects no more."

Pen sat appalled. "Oh, Suma-theek, that can't be true! You couldn't have heard right. I'll go and ask him now."

Suma-theek laid a hand on her arm. "You no talk to him about it! You last one he want to know. I tell you so you go love him, then he no care what happen."

"Oh, Suma-theek, you don't understand! He loves the dam. It will break his heart to leave it. Even I couldn't comfort him for that. Are you sure you are right?"

Yet even as she repeated the question, Pen's own sick heart answered. This was what had put the new strain into Jim's face, the new pleading into his voice.

"How shall I help him," she moaned.

"You no tell him, you sabez," repeated Suma-theek. "He want you think he Boss here long as he can. All men's like that with their squaw."

"I won't tell him," promised Pen. "But what shall I do?" She clasped and unclasped her fingers, then she sprang to her feet. "I know! I know! It will be like a strong arm under his poor overburdened shoulders!"



CHAPTER XXIII

THE SILENT CAMPAIGN

"I have seen that those humans who seek strength from Nature never fail to find it."

MUSINGS OF THE ELEPHANT.

Suma-theek waited eagerly. "I'll send for Uncle Benny," said Pen. "He'll leave anything to help Jim."

Suma-theek nodded. "Good medicine. He that fat uncle that love the Big Boss. I sabez him. You get 'em here quick," and Suma-theek sighed with the air of one who had accomplished something.

"I'll telephone a night telegram to Cabillo," said Pen. "He ought to be here in a week. But we mustn't tell the Big Boss or he wouldn't let us do it."

Suma-theek nodded and strolled off. When Pen returned to the tent Sara was full of curiosity, but Pen began to get supper with the remark, "I'm not the proper one to tell you, if you don't know!"

When Pen sent the night telegram, she telephoned to Jane Ames, getting her promise to come up to the dam the next day. As she took the long trail back from the store, where she had gone for privacy in sending her messages, it seemed to Pen that she could not bear to refuse Jim the comfort for which he had begged.

"My one safeguard," she thought, "is to avoid him except where we are chaperoned by half the camp. My poor boy, keeping his real troubles to himself!"

After Sara was asleep that night, Pen slipped over to talk with Mrs. Flynn. The two women were good friends. Sara's ugliness deprived Pen here as it had in New York of the friendship of most women. In the camp were many charming women who had lived lives with their engineering husbands that made them big of soul and sound of body. But Sara would have none of them. So Pen fell back on Mrs. Ames and Mrs. Flynn and the strangely matched trio had many happy hours together.

But Mrs. Flynn was not in her kitchen, nor was she in her little bedroom. Pen wandered into the living room. Mrs. Flynn was not there, but Jim was lying on the couch asleep, his hat on the floor beside him. For many moments Pen stood looking at him. Sleep robbed Jim of his guard of self-control. The man lying on the couch, with face relaxed, lips parted, hair tumbled, looked like the boy whom Pen many a time had wakened on the hearth rug of the old library.

Suddenly, with a little sob, Pen dropped on her knees beside the couch and laid her cheek against Jim's. She felt him wake with a start, then she felt a hand that trembled gently laid on her head.

"Heart's dearest, this is mighty good of you!" said Jim huskily.

Pen did not answer, but she put her hand up and smoothed his hair back from his forehead. Jim seized her fingers and carried them to his lips.

"Sweetheart," he said brokenly, "how am I going to bear it without you or—or anything. Oh, Pen, let's go back to Exham and begin all over again!"

Penelope lifted her head and slipped back until she was sitting on the floor beside the couch, with Jim holding both her hands against his hot cheek.

"You will do this often, won't you, dear?" asked Jim.

Pen shook her head. "Jimmy, about twice more like this and I'd be actually thinking seriously of leaving Sara and marrying you. God help me to keep from ever doing as yellow a thing as that, Still. But, somehow tonight, I thought that just this once would help us both through all the hard months to come. And the memory will be mighty sweet. We—we need a memory to take some of the bitterness out of it all, Still. If I'm wrong in doing this, why the blame is mine alone."

Jim lay silently, holding her hands closer and closer, looking into her face with eyes that did not waver.

Pen smiled and disengaged one hand to smooth his hair again. "I'm a poor preacher. My life is just an endless struggle not to let my mistakes wreck other people as well as myself. Jim, the thing that will be bigger than all we've missed is to make you give the world all the fine force that is in you. We've got to save the dam for you and for the country. I shall be with you every moment, Jim, no matter where either of us is, bracing you with all the will I've got. Never forget that!"

Little by little the steel lines crept over Jim's face again. "I shall not forget, little Pen. How sweet you are! How good! How less than a lump of dough I'd be if I didn't put up a good fight after this!—dearest!"

In the silence that followed, they did not take their gaze from each other. Then Pen started, as Mrs. Flynn came in at the front door and stopped with her mouth open. But Jim would not free Pen's hand.

"Mother Flynn must have guessed," he said slowly, "and—she knows us both!"

Mrs. Flynn came over to the couch eagerly. "I do that!" she exclaimed, "and my heart is wore to a string, God knows, sorrowing for the two of you."

"I came in to see you and found Jim asleep and—he's got so much trouble ahead of him, I couldn't help trying to comfort him just this once. I'll never do it again," said Pen, like a child.

Mrs. Flynn threw her apron over her head, then pulled it down again to say, "God knows I'm a good Catholic, but I'm glad you did it. Don't I know what a touch of the hand means to remember? Is there a day of my life I don't live over every caress Timothy Flynn ever gave me? Would I sit in judgment on two as fine as I know the both of you are? I'm going to make us a cup of tea for our nerves."

Jim swung his long legs off the couch and lifted Pen to her feet. "The two of you have tea," he said. "I've had a better tonic. I'm going out for a look at the night shift."

By the time that Mrs. Flynn had bustled about and produced the tea, Pen had regained her composure and was ready to tell Mrs. Flynn of the errand that had brought her to the house, which was that when Jane Ames came up on the morrow the three were to have a council of war on how to help Jim. Wild horse could not have dragged from her what Suma-theek had told her, since Jim so evidently wanted it kept a secret. Nevertheless, all that a woman could do, possessing that knowledge, Pen was going to do.

The next afternoon, while Oscar joined Murphy and Jim, who were having a long talk in Jim's living room, Pen and Mrs. Ames and Mrs. Flynn went up onto the Elephant's back.

Pen's plan was simple. It was merely that she and Jane go among the farmers' wives and campaign against Fleckenstein. "Women's opinions do count, you know," she said.

"Mine didn't use to," said Jane, "but they do now. I ain't felt so young in years as I have since Oscar and I had that clearing up. It's a splendid idea."

"Where do I come in?" asked Mrs. Flynn, jealously.

"I wanted you to keep an eye on Sara, the days I am away," said Pen. "You are the only one he will let come near him except me."

"Sure I'll do it," said Mrs. Flynn. "I'd take care of a Gila monster if I thought it would do the Boss any good. And Mr. Sara don't sass me so much since I told him what I thought of the Greek church. No! No! I won't tell the Boss. God knows I'm worried thin as a knitting needle now over his worrying."

"Then I'll come down tomorrow, Jane," said Pen. "Bill Evans will take us round. He charges——" Pen blushed and stopped. "I—I—to tell the truth, I have to ask Sara for what I want and I don't know just how to get round it, this time."

Jane in her turn went red. "I'll ask Oscar. I hadn't begun to break him in on that yet. But he's been so nice lately."

Mrs. Flynn stood eying the two women. "Of all the fools, women are the worst," she snorted. "You bet Tim never kept the purse and there never was a happier pair than him and me. Just you wait."

As she spoke, Jim's near mother was exploring the region within her gingham waist and finally she tugged out a chamois skin bag that bulged with bills. "I ain't been down to the bank at Cabillo for months, and that angel boy pays me regular as a clock. How much do you want?"

"Oh, but we can't let you pay out anything, Mrs. Flynn," protested Penelope.

Neither Pen nor Mrs. Ames had seen Mrs. Flynn angry before. "I mustn't, mustn't I?" she shrieked. "Who's got a better right? Who feeds him and launders him and mends him? Don't he call me Mother Flynn? God knows I never thought to see the day to be told I could not do for him! I expect to be doing for him till I die and if God lets me live to spare my life, that'll be a long time yet!"

Pen threw her arms round Mrs. Flynn and kissed her plump cheek. "Bless your dear heart, you shall spend all you want to on Jim."

Mother Flynn sobbed a little. "God knows I'm an old fool, girls! Take what you want and come back for more."

And thus the campaign for Jim among the farmers' wives was launched.

Neither Oscar nor Murphy had any faith in Jim's "silent campaign." But his own quiet fervor was such that after that Sunday afternoon's talk, both men pledged themselves to help him. Murphy was to play the part of watchdog. Oscar was to work among the farmers.

Oscar Ames never did anything by halves. With Jane urging him from without and his new found faith in Jim urging him from within, he turned his ranch over to the foreman and devoted himself utterly to Jim. The days now were busy ones in the valley as well as on the dam. Jim's eighteen hours a day often stretched into twenty, though he sometimes dozed in his office chair or in the automobile with Oscar, reveling in his new-learned accomplishment, driving at a snail's pace.

During this period Pen saw him only infrequently, for she was much occupied with Sara, who was not so well, when she was not in the valley with Jane Ames. Even when Pen did see Jim, he talked very little. It seemed to her that in his fear lest the secret of his dismissal escape him, he had gone into himself and shut the door even against her.

They did not speak again of watching Sara, but Pen knew that no mail left their tent, no visitor came and went without surveillance. If Sara knew of this, he made no comment. In fact, he did very little now save smoke and stare idly out the door.

Reports of Jim's campaign reached Pen quite regularly, however. Oscar was a very steady source of information.

"He don't say much, you know, and that's what makes a hit," Oscar told Pen and Jane. "For instance, he went over to old Miguel's ranch. Miguel's one of the fellow's been accusing the Boss of raising the cost of the dam so's he could steal the money. Boss, he found old Miguel looking over his ditch that's over a hundred years old. And the Boss, he says as common as an old shoe:

"'Wish I owned the place my fathers built a hundred years ago, Senor Miguel.'

"Miguel, he had had his mind made up for a fight, but started off telling the Boss about old Spanish days in the valley and the Boss, he sits nodding and smoking Miguel's rotten cigarettes and smiling at him sort of sad and friendly like until old Miguel he thinks the Boss is the only man he ever met that understood him. After two straight hours of this, the Boss he says he'll have to go, but he wishes old Miguel would come up and spend the day and dine with him. Says he's got some serious problems he'd like old Miguel's opinion on. And old Miguel, he follows us clear out to the main road, where we left the machine, and he tells the Boss his house is his and his wife and his daughters and sons are his and his horses and cattle are his and that he will be glad to come up and show him how to build the dam."

"Mrs. Flynn says he's having some farmer up to supper nearly every night," said Jane. "Oscar, how comes it you always speak of Mr. Manning as the Boss, now? You never would call any other man that?"

Oscar squared his big shoulders. "He's the only man I ever met I thought knew more than I do. You ought to hear the things he can tell you about dam building. And he's full of other ideas, too. A lot of what you folks put down as stuckupedness is just quietness on his part while he thinks. I'm trying to pound that into these bullheaded ranchers round here. I tell 'em how to make sand-cement, for instance, and then ask 'em if a fellow didn't have to keep his mouth shut and saw wood while he thought a thing like that out. I'm willing to call him Boss, all right. He's got more in his head than sand cement, too. Last night, we was coming home just before supper. He's been on the job since four in the morning and I knew he had to get back and work half the night on office work. And I says:

"'Boss, what will you get out of it to pay you for half killing yourself this way?'

"He didn't answer me for a long time, then he begun to tell me a story about how he and another fellow went through the Makon canyon and how that other fellow felt about it and how he was drowned and how he had some verses that that fellow taught him printed on his gravestone. Thought I'd remember those lines. They made me feel more religious than anything I've heard at church. Something about Sons of Martha."

Pen had been listening, her heart in her eyes, trying not to envy Oscar his long days with Jim. Now she leaned forward eagerly.

"Oh, I know what he quoted to you:

"'Lift ye the stone or cleave the wood to make a path more or flat, Lo, it is black already with blood, some Son of Martha spilled for that. Not as a ladder from Earth to Heaven, not as an altar to any creed, But simple Service, simply given, to their own kind, in their common need.'"

The three sat silent for a moment, then Oscar nodded. "That's them. He said he never got their full meaning till just lately and now he's trying to live up to 'em. I'm perfectly willing to call him Boss."

Pen and Jane were not finding the farmers' wives easy to influence. Their task was a double one. First they had to rouse interest in the coming election and then they had to persuade the women that their husbands were wrong. Moreover, after the first week or so, they found that Penelope's presence was a hindrance rather than a help. It was after their call on Mrs. Hunt that they reluctantly reached this conclusion.

Bill rattled them up to a bungalow on one of the new ranches. The Hunts were newcomers, having bad luck with their first attempts at irrigation. Mrs. Hunt was a hearty looking woman of forty. Pen stated the object of the call.

"I never had any interest in politics," said Mrs. Hunt. "I was always too busy with my family to gallivant around."

Jane and Pen plunged earnestly into explanations. When they had finished, Mrs. Hunt said:

"I can see why Mrs. Ames is so interested. But why should you be, Mrs. Sardox? I heard your husband was backing Fleckenstein."

"I don't agree with my husband's ideas," said Pen. "I am doing this because I think Fleckenstein's election will do the valley a deadly wrong."

"Oh, you are one of those eastern women that thinks they know more than their husbands! I am not! I prefer to let my husband do my thinking in politics for me. Does Mr. Manning know you're doing this?"

"Oh, no!" cried Jane. "You don't understand this, Mrs. Hunt."

"I'm no fool," returned Mrs. Hunt. "And I tell you it don't look well for a good-looking young married woman to go round fighting against her husband for a handsome young bachelor like Manning. So there!"

Pen and Jane withdrew with as much dignity as they could muster. It was the sixth rebuff they had received that day. Pen was almost in tears.

"Jane, what are we to do?"

Jane fastened up her linen duster firmly. "One thing is sure, you can't go round with me. One way, you can't blame 'em for looking at it so, drat 'em! I'll just have to carry on this campaign by myself. I wish Mr. Manning could go with me. I don't think he has any idea that he has a way with women. He just sits around looking as if he had a deep-hidden sorrow and all us women fall for it. You and I aren't a bit more sensible than Mrs. Flynn. Here I got a Chinese cook in the house Oscar lugged home. I'd as soon have a rat in the house as one of the nasty yellow things, but Oscar says I got to have him or a dish washing machine, so, after all, I've said I'm up against it. And here I am dashing round the country for Mr. Manning, when I know that Chink is making opium pills in my kitchen."

But Pen was not to be distracted. "What can I do, Jane? Must I just sit with folded hands while the rest of you work?"

"You do your share in supplying ideas, Penelope," said Jane.

Pen answered with a little sob, "I get tired of that job! I want to be on the firing line, just once!"

That night they consulted with Oscar. At first he was very hostile to the thought of either of them undertaking such work. Then in the midst of his tirade on woman's sphere, he stopped with a roar of laughter.

"And I'm a fine example of what a woman can do with a man when she gets busy! All right, Jane, go ahead. Hanged if I ain't proud of you! But Mrs. Pen is hurting the cause. The women folks won't stand for you, Mrs. Pen; you are too pretty."

So Pen withdrew from the campaign and Jane and Bill Evans went on alone.

When Oscar was not with Jim, he brought visitors to the dam. These visitors were farmers and business men from the entire Project. Ames was careful to time the visits, so that about the time he strolled up to the dam site with the callers, Jim would be on his tour of inspection. Oscar would then follow unostentatiously in Jim's wake, but close enough to get a good idea of the ground that Jim covered. Often he would make Jim stop and give an explanation of some point the visitors could not understand. Penelope, consumed with curiosity, joined the touring party one day.

"I wish you could see him in full action," Oscar was saying. "Like the day of the flood or the night Dad Robins was killed. He can handle fifteen hundred men better'n I handle my three. Now you watch him. Those there fellows he's joshing have been with him seven years. You ought to hear their stories about driving the tunnel up on the Makon. Say, he'd go right in with 'em. Never asked 'em to go somewhere he wouldn't go himself. They all laugh at us farmers, those rough-necks. Say, we don't know a real man when we see one."

The bronzed elderly man who was with Oscar listened intently. Oscar went on:

"The details on a place like this are enough to drive a man crazy. He dassent let 'em pour concrete without him or his cement expert is round. If the rocks aren't just right or the surface of the section isn't just right or they slip up a little on the mixture, the whole thing will go to thunder some day. He's got to spend ten million dollars with eighty million people watching him and all us farmers kicking every minute. How'd you like his job?"

"He was over at my place the other day," said the farmer. "I see how he got his nickname. But he's awful easy to talk to. I got to telling him what a hard time I had the first year or two I was irrigating alfalfa and how I get five good cuttings a year now, regular. He wants me to show that new fellow Hunt how I did it. Guess I will. I always thought Manning hated the farmers. But I guess he was just busy with his own troubles."

Pen fell back and climbed the trail to a point where she could look down on Jim. He was listening to his master mechanic, interjecting a word now and then at which his subordinate nodded eagerly. Pen wondered sadly, what Jim would do with his life when he could no longer work for the Projects. The thought of this sudden thwarting of all his plans haunted her and she longed almost unbearably to talk to him about it, but his silence on the subject she felt that she must respect. As she sauntered on along the trail to meet Bill Evans exploding into camp with the mail, she was thinking back over Jim's life and of how much of it had been spent in listening rather than in speaking. His silence, she thought, was a part of his great personal charm. From it his companions got a sense of a keen, sympathetic intelligence focused entirely on their own problems that was very attractive. Somehow, Pen had faith that his campaign of silence would defeat Fleckenstein.

Bill had a lone passenger in his tonneau. Pen's pulse quickened. As the machine reached her side, Bill stopped with his usual flourish, and Uncle Denny, without waiting to open the door which was fastened with binding wire, climbed out over the front seat.

"Pen! Pen! The door of me heart has hung sagging and open ever since you left!"



CHAPTER XXIV

UNCLE DENNY GETS BUSY

"Coyotes breed only with coyotes. Men talk much of pride of race, yet they will breed with any color."

MUSINGS OF THE ELEPHANT.

Pen clung to Uncle Denny with a breathless sob. She had not realized how heavy her burden was until Uncle Denny had come to share it.

"Uncle Denny! You didn't answer my telegram and I didn't dare hope you would get here."

"Where is Jim, Penny, and how is me boy?"

"I'll take you to him now. He has no idea of your coming. Bill, we will walk. Take the trunk on up to Mr. Manning's house, will you?"

"I was afraid 'twould get out and I knew he'd never stand for me coming out to help. That's why I sent you no word," said Uncle Denny, beginning to puff up the trail beside Pen.

"He's just the same old Jim," said Pen, "but under a terrific strain just now, of course. You can understand from my letters just how great that is."

"And Sara?" asked Uncle Denny.

"Not so well," replied Pen. "He is very quiet, these days. There is the first glimpse of the dam, Uncle Denny."

Uncle Denny stopped and wiped the sweat out of his eyes with his silk handkerchief. He gazed in silence for a moment at the mammoth foundations, over which the workmen ran like ants.

"'Twas but a hole in the ground when I last saw it," he said. "Pen, it's so big you can't compass it in your mind. And they are pecking at me boy while he builds mountains!"

"There he is!" exclaimed Pen, pointing to the tower foot.

"It is! It's Still Jim! Is me collar entirely wilted?"

Pen laughed. "Uncle Denny, you're as fussed as a girl at meeting her sweetheart! You look beautiful and you know it. There! He sees us!"

Uncle Denny lost a little of his color and stood still. Jim came striding down the road. His eyes were black with feeling. Without a word he threw his arms around Uncle Dennis and hugged that rotund person off his feet.

"Still Jim, me boy!" cried Uncle Denny. "I've come out to lick the world for ye!"

Jim loosened his bear hug and stepped back. His smile was brilliant.

"Uncle Denny, you look like a tailor's ad! Doesn't he, little Penelope?"

There was something in Jim's voice as he spoke Pen's name that Michael Dennis understood as clearly as if Jim had shouted his feeling for Pen in his ear.

"I'm starving to death," he said hastily. "Take me home, Still. Come along, Pen."

Mrs. Flynn was surveying the trunk as it stood on end in the living room. She was talking rapidly to herself and as the three came up on the porch she cried:

"I said 'twas you, Mr. Dennis! I told myself fifty times 'twas your trunk and still myself kept contradicting me. You are as handsome as a Donegal dude. Leave me out to the kitchen till I get an early supper!"

After supper Jim and Dennis sat for a short time over their pipes before Jim left for some office work.

"Tell me what to do first, Still," said Uncle Denny, "and I'll start a campaign against Fleckenstein that'll turn the valley upside down. That's what I came out for. I'll fix them, the jackals!"

"Uncle Denny, it won't do," answered Jim slowly. "The uncle of a Project engineer can't carry on a political campaign in his behalf. You'd just get me in deeper with the public."

Uncle Denny stared. "But I came out for that very thing."

"I thought you had just come out for one of your usual visits. It won't do, dear Uncle Denny. I can't say anything against Fleckenstein nor must you."

"Me boy," said Michael Dennis, "all the public sentiment on earth can't keep me from fighting Fleckenstein. Pen sent for me and I'm here."

"Pen sent for you?" repeated Jim. "Why, Pen should not have done that."

"This is a poor welcome, Jim," said Uncle Denny, immeasurable reproach in his voice.

Jim sprang to his feet and put a long brown hand on Uncle Denny's shoulder. "You can't mean that, Uncle Denny. It's meat and drink to me to have you here. You can't doubt it."

"I can't, indeed," agreed Dennis heartily. "And somehow, I'm going to help. Go get your work done and then call for me at Pen's house."

Jim had been in the office but a few minutes when he came out again and stood on the edge of the canyon, staring at the silhouette of the Elephant against the night stars. After a moment he turned up the trail toward the tent house. He entered without ceremony and stood a tall, slender, commanding figure against the white of the tent wall. His eyes were big and bright. His lips were stiff as he looked at Sara and said:

"You are fully even now, Saradokis. I've a notion to kill you as I would a rattler."

The tent was bright with lamplight. The red and black Navajo across Sara's cot was as motionless over the outline of his great legs as though it covered a dead man. Uncle Denny stared at Jim without stirring. His florid face paled a little and his bright Irish eyes did not blink.

Pen could see a tiny patch that Mrs. Flynn had put on the knee of Jim's riding breeches. There swept over her a sudden appreciation of Jim's utter simplicity and sincerity under all the stupendous responsibilities he had assumed not only in the building of the dam, but in his less tangible building for the nation. As he stood before them she saw him not as a man but as the boy Uncle Denny often had described to her, announcing the vast discovery of his life work. Would he, had he known the bitter years ahead of him, have chosen the same, she wondered.

"I found two interesting communications in my mail tonight," said Jim, slowly. "One is a letter from the Washington Office containing clippings from eastern papers. Some reporter announces that he has discovered a fully developed scheme of mine and Freet's to sell out to the Transatlantic people. He gives a twisted version of the conversation here, the other night, that sounds like conclusive evidence. The matter is so well handled that even the Washington office is convinced that I'm a crook. The local papers will, of course, copy this."

Sara did not stir. Jim moistened his lips. "While I knew that I lived under a cloud of suspicion," he said, "I thought to be able to leave the Service with nothing worse than suspicion on my name. I shall never be able to live this down. Yet this is not the worst. I received tonight an anonymous letter. It states that unless I drop my silent campaign, the name of the wife of my crippled friend will be coupled with mine in an unpleasant manner."

Pen's eyes were for a moment horror-stricken. Then they blazed with anger. And so suddenly that Jim and Dennis hardly saw her leave her chair. She sprang over to Sara's couch and struck him across the mouth with her open hand. The stillness in the room for a second was complete, except that Sara breathed heavily as he rose to his elbow.

"I may or may not have produced the newspaper copy, but so help me the God I have blasphemed, I have never used Pen's name," said Sara.

"But you have," said Jim. "You used it before Freet. You probably have cursed me out before Fleckenstein as you did before him and Ames!"

"And there was my trying to help Jane Ames in the valley!" cried Pen suddenly. "She's talking with the farmers' wives for Jim and I went with her until the women were cattish. Oh, Jim, what have we done to you, Sara and I?"

"I shall have to give up the fight a little earlier, that is all," answered Jim. "Don't feel badly, Pen. If I only had some way of punishing Sara and stopping his mischief! Though it's too late now."

"Just be patient, Jim," said Sara. "My mischief will soon end."

Pen had heard only Jim, the first sentence of Jim's remarks. She stood beside the table, white to the lips. "Jim, if you want to wreck my life, stop the fight! Do you suppose, except for the moment's shame, I care what they say about me? If you will only go on with your fight, Jim, let them say what they will. I can stand it. My strength—my strength——" Pen paused with a little sob, as if Uncle Denny reminded her of her girlhood dreams, "my strength is in the eternal hills!"

"I have lived with George Saradokis all these years," Pen went on, "and he's almost broken my faith in life. When I found I could help you, Jim, I thought that I was making up for some of the wrong of my marriage. I even thought that I'd be willing to go through my marriage again because it had taught me how to help you fight. Jim, it will ruin my life if you stop now!"

And Pen suddenly dropped her face in her hands and broke down entirely. Jim never had seen Pen cry. He took a step toward her, then looked pitifully at Uncle Denny.

Uncle Denny sprang from his chair.

"Go on out, Jim," he said. Then he folded Pen in his arms. "Rest here, sweet, tired bird," he said in his rich voice. "Rest here, for I love you with all me soul."

Jim's lips quivered. He went out into the night and once more climbed the Elephant's back. For a long time he sat, too exhausted by his emotions to think. With head resting on his arms, he let the night wind sweep across him until little by little his brain cleared and he looked about him. Far and wide, the same wonder of the desert night; the stars, so low, so tender, so inscrutable, the sky so deep, so utterly compassionate; the far black scratch of the river on the silver desert, the distant black lift of the mountains—Pen's eternal hills!

Over the flagpole on the office the flag rippled and floated, sank and rose, dancing like a child in the joy of living. Jim looked at it wistfully. Flag that his forefathers had fashioned from the fabric of their vision, must the vision be forgotten? It was a great vision, fit to cover the yearnings of the world. His grandfather had fought for it at Antietam. His father had lost it and had died, bewildered and hungry of soul. Was he himself to lose it, son of vision seekers?

The Elephant beneath him seemed to listen for Jim's reply. "God knows," he said at last, "I would not deny the vision to all the immigrant world. All I wish is that we who made the vision had kept it and had taught it to these others to whom our heritage must go. You can scoff, old Elephant, but the struggle is worth while. You can say that nothing matters but Time. I tell you that eternity is made up of soul fights like mine and Pen's!"

Suddenly there came to him the fragment that Pen had quoted to him days before:

"What though the field be lost? All is not lost—the unconquerable will, And courage never to submit nor yield; And what is else, not to be overcome!"

Jim suddenly rose with his blood quickened. "Not to be overcome! And God, what stakes to fight for! To build my father's dream in stone and to make a valley empire out of the tragedy of a woman's soul!"

With renewed strength Jim went down the trail, crossed the canyon and went up to his house.

Uncle Denny was waiting for him. It was nearly midnight. He had kindled a fire in the grate and was brewing some tea. "Mrs. Flynn would have it you'd fallen off a peak but I got her to bed. Have some tea, me boy."

Uncle Denny's voice was cheerful, though his eyes were red. He watched Jim anxiously.

"You should have gone to bed yourself, Uncle Denny. I have a letter to write, then I'm going to turn in."

Uncle Denny's hand shook as he poured the tea. "I had to see you, Still, because I promised Pen I'd go back over there tonight and tell her what your decision was."

Jim caught up his hat. "I'll go!"

But Uncle Denny laid his hand on Jim's arm. "No, me boy. Pen's had all she can stand tonight. I'll take her your word. What shall it be, Still?"

Jim brought his fist down on the table. "Tell her, with her help, I'll keep up the fight!"

Uncle Denny's blue eyes blazed. "I'm prouder of the two of you than I am of me Irish name," he said, and, seizing his hat, he hurried out.

While he was gone Jim wrote this note:

"My dear Mr. Secretary:—Some time ago I wrote you that I did not think an engineer should be asked to build the dam and at the same time handle the human problems connected with the Project. Subsequent events lead me to believe that as your letter suggests it is the duty of the government to look on these Projects not as engineering problems so much as the building of small democracies that may become the living nuclei for the rebirth of all that America once stood for. I do not believe that I am big enough for such a job, but I am putting up a fight. I have been asked to resign within a few weeks from now. I think, looking at the matter from the point of view I have just expressed, that I am dismissed with justice. This letter is to ask you to see that my successor is chosen with the care that you would give to the founder of a colony."

Uncle Denny returned and waited until Jim had finished his letter. Then he said:

"Sara spoke just once after you left. He denied any knowledge of the anonymous letter."

"I'm going to put it up to Fleckenstein," said Jim. "The newspaper dope, of course, was Sara's. I can only ignore that except to answer any questions the farmers may put to me about it. How is Pen?"

"She cried it out on me shoulder after you left and felt better for the tears. Your message will send her to sleep. Still Jim, if I had a jury of atheists and could put Pen on the stand and make her give her philosophy as she has sweated it out of her young soul, I could make them all believe in the eternal God and His mighty plans. To be bigger than circumstance, that's the acid test for human character."

Jim nodded and looked into the fire. This suggestion that he might be the instrument of a mighty plan, he and Pen and Uncle Denny, awed him. Uncle Denny eyed the fine drooping brown head for a moment.

"Ah, me boy! Me boy!" he said tenderly. "The old house at Exham is not a futile ruin. 'Tis the cocoon that gave birth to the butterfly wings of a great hope. Look up, Still! You've friends with you till the end of the fight."

Jim reached for Michael Dennis' hand and held it with both his own, while he said: "Stay with me for a month or two, Uncle Denny. Don't go away. I need you. I've neither wife nor father and I haven't the gift of speech that makes a man friends."

Jim was off the next morning before daylight. Uncle Denny slept late and while he was eating his breakfast, the ex-saloonkeeper, Murphy, came in.

"The Big Boss sent me up to spend the day with you, Mr. Dennis. He can't get back till late in the afternoon. He told me to talk Project politics to you. My name is Murphy. I'm timekeeper down below, but I've left the job for a while for reasons of my own."

Uncle Denny pulled a chair out for Murphy and looked at him thoughtfully.

"Do you know this jackal, Fleckenstein?"

"I do. The Boss showed me that letter. I suppose you know how a man like Mr. Manning would take to a fellow like Fleckenstein?"

"Know!" snorted Uncle Denny. "Why, young fellow, I'd know Jim's disembodied soul if I met it in an uninhabited desert."

Murphy raised his eyebrows. "You're Irish, I take it."

"You take it right."

"I was born in Dublin myself."

The two men shook hands and Murphy went on. "I told the Boss to forget that letter. I know Fleckenstein. I know all his secrets just as I do about every other man's in the valley. I know their shames and their business grafts. In fact I know everything but the best side of 'em. I've been in the saloon business in this valley for twenty years, Mr. Dennis."

"Ah!" said Uncle Denny. "I understand now!"

"All I've got to do," said Murphy, "is to drop in on Fleckenstein and mention this letter and suggest that my own information is what you might call detailed. 'Twill be enough."

"Of course, it might not be Fleckenstein," said Dennis.

"Never mind! My warning will reach the proper party, if I go to Fleckenstein," said Murphy. He smacked his lips over the cup of coffee Mrs. Flynn set before him.

"And how came you to be helping the Boss instead of distributing booze?" asked Uncle Denny.

"I was about ready to quit, anyhow," said Murphy. "A man gets sick of crooked deals if you give him time. And time was when a man could keep a saloon in this section and still be the leading citizen and his wife could hold up her head with the banker's wife. That time's gone. I've been thinking for a long time of marrying and settling down. Then the Boss cleaned me out." Murphy chuckled.