Still Jim

"You are not!" returned Pen flatly. "You don't see the human side of your problem at all. You have made Oscar Ames hate you. Yet no man could live the life and do the things that Oscar has and not have developed a fine big side to his nature. You never see that. And the dam is more Oscar's than it is yours. It is for him. Still, somehow you have got to make every farmer on the Project your partner. Make them feel that you and the dam are theirs. Show them how to take care of the things the dam will produce. Jim, dear, make your thumb print in the hearts of men as well as in concrete, if you would have your work endure."

Jim paced the floor steadily. Old visions were passing before his eyes. Once more he saw the degraded mansions on the elm-shaded streets. Old Exham, with its lost ideals. Ideals of what? Was Pen right? Was it the ideal of national responsibility that Exham had lost—the ideal that had built the town meeting house and the public school, that had produced the giants of those early days, giants who had ruled the nation with an integrity long lost to these later times.

"My father said to me, 'Somehow we Americans have fallen down on our jobs!'" said Jim, pausing before Pen, finally. "Pen, I wonder if he would have thought your reason the right one?"

Then he lifted Pen's chin to look long into her eyes. Slowly his wistful smile illumined his face. "Thank you, dear," he said and, turning, he went out into the night.

The next night was given the Mask Ball in honor of the committee. Nobody knew what conclusion the eminent gentleman had reached in regard to Jim and his associates. But everyone did his best to contribute to the hilarity of the occasion.

The gray adobe building where the unmarried office men and engineers lived was gay with colored lights and cedar festoons. The hall in the rear of the building had an excellent dancing floor. The orchestra was composed of three Mexicans—hombres—with mandolins and a guitar, and an Irish rough-neck who brought from the piano a beauty of melody that was like a memory of the Sod. The four men produced dance music that New York might have envied.

Several Cabillo couples attended the dance. Oscar Ames and Jane and one or two other ranchers and their wives were there. All the wives of the officers' camp came and the bachelors searched both the upper and lower camps for partners, with some very charming results. Mrs. Flynn sat with Sara, and Jim insisted that instead of going with Jane and Oscar, as she had planned, that he be allowed to take Pen to the first ball she had attended since her marriage.

Henderson had ordered that the costumes be kept a great secret. Through a Los Angeles firm he provided dominoes for the five committeemen. But there were half a dozen other dominoes at the ball, so the committee quickly lost its identity. Oscar Ames came as a hobo. Henderson had a policeman's uniform, while the two cub engineers wore, one, a cowboy outfit; the other, an Indian chief's. Mrs. Henderson was dressed as a squaw.

Penelope wore a flower girl's costume, improvised from the remains of the chintz she had brought from New York. Jim viewed her with great complaisance. No one could look like Pen, he thought, and he would dance with her all the evening. Jim went as a monk. To his chagrin, when they reached the hall he found that Pen had made Mrs. Ames a costume exactly like her own, and with the complete face masks they wore, they might have been twins. They were just of a height and Mrs. Ames danced well. The children and the phonograph had long ago attended to that.

There was nothing stupid about the ball from the very start. The policeman ended the grand march by arresting the hobo, who put up a fight that included two of the dominoes. The orchestra swung into "La Paloma" and in a moment the hall was full of swaying colors, drifting through the golden desert dust that filled the room. There were twice as many men at the ball as women. The latter were popular to the point of utter exhaustion.

Henderson looked over the tallest domino, seized him by the throat and with wild flourishes of his club, backed him into a corner.

"Say, Boss Still Jim," he whispered, "that old nut of a chairman doesn't look as if he had anything but skim milk in his veins. But do you sabez he's danced three times with that little fat ballet girl and he's hugging the daylights out of her. He'd ought to be investigated."

The tall domino looked at the couple indicated. "I'll start investigating, myself," he whispered.

"Wish I could get a dance with her, but I can't," said Henderson. "My Missis knows who I am. I ain't got her spotted yet, though. Yes, I have. That flower girl's her. I'd know the way she jerks her shoulders anywhere."

He cut neatly in and separated the flower girl from the monk. "Look here, Minnie," he said gently. "You ain't called on to dance like a broncho, you know. Remember, you're the mother of a family! Cut out having too many dances with that monk. He holds you too tight. I think he's one of the committee men. You floss up to the tallest domino and give him a good time. That's the Boss."

The flower girl sniggered and Henderson pushed her from him with marital impatience and took an Indian squaw away from the hobo.

"Come on, little girl," he said. "You can dance all right. If my wife wasn't here I'd show you a time."

The squaw stiffened and the monk swung her away from Jack, who immediately arrested old Dad Robins, the night watchman, who was taking a sly peak off his beat at the festivities. Henderson forced the delighted old man through a waltz, with himself as a very languishing partner.

The hobo, dancing with one of the flower girls, said: "Jane, I've been trying to get a chance to warn you not to say anything to Mrs. Penelope about that deal with Freet. I was a fool to let you see that letter tonight. Now I'm getting into national politics, you've got to learn to keep your mouth shut."

"How'd you know me?" whispered the flower girl.

"You don't dance as good as Mrs. Pen," he replied.

Here the monk stole the flower girl and danced off with her, firmly.

"Remember the dance at Coney Island and how mean you were to me?" he whispered.

"And how bossy and high-handed you were about the bathing? How did you know me?"

The monk hugged the flower girl to him. "You haven't lived in my heart for all these years without my getting to know you!"

And the flower girl sighed ecstatically.

The tall domino, dancing with the other flower girl, felt the strains of Espanita creeping up his backbone, and he said,

"There is something in the air out here that is almost intoxicating!"

The flower girl answered: "It'll do more than that for you, if you'll give it a chance. It will make you see things."

"I don't understand you," replied the domino in a dignified way.

"I mean you'd see if you stayed here long enough that what Jim Manning needs is help, not investigating."

"How do you know I'm not Manning?"

The flower girl sniffed. "I'm an old woman so I can tell you that no woman would ever mistake him for anyone else after she'd once danced with him."

"He is making a most regrettable record here," very stiffly from the domino.

"Shucks! Why don't you fire Arthur Freet? I warn you right now that he's trying to get his hooks into this dam."

"The Service might well dispense with both of them, I believe," said the domino.

The flower girl sniffed again. "You politicians—" she began, when she was interrupted by a call at the door.

The music stopped. A white-faced boy had mounted a chair and was shouting hysterically: "Where's the Boss? The hombres have shot my father!"

"It's Dad Robins' boy! Why, the old man was here a bit ago!" cried someone.

The monk pulled off his mask and flung his robe in the corner. "Oscar," he said to the hobo, who had unmasked, "see to Mrs. Penelope."

Then he grasped young Robins by the arm and rushed with him from the hall.

Oscar hurried Pen and Jane up to the tent house with scant ceremony, then ran for the lower town. Mrs. Flynn and Sara were greatly surprised by the early return of the merrymakers. The four waited eagerly for news. Sara would not let any of the women stir from the tent, saying that it was unsafe until they knew what had happened. At midnight Oscar returned.

"They got poor old Dad. After he left the hall, he was going past a lighted tent in the lower town when he heard sounds of a fight. He went in and found two drunken Mexicans fighting over a flask of whiskey. He took the whiskey and told them to go to bed. He started out into the street and the two jumped him and started to stab him to death. He yelled and the sheriff and his boy was the only folks in all that town dared to go help him. The two hombres shot the sheriff in the arm before he located them and got away. They had finished poor old Dad, though. Mr. Manning's got posses out and will start more at daylight. If you'll put Jane up for the night, Mrs. Flynn, I'll go back to the lower town. You'd ought to see those committeemen. Three of them would have gone out with a posse, I'll bet, if they hadn't remembered their dignity in time!"

Jim had his hands full. By daylight the next morning there was every prospect of a wholesale battle between the Americans and the Mexicans. The camp was at fever pitch with excitement. The two shifts not at work swarmed the streets of the lower camp, the Mexicans at the far end, the Americans at the upper end near Dad Robins' house, whence came the sound of an old woman's hard sobs. After a hurried breakfast at the lower mess, Jim joined this crowd. The men circled round him, all talking at once. Jim listened for a time, then he raised his arm for silence. "It was booze did it! Booze and nothing else! Am I right?"

Reluctant nods went around the crowd. "And yet," Jim went on, "there's hardly a white man in the camp who hasn't fought me on my ruling that liquor must not come within the government lines. You all know what booze means in a place like this. Those of you who were with me at Makon know what we suffered from it up there. I know you fellows, decent, kindly men now, in spite of your threats to lynch the hombres. But if you could get booze, you'd make this camp a hell on earth right now. No better than a drunken Mexican is a drunken white. Am I right?"

Again reluctant nods and half-sheepish grins.

"Now, you fellows forget your lynching bee. Commons, Ralston, Schwartz, you make a committee to raise enough money to send Mrs. Robins and the boy back to New Hampshire with the body. Here is ten to start with. They must leave this noon. Tom Weeks, you make the funeral arrangements. I'll see that transportation is ready at noon. Bill Underwood, you get a posse of fifty men and quarantine this camp for booze."

A little laugh went through the crowd. Billy Underwood had been the chief malcontent under Jim's liquor ruling. Bill did not laugh. He began to pick his men with the manner of a general.

"One word more," said Jim. "You all know that the United States Reclamation Service is under the suspicion of the nation. They call you and me a bunch of grafters. It's up to you as much as it is to me to show today that we are men and not lawless hoboes."

A little murmur of applause swept through the crowd as Jim turned on his heel. He made his way into the Mexican end of the camp. There was noise here of talking and quarreling. Jim walked up to a tall Mexican who was in a way a padrone among the hombres.

"Garces," said Jim, "send the night shift to bed."

Garces eyed Jim through half-shut eyes. Jim did not move a muscle. "Why?" asked the Mexican.

"Because I shall put them to bed unless they are gone in five minutes."

Jim pulled out his watch. In just four minutes, after a shouted order from Garces, the street was cleared of more than half the hombres.

"Now," said Jim, "except when the shifts change, you are to keep your people this side of the ditch," pointing to the line that separated the Mexican and American camps. "I have fifty men scouring the camp for whiskey. Anybody found with liquor will be arrested. If there is a particle of trouble over it in your camp, I'll let the Gringos loose. Sabez?"

Garces shivered a little. "Yes, señor," he said.

Jim took a turn up and down the street on his horse, then started for the dam site. As he cantered up the road, Billy Underwood, mounted on a moth-eaten pony, saluted with dignity.

"Boss, that saloon keeper up the canyon has got a billion bottles of booze. Worst whiskey you ever smelled. He says he's laying for you and if you cross his doorstep, he'll shoot you up."

Jim looked at Bill meditatively. "Bill, I'm going to call his bluff!"

"Us fellows in my posse'll shoot his place up if you say the word," cried Bill eagerly.

"No, that won't do," replied Jim. "But I have an idea that he's a four-flusher. Keep your eye on 'Mexico City,' Bill. I am afraid of trouble, though I've got Garces buffaloed so far."

Jim turned his horse and cantered back through Mexico City along the narrow river trail to Cactus Canyon. Just off the government reserve was a tent with a sheet iron roof. The trail to the tent was well worn. Jim dropped the reins over the pony's head and walked into the tent. There was a rough bar across one end, behind which stood a quiet-faced man with a black mustache. Drinking at the bar were two white men whom Jim recognized as foremen.

"You two fellows are fired," drawled Jim. "Turn in your time and leave camp this afternoon."

The Big Boss is king on a project. The two men meekly set down their glasses and filed out of the tent. It was something to have been fired by the big boss himself.

"And who are you?" asked the saloonkeeper.

"Don't you recognize me, Murphy?" asked Jim, pleasantly. "I have the advantage of you there. My name is Manning."

The saloonkeeper made a long-armed reach for a gun that stood in the corner.

"One moment, please," said Jim. As he spoke he jumped over the bar, bearing the saloonkeeper down with him before the long-armed reach encompassed the gun. Jim removed Murphy's knife, then picked up the gun himself.

Murphy started for the door with a jump. "Break nothing!" he yelled. "I'll have the law of New Mexico on you for this."

Murphy leaped directly into Bill Underwood's arms. "Hello, sweetie," said Bill, holding Murphy close. "Thought I'd come up and see how you was making it, Boss."

"Nicely, thanks," said Jim. "I'll be finished as soon as he breaks up his stock."

"It'll be some punishment for me to watch a job like that," said Bill, "but I'm with you, Boss."

He shifted his gun conspicuously as he released Murphy. Bill owed the saloonkeeper something over six weeks' pay. The occasion had an unholy joy for him. Murphy looked Jim over, scratched his head and started to whistle nonchalantly. In ten minutes he had destroyed his stock in trade. When he had finished, he handed Jim the key of the tent with a profound bow.

"Now," said Jim, "drop a match on the floor."

When the flames were well caught Jim said, "See that he leaves camp, Bill." Then he mounted and rode away.

Murphy looked after him curiously. "Some man, ain't he?" he said to Bill.

"I'll eat out of his hand any time," replied Bill. "Get your pony, Murphy."

"I'll join your posse," suggested Murphy. "I bet I can ferret out more booze than any three of you."

"Nothing doing!" growled Bill. "Should think you would have better taste than to wanta do that."

Murphy shrugged his shoulders. "I want you to let me go up to that Greek fellow's place before I go," he said.

Bill stared but made no comment.

As Jim rode back through the lower town he stopped young Hartman, the government photographer.

"Hartman," he asked, "have the films for the movies come in yet?"

"Came in yesterday, Mr. Manning."

"Good work! Hartman, will you give us a show this evening?"

"The hall's in pretty rough shape but if you want it——"

"I want it to keep things quiet, Hartman, till we find those hombres and get them in jail at Cabillo."

The young fellow nodded. "I'll have things ready at seven. After the funeral, I'll get the word out."

Jim rode on to his neglected work at the office. There he found the members of the committee awaiting him. Even the chairman was eager to know details of occurrences since they had gone reluctantly to bed after midnight.

When Jim had finished his story, the Vermont man said pompously: "You seem to manage men rather well, Mr. Manning. In behalf of my colleagues I wish to thank you for your hospitality to us. As you know, we must leave this afternoon."

Jim nodded. "I shall have my superintendent take you over to the train. You will understand that I do not want to leave the camp myself."

"I wish we could stay and see the end of this," said one of the members. "It's like life in a dime novel."

"My chief regret is that we only had half of the Mask Ball. After this, when my constituents are tempted to give me a dinner, I shall urge a Mask Ball instead. Never had one given for me before and no débutante ever had anything on my feelings last night," said another.

"Henderson should have been a country squire," said Jim. "He's a perfect host."

The camp was quiet during the afternoon. Jim saw the committee off at five o'clock, then went up to the tent house. Sara and he glanced at each other coolly and nodded. Pen started the conversation hurriedly.

"What word from the two hombres?"

Jim shook his head. "One posse got away last night before I warned them. I'm afraid that if the murderers are brought into camp I can't avert a lynching bee."

Pen shivered. Sara grunted. "You'd think Pen had lived in a convent all of her life instead of a death pen like New York."

"It's so lonesome out here, human life means more to you," said Jim.

"Some philosopher you are," sneered Sara. "Fine lot of drool you got off at the hearing. Why didn't you keep to the main issue? The yokels are still saying with the rest of us, He must be dishonest or he'd give an honest 'No' to our accusations."

Jim answered slowly: "When a man says that sort of thing to me I usually knock him down, or completely ignore him."

"You can't knock us all down and the time is rapidly coming when we will be ignoring you, minus a job."

"Still," pleaded Pen, "he couldn't understand your speech. Once and for all, Jim, give him and all the rest the lie."

Jim ground his teeth and did not speak. Sara was obviously enjoying himself.

"You are mistaken, Pen. Jim and I have often discussed the divine origin of the New Englander. They are a pathetic lot of pifflers. They have no one to blame but themselves that they are going. Everywhere else the Anglo-Saxon has gone he has insisted that he had the divine right to rule and has kept it. Outsiders have had to conform or get out. But over here he promulgated the Equality idea. Isaac Gezinsky and Hans Hoffman and Pedro Patello are as fit to rule according to the Equality idea as anyone else. It didn't take much over two hundred years of this to crowd the New Englander out of the running. And who cares?"

"I do," said Jim, "because I believe in the things my race has stood for. Emerson says it's not chance but race that put and keeps the millions of India under the rule of a remote island in the north of Europe. Race is a thing to be reckoned with. Nations progress as their race dictates."

"Emerson!" jibed Sara. "Another inefficient highbrow!"

"I can't help believing," replied Jim doggedly, "that the world will lose in the submerging of the New England element in America."

"And yet right here, in your America," said Sara, "the leaders of the money trust are descendants of Puritans."

Jim winced. "'The strength of the pack is the wolf,' When we produced men of that type we should have recognized them and have controlled them. They are helping the pack down hill, all right. Be satisfied, Sara! Only you will not get me off this Project until it is finished."

"No?" sneered Sara.

Pen interrupted nervously: "A couple of men are coming up the trail."

Bill Underwood appeared at the tent door. Murphy was with him. "Boss," said Bill, "Murphy has got to see your Greek friend. I got him started south this noon, but he circled on me and I just picked him up on the mesa, headed this way. He wanted to come here on the quiet, but I brought him up in the open."

CHAPTER XX

Jim glanced in at the open door. The hall was nearly full. "If anything goes wrong, Penny, I would have my hands full and you might be hurt."

Pen gave a little shiver of anticipation. "Oh, please let me stay, Still! Just think how shut in I've been all these years."

Even though his common sense protested, Jim was an easy victim to Pen's pleading eyes and voice. He led the way into the hall. It was an enthusiastic crowd, that crunched peanuts and piñons and commented audibly on the pictures. Pictures of city life were the most popular.

"God! That's Fulton street, Brooklyn!" cried a man's voice as a street scene glided across the screen. "Wish I'd never left it."

"Gee! Look at the street car!" called another man. "I'd give a year of my life for a trolley ride."

"Look at them trees!" said someone as a view of a middle west farm followed. "Them are trees, boys, not cable way towers! How'd you like to shake the sand out of your eyes and see something green?"

"What are you peeved about?" exclaimed another voice. "Ain't you working for our great and glorious government that'll kick you out like a dead dog whenever it wants to? Look what it's doing to the Big Boss!"

"Hi! Man-o'-War at San Diego!" screamed a boy. "See all that wet water! Me for the navy! See how pretty that sailor looks in his cute white panties!"

Hartman held the crowd for a good two hours, then he called, "That's all, boys! Come again!"

"All? Nothing stirring," answered several voices. "Begin over again, Hartman. You can collect another nickel from us as we go out."

There was laughter and applause and not a soul offered to leave. In the darkness Hartman was heard to laugh in return and shortly the first film appeared again. Fields of corn shimmered in the wind. Cows grazed in quiet meadows. The audience stared again, breathlessly. Suddenly from without was heard a long-drawn cry. It was like the lingering shriek of a coyote. Few in the hall had heard the call before, yet no one mistook it for anything but human.

"An Apache yell!" exclaimed an excited voice.

There was a sudden overturning of benches and Pen and Jim were forced out into the street with the crowd.

An arc light glowed in front of the hall. Under this the crowd swayed for a moment, uncertain whither to move. Jim held Pen's arm and looked about quickly.

"I don't know where you will be safest, Pen. I wish I'd heeded the itching of my thumb and taken you home an hour ago."

"Jim," said Pen, "I certainly like your parties. They are full of surprises."

"You are a good little sport," said Jim, "but that doesn't make me less worried about you. Hang onto my arm now like a little burr."

He began to work his way through the crowd. "I don't want to attract their attention," he said. "They will follow me like sheep."

"Was it an Apache cry, Jim?" asked Pen.

"Yes! Old Suma-theek, with a bunch of his Indians has been riding the upper mesa for me tonight. Just to watch Mexico City. I told him to keep things quiet, so there must have been some imperative reason for the cry. I'll take you to the upper camp and get my horse."

Jim breathed a sigh of relief as they cleared the crowd and could quicken their pace. But they were scarcely out of the range of the arc light when a dark group ran hurriedly down from the mesa back of the town. It was old Suma-theek with four of his Indians. They held, tightly bound with belts and bandanas, two disheveled little hombres.

"Take 'em to jail, Boss?" panted Suma-theek. "I find 'em trying get back to lower town!"

"No! No! Back up into the mountains. I'll get horses to you and you must take them to Cabillo. Lord, I forgot to warn you!"

Suma-theek turned quickly but not quickly enough. A man ran up to the little group then plunged back toward the hall.

"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