Still Jim

Jim started up the road but Mr. Dennis stopped long enough to say, "Oughtn't you to be there, doctor?"

The doctor nodded. "I'll be back as soon as I can. They've just brought an hombre with a crushed leg into the hospital. Mrs. Flynn knows what to do and so does his wife. He may go any time."

Uncle Denny panted after Jim, but before they reached the tent house, Mrs. Flynn stopped them on the trail.

"It's all over," she said. "I've taken Mrs. Penelope over to our house. I'll take charge up here."

"You don't mean Saradokis is dead?" cried Uncle Denny.

"He is, God rest his poor wicked soul!"

Jim stood white and rigid. "Did I hasten this with my scene last night, I wonder!" he asked huskily.

Mrs. Flynn shook her head. "The doctor told me a month ago not to go out of reach of the tent house. That this was liable to come any time. He came out of the morphine near noon, held Mrs. Pen's hand and said she had slapped a lot of the bitterness out of his heart last night. Then he went to sleep and never woke up. Mr. Dennis, you go to Mrs. Penelope. Boss, you go and do the telegraphing that's necessary."

It was supper time before Jim could leave the business of the dam and get up to his house. He and Uncle Denny had finished supper when Pen came out of Mrs. Flynn's room. She was white and spent, but she had not been crying.

"Still," she said, "I want you to persuade Uncle Denny not to go back East with me and poor Sara. I am perfectly well and quite able to make the trip alone. Uncle Denny is needed here."

"It's not to be thought of!" cried Dennis. "When the first shock is over I'm looking for you to go to pieces and I propose to be on the job."

"Uncle Denny," said Pen quietly, "I shall not go to pieces. I feel the tragedy of Sara's life very deeply and I am very sad over it all. But I'm not a widow. I'm a nurse and friend whose job is over. It will be a pitiful journey to take Sara back to his father. But I shall be with dear Aunt Mary in New York. I shall get no rest unless I know that you are with Jim in this critical moment of his career."

The two men looked at each other uncertainly. Suddenly Pen's voice shook: "Oh, don't make me argue!"

Jim spoke slowly: "We never have regretted doing what Pen told us to, Uncle Denny. It looks heartless, but I guess we'll have to obey."

"Me soul in me is like a whirling Dervish," said Uncle Denny, "with both of you needing me so. You'll have to decide betwixt you."

"Then Uncle Denny will stay here and we will take you over for the five o'clock morning train, Pen. Mrs. Flynn has packed your trunk and poor Sara is ready for his last trip. When shall we look for your return, little Penelope?"

Pen looked a little bewildered. "Why, there is no excuse for my coming back. I shall stay with your mother until I get rested and then I must find something to do."

Uncle Denny jumped up and stood with his back to the fireplace while Jim leaned on the back of Pen's chair.

"Listen to me, children," said Dennis. "Of what use is it to beat about the bush and refuse to speak what's in the heart of each of us? How can we pretend that poor Sara's death is not God's own relief to him and us? We can weep, as Pen says, over the tragedy of his life, but not that he is gone. Your talk of going to work is nonsense, me sweet Pen. After a few months you will marry Jim and have the happiness you have earned so dearly."

Jim did not move. Pen's pale face turned scarlet. "Oh, Uncle Denny," she cried, "don't talk to me of marriage! I love Jim dearly, but now this is all over I have left only a deadly fear of marriage!"

"Pen! Pen!" exclaimed Uncle Denny. "What do you know of marriage? For every unhappy marriage we hear of there are three of such sweet companionship that its sharers hide it from the world as if 'twere too sacred for the common gaze. The perfect friendship is between man and woman and when you add to that the sacrament of body and soul, you have the only heaven humans may know on earth. And 'tis enough. 'Tis full compensation for all the ills of life."

"Jane Ames has been talking to me that way lately," said Pen, her eyes full of tears. "But you nor she never really had your dreams destroyed as I have." She paused and went on as if half to herself: "And yet nothing has come into my life so revivifying and wholesome as Oscar and Jane's finding each other after all these years. Perhaps there is something in marriage I don't know. Jane says there is. But—Oh, I am so tired!"

Jim moved round to Uncle Denny's side. "It's good of Uncle Denny to plead for me, isn't it, Penny? But you are in no state now to listen to him or me, either. Go back to mother, and don't work, but play. You've forgotten how to play. I remember that long ago when Uncle Denny wanted mother to marry him he told her that marrying him would give me my chance to play, that I couldn't come to my full strength without play. Grown-ups need play, too, little Pen. Go back for a while and rest and take up your tennis again and go to Coney Island with mother. Go and play, Penny. And some day I'll come back and play with you."

Pen gave a little sigh. Suddenly her tense nerves relaxed and she settled back in her chair with a little color in her cheeks.

Uncle Denny cleared his throat. "Tell Mrs. Flynn to fetch her some tea and toast, me boy. Then she must go to bed for a few hours."

The automobile, with Henderson at the wheel, was at the door before dawn. Jim had sent poor Sara on before midnight. Uncle Denny put Pen and Jim into the tonneau, then climbed up beside Henderson and the machine shot swiftly out on the great road.

Pen did not speak for some time and Jim did not disturb her. She looked back at the Elephant as long as she could discern the great meditative form in the starlight. Then, after they had gotten into the hills and were winging like night birds up the mountain road, Jim felt a cold little hand slip into his lean, warm paw.

Jim's heart gave a thud. He leaned forward to look into Pen's face. It was dim in the starlight, but he saw that she smiled slightly. Jim leaned back, feeling as if he could overturn worlds with this thrill in his veins.

The great road curled like a hair among the dim black mountain tops. The machine flew lightly. Uncle Denny and Henderson talked quietly, and at last, under cover of their speech and the whirr of the engine, Pen began to talk softly to Jim.

"I am hoping that in the years to come I can remember Sara as a college boy, so full of life and ambition! He was a beautiful boy, Still, wasn't he?"

"Yes, little Pen, I loved him very much, then."

"Life was unfair to him to give him a greater burden than he was designed to bear," said Pen. "I shall miss the care of him. I am going to miss the demands he made on my best spiritual effort. I'm going to sag like a fiddle string released. If only he has gone on now to a better chance! Poor, poor tortured Sara!"

Jim rubbed the little twitching fingers and Pen leaned against his shoulder softly as though she needed his nearness to steady her. She went on a little brokenly:

"I guess I won't get over the scarring, Still. I'm so tired."

"You've the priceless gift of youth, dear Penny," said Jim softly. "Go and play, sweetheart."

There was a long silence. Dawn was marching on the mountain tops. Penelope watched the silver glory of the star-studded sky and she said in a steadier tone:

A sudden scarlet revealed itself on a far peak. It was like a marvelous translucent ruby, set in a silver mist.

Uncle Denny turned. "Henderson says we are right on the railroad."

"We are," replied Jim, "and yonder is the train."

The automobile drew into the station with the train and Uncle Denny, with Henderson, helped embark poor Sara on his last ride, while Jim put Pen aboard the train. Pen followed Jim back onto the train platform. Jim shook hands with her and stood on the lower step waiting for the train to start. His face in the dawn light was very wistful. Suddenly Pen's lips quivered. Just as the train began to move, "Jim!" she whispered. And she leaned over and caught his face between her hands and kissed him quickly on the lips. Then she slipped into the coach. Jim dropped off the train and stood staring unseeingly at Uncle Denny and Henderson. A to-hee sang its morning song from a nearby cactus:

"Put your hat on, me boy," said Uncle Denny, who had not seen the little episode, "and come on." He led the way to the machine and climbed in beside Jim. "Well, Still, she's gone!"

Jim turned and looked at his Uncle Denny. "She's not gone for long. When I have finished the Project fight I shall go after her."

"Did she agree?" asked Uncle Denny eagerly.

"No," said Jim serenely. "She's in the frame of mind that's to be expected after the life she's lived with Sara. She is afraid of everything. After the election, I shall go to her. She and I have missed enough of each other."

Dennis brought his fist down on his knee. "Then that's settled right, thank God!" he said to the dawn at large.

The next day Mrs. Ames came up to the dam. She was inconsolable that she had not been sent for, to help Pen and Mrs. Flynn's air of superiority was not soothing. Uncle Denny took to Mrs. Ames at once.

"I've done nothing but gad for Mr. Manning, lately," she said.

"How are things going?" asked Mrs. Flynn. "Has Bill Evans got all the money yet?"

"Eh? What's this?" exclaimed Uncle Denny.

"Mrs. Pen thought it would do a lot of good if we could get the farmers' wives to working against Fleckenstein," said Jane. "I've been calling on a lot of them. Bill Evans takes me in his auto."

"Who pays Bill?" asked Uncle Denny. "Ames?"

"He does not, though he honestly offered to," said Jane. "This is a woman's job. Mrs. Flynn is paying for it. And don't you tell Mr. Manning. So far he hasn't asked any questions. Oscar says he's too worried over other things."

"Bless us!" cried Uncle Denny. "That won't do! You must let me straighten it up."

Mrs. Flynn rapped on the table with the dripping mixing spoon with which she had followed Jane in from the kitchen. "Michael Dennis! You will not! What's me money for if it ain't for him? Ain't he all I've got in the wide world and you grutch me that? God knows I never thought I'd come to this to be told I couldn't do for him! If God lets me live to spare my life I hope to spend every cent I've got back on the Boss."

Uncle Denny nodded. "All right! You're a good woman, Mrs. Flynn. How is your campaign going, Mrs. Ames?"

Jane shook her head. "You never know which way a woman will jump. If only Fleckenstein can be beaten, it will be Mr. Manning's personality that beats him, and after that he can do whatever he wants to with the valley. But the election is only a little way off and I'm scared to death. I've talked and visited until I'm ashamed of myself. And there's only one woman in the valley I'm sure of."

"Who is she?" asked Uncle Denny.

"That's Mrs. Cady, a rich widow who lives near Cabillo. She's the terror of the valley. She's a scold and she holds half the mortgages in the county. She stopped Mr. Manning a while ago and asked what he meant by running one of the canals the way it was. Then, just because he's always nice to a woman, Mr. Manning stands and lets her explain his business to him for half an hour. When she got through he thanked her and said it was always wise to trust a woman's intuition. She thought she'd taught him a real valuable lesson and she said he was the only man she ever saw that knew good advice when he got it. Well, when I went round to her the other day and told her what Mr. Manning was up against, she flew round like a wet hen. I've heard she threatened to foreclose on anyone that voted for Fleckenstein."

Uncle Denny chuckled. "And the boy thinks he has no friends!"

The fight into which Jim had thrown himself was an intangible one. He knew that he could not save his job for himself, but he believed that if he could defeat Fleckenstein, he would have made the farmers assume a responsibility for the Project that would never be lost.

Uncle Denny did not tell Jim that he knew that every day lessened Jim's term of office on the dam. He asked no embarrassing questions. One day, as they stood looking at the dam slowly emerging from the river bed to lie in the utter beauty of strength at the Elephant's feet, Jim said:

"I wonder if another man will love the dam as I have. There is not a stone in it that I don't know and care for."

But Uncle Denny only nodded and said in reply, "A man must love the thing he creates whether it's a dam or a child." But his heart ached within him.

The Department of Agriculture had responded immediately and half a dozen experts already were at work on the Project. The older farmers resented any suggestions that were made regarding their methods, but little by little the newcomers were turning to the experts, and Jim believed that even in a year scientific farming would be a settled fact on the Project.

Every moment that Jim could spare from hastening the work on the dam he spent in the valley with the farmers. He did not harangue. He had come to realize that deep within us all dwells a hunger of the soul on which, when roused, the world wings forward. So he induced these men to talk to him and listened, wondering at the deeps he touched. He did not realize that often they were ashamed to show him narrowness or selfishness when through his wistful silence they glimpsed his unsatisfied visioning. Nothing in life is so contagious as a great dream.

As far as the Project was concerned, the story of Jim's alleged interview with Freet made little impression, after all. Insinuations and accusations had appeared so often about the engineers of the dam in the local papers that they had ceased to be a sensation. In the East, though, Jim knew the story would leave its permanent imprint. Murphy interviewed Fleckenstein and never would tell what he and the politician said to each other. But the threat of the letter never was carried out. Fleckenstein continued a vigorous campaign, however. Money and whiskey flowed freely and Fleckenstein saw every man that Jim saw.

Uncle Denny was only temporarily dismayed by Jim's refusal to allow him to work openly against Fleckenstein. Mrs. Ames, having come to the end of her talking capacity, he hired Bill Evans and his machine for the remaining six weeks of the campaign. Bill was quite willing to let the hogs go hungry while he and his machine were in demand.

Uncle Denny said: "A twenty-mile ride in Bill's tonneau is better as a flesh reducer than ten hours in a Turkish bath. It is the truth when I tell folks I'm riding for me health."

Uncle Denny made himself newsgetter-in-chief for Jim. He scoured the valley for reports on the state of mind of every water user and business man on the Project. Oscar and Murphy, when not with Jim, devoted themselves to Uncle Denny. Both the men were frankly giving all their time to the Project these days.

The weeks sped by all too rapidly. One evening Uncle Denny called a conference at Jim's house. Jim, coming home from the office at ten o'clock that night, found Murphy and Henderson and Oscar awaiting him with Uncle Denny as master of ceremonies.

"Me boy," said Uncle Denny, "there's going to be a landslide for Fleckenstein."

Jim nodded. "I think so. Well, anyhow, I've made one or two friends below who'll remember after I'm gone some of the things I've wanted for the Project."

Uncle Denny, standing before the grate, looked at Jim in a troubled way. The Big Boss, as he loved to call Jim, was looking very tired.

"Well," said Murphy, "Fleckenstein can't make much trouble for a year. Even after he takes his seat it will take time to start things even with the money from the Trust. And in the meantime the Big Boss will be able to put up a great counter-irritant out here if what he's done the last few weeks is any sample."

Jim lighted his pipe and leaned back in his chair. "I won't be here, boys," he said. "This is confidential. I have been asked for my resignation and it takes effect the day after election."

There was utter silence in the room for a moment, then Henderson leaned forward and spat past Uncle Denny into the grate.

"Hell's fire!" he said gently.

"How long have you known this, Boss?" asked Murphy.

"Nearly three months," answered Jim.

"Pen told me," said Dennis. "Suma-theek told her."

Jim looked up in astonishment, then he shook his head. "I'm sorry Pen has that to bother her, too."

Murphy jumped to his feet. "And you have known this three months and never told us! Is that any way to treat your friends? Do you suppose we want to lie by and see you licked off this dam like a yellow cur? It's no use for you to ask this to be kept quiet, Boss. I won't do it."

Jim rose and pointed his pipe at Murphy. "Murphy, if you try to use this confidential talk to raise sentiment for me, I'll fire you!"

"You can't fire my friendship!" shouted Murphy. "You can have my job any time you want it!"

Here Oscar Ames spoke for the first time. "When's Mrs. Penelope coming back?"

"Don't you get her out here," said Jim. "She can do no good and she needs peace and quiet."

CHAPTER XXVI

"What can be done in a week?" asked Jim, with his first show of irritation. "I won't have her bothered, I tell you."

"Still Jim," said Uncle Denny, "do you suppose she's thought of anything else but the situation out here, excepting, of course, poor Sara? And Pen's Irish! Even long distance fighting has charms for her."

Henderson looked at Jim's dark circled eyes and his compressed lips. "Go to bed, Boss," he said in his tender voice. "See if you can't get some sleep. You have done your best. Is there anyone in the valley you ain't seen yet?"

"Two or three," said Jim.

"See them," said Henderson. "We are going to put up a fight to keep you here, Mr. Manning."

Jim started for his bedroom door, then he came back and said slowly: "I don't want you fellows to misunderstand me. I'm the least important item in this matter. I admit that it's crucifying me to leave the dam, but there is no doubt they can find a better man than I am for the job. I woke up too late. You folks must keep on in one last fight against Fleckenstein. For Fleckenstein stands for repudiation. Repudiation means the undermining of the basic principle of the Reclamation Service. And the loss of that principle means the loss of the Projects as a great working ideal for America. It was that principle that was the real kernel of the New England dream in this country. We've got to work not so much for equality in freedom as for equality in responsibility to the nation. Don't waste a moment on keeping me here. Make one last effort to defeat Fleckenstein."

Then Jim went into his room and closed the door.

When he had gone, Murphy said in a low voice: "It's too late to lick Fleckenstein. Are we going to lie down on the Boss losing his job, boys?"

"Not till I've beaten the face off Fleckenstein," said Henderson, softly.

"I want to get in touch with Mrs. Pen," said Oscar Ames.

"Aw, forget it, Ames!" said Murphy. "I don't doubt she's a smart girl, but this is no suffragette meeting."

"Don't try to start anything," said Oscar. "Wait till you're married for thirty years like me and maybe you'll have learned a thing or two."

"Don't quarrel, boys," said Uncle Denny. "Me heart is like lead within me. How can I think of Jim as anywhere but with the Service?"

"If he goes, I go," said Henderson. "The only reason I stayed up on the Makon was because of him. What's the matter with the wooden heads in this country? I'd like to be fool killer for a year."

Murphy was chewing his cigar. "You'd have to commit suicide if you was," he said. "I've tried everything against Fleckenstein except the one way to swing votes in America and that's with whiskey or dollars. Under the circumstance we can't use either. I'm going to turn in. I'm at the end of my rope."

Henderson followed Murphy to the door. Oscar Ames forgot to lower his voice. He squared his big shoulders and shouted: "You blame quitters! I ain't ashamed to ask women for ideas if you are. The women got me into this fight and I'll bet they get me out."

He nodded belligerently at Uncle Denny and strode out into the night. Uncle Denny, left alone in the living room, stood long on the hearthrug, talking to himself and now and again shaking his head despondently.

"I mind how after he found himself, he was always making trails in front of the old fireplace in the brownstone front. I mind how he first heard of the Reclamation Service. 'How'd you like that, Uncle Denny,' he said, 'James Manning, U.S.R.S.' What'll he do now, poor lad?

"Thank God his father's dead, for if he felt worse than I do he'd kill himself. No! No! I'll not say that! He'd have felt like meself that 'twas worth all the sorrow to hear Still put his idea ahead of himself as he did tonight. That's the test of a man's sincerity. And in her heart, his mother'll be glad. She's always worried lest he get killed on one of his dams, bless her heart."

Uncle Denny moved about the room, closing the door and putting away the cigars. He picked Jim's hat off the floor and patted it softly as he hung it up.

"What'll he do now, poor boy?" he murmured. Then he turned out the light and went to bed.

Jim received a message the next morning, saying that a certain Herr Gluck would reach the dam that afternoon.

"And who is he?" asked Uncle Denny.

"He's an engineer the German government is sending over to see some of the stunts I've been doing on the dam," said Jim. "I'll show him round, then I'll turn him over to you for the hour before supper. I want to see old Miguel, who is coming up to the dam."

"I'm itching to lay hands on him. Does he speak English?"

Jim laughed. "Better than I do. He's written me a couple of times."

Jim brought Herr Gluck in over the great road. The German was full of enthusiasm. "Blasted from solid rock! How not like America! This was built for the future! How did you come to do it?"

Jim smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

"You belong not to this country," Herr Gluck went on, "you belong to the old world where they build for their descendants."

Jim thoroughly enjoyed the long afternoon on the dam with the German. Herr Gluck's questions were searching and invigorating. They took Jim out of himself and he showed Herr Gluck a scientific knowledge and enthusiasm that few people were fitted to appreciate.

At five o'clock Jim took Herr Gluck up to his house and turned him over to Uncle Denny. The rotund, flaxen-haired German and the rotund, gray-haired Irishman took stock of each other. Uncle Denny moved two chairs before the open door.

Herr Gluck sat down. "Himmel! What beauty!" he exclaimed, as the faint lavender distances with the far mountains flashing sunset gold met his gaze. "Not strange that Mr. Manning has enthusiasm."

Uncle Denny sighed in a relieved way as if he had catalogued the newcomer.

"They say," said Dennis, "that a man must close his soul to the Big Country or else he will become great or go mad. And do you think me boy has done good work here, Herr Gluck?"

The German made some extraordinary rings of smoke and nodded his head slowly. "He has done some daring things well that may not be great in themselves, but they show imagination. That is the point. He has imagination. Many are the engineers who are accurate, who are trustworthy, but imagination, creative ability, no! You observe the shape of his head, his jaw, his hands—the dreamer, urged into action. And the impudence of his sand-cement idea! In my country we dare make our concrete only very rich. He shows me this afternoon that diluted rightly with sand, cement can be made stronger." Herr Gluck chuckled delightedly.

Uncle Denny almost purred. "He was so as a lad. He was captain of his school football teams because he could think of more wild tactics than all the rest of them put together. And always got away with them, looking sad and never an unnecessary word."

Herr Gluck nodded. "He is so valuable here that I think it not possible I get him to come to Germany yet?"

Michael Dennis got red in the face and took a long breath. "But they don't appreciate him here. He's been asked to resign in a few days now."

The German's round eyes grew rounder. "Nein! And why? Has he got into foolishness? He is young, they must remember."

"It's a long tale," said Uncle Denny, "but I'll tell it to you," and he plunged into the story of the Project.

Herr Gluck listened breathlessly.

"And so you see," Dennis ended, "that for all he has done he feels he's failed, for everything the dam has stood for in his mind has come to naught. And that's a bad feeling for a man as young as Jim. He'll never readjust himself, Jim won't. He can get another job but his life's big dream will have gone to smash. His inspiration will be gone. And what will he do then, poor boy?"

"But it's impossible," persisted Herr Gluck. "He's a valuable man. It is not possible they would dismiss him. Some day when he is older he will do great things your country can't afford to lose. What is the matter with your Head of the Service?"

"Impossible!" snorted Uncle Denny. "Impossible! The word is not in the vocabulary of the American politician. The Director is all right, a fine clean fellow. But he can't help himself. It's either Jim or the Project to be smirched. They won't be satisfied, the politicians, till they get the Service attached to the Spoils system. What do they care for scientific achievement? Soul of me soul! I'd like to be Secretary of the Interior for fifteen minutes. I'd discharge everyone in the Department, ending with meself."

Herr Gluck was visibly excited. "I tell you it is not possible! He's a great engineer in the making? They cannot know it or they would not so do."

Uncle Denny lost patience. "I'm telling you it is so! Don't you know that nothing is impossible to ignorant men?" he shouted. "Didn't ignorance crucify Christ? Didn't the ignorant make Galileo deny his world was round? Didn't ignorance burn Joan of Arc at the stake? Every advance the world has made has been with bloody footsteps. Don't we always kill the man in the vanguard and use his body as a bridge to cross the gulf of our own fear and ignorance? I tell you, I fear ignorance!"

Herr Gluck rose and shook his plump fist in Uncle Denny's face. "Those are days gone by in my country," he roared. "They may be true in this raw land or in besotted Ireland, but in the Fatherland we worship brain. Do not include the Fatherland in your recriminations! Once in a while you accomplish great things in your foolish country here with its hysteria and frothing and bubbling. But come to my country if you would see the quiet patient advance of noble science with scientists revered like kings."

"There were colleges in Ireland," shouted Uncle Denny, "when your ancestors were wearing fur breech clouts and using cairns for books!"

Jim came slowly up the trail and Uncle Denny and Herr Gluck sat down a little sheepishly. Herr Gluck did not waste any time in preliminaries as Jim came in the door.

"Your Uncle tells me of the trouble here on the dam," he said. "My government is undertaking some great work which I will describe to you. We will make you a formal offer if you will it consider."

Jim sat down in the doorway, pulled off his hat and looked up into the German's face. Herr Gluck concisely and clearly outlined the work. Jim listened intently, then as Herr Gluck finished and waited for Jim's answer, the young engineer looked away.

He saw the Elephant dominating the river and desert, guarding and waiting—for what? Jim wondered. He saw the far road that he had built, winding into the dim mountains. For a long time he sat battling with himself in the flood of emotion that rose within him. It really had come, he realized, with Herr Gluck's offer. He actually was to turn his work over to another man to finish. The two older men watched him intently.

Finally Jim said: "The New England stock in this country is disappearing, Herr Gluck. Perhaps we are no longer needed. At any rate we haven't been strong enough to stay. This dam has been more than a dam to me. It has meant something like, 'Anglo-Saxons; their mark; by Jim Manning.' Some other man will finish the dam quite as well as I, but I don't think he will have my dream about it."

Herr Gluck leaned forward and said: "We all are Teutons, one family. That is why we always have quarreled. But we understand each other. Come to Germany and build for other Teutons, since they will not have you here."

"An expatriate! Poor dad!" muttered Jim. Then he said, in his quiet drawl, "I'll come, but you'll be getting only half a man."

The German looked away. He was a scientist, yet he was of a nation that had produced Goethe as well as Weismann and his heart was quick to respond to truth, shot with the rainbow tints of vision.

"I know!" he said. "I know! Man needs the impulse of national pride and honor behind his mind. There are those that claim that they achieve for human kind and not for their own race alone. But I doubt it. After all, Goethe spoke for Deutschland, Darwin spoke for England. Therefrom came their greatness. And yet if they will not have you here, dear friend—Ach Himmel, I cannot urge thee! Come if thou wilt!"

Herr Gluck broke off abruptly to turn to Uncle Denny. "Who is the highest authority in this Service?"

"The Secretary of the Interior," said Uncle Denny. "Come, we must eat supper or Mrs. Flynn will be using force on us."

Jim took Herr Gluck over to the midnight train. The German was very quiet, but Jim was even more so. As Jim left him Herr Gluck said: "Keep a good heart, dear friend. I shall say a few truths myself before I have finished."

Jim shook hands heartily. "There is nothing to be done, Herr Gluck, but I'm grateful for your sympathy. You will hear from me about the new work," and he drove off in the darkness, leaving Herr Gluck in the hands of the ranchers Marshall and Miguel, who had spent the afternoon and evening at the dam, and were going to Cabillo by train.

Jim had received no answer from the Secretary of the Interior to his last letter. He was a little puzzled and hurt. There had been one flashing look pass between himself and the Secretary at the May hearing that had stayed with Jim as though it had declared a friendship that needed neither words nor personal association to give it permanence. Jim had counted on that friendship, not to save him his job, but to save his idea. No answer had come to his letter. Jim believed that the story of the interview with Freet had finally destroyed the Secretary's faith in his integrity.

Pen had written a long letter jointly to Jim and Uncle Denny some two weeks after leaving the dam. It was the first word they had had except through telegrams. Sara's will had been read. He had left Pen all his property, which was enough to yield a living income for her. Pen enclosed a copy of the note Sara had left her with his papers.

"You have always felt bitter at my stinginess. But I knew that I could not live long and I wanted to repay you for your care of me. I did not spend an unnecessary cent nor did I let you. I have been ugly but it didn't matter to you. I knew you didn't care for me and so I didn't try to be decent."

Uncle Denny shook his head over this note. "No human soul but has its white side, and there you are! I hope I'll never sit in judgment on another human being."

"Has she any comment on Sara's note?" asked Jim, who was resting on the couch while Uncle Denny read the letter to him.

Uncle Denny looked on the reverse side of the sheet. Pen had written: "This touches me very much. But when I consider the sources of poor Sara's money I can't bear to touch it. I am arranging to give it to the home for paralytic children. I hope that both of you will approve of my doing so."

The two men stared at each other and Jim said nothing. He was consumed by such a longing for Pen that he scarcely dared speak her name. But Uncle Denny nodded complacently and said:

"You can always bet on Pen!"

The day after Herr Gluck's visit there was to be a political rally of the Fleckenstein forces at Cabillo. To the great relief of Dennis and his two henchmen, Jim made no move to attend the meeting. The first concrete pouring on the last section of the foundation was to be made that day and Jim was engrossed with it. Fleckenstein was late in getting to the meeting. This, too, was better luck than the three conspirators had hoped for. The meeting was made up almost entirely of farmers who wanted to hear Fleckenstein's last statement of his pledges.

Before the chairman called the meeting to order, Oscar Ames mounted the platform and asked permission to say a few words while the audience waited for Fleckenstein. Oscar then put forth the great effort of his life.

He squared his great shoulders and threw back his tawny head.

"Fellow citizens, there is a great disgrace coming onto this community. You all know the Project engineer, James Manning. Well, there ain't been anyone who's fought him harder or made him more trouble till lately than I have. But lately, fellow citizens, I've got to know him. I tell you right now that he's the smartest fellow that ever come into these parts. He's got some ideas that I'm not smart enough myself to understand, but I do know enough to realize that if he gets a chance to carry them out he'll make this Project the center of America!"

Oscar paused and someone called, "Go it, Oscar! Throw her in to low and you'll make it!"

"Well, fellow citizens, Fleckenstein and his crowd and all the rest of us, helping with kicks, have worked it so that Jim Manning has been asked to resign. They tell him that he's so unpopular here that the Service can't afford to keep him. Understand that? In other words, we farmers are such fools that we can't appreciate a good man just because his ideas differ from ours. But we can go crazy over a man like Fleckenstein because he'll take the trouble to jolly us. Fellow citizens, I ask you, are you going to sit by while the man that would make this Project into a valley empire is kicked out?"

Oscar stood for a moment glaring at his grinning hearers. Murphy climbed up beside him and shoved him aside.

"Down with the Irish!" yelled someone.

"You never paid me the fifty dollars you ran up for whiskey in my saloon, Henry," replied Murphy.

There was a roar of laughter and Murphy followed it quickly. "You all know me. I was in the saloon business in this valley for twenty years. But not one of you can say I wasn't on the straight all that time. The nearest I ever come to doing a man dirt was up in the dam. I was running a saloon just off the Reserve and Big Boss Manning jumped me and made me clean out my own joint. I was mad and I went up to the Greek there, who since is dead, for I heard the Greek was backed by Big Money with which he backed Fleckenstein to do the Service. Says I to myself, I'll help the Greek to do Manning.

"But the Greek cursed me out as I'll stand from no man. Then they took me to Manning and he treated me like a gentleman and asked me for my word of honor to keep off the Project. I know men. And I saw that the fellow I'd set out to do was a real man, carrying a load that was too big for the likes of me to sabez and that it made him sad and lonely. I was sick of the saloon business, anyhow, and when I got his number, I was proud to have been licked by him. Do you get me? Proud! And I says, I'm his friend for life and I'll just keep an eye on the pikers who are trying to do him.

"And I have. You know me, boys. You know that after the priest and the doctor it's the saloonkeeper that knows a man's number. Let me tell you that Fleckenstein is a crook. He'll steal anything from a woman's honor to a water power site. He's playing you folks for suckers. He's having everything his own way. Charlie Ives is the only fellow who's had the nerve to run against Fleckenstein and he's a dead one.

"And now Fleckenstein has done the Big Boss. He's made monkeys of you farmers. He's got you to roasting Manning till you've ruined him. And they ain't one of us fit to black his boots. This Project is his life's blood to him. There isn't anything he wouldn't sacrifice to its welfare. And you're throwing him out. Ain't a man's sacrifice worth anything to you? Will you take his best and give him the Judas kiss in return? Are ye hogs or men?"

There was an angry buzz in the room. Just as Uncle Denny started upon the platform, a tall lank farmer whom the man next him had been nudging violently, rose.

"My name's Marshall," he said, "and my friend Miguel here says I gotta get up and say the few things he and I agreed on last night. I'm mighty sick of hearing us farmers called fools. And now even the women folks have begun it. When our wives won't give us any peace maybe it's time we reformed our judgments. I'm willing to say that I think I've been mistaken about Manning. He came over to my place for the first time a few weeks back. I never talked with him before or got a good look at him. Boys, a man don't get the look that that young fella has on his face unless he's full of ideas that folks will kick him for. I felt kind of worked up about him then, but I didn't do anything.

"Last night I rode down to Cabillo with a Dutchman, some big bug who'd been up at the dam. I'd just been up there with Miguel. He told us that Jim Manning is attracting notice in the old country by the work he's doing on this dam. And he roasted us as samples of fat cattle who'd let a man like Manning go. At least that's what I made out, for he was so mad he talked Dutch a lot. Miguel and I made up our minds then that we'd got in wrong. What has this fellow Fleckenstein ever done for us? Is he going to get us branded over the country as a bunch that'll jump an honest debt? It looks to me as if Manning had done more for us than we knew. I'm willing to give Manning a new chance. I move we turn this meeting into a Manning meeting and I move we send a petition to the Secretary of the Interior to keep Manning on the job."

CHAPTER XXVII