Still Jim

he best hunting but he m

of the E

Jim's tent to speak of some detail of the work

heavens! If the engineers of the country are not going to be left unsmirched to do their work, what's going to become of civiliza

lot of his work for him while he played another end of the game. You are a great pipe

graft in the Service

he Service is the cleanest bureau in the government. I'll bet you

"I don't believe there is

Mountain?" asked Williams. "Do you think that was

r let myself think a

w as well as I do that the United States Reclamation Service is developing some mighty important water power propositions. Do you think it's like p

"Iron Skull, isn't there anythin

e Service! This here is just like finding out that, though

the lamp for

g at, partner?"

n it the way I have. And then I was thinking about the bunch of men who've stuck together and by me for five years, like a pack of wolves, by jove! And I was thinking of those lines, you know,

said, "What are you going to

an engineer. I deal with hard facts, not in

t and half wrong," comme

ou mean?"

value to the Service, but you've got to learn it with your elbows and sweating

f pride in the reputation of the Reclamation Service. If we put a canal through Mellin's place i

ive in the clouds! Why, I broke you in myself, Manning, and you are one of the best

s chief's praise and with a br

in the Southwest. The engineer in charge there was in poor health and Jim was to act as his assistant. Jim was torn

displeasure and Jim left the Makon for the Southwest with Iron Skull, while trailing after

ect. Watts, the engineer in charge, was a sick man. He was a gentle, lovable fellow of fifty, and he was taking very much to heart the heckling that the Service was receiving on his Project. His il

p the work, with no thought save for the work, was gone. Jim's job on the Cabillo was not that of engineer alone. He had not only to build the dam but to rule an organization of two thousand sou

of the Interior. Jim had been at Cabillo two years when t

investigated several of the Projects. Being of a patient and inquiring turn of mind, the Secretary had decided to go to the heart of the matter. Therefore he invited the complainant

hot streets of the capitol. He went directly from the train to the Hearing, which was held in one of the Secretary's offices. The room was large and square, with a desk at one end, where

brows. He looked at Jim keenly as the young engineer made his way to his seat in the front of the room. He saw the same Jim t

er and the corners not so deep. The old scowl between his eyes had traced two permanent lines there. Th

he patch of blue sky above the building opposite the open window. For fiv

an to speak his mind fully and freely. And if bitterness toward the

ity. I have a wife and six children. I got consumption and a real estate man fixed it up with a friend of his on the Makon Project t

we work for Mellin when we can and we stayed alive till the water come. I get cured of my consumption. But my money is gone. I can buy no tools, no nothing. And, Mr. Secretary, w

tlers who are succeeding on the Ma

the man, "many, but

he real estate sharks or the gove

give Mellin and the other big fellow first choice i

d the ex-tinner's. When they had finished, the Secretary called on a real esta

crops on the Makon Project la

500,000,

ar before the Reclamatio

ps $10

, that some people have

nted farmers up there who are too busy with their bumpe

ed on the Chairman of the Congressional investigati

avagance and inefficiency. I call on you to remove the Director and four of

e Mr. Manning?" asked the Secretary,

a thousand dollars into telephone booths where two hundred would have been ample. Some of the canal concrete work has had to be dynamited out and done over and over again. The farmer pays for all this. Manning refuses to take any

ject engineers had spent an entire day on the stand, quizzed unmercifully by everyone in the room. They had disclaimed every accusation. The Director of the Service, a quiet man of marvelous executive ability, had made a bit

one thing in all these protests against the Service and that is the attempt to repudiate the debt incurred by the farmers to the Service. And the attempt to repudiate is most bitter with the very men who pleaded most loudly with the Government to irrigate their land and who voluntar

men in the room had risen to their feet,

desk thoughtfully, the

, please tak

o had laid down their lives for the dams. He pictured again the drowned and mangled workmen at the cost of whose lives the Makon tunnel had been driven. A slow, bitter anger had risen in him against Freet. It seemed to Jim a fearful thing that one croo

er than I can. I have the feeling that if the actual work we have done out west, the actual acreage we have brought to profitable bearing won't speak to you pe

crutable as Jim's. "Mr. Manning, why

d good roads. Actually, the heavy freightage that must pass over these roads makes it es

accusations of

of our engineering problems are entirely new and we have to solve them without precedent. The punishmen

ation of graft?" con

retary's head out at the patch of blue sky an

for him." Jim paused and then went on, half under his breath as if he had forgotten his audience. "The str

but he repeated, quietly, "And

ain under his bronze. If ever

the clatter of an overturned cuspidor and a stout, e

" he cried, "ma

u?" asked t

im Manning as I know me own soul. You've let everyone have free speech here. Manning d

o that of the speaker. Jim's jaw was dropped. He was shaking his head

ince you know him so well, Mr. Dennis, we'll hear wh

antly and Uncle Denny made his way

Jim he is here before this crowd of mixed jackals and jackasses. He never could waste his energy in speech, as I'm doing now. I've often thought he

ur Projects, cutting himself off from civilization in the flower of his youth and giving his young life blood to his dams! I know he's received offers of five times his salary from a corporation and stayed by his dam. I've seen him hang by a frayed cable with the flood round his arm pits, arguing, heartening the rough-necks for twenty-four hours at a stretch, the last man to give in, for his dam! I've seen him take chances that meant life or death for him and a hundred workmen

d the patch of blue with unseeing eyes. As Uncle Denny started back to

ld not return to the flood at your dam and you other engineers to your respective posts, there to await word from your Director as to the results of this Hearing. Y

n Jim. "Still Jim, me boy, don't be sore at me

enny! Uncle Denny! You shouldn't have

about you as I do about Ireland! I'm aching for some blundering fool t

tel and talk while I pack. I can't wait an

th. We took it for granted you'd come up to New York. You got m

letter?"

"Soul of me soul! They are out there by now. It all happened very unexpectedl

--" excla

ever since Sara has had the western land speculation bug, and lately nothing would do but he must get out to your Project. They are waiting there now for you if Sara killed n

. "Do you mean that Pen, Pen is out at the D

Don't forget Sara. Me heart misgi

t my dam?"

h eyes were tear-dimmed. He said no more until they were in Jim's room at

Saradokis' wi

Uncle Denny, she never was and

may as well tell you that I think

His clear gray eyes searched the kindly blue ones. "Unc

eloped qualities that nothing else on earth could have developed in her. It's because of her hav

e said, "We shall see what the desert does fo