Still Jim Part 16

"I'll pay for them myself," returned Jim. "I tell you, Henderson, this road means a lot to me. It's my--my first important job and the rest of my work on the Makon depends on it. And--and a friend of mine lost his life finding the dam site and he wanted to build this road. I feel as if I'm kind of doing his work for him. If doing something to give you boys amus.e.m.e.nt will keep you here, I'll do it gladly. I haven't anything to save my money for."

Henderson cleared his throat and looked down into the awful depths of the Makon Canyon. "I heard about that trip," he said. "If--if you feel that way about it, Mr. Manning, I guess us boys'll stand by you. And much obliged to you."

"I'm grateful to you," exclaimed Jim. "Tell the boys the stuff will be here in less than a month."

There was a noticeable change in the atmosphere of the camp after this episode. The Indians, in their own camp, were perfectly contented with their quarters and their hoop game and "kin-kan" for recreation. The phonograph and billiard tables arrived on time and were set up in the club tent and Jim and his camp began to do team work. The trouble with shifting labor disappeared except for the liquor trafficking that always hounds every camp. From dawn until dark, the canyon rang periodically with the thunder of blasts. Scoops shrieked. Mules brayed. Drivers yelled. Pick and shovel rang on granite.

Jim grew to know every inch of that granite wall. He lived on the road with the men. No detail of the job was too trivial for his attention. A more experienced man would have left more to his foremen. But Jim was new to responsibility and his nervousness drove him into an intimate contact with his workmen that was to stand him in good stead all his life. It was in building this road on the Makon that Jim learned the hearts of those who work with their hands.

When a fearful slide cost him the lives of two men and half a dozen mules, it was Jim who, in his boyish contrition and fear lest the catastrophe might have been due to his lack of foresight, insisted on first testing the wall for further danger and risked his life in doing so. When a cloudburst sent to the bottom in a half hour a concrete viaduct that had taken a month to build, it was Jim who led the way and held the place at the head of the line of men, piling up sacks of sand lest the water take out a full half mile of the road. He dreamed of the road at night, waking again and again at the thought of some weak spot he had left unprotected.

The rough-necks felt Jim's anxiety and it proved contagious. It may have been due to many things, to Jim's youth and his simple sincerity, to his example of indefatigable energy and his willingness to work with his hands; it may have been that the men felt always the note of domination in his character and that that forced some of the cohesion. But whatever the causes, by the time the road lay a coiling thread from the top of the crevice to the spot where poor Charlie Tuck went down, Jim had built up a working machine of which many an older engineer would have been proud.

The day before the Director and Mr. Freet were expected, Jim and Iron Skull left for the railway station, twenty-five miles away, to meet their two superiors. As he mounted his horse, Jim said to Iron Skull:

"I'm a little worried about the wall at the High Point curve."

"So am I," answered Iron Skull. "Shall I blast back? I don't need to go in with you."

"No," replied Jim. "We couldn't clear out in a week. Wait till the Big Bosses go."

"Better tend to it now," warned Iron Skull.

"I'll risk it," said Jim. And he rode away, Iron Skull following.

The two were held at the little desert station for a day, waiting for the two visitors who were delayed at Green Mountain. They returned in the stage with the Director and Freet, the two saddle horses leading behind. Just about a mile outside the camp they were met by Henderson, mounted on one of the huge mules, that shone with much grooming.

The stage pulled up and Henderson dismounted and bowed.

"I come out to meet you gents," he said, in his tender voice, "representing the Charles Tuck Club of Makon, to tell you we hope you'd not try to go down the Canyon this afternoon, as us citizens of Makon had got up a few speeches and such for you."

Jim and Iron Skull were even more amazed than the two visitors, and sat staring stupidly, but the Director rose n.o.bly to the occasion.

"Thank you," he said. "What is the Charles Tuck Club?"

Henderson mounted his mule and rode on the Director's side of the stage.

"It's the club we formed for using the phonograph and billiard tables the Boss give us. If you gents don't care, I'll ride ahead and tell 'em you're coming."

"Gee!" exclaimed Jim, as the mule disappeared up the broad ribbon of road. "What do you suppose they are up to?"

"This is going some for a small camp!" said the Director. "The men usually don't care whether I come or go."

Jim shook his head. They reached the camp shortly after Henderson and were led by that gentleman to the club tent, where fully half the camp was gathered. The phonograph was set to going as they came in and following this, Baxter, the orator of the camp, got up and made a speech of welcome that consumed fifteen minutes of time and his entire vocabulary. It was concerned mostly with praises of Jim and his work with the men. When he had finished, the phonograph gave them "America"

by a very determined male quartet. The perspiring Henderson then led them to the mess tent, where a late dinner or an early supper was set forth that had taxed the resources of the desert camp to its utmost.

It was dusk when the meal was finished, and then and then only did Henderson allow Iron Skull to lead the visitors to their tents while he took Jim by the arm and drew him to the crevice edge.

"Boss," he said, "not half an hour after you left, the whole dod dinged wall on the High Point curve slid out. Well, sir, we all know'd there'd be h.e.l.l to pay for you if the two Big Bosses come and see that. We couldn't stand for it after all you'd worried over it. We fixed up three shifts. It's moonlight and, say, if we didn't push the face off that slide! Old Suma-theek, why he never let his Injuns sleep! They worked three shifts. Even at that you'd a beat us to it if we hadn't thought of this here committee of welcome deal. If I do say it, I've mixed with good people in my time. We kept the big mitts in there and one of the Injuns just brought me word the road was clear."

Jim stared at his rough-neck friend for a minute, too moved to speak.

Then he held out his hand.

"Henderson, you've saved me a big mortification. I knew that wall should have been blasted back. Gee! Henderson! I'll remember this!"

"You're welcome," replied Henderson gently. "Don't let on to anyone but Williams and us fellows is mum."

And so the Director made his trip down and up the Makon Road and praised much the forethought and care that Jim had expended on it. And Jim, because the secret meant so much to his men, did not tell of their devotion until the Director had gone and Arthur Freet was established on the job. And after he had heard the story Freet said, looking at Jim keenly:

"You know what that kind of carelessness deserves, Manning?"

Jim nodded and Freet laughed at his serious face. "Pshaw, boy! Your having gotten together an organization with that sort of motive power would offset worse carelessness than that. Get ready to shove them into the tunnel."

So Jim's rough-necks began to open the tunnel.

The Makon Project was a six years' job. Freet gave Jim a chance at every angle of the work. Jim admired his chief ardently and yet the two never grew confidential. Freet, in fact, had no confidants among the government employees, but he seemed to know a great many of the politicians of the valley and of the state. And when he was not too deeply immersed in the work at hand Jim felt vaguely troubled by this.

And the problems of actual construction were so many that the dam and tunnel were completed and Jim had begun work on the ditches before he realized that there was a whole group of questions he must face that had nothing to do with technical engineering.

For the first mile the tunnel had to be driven through solid granite.

Then the way led through adobe hills, so soft that the sagging walls were a constant menace. Not until six workmen had died at the job was the adobe finally sealed with concrete. After the adobe came sand, spring riddled. More rough-necks gave up their lives fighting the gushing floods and falling walls, until at last the tunnel emerged into the open foothills of the valley.

During all this time, the men for whom Jim had spent his first savings stayed solidly by him, save those whom death called out. After the camp in the canyon was built, many of them, including Henderson, developed unsuspected families and Jim became G.o.dfather to several namesakes.

After the road was finished, however, old Suma-theek had to take his braves back to the Apache country. They did not like the work in the tunnel, and it was several years before Jim saw his old friend again.

Uncle Denny and Jim's mother came out to visit him, his second summer on the dam, and they enjoyed their visit so much that it became a yearly custom.

Jim's mother, with a mother's wisdom, never spoke of Pen to Jim except casually, of her health or of Sara's effort to carry on real estate business through Pen and his father. On the first visit Uncle Denny undertook to tell Jim of how the accident had developed all the latent ugliness of Sara's character and of his heavy demands on Penelope's strength and time. And he told Jim how Pen's girlishness had disappeared, leaving behind a woman so sweet, so patient, so sadly wise, that Uncle Denny could not speak of her without his voice breaking.

But Uncle Denny never repeated this recital, for before he had finished, Jim, white-lipped, had said hoa.r.s.ely, "Uncle Denny, I can't stand it! I can't!" and had rushed off into the desert night.

Even Uncle Denny could not know, as Iron Skull who had lived with him for the past years knew, of Jim's silent anguish in the loss of Penelope. There was a little picture of Pen in tennis clothes at sixteen that always was pinned to Jim's tent wall. Once in a while when Iron Skull found him looking at it, Jim would tell him of Pen's beauty. But other than this he never mentioned her name to anyone.

Under the excitement of what Uncle Denny told him, Jim wrote a note to Pen:

"DEAR LITTLE PEN: This desert country claims one's soul as well as one's body. It is as big as the hand of G.o.d. If life gets too much for you in New York, come to me here, and I will show you and the desert to each other.

JIM."

And though Pen did not answer the note she carried it next her heart for many a day.

After the tunnel was delivering water to the valley, Jim moved into the valley with his henchmen and took charge of the ca.n.a.l building. Not until he undertook this work did he realize that there were economic features connected with the work on the Projects that were baffling and irritating.

The conditions in the valley were complex. A small portion of it had been farmed for many years. These farmers felt that the ca.n.a.ls ought to come to them first. As soon as it had become known that the Reclamation Service was to undertake the Makon project, real estate sharks had gotten control of much land and by misinforming advertis.e.m.e.nts had induced eastern people to buy farms in the valley.

Other people, sometimes farmers, oftener folk who had failed in every other line of business, took up land long before even the road to the dam was finished. These people waited in a pitiful state of hardship five years for water. They blamed the Service and they fought for first water.

There were Land Hogs in the valley; men who by illegal means had acquired thousands of acres of land, although the law allowed them but one hundred and sixty acres. After the Project was nearing completion these Land Hogs sold parcels of their land at inflated prices. The Land Hogs were wealthy and had influence in the community. They threatened trouble if ca.n.a.ls were not built first to them.