Still Jim Part 39

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 d.i.n.kies 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 apt.i.tude 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."