e," said Jim. "I eat with you."

"No, we ain't got all you have. We ain't got your job and your chance.
You get homesick yourself even on your pay and your chance. What do you
think of us boys, with nothing but wages and a kickout? Let me tell
you, boss, it's the man that takes care of his men's idle hours that
gets the work out of 'em."

Jim looked at the camp. It was merely a straggling line of tents set
along the crevice edge. The day's work was ended and the men lounged
listlessly about the tents or hung over the corral fence where the mules
munched and brayed. At that moment Jim made an important stride in his
education in handling men. He saw the job for the first time through the
workmen's eyes. Why should they care for the job?

"Look here," said Jim, "if I send to Seattle and get a good phonograph
and a couple of billiard tables and some reading matter and set them up
in a good big club tent, will you agree to keep a hundred men on the job
until I finish the road?"

"Government won't pay for them," said Henderson.

"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
amusement 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 i