ule an
organization of two thousand souls. He was sole ruler of an isolated
desert community and he was the buffer between the office at Washington
and all the contending and jealous forces that were rapidly developing
in the valley.

The United States Reclamation Service is in the Department of the
Interior. Jim had been at Cabillo two years when the new Secretary of
the Interior summoned him to Washington.

The new Secretary had found his office flooded with complaints about the
Reclamation Service. He had found, too, a report from the Congressional
Committee which had the year before 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
complainants to come to Washington to see him. He summoned the Director
and Jim with several other of the Project engineers, Arthur Freet among
them, to appear before him, with the complainants.

May in Washington is apt to be very warm, although very lovely to look
upon. Jim, so long accustomed to the naked height and sweep of the
desert country, felt half suffocated by the low 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 the Secretary was sitting. When Jim entered, the
place already was filled to overflowing with irrigation farmers or their
lawyers, with land speculators, with Congressmen and reporters.

The Secretary was a large man with a smooth shaven, inscrutable face and
blue eyes that were set far apart under overhanging 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 that had said good-bye to the little
group in the station eight years before; the same Jim, with some
important modifications.

He was tanned to bronze, of course. He had sun wrinkles at the corners
of his eyes. His mouth was thinner and the corners not so deep. The old
scowl between his eyes had traced two permanent lines there. The mass of
brown hair still swept his dreamer's forehead. His jaws had become the
jaws of a man of action.

Jim sat down, folded his arms and crossed his knees, fixing his gaze on
the patch of blue sky above the building opposite the open window. For
five days he sat so, without answering a charge that was brought against
him.

For five days the Secr