her
ruddy face a vast smile, her gray hair flying. She was wiping her hands
on her apron.

"Oh, Boss Still, but I'm glad to see you! You look pindlin'. Ain't it
awful about the dam! I bet you're hungry this minute. God knows, if I'd
thought you'd be here for another hour I'd have had something against
your coming. And if God lets me live to spare my life, it won't happen
again."

She talked very rapidly and as she talked she was patting Jim's arm,
turning him round and round to look him over like a mother.

Jim flashed his charming smile on her. "Bless you, Mother Flynn! I know
it's a hundred years since you've told me what God knows! I'll have a
bath and go down to the office. I've had nothing to eat since morning."
This last very sadly.

It had the expected effect on Mrs. Flynn, whose idea of purgatory was of
a place where one had to miss an occasional meal.

She groaned: "Leave me into the kitchen! At six o'clock exactly there
will be fried chicken on this table!"

Mrs. Flynn made breathlessly for the kitchen pausing at the door to call
back: "And how's your mother and your Uncle Denny? I've been doing the
best I can for your company. They ate stuff I took 'em only the first
day, then she went to housekeeping."

"Thank you," said Jim, absently. He went into his bedroom. This, too,
was uncolored. It was a simple little room with only a cot, a bureau and
a chair in it. The walls were bare except for the little old photograph
of Pen in her tennis clothes.

In half an hour Jim had splashed in and out of his bath, was shaved and
clad in camp regalia; a flannel shirt, Norfolk coat and riding breeches
of tan khaki, leather puttees and a broad-brimmed Stetson. At his office
awaiting him were his engineer associates and Iron Skull, and he put in
a long two hours with them, his mind far less on the flood and the
Hearing than on the fact that Penelope was waiting for him, up in the
little tent house.

It was not quite eight o'clock when Jim stood before the tent house,
waiting for courage to rap.

Suddenly he heard Sara's voice. "I won't have women coming up here to
snoop! Understand that, Pen, right now. Hand me the paper and be quick
about it."

Jim felt himself stiffened as he listened for Pen's voice in answer.

CHAPTER XII

THE TENT HOUSE

"Leave Old Jezebel to herself and she soon returns to old
ways. She likes them best for she is a woman."