Freet on
the Makon there had been growing in Jim a vague distrust of his own
powers. He could build the dams, yes, if "they" would leave him free to
do so. If "they" would not fret and hound him until his efficiency was
gone. It was the very subtlety and intangibility of "they" that made him
uneasy, made him less sure of himself and his own ability.

He had planned, after he had finished his work, to turn his attention to
solving the problems of old Exham. How was he to do this if he was not
big enough to cope with his own circumstance? And was he going to miss
the continuation of the Manning line because he had failed to grasp
opportunity in love as in everything else?

Dawn found Jim watching the Elephant grow bronze against the sky. The
Elephant had a very real personality to Jim as it had to everyone else
in the valley.

"What is to be, is to be, eh, old friend?" said Jim. "But why? Tell me
why?"

The sun rolled up and the Elephant changed from bronze to gold. Jim
sighed and went up to his house.

All that day crowds of workmen on the banks watched Old Jezebel romp
over their working place and they swore large and vivid oaths regarding
what they would do to her once they got to balking her again. It was
about noon that a buckboard drawn by two good horses stopped at the foot
of the cable tower. The driver called to Iron Skull Williams, who was
chewing a toothpick and chatting to Pen. Williams led Pen up to the
buckboard.

"Like to introduce Oscar Ames, one of our old-time irrigation farmers,"
said Iron Skull. "And this is Mrs. Ames, his boss. And this lady is a
friend of the Big Boss--Mrs. Saradokis."

Pen held out her hand and the two women looked at each other in the
quick appraising way of women. Mrs. Ames was perhaps fifty years old.
She was small and thin and brown, with thin gray hair under her dusty
hat and a thin throat showing under her linen duster. Her face was
heavily lined. Her eyes were wonderful; a clear blue with the far-seeing
gaze of eyes that have looked long on the endless distances of the
desert. Yet, perhaps, the look was not due altogether to the desert, for
young as she was, Pen's eyes had the same expression.

"I am glad to know you," said Penelope.

"Thank you," said Mrs. Ames, bashfully.

Oscar Ames shook hands heartily. He was a big man of fifty, with hair
and skin one shade of ruddy tan.

"Glad to meet you, ma'am. Say, Iron Skull, how'd you come to let the
water beat you