eal just now, for I'm learning how to cook."

"I guess he don't suffer in silence!" sniffed Jane.

The next morning, when Penelope climbed regretfully onto the front seat
of the automobile, Oscar came hurriedly from the corral with a
dark-mustached young man in a business suit.

"This is Mr. Fleckenstein, Mrs. Sardox," he said. "He's a lawyer and him
and I are going up to the dam with you. He just stopped here on his way.
I'm leaving his horse in the corral, Jane."

Jane and Penelope exchanged puzzled looks. "Your hair needs fixing, Mrs.
Penelope," said Jane. "Come in the house for a minute."

Pen clambered down obediently and Jane led her far into the parlor
bedroom. "Your hair was all right," she whispered, "but I want to warn
you. Oscar is just a great big innocent. He is crazy over anyone he
thinks is smart. That Fleckenstein is a shyster lawyer. I wouldn't trust
a hot stove in his hands. You see that your husband don't get thick with
him. Do you trust your husband in business?"

Pen winced but she looked into Jane's blue eyes and answered, "No."

"Do you like Mr. Manning and want him to succeed?"

"Yes," replied Pen.

"Well then, it's time I took notice of things on this project and you
can help me by watching things up there. I won't take time to say any
more right now. Oscar will be storming in here in a minute."

When they reached the dam that afternoon, Oscar and Fleckenstein called
on Sara. Pen found that they would talk nothing but land values while
she was in the tent, so she wandered out in search of Jim.

She found him at the dam site. He was talking to a heavy-set, red-faced
man in khaki. He was considerably older than Jim, who introduced the
stranger as Mr. Jack Henderson.

"Henderson will take Iron Skull's place," explained Jim. "You must
remember how I wrote home of him and how he helped me save my reputation
as a road-builder on the Makon. He's been down on the diversion dam."

Penelope held out her hand. "I shall never cease regretting that I
didn't get to see the Makon," she said.

Henderson's gray eyes lost their keenness for a moment. "It was hard for
me to come up knowing I was to take Iron Skull's job." Pen listened in
surprise to his low, gentle voice. "You know, Boss Still Jim, if he'd
had a better chance for a education he'd have made his mark. He was just
naturally big. He could see all over and around a thing and what it had
to do with things a hundred years back and a hundre