he Elephant. Then he
stopped the machine at the bridge to let Suma-theek out. In a moment the
machine was climbing the mesa on the road to Cabillo.

Jim always thrilled to his first view of Cabillo as he swung down into
the valley. It is a little town lying on a desert plain three thousand
feet above the sea. Flood or drought or utter loneliness had not
prevailed to keep men from settling there. It is set in the vivid green
of alfalfa field, of vineyards, and of orchards. Around about the town,
the desert lies, rich, yellow, and to the east rise mountains that stand
like deep purple organ pipes against the blue desert sky. It seemed to
Jim this morning that the pipes had forever murmured with the wordless
brooding music of the desert winds. That age after age they had been
uttering vast harmonies too deep for human ears to hear, uttering them
to countless generations of men who had come and gone like the desert
sand.

In Cabillo Jim went, after a hasty breakfast, to see John Haskins.
Haskins was a banker and a Harvard man who had come to Cabillo thirty
years before with bad lungs. He was, Jim thought, an impartial, though
keen, observer of events in the valley. He was in the banker's office
but a few minutes.

"Mr. Haskins," he said, "do you consider fifty dollars an acre too heavy
a debt for the farmers to carry on their farms?"

"Not for the experienced irrigation farmer," replied Haskins.

Jim paused thoughtfully. "Experienced! And not twenty per cent. of them
will be experienced." He made an entry in his notebook, then asked, "Is
ten years too short a time to give the farmers to pay for the dam?"

"Not with wise cropping."

"Is it possible to find sufficient water power market to practically pay
for the dam, without reference to the crops?" Jim went on.

"Yes," answered Haskins.

"If a group of farmers and business men will assume a debt,
voluntarily, then repudiate it, are they sufficiently responsible
persons to assume for all time the handling of the irrigation system and
water power the government is developing for them?" Jim's voice was slow
and biting.

Haskins answered clearly, "No!"

Jim's last question made Haskins smile. "Is this an intelligent group of
men, these farmers and business men?"

"Unusually so, especially the men who have been long in the desert and
have struggled with its vicissitudes. Some of the Mexican farmers are
difficult to handle, though, because they don't understand wha