en Oscar was not with Jim, he brought visitors to the dam. These
visitors were farmers and business men from the entire Project. Ames was
careful to time the visits, so that about the time he strolled up to the
dam site with the callers, Jim would be on his tour of inspection. Oscar
would then follow unostentatiously in Jim's wake, but close enough to
get a good idea of the ground that Jim covered. Often he would make Jim
stop and give an explanation of some point the visitors could not
understand. Penelope, consumed with curiosity, joined the touring party
one day.

"I wish you could see him in full action," Oscar was saying. "Like the
day of the flood or the night Dad Robins was killed. He can handle
fifteen hundred men better'n I handle my three. Now you watch him. Those
there fellows he's joshing have been with him seven years. You ought to
hear their stories about driving the tunnel up on the Makon. Say, he'd
go right in with 'em. Never asked 'em to go somewhere he wouldn't go
himself. They all laugh at us farmers, those rough-necks. Say, we don't
know a real man when we see one."

The bronzed elderly man who was with Oscar listened intently. Oscar went
on:

"The details on a place like this are enough to drive a man crazy. He
dassent let 'em pour concrete without him or his cement expert is
round. If the rocks aren't just right or the surface of the section
isn't just right or they slip up a little on the mixture, the whole
thing will go to thunder some day. He's got to spend ten million dollars
with eighty million people watching him and all us farmers kicking every
minute. How'd you like his job?"

"He was over at my place the other day," said the farmer. "I see how he
got his nickname. But he's awful easy to talk to. I got to telling him
what a hard time I had the first year or two I was irrigating alfalfa
and how I get five good cuttings a year now, regular. He wants me to
show that new fellow Hunt how I did it. Guess I will. I always thought
Manning hated the farmers. But I guess he was just busy with his own
troubles."

Pen fell back and climbed the trail to a point where she could look down
on Jim. He was listening to his master mechanic, interjecting a word now
and then at which his subordinate nodded eagerly. Pen wondered sadly,
what Jim would do with his life when he could no longer work for the
Projects. The thought of this sudden thwarting of all his plans haunted
her and she longed almost unbear