compliment that she passed me on to you."

"After all, Miss Fuller's age must be nearly the same as mine," Dick
remarked.

"I see what you mean, but in some respects she's much older. In fact, I
guess I could give you a year or two myself. But it seems to me you've
kind of wilted since we began to talk. You've gone slack and your eyes
look heavy. Say, I'm sorry if I've made you tired."

"I don't think you had much to do with it," said Dick. "My head aches and
I've a shivery feeling that came on about this time last night. A touch
of malarial fever, perhaps; they get it now and then in the town, though
we ought to be free from it on the hill. Anyhow, if you don't mind, I'll
get off to bed."

He went away, and Jake looked about the veranda and the room that opened
on to it. There was a canvas chair or two, a folding table, a large
drawing board on a trestle frame, and two cheap, tin lamps. It was
obvious that Dick thought of nothing much except his work and had a
Spartan disregard for comfort.

"A good sort, but it's concrete first and last with him," Jake remarked.
"Guess I've got to start by making this shack fit for a white man to live
in."

Dick passed a restless night, but felt better when he began his work on
the dam next morning, though he did not touch the small hard roll and
black coffee his colored steward had put ready for him. The air was
fresh, the jungle that rolled down the hill glittered with dew, and the
rays of the red sun had, so far, only a pleasant warmth. Cranes were
rattling, locomotives snorted as they moved the ponderous concrete blocks
and hauled away loads of earth, and a crowd of picturesque figures were
busy about the dam. Some wore dirty white cotton and ragged crimson
sashes; the dark limbs of others projected from garments of vivid color.
Dick drove the men as hard as he was able. They worked well, chattering
and laughing, in the early morning, and there was much to be done,
because Oliva's dismissal had made a difference.

The men flagged, as the sun got higher, and at length Dick sat down in
the thin shade of a tree. The light was now intense, the curving dam
gleamed a dazzling pearly-gray through a quivering radiance, and the
water that had gathered behind it shone like molten silver. One could
imagine that the pools reflected heat as well as light. Dick's eyes
ached, and for a few minutes he let them rest upon the glossy, green
jungle, and the belts of cultivation down the hill