Jim.

"I mean that you have got an awful lot to learn yet before you will be
of big value to the Service, but you've got to learn it with your elbows
and sweating blood. You're that kind. Nothing I can say will help you.
Good night, partner!"

The next morning Jim reported at Freet's office. "Mr. Freet," he said
carefully, "I have a lot of pride in the reputation of the Reclamation
Service. If we put a canal through Mellin's place it'll give people a
real cause for complaint. I shall have to resign if you insist on my
doing it."

Freet laughed sardonically. "The Service can't afford to lose you, even
if you do live in the clouds! Why, I broke you in myself, Manning, and
you are one of the best men in the Service today, bar none. We will let
the Mellin matter rest for a while."

Jim blushed furiously under his chief's praise and with a brief "Thank
you," he turned away.

It was a little over two months later that Jim received an order from
Washington to proceed to the Cabillo Project in the Southwest. The
engineer in charge there was in poor health and Jim was to act as his
assistant. Jim was torn between pleasure at his promotion and
displeasure over Freet's obvious purpose of getting him away from the
Makon.

But the utter relief in not having to fight the Mellin matter to a
finish triumphed over the displeasure and Jim left the Makon for the
Southwest with Iron Skull, while trailing after him came the Pack who,
to a man, suddenly felt an overwhelming desire to winter in the desert.

Jim missed the Makon very much at first. He had all the love of a father
for his first born for the Project, for which Charlie Tuck had died. At
first, he felt very much a stranger on this new Project. Watts, the
engineer in charge, was a sick man. He was a gentle, lovable fellow of
fifty, and he was taking very much to heart the heckling that the
Service was receiving on his Project. His illness had caused the work on
the dam to fall behind. Jim closed his ears and his mouth, placed Iron
Skull and his Pack judiciously on the works and started full steam ahead
to build the Cabillo dam.

Six months after Jim's arrival Watts died and Jim succeeded to his job,
which day by day grew more complicated. The old simple life of the Makon
when, heading his faithful rough-necks, Jim ate up the work, with no
thought save for the work, was gone. Jim's job on the Cabillo was not
that of engineer alone. He had not only to build the dam but to r