y as well, that the dam
was being built. And the building of it was Jim's job.

Jim jumped off the bobtailed train that obligingly stopped for him at a
lone shed in the wide desert. In the shed was the adobe splashed
automobile which Jim had left there on his trip out. He threw his suit
case into the tonneau, cranked the engine and was off over the rough
trail that led to the Project Road.

A few miles out he met four hoboes. They turned out for the machine and
Jim stopped.

"Looking for work at the dam?" he asked.

"What are the chances?" asked one of the group.

"Fine! Get in! I'm engineer up there. You're hired."

With broad grins the three clambered aboard. The man who sat beside Jim
said: "We heard flood season was coming on and thought you'd like extra
help. Us boys rode the bumpers up from Cabillo."

Jim grunted. Labor-getting continued to be a constant problem for all
the valuable nucleus formed by the Park. Experts and the offscourings of
the earth drifted to the great government camp and Jim and all his
assistants exercised a constant and rigid sifting process. He did not
talk much to his new help. His eyes were keen to catch the first glimpse
of the river. The men caught his strain and none of them spoke again.
Cottontails quivered out of sight as the automobile rushed on. An
occasional coyote, silhouetted against the sky, disappeared as if by
magic. Swooping buzzards hung motionless to see, then swept on into the
heavens.

Jim was taking right-angled curves at twenty-five miles an hour. The
hoboes clung to the machine wild-eyed and speechless. Up and up, round a
twisted peak and then, far below, the river.

"She's up! The old Jezebel!" said Jim.

The machine slid down the mountainside to the government bridge. The
brown water was just beginning to wash over the floor. Across the
bridge, Jim stopped the machine before a long gray adobe building. It
topped a wide street of tents. Jim scrawled a line on an old envelope
and gave it to one of the hoboes.

"Take that to the steward. Eat all you can hold and report wherever the
steward sends you."

Then he went on. Regardless of turn or precipice the road rose in a
steady grade from the lower camp where the workmen lived, a half mile to
the dam site. Jim whirled to the foot of the cable way towers and jumped
out of the machine.

The dam site lay in a valley, a quarter of a mile wide, between two
mountains. Above the dam lay the Elephant. A great co