suppose you learned that your friends came," said Iron Skull. "They
wanted a tent for his health, so I put them in the tent house back on
the level behind the quarters.

"I didn't know of their coming until I was leaving Washington," said
Jim. "How are they?"

"She stood the trip fine. He was pretty well used up, poor cus! She is
awful patient with him. She's all you've said about her and then some.
The ladies have all called on her but he don't encourage them. I stood a
good deal from him, then I just told him to go to hell. Not when she was
round, of course."

Jim listened intently. He knew the whole camp must be alive with gossip
and curiosity over his two guests. An event of this order was a godsend
in news value to the desert camp.

"Much obliged to you," was Jim's comment.

"How'd the Hearing go?" asked Iron Skull.

Jim shook his head and sighed. "They are convinced down there, I guess,
that the Service is rotten. I kept my mouth shut and sawed wood. The
Secretary is good medicine. You should have heard Uncle Denny jump in
and make a speech. Bless him. I felt like a fool. What the Secretary
thinks about the whole thing nobody knows."

Iron Skull grunted. After a moment he said: "Folks down at Cabillo are
peeved at the way you are making the main canal. Old Suma-theek is back
with fifty Apaches. That's one of them we pulled out of the sand. I've
fixed a separate mess for them. I think we can reorganize one of the
shifts so as to reduce the number of foremen."

Jim paused before the door of his little gray adobe. "Will you come in,
Iron Skull?"

"I'll wait for you in the office," replied Williams. He turned down the
mountainside toward a long adobe with a red roof.

Jim walked in at the open door of his house. The living room was long
and low, with an adobe fireplace at one end. The walls were left in the
delicate creamy tint of the natural adobe. On the floor were a black
bearskin from Makon and a brilliant Navajo that Suma-theek had given
him. The walls were hung with Indian baskets and pottery, with
photographs of the Green Mountain and the Makon, with guns and canteens
and a great rack of pipes. This was the first home that Jim had had
since he had left the brownstone front and he was very proud of it. He
had inherited his predecessor's housekeeper, who ruled him firmly.

Jim dropped his suit case and called, "Hello, Mrs. Flynn!"

A door at the end of the room opened and a very stout woman came in,