ou will have to dig longer
and some shorter ditches. I can't help that. Isn't that reasonable?"

"It would be," sniffed Ames, "if you knew enough to know where the best
place was. That's where you fall down. You won't take advice. Just
because I don't wear short pants and leather shin guards is no reason
I'm a fool."

Jim's drawl was very pronounced. "The shin guards would help you when
you clear cactus. And if you'd adopt a leather headguard, it would
protect you in your favorite job of butting in."

"I'll get you yet!" exclaimed Ames, starting off rapidly toward the
trail. "I've got pull that'll surprise you."

Jim swore a little under his breath and began again on his interrupted
calculations. When the four o'clock whistle blew and the shifts changed,
some one sat down silently near Jim. Jim worked on for a few moments,
finishing his problem. Then he looked up. Suma-theek was sitting on a
rock, smoking and watching Jim.

"Boss," he began, "you sabez that story old Suma-theek tell you?"

Jim nodded. "Why don't you do it, then?" the old Indian went on.

Jim looked puzzled. Suma-theek jerked his thumb toward the distant tent
house. "She much beautiful, much lonely, much young, much good. Why you
no marry her?"

"She is married, Suma-theek," replied Jim gently.

"Married? No! That no man up there. She no his wife. Let him go. He bad
in heart like in body. You marry her."

Jim continued to shake his head. "She belongs to him. The law says so."

Suma-theek snorted. "Law! You whites make no law except to break it.
Love it have no law except to make tribe live. Great Spirit, he must
think she bad when she might have good babies for her tribe, she stay
with that bad cripple. Huh?"

"You don't understand, Suma-theek. There is always the matter of honor
for a white man."

Suma-theek smoked his cigarette thoughtfully for a moment and then he
said, wonderingly: "A white man's honor! He will steal a nigger woman or
an Injun woman. He will steal Injun money or Injun lands. He will steal
white man's money. He will lie. He will cheat. Where he not afraid,
white man no have honor. But when talk about steal white man's wife, he
afraid. Then he find he have honor! Honor! Boss, white honor is like
rain on hot sand, like rotten arrow string, like leaking olla. I am old,
old Injun. I heap know white honor!"

Old Suma-theek flipped his cigarette into the excavation and strode
away. Jim rose slowly and looked over at the Ele