big silent places you will find his monuments; dams high in
mountain fastnesses, an imperishable part of the mountains; trestles
that bridge canyons which birds feared to cross. He spent his life in
utter hardships making ways easy for others to follow. These monuments
will stand forever. But the name of their builder has become a blackened
thing for rats like Fleckenstein to handle with dirty claws.

"And now they are after me. And you, many of you, in this audience, are
the sometimes innocent and sometimes paid instruments of my downfall.
You accuse me of grafting, of lying and stealing. You don't understand."

Jim paused and moistened his lips. The room was breathless. Pen could
hear her heart beat. She dug her fingernails into her palm. Could he,
_could_ he find the words? Even if these people did not understand,
could he not say something that would teach her how to help him? Jim did
not see the crowded room. Before him was his father's dying face and
Iron Skull's. His hands felt their dying fingers.

"I am a New Englander. My people came to New England 250 years ago and
fought the wilderness for a home. We were Anglo-Saxons. We were trail
makers, lawmakers, empire builders. We founded this nation. We threw
open the doors to the world and then we were unable to withstand the
flood that answered our invitation. The New Englander in America is as
dead as the Indian or the buffalo. My people have failed and died with
the rest. I am the last of my line.

"But I have the craving of my ancestry with something more. I can see
the tragedy of my race. I know that the day will come when the
civilization of America will be South European; that our every
institution will be altered to suit the needs of the South European and
Asiatic mind.

"I want to leave an imperishable Anglo-Saxon thumb print on the map; a
thumb print that no future changes can obliterate, a thumb print that
shall be less transitory than the pyramids because it will be a part of
the fundamental needs of a people as long as they hunger or thirst.

"Look at the roster of the Reclamation Service. You will find it a
roster of men whom the old vision has sent into dam building and road
making. Here in the Service you will find the last stand of the
Anglo-Saxon trail makers.

"I want to build this dam. I want to build it so that, by God, it shall
be standing and delivering water when the law that makes it possible
shall have passed from the memory of man!