e friends
who do not know them very well. I cannot tell if Senor Brandon is one of
these, but it is not impossible. After all, it is often the clever man
who makes the worst mistakes; and on the whole I imagine it would be
wiser to leave your comrade alone."

He got up and laid his hand on Jake's arm with a friendly gesture. "Now I
will put you on your way, and if you feel puzzled or alarmed in future,
you can come to me."

CHAPTER XXI

DICK MAKES A BOLD VENTURE

Some delicate and important work was being done, and Stuyvesant had had
his lunch sent up to the dam. Bethune and Dick joined him afterwards, and
sat in the shade of a big traveling crane. Stuyvesant and Dick were hot
and dirty, for it was not their custom to be content with giving orders
when urgent work was going on. Bethune looked languid and immaculately
neat. His speciality was mathematics, and he said he did not see why the
man with mental talents should dissipate his energy by using his hands.

"It's curious about that French liner," Stuyvesant presently remarked. "I
understand her passengers have been waiting since yesterday and she
hasn't arrived."

"The last boat cut out Santa Brigida without notice," Bethune replied.
"My opinion of the French is that they're a pretty casual lot."

"On the surface. They smile and shrug where we set our teeth, but when
you get down to bed-rock you don't find much difference. I thought as you
do, until I went over there and saw a people that run us close for
steady, intensive industry. Their small cultivators are simply great. I'd
like to put them on our poorer land in the Middle West, where we're
content with sixteen bushels of wheat that's most fit for chicken feed to
the acre. Then what they don't know about civil engineering isn't worth
learning."

Bethune made a gesture of agreement. "They're certainly fine engineers
and they're putting up a pretty good fight just now, but these Latins
puzzle me. Take the Iberian branch of the race, for example. We have
Spanish peons here who'll stand for as much work and hardship as any
Anglo-Saxon I've met. Then an educated Spaniard's hard to beat for
intellectual subtlety. Chess is a game that's suited to my turn of mind,
but I've been badly whipped in Santa Brigida. They've brains and
application, and yet they don't progress. What's the matter with them,
anyway?"

"I expect they can't formulate a continuous policy and stick to it, and
they keep brains and la