ched Magney
depart. He, Steele Weir, had now taken over full charge of the camp
and assumed full responsibility for the project's failure or success.
His eye passed beyond the distant automobile to the town of San
Mateo--a new town for him, but a town like many he had seen in the
southwest and in Mexico. And aside from its connection with the
construction work, it held a fascinating interest, a profound interest
for the man, the interest that any spot would which has at a distance
cast a black and sinister shadow over one's life. San Mateo--the name
lay like a smoldering coal in his breast!

At length he turned and strode down the hillside to the dam site in
the canyon. The time had come to shut his hand about the work and let
his hold be felt. He located the superintendent directing the pouring
of concrete in the frames of the dam core, Atkinson, a man of fifty
with a stubby gray mustache, a wind-bitten face and a tall angular
frame. When Weir joined him he was observing with speculative eyes the
indolent movements of a group of Mexican laborers.

"Those _hombres_ don't appear to be breaking any speed records, I
see," Weir remarked, quietly.

"Humph," Atkinson grunted.

"What do they think this is? A rest cure?"

The superintendent's silence suddenly gave way.

"I ought to land on 'em with an ax-handle and put the fear of God in
their lazy souls," he exclaimed, bitterly.

"Well, do it."

"What!"

"Do it."

"Say, am I hearing right?" Atkinson swung fully about to stare at the
new chief. Then he went on, "They'd quit to a man if made to do a
man's work; I supposed that Magney had told you that. A dozen times
I've been ready to throw up my job from self-respect; I'm ashamed to
boss work where men can loaf and I must keep my tongue between my
teeth. I was considering just now the matter of leaving."

"No need, Atkinson. From this time these men will work or get their
dismissal."

The other pushed his hat atilt and rubbed his head in surprise.

"What about that 'company policy' of hiring nothing but local labor to
keep the community friendly which Magney was always kicking about?" he
asked. "That was what made him sorer than anything else, and beat him.
He said the directors had tied his hands by promising that no workmen
should be imported. If they promised that, they sure bunkoed
themselves. Friendly, huh."

"The people haven't been friendly, eh?" Weir said.

"Does it look like it when these Mexicans