"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, her ruddy face a vast smile, her gray hair flying. She was wiping her hands on her apron.
"Oh, Boss Still, but I'm glad to see you! You look pindlin'. Ain't it awful about the dam! I bet you're hungry this minute. God knows, if I'd thought you'd be here for another hour I'd have had something against your coming. And if God lets me live to spare my life, it won't happen again."