There was a moment's silence during which the three stared at the Elephant. Then Jack cleared his throat and said casually, in his gentle voice:
"You're going to have a devil of a job enforcing your liquor ruling, Boss. It'll make trouble with the whites and more with the hombres."
Jim's steel jaw set. "There's not to be a drop of liquor on this dam except in the hospital. I expect you to back me in this, Jack. You know what trouble I had on the Makon because I never came down hard."
"Sure, I'll back you," said Henderson gently. "But I just wanted you to realize that it's going to be hell round a half mile track to enforce it. You never saw me backward about getting into a fight, did you?"
Jim smiled reminiscently and then said, "I'm going to start an ice cream and soft drink joint next to the moving picture show."
Here Pen laughed. "I asked one of the oilers in the cable tower the other day if he liked to work for the government. He grunted. I asked him if Uncle Sam didn't take good care of him and he said: 'Yes, and so does a penitentiary! What does men like the Big Boss know about what we want? Why don't he ask me?'"
Jim nodded. "That's typical. One of the hoboes I brought in half-starved the other day came to my office this morning and told me how to feed the camp. He doesn't like our menu. As near as I can make out this was his first experience at three meals a day and he never saw a bathtub before. There isn't a rough-neck in the camp that isn't convinced he could build that dam better than I. Eh, Jack?"
"Sure, all except the old Makon bunch."
"Well, we're up against the same old problem here, Henderson. We've got to have better co-operation and yet enough rivalry to keep every man on the job working his limit. The foremen don't pull together."
"In that case," said Henderson tenderly, "I'll begin by going over and kick the head off the team boss."