Jim laid the letter down. He recalled the Secretary's fine, inscrutable face and that something back of its mask that he had liked and understood. He felt sure that the letter had been impelled by that far-seeing quality that he knew belonged to the Secretary but for which he had no lucid word. And yet the letter roused in Jim the old sense of resentment. What did the Secretary want him to do; turn peanut politician and fight the water power trust? Did no one realize that the erecting of the dam was heavy enough responsibility for any one man?
His first impulse was to take the letter over to Pen. Then he smiled wryly. He must not take all his troubles to her or she would get no relief from the burdening that Sara put upon her. So he brooded over the letter until supper time when he went with Henderson down to the lower mess. Jim ate with the lower mess frequently. It was almost the only way he had now of keeping in touch personally with his workmen.
After supper and a pipe in the steward's room Jim climbed the long road to the dam. The road hung high above the dam site. The mountains and the bulk of the Elephant were black in the shadowy regions beyond the arc lights. Black and purple and silver below lay the mighty section of concrete, with black specks of workmen moving back and forth on it, pygmies aiding in the birth of a Colossus. The night sky was dim and remote here. Despite the roar of the cableways, the whistles of foremen, the rushing to and fro of workmen, the flicker of electric lights, one could not lose the sense of the project's isolation. One knew that the desert was pressing in on every side. One knew that old Jezebel, having crossed endless wastes, having fed on loneliness, whispered threats of trouble to the narrow flume that for a moment throttled her. One knew that the Elephant never for a moment lost his sardonic sense of the impermanence of human effort.
When Jim reached his house, he found old Suma-theek camped on the doorstep.
"What is it, Suma-theek?" asked Jim.
"Old Suma-theek, he want make talk with you," replied the Indian.
Jim nodded. "I'd like to talk with you, Suma-theek. Wait till I get enough tobacco for us both and we'll go up on the Elephant's back, eh?"
Suma-theek grunted. The two reached the Elephant's top without conversation and sat for perhaps half an hour, smoking and mute. This was quite an ordinary procedure with them.
Finally Suma-theek said, "Why you make 'em this dam?"