Jim could not picture for himself any work or life but that which he was doing; could not by the utmost effort of imagination separate himself from his job. His mind went back to Charlie Tuck. He wondered what Charlie would have said to the Secretary's letter. It seemed to Jim that Charlie had had more imagination than he. Perhaps Charlie would have been able to have helped him now. Then he thought of Iron Skull and of that last interrupted talk with him. What had Iron Skull planned to say? What had he foreseen that Jim had been unable to see? It seemed to Jim that he would have given a year of his life to know what advice had been in his old friend's mind.
A useless death! A life too soon withdrawn! Suddenly Jim's whole heart rose in longing for his friend and in loyalty to him. His death must not be useless! The simple sweetness of the sacrifice must not go unrewarded. His life would not be ended!
Jim looked far over the glistening, glowing night and registered a vow. So help him God, he would not die childless and forlorn as Iron Skull had done. Some day, some way, he would marry Penelope. And somehow he would make the dam a success, that in it Iron Skull's last record of achievement might live forever.
Strangely comforted, Jim went home.
The Secretary's letter remained unanswered for several days. The next morning Henderson reported that a section of the abutments showed signs of decomposition. At the first suggestion of a technical problem with which to wrestle, Jim thrust the Secretary's elusive one aside. He started for the dam site eagerly, and refused to think again that day of the shadow that haunted his work.
In excavating for the abutments a thick stratum of shale had been exposed that air-slaked as fast as it was uncovered. Jim gave orders that drifts be driven through the stratum until a safe distance from possible exposure was reached. These were to be filled with concrete immediately. It was careful and important work. The concrete of the dam must have a solid wall to which to tie and drift after drift must be driven and filled to supply this wall. Jim would trust no one's judgment but his own in this work. He stayed on the dam all the morning, watching the shale and rock and directing the foremen.
At noon he went to the lower mess where he could talk with the masonry workers. Five hundred workmen were polishing off their plates in the great room. Jim chuckled as he sat down with Henderson at one of the long tables.
"If I could get the hombres to work as fast as they eat," he said, "I could take a year off the allotted time for the dam."
The masonry workers and teamsters at whose table Jim was sitting grinned.
"There's only one form of persuasion to use with an hombre," commented Henderson, gently. "There's just one kind of efficiency he gets, outside of whisky."