"I feel just the way I used to when I got mad because I couldn't get compound interest and Dad straightened me out, giving me a good calling down as he did so. Pen! Pen! My dearest!"
Oscar Ames, picking his way carefully among the derricks and stone blocks, grunted when he saw the smile on Jim's face. Jim did not cease to smile when he saw Oscar.
"Come up here, Ames! I want your advice!"
Oscar grunted again, but this time as if someone had knocked his breath out of him. He paused, then came on up to where Jim was standing. Men were busy preparing the surface on which they stood for the next pouring. In the excavation below, the channeling machine was gouging out a trench for the heel of the dam. Pumps were working steadily, drawing seepage water from the excavation. Men swarmed everywhere, on derricks, on engines, with guide ropes for cableway loads, scouring and chipping rock and concrete surfaces, ramming and bolting forms into place, shifting motors, always hurrying yet always giving a sense of direction and purpose.
"She's coming along, Oscar," said Jim.
Oscar nodded. Something in Jim's tone made his own less pugnacious than usual as he said:
"What you using sand-cement for instead of the real stuff?"
"It's stronger," said Jim. "A very remarkable thing! We've been testing that out five or six years."
Jim's tone was very amiable. Oscar looked at him suspiciously and Jim laughed. "Thought we were working some kind of a cement graft?" Jim asked.
"Well, that's the common report!"