Suma-theek responded to Jim's wistful smile with an old man's smile of lost illusions. "Dreams are always before or behind. They are never here. You are young. Yours are before. Suma-theek is old. His are behind. Boss Still, you no sabez one thing. All great dreams of any tribe they built by man for love of woman."
Jim stared for a moment at the purple shadow of the Elephant. Then he stopped the machine at the bridge to let Suma-theek out. In a moment the machine was climbing the mesa on the road to Cabillo.
Jim always thrilled to his first view of Cabillo as he swung down into the valley. It is a little town lying on a desert plain three thousand feet above the sea. Flood or drought or utter loneliness had not prevailed to keep men from settling there. It is set in the vivid green of alfalfa field, of vineyards, and of orchards. Around about the town, the desert lies, rich, yellow, and to the east rise mountains that stand like deep purple organ pipes against the blue desert sky. It seemed to Jim this morning that the pipes had forever murmured with the wordless brooding music of the desert winds. That age after age they had been uttering vast harmonies too deep for human ears to hear, uttering them to countless generations of men who had come and gone like the desert sand.
In Cabillo Jim went, after a hasty breakfast, to see John Haskins. Haskins was a banker and a Harvard man who had come to Cabillo thirty years before with bad lungs. He was, Jim thought, an impartial, though keen, observer of events in the valley. He was in the banker's office but a few minutes.
"Mr. Haskins," he said, "do you consider fifty dollars an acre too heavy a debt for the farmers to carry on their farms?"
"Not for the experienced irrigation farmer," replied Haskins.
Jim paused thoughtfully. "Experienced! And not twenty per cent. of them will be experienced." He made an entry in his notebook, then asked, "Is ten years too short a time to give the farmers to pay for the dam?"
"Not with wise cropping."
"Is it possible to find sufficient water power market to practically pay for the dam, without reference to the crops?" Jim went on.
"Yes," answered Haskins.