"Boss," he said, "not half an hour after you left, the whole dod dinged wall on the High Point curve slid out. Well, sir, we all know'd there'd be hell to pay for you if the two Big Bosses come and see that. We couldn't stand for it after all you'd worried over it. We fixed up three shifts. It's moonlight and, say, if we didn't push the face off that slide! Old Suma-theek, why he never let his Injuns sleep! They worked three shifts. Even at that you'd a beat us to it if we hadn't thought of this here committee of welcome deal. If I do say it, I've mixed with good people in my time. We kept the big mitts in there and one of the Injuns just brought me word the road was clear."
Jim stared at his rough-neck friend for a minute, too moved to speak. Then he held out his hand.
"Henderson, you've saved me a big mortification. I knew that wall should have been blasted back. Gee! Henderson! I'll remember this!"
"You're welcome," replied Henderson gently. "Don't let on to anyone but Williams and us fellows is mum."
And so the Director made his trip down and up the Makon Road and praised much the forethought and care that Jim had expended on it. And Jim, because the secret meant so much to his men, did not tell of their devotion until the Director had gone and Arthur Freet was established on the job. And after he had heard the story Freet said, looking at Jim keenly:
"You know what that kind of carelessness deserves, Manning?"
Jim nodded and Freet laughed at his serious face. "Pshaw, boy! Your having gotten together an organization with that sort of motive power would offset worse carelessness than that. Get ready to shove them into the tunnel."
So Jim's rough-necks began to open the tunnel.
The Makon Project was a six years' job. Freet gave Jim a chance at every angle of the work. Jim admired his chief ardently and yet the two never grew confidential. Freet, in fact, had no confidants among the government employees, but he seemed to know a great many of the politicians of the valley and of the state. And when he was not too deeply immersed in the work at hand Jim felt vaguely troubled by this.
And the problems of actual construction were so many that the dam and tunnel were completed and Jim had begun work on the ditches before he realized that there was a whole group of questions he must face that had nothing to do with technical engineering.