“You know how to hold your tongue. That’s a valuable asset on this job.”
Rounding a cliff in their descent, Nash saw a clutter of boxlike houses spread out below him. Then the first, faint sounds of the construction work came to his ears—the clatter of steel, cries of men, snorting locomotives, and the peculiar whine of the glistening cables as they tightened over the derrick wheels. Ugly, white concrete walls, over which men scrambled like so many flies, contrasted vividly against the green of the valley.
Spiderlike webs of steel lifted here and there against the tender blue of the sky; great sections of piping dangled from cables apparently no larger than thread.
“There’s the camp,” said Hooker. “Biggest on the job. Two thousand men—wops, Japs, Hindus, and greasers included; also seven hundred horses.” After a pause, he added: “And the nastiest stretch of construction on the whole aqueduct.”
Every fiber in Nash’s body responded to this wonderful scene of activity, as a motor to a suddenly released current. He was keen to be there among the other workers.
They soon reached the first of the corrugated-iron shacks, all of which were built facing the single, tortuous street.
“You can have that little cabin back there,” Hooker told him. “It’s empty now. This large one belongs to me—sort of an executive headquarters. And, by the way, what am I to call you?”
“Elliot Nash.”
“Good!” The foreman grinned. “Sounds O.K. I hope we get along pleasantly, Nash.”
“I hope we do,” echoed Nash—and he meant it.