Still Jim

by Honoré Morrow

  CHAPTER VII

  THE CUB ENGINEER

  "Humans constantly shift sand and rock from place to place. They call this work. I have seen time return their every work to the form in which it was created."

  MUSINGS OF THE ELEPHANT.

  It was hard to go. But Jim was young and adventure called him. As thetrain began its long transcontinental journey, Jim would not haveexchanged places with any man on earth. He was a full-fledged engineer.He was that creature of unmatched vanity, a young man with his firstjob. And Jim's first job was with his government. The ReclamationService was, to Jim's mind, a collection of great souls, scientificallyinclined, giving their lives to their country, harvesting their rewardsin adventure and in the abandoned gratitude of a watching nation.

  Jim was headed for the Green Mountain project which was located in theIndian country of the far Northwest. There were not many months of workleft on the dam or the canals. But Jim was to report to the engineer incharge of this project to receive from him his first training.

  This was Jim's first trip away from the Atlantic coast. He was a typicalEasterner, accustomed to landscapes on a small scale and to the humantouch on everything. Until he left St. Paul, nothing except the extremewidth of the map really surprised him. But after the train had crossedthe Mississippi valley, it began to traverse vast rolling plains,covered from horizon to horizon with wheat. At endless intervals wereset tiny dwellings like lone sentinels guarding the nation's bread.After the plains, came an arid country where a constantly beatenvegetation fought with the alkali until at last it gave way to a worldof yellow sand and purple sky.

  After a day of this, far to the west appeared a delicate line ofsnowcapped peaks toward which the flying train snailed for hours, untilJim, watching eagerly, saw the sand give way to low grassy hills, thehills merge into ridges and the ridges into pine-clad mountain slopes.

  For the last two days of the trip the train swung through dizzy spaces,slid through dim, dripping canyons, crossed trestles even greater thanthe trestles of Jim's boyhood dreams; twisted about peaks that gaveunexpected, fleeting views of other peaks of other ranges until Jimcrawled into his berth at night sight-weary and with a sense ofloneliness that appalled him.

  At noon of a bright day, Jim landed at a little way station from which asingle-gauge track ran off into apparent nothingness. Puffing on thesingle-gauge track was a "dinky" engine, coupled to a flat car. Woodenbenches were fastened along one end of the car. The engineer and firemanwere loading sheet iron on the other end. They looked Jim over as heapproached them.

  "Do you go up to the dam?" he asked.

  "If we ever get this stuff loaded," replied the engineer.

  "I'd like to go up with you," said Jim. "I've got a job up there."

  The engineer grunted. "Another cub engineer. All right, sonny. Load yourtrousseau onto the Pullman."

  Jim grinned sheepishly and heaved his trunk and suit case up on the flatcar. Then he lent a hand with the sheet iron and climbed aboard.

  "Let her rip, Bill," said the fireman. And she proceeded to rip. Jimheld his hat between his knees and clung to the bench with both hands.The dinky whipped around curves and across viaducts, the grade risingsteadily until just as Jim had made up his mind that his moments werenumbered, they reached the first steep grade into the mountain. Fromthis point the ride was a slow and steady climb up a pine-coveredmountain. Just before sunset the engine stopped at a freight shed.

  "Go on up the trail," said the fireman. "We'll send your stuff up to theofficers' camp."

  Jim saw a wide macadam road leading up through the pines. Theunmistakable sounds of great construction work dropped faintly down tohim. His pulse quickened and he started up the road which wound for aquarter of a mile through trees the trunks of which were silhouettedagainst the setting sun. Then the road swept into the open. Jim stopped.

  First he saw ranges, stretching away and away to the evening glory ofthe sky. Then, nearer, he saw solitary peaks, etched black against theheavens, and groups of peaks whose mighty flanks merged as if in a finalstruggle for supremacy.

  The boy saw a country of mighty distances, of indescribable cruelty andhostility, a country of unthinkable heights and impassable depths. And,standing so, struggling to resist the sense of the region's terrifyingbigness, he saw that all the valleys and canyons and mountain slopesseemed to focus toward one point. It was as if they had concentrated atone spot against a common enemy.

  This point, he saw, was a huge black canyon that carried the waters fromall the hundred hills around. It was the point where the war of watersmust be keenest, where the stand of the wilderness was most savage andwhere lay the one touch of man in all that area of contending mountains.

  A vast wall of masonry had been built to block the outlet of the ranges.A curving wall of gray stone, so huge, so naked of conscious adornmentthat the hills might well have disbelieved it to be an enemy and haveaccepted it as part and parcel of their own silent grandeur.

  Jim lifted his hat slowly and moistened his lips. This, then, was thelabor to which he had so patronizingly offered his puny hands.

  After a while, details obtruded themselves. Jim saw black dots of menmoving about the top of the dam. He heard the clatter of concretemixers, the raucous grind of the crusher, the scream of donkey enginesand the shouts of foremen. Back to the right, among the trees, was along military line of tents. Above the noise of construction the boycaught the silent brooding of the forest and, poured round all, theliquid glory of the sunset. Suddenly he saw the whole great picture ashis own work, and it was a picture as elusive, as tantalizing, as aboy's first dreams of pirate adventure. Jim had come to his first greatdam.

  When he had shaken himself together and had swallowed the lump in histhroat, he asked a passing workman for Mr. Freet, the Project Engineer.He was directed to a tent with a sheet iron roof. Jim stopped bashfullyin the door. A tall man was standing before a map. Jim had a good lookat him before he turned around.

  Mr. Freet wore corduroy riding breeches and leather puttees, a blueflannel shirt and soft tie. He was thin and tall and had a shock ofbright red hair. When he turned, Jim saw that his face was bronzed anddeeply lined. His eyes were black and small and piercing.

  "Mr. Freet," said Jim, "my name is Manning."

  The project engineer came forward with a pleasant smile. "Why, Mr.Manning, we didn't look for you until tomorrow, though your tent isready for you. Come in and sit down."

  Jim took the proffered camp chair and after a few inquiries about histrip, Mr. Freet said: "It's supper time and I'll take you over to themess and introduce you. Only a few of the engineers have their wiveshere and all the others, with the so-called 'office' force, eat at'Officers' Mess'. I'm not going to load you up with advice, Mr. Manning.You are a tenderfoot and fresh from college. You occupy the position ofcub engineer here, so you will be fair bait for hazing. Don't take ittoo seriously. About your work? I shall put you into the hands of thechief draughtsman for a time. I want you to thoroughly familiarizeyourself with that end of the work. Then, although most of that part isdone, you will go into the concrete works, then out on the dam with thesuperintendent. Remember that you have no record except some goodcollege work. Forget that you ever were a senior. Look at yourself as afreshman in a difficult course, where too many cons means a lifefailure."

  Jim listened respectfully. At that moment Arthur Freet was the biggestman on earth to him.

  "Yes, sir," he said. "Thank you."

  Freet pulled on a corduroy coat. "Come over to supper, Manning. Too muchadvice on an empty stomach is bad for the digestion."

  Jim followed meekly after the Big Boss.

  Jim reported to Charlie Tuck, the head draughtsman the next morning.Tuck was a plump, middle-aged man, bald headed and clean shaven, withmild blue eyes. Jim put him down in his own mind as a sissy and chafed alittle at being put into Tuck's care. But his discontent was shortlived.

  Tuck proved to be
a hard taskmaster. Before the end of the week Jimrealized that he would not get out of Tuck's hands until he knew everyinch of the design of the great dam from the sluice gates and thedrainage holes to the complete vertical section. He had no patience withmistakes and Jim took his grilling in silence, for the fat little manshowed a deep knowledge of the technical side of dam building thatreduced the cub engineer to a humble pulp.

  Also, Jim discovered that Tuck was an old Yale man and that hisavocation in life seemed to be tennis. The engineers had a good court inthe woods and after Tuck found that Jim liked the game, he took the boyover to the court every afternoon before supper and beat him withmonotonous regularity. And Jim was a good player.

  The dam was far from civilization and the engineers welcomed Jim,although they treated him with the jocularity that his youth andinexperience demanded. The novelty of his environment, the romance ofthe great gray dam, built with such frightful risk and difficulty,absorbed Jim for the first week or so. He had no thought of homesicknessuntil the excitement of his new work began to recede. And then, quiteunexpectedly, it descended on him like a leaden cloud.

  The longing for home! The helpless, hopeless sickness of the heart fordear familiar faces! The seeing of alien places through tear-dimmedeyes, the answering to strange voices with an aching throat, and thepoignancy of memory! Jim's mind dwelt monotonously on the worn spot inthe library hearth rug where he and Uncle Denny had spent so many, manyhours. There was the crack in the brown teapot that his mother would notdiscard because she had poured Big Jim's tea from it. There was UncleDenny's rich Irish voice, "Ah, Still Jim, me boy!" And there wasPen--dear, dear Penelope, with her woman's eyes in her child'sface--with her halo of hair. Pen's "Take me with you, Still," was thevery peak of sorrow now to the boy. Jim was homesick. And he who has notknown homesickness does not know one of life's most exquisite griefs.

  It seemed to Jim now that he hated the Big Country. At night in his tenthe was conscious of the giant dam lying so silent in the darkness and itmade him feel helpless and alone. By day he hid his unhappiness, hethought. He worked doggedly and did not guess that Charlie Tuckunderstood that many times he saw the designs for the wonderful bronzegates of the sluicing tunnel over which Charlie heckled him for days,through tear-dimmed eyes.

  The camp was lighted by electricity. Jim would sit watching the lightsflare up after supper, watching the night shift on the broad top of thedam which was as wide as a street and try to pretend that the noise andthe light and the figures belonged to 23rd street. Jim was sitting so inthe door of his tent one night after nearly a month in camp. He held hispipe but could not smoke because of the ache in his throat. He had notbeen there long when Charlie Tuck came up the trail and with a nod satdown beside Jim.

  "Let me have a light," he said. "The fellows are having a rough houseover in the office tonight. Why don't you go over?"

  "I don't feel like it, somehow," replied Jim.

  Tuck nodded. "You may have hated New York while you lived there, but itlooks good now, eh?"

  "Yes," answered Jim.

  "You'll feel better when the Boss begins to give you someresponsibility. Were you ever up in the Makon country, Manning?"

  "No," said Jim.

  "Don't strain yourself talking," commented Tuck, sarcastically. "You arerather given to blathering, I see. Well, the Makon country wants a dam.It wants it bad but the Service doesn't see how to get in there. Thereis a big valley that has been partially farmed for years. It isenormously fertile, but there is only enough water in it to irrigate alimited number of farms.

  "Now, ten miles to the north, is the Makon river that never fails ofwater. But as near as anyone can find out the only feasible place fordamming it is somewhere in a beastly canyon that no man has ever gonethrough alive. The river is treacherous and the country would make thislook as well manicured as the Swiss Alps."

  Jim listened intently. Charlie Tuck pulled at his pipe for a time, thenhe said: "My end of this job is about finished. I like the exploring endof the work best, anyhow. I was with the Geological Survey for ten yearsbefore the Reclamation Service was created. I made the preliminarysurveys for this project and for the Whitson. I tell you, Manning,that's the greatest work in the world--getting out into the wildernessand finding the right spot for civilization to come and thrive. There'swhere you get a sense of power that makes you feel like a PilgrimFather. The Reclamation Service is a great pipe dream. Some of thefinest men in the country are in it today and nobody knows it."

  "Like Mr. Freet," said Jim.

  Jim thought that Tuck hesitated for a moment before he answered. "Yes,and a dozen others. I consider it a privilege to work with them. Say,Manning, if some way they could find the right level in that canyon anddrive a tunnel through its solid granite walls, they could send theMakon over into the valley."

  "Why doesn't the Service send a man to explore the crevice?" asked Jim.

  "That's what I say!" cried Tuck. "Just because a lot of cold feet claimit can't be done, just because no man has come through that crevicealive, is no reason one won't. Say, Manning, if I can get the Service tosend me up there, will you go with me?"

  "Me!" gasped Jim.

  Tuck nodded in his gentle way. "Yes, you see I like you. You are morecongenial than most of the fellows here to me. On a trip like that youwant to be mighty sure you like the fellow you are going to be with.Then I think you would learn more on a trip like that than in a year ofthe sort of work Freet plans for you. And last, because I think you'vegot the same kind of feeling for the Service that I have though you'vebeen here so short a time. It's something that's born in you. What doyou say, Manning?"

  Jim never had felt so flattered in his life. And Adventure called to himlike a ship to a land-locked mariner.

  "Gee!" he cried, "but you're good to ask me, Mr. Tuck! Bet your lifeI'll go!"

  Tuck emptied his pipe and rose. "I'll go see Freet now and persuade himto get busy with the Chief in Washington. One thing, Manning. It will bea dangerous undertaking. We may not come through alive. You must getused to the idea, though, that every Project demands its toll of deaths.People don't realize that. Are you willing to go, knowing the risk?"

  With all the valor of youth and ignorance, Jim answered, "I'm ready tostart now."

  Mr. Freet was not adverse to the undertaking and the Washington officeshrugged its shoulders. The Project engineer talked seriously to Jim,though, about the danger of the mission and insisted that he write homeabout it before finally committing himself. Jim's letter home, however,would have moved a far more stolid spirit than Uncle Denny, for hesketched the danger hazily and dwelt at length on the honor and glory ofthe undertaking. The reply from the brownstone front was as enthusiasticas Jim could desire.

  Tuck undertook the preparations for the expedition with the utmost care.Only the two of them were to go. The outfit must be such as they couldhandle themselves, yet as complete as possible. Two folding canvasboats, two air mattresses, life preservers, waterproof bags, first aidappliances, brandy, sweet oil, surveying implements, food in as compactform as possible, guns and fishing tackle made a formidable pile for twomen to manage. But at Jim's protest Charlie answered grimly that theywould not be heavily laden when they came out of the canyon.

  It was mid-August when the two men reached the Makon country. Theyarranged with a rancher to take them and their outfit up to the river.There was no road, scarcely even a trail up to the canyon. The green ofthe ranches was encircled by a greasewood-covered plain that, toward theriver, became rock covered and rough so that a wagon was out of thequestion and the sturdy pack horses themselves could move but slowly.

  Jim's first view of the Makon Canyon was of a black rift in a roughbrown sea of sand, with a blue gray sky above. As the little pack traindrew nearer he saw that the walls of the rift were weathered and brokeninto fissures and points of seeming impassable roughness. So deep andso craggy were these walls that the river a half mile below could beseen only at infrequent intervals. The labor of getting i
nto the crevicewould be quite as difficult, Jim thought, as going through it.

  They made camp that night close beside the canyon edge. Early the nextmorning the rancher left them and Charlie and Jim prepared to getthemselves and their outfit down over the mighty, bristling walls.Lowering each other and the packs by ropes, sliding, rolling, jumping,crawling, it was night before they reached the river's edge, where theymade camp. There was a narrow sandy beach with a cottonwood tree growingclose to the granite wall. Under this they put their air mattresses andbuilt their fire.

  Jim did not like the feeling of nervousness he had in realizing how deepthey were below the desert and how narrow and oppressive were the canyonwalls. He was glad that the strenuous day sent them off to bed and tosleep as soon as they had finished supper. They were up at dawn.

  Charlie's purpose was to work down the river, surveying as he went untilhe found a level where the river would flow through a tunnel out ontothe valley. And this level, too, must be at a point where constructionwork was possible. The river was incredibly rough and treacherous. Fromthe first they packed everything in waterproof bags. The canvas canoeswere impractical. The river was full of hidden rock and by the third daythe second canoe was torn to pieces and they were depending on raftsmade from the air mattresses.

  After the canoes were gone, they spent practically all the daylight inthe water, swimming or wading and towing or pushing the mattresses. Thewater was very cold but they were obliged to work so hard that theyscarcely felt the chill until they made camp at night. Jim discoveredthat a transit could be used in a cauldron of water or on a peak of rockwhere a slip meant instant death or clinging to steep walls thatthreatened rock slide at the misplacing of a pebble.

  One arduous task was the locating of a camp at night. The second nightin the camp they were lucky. They found a broad ledge in a spot that atfirst seemed hopeless, for the blank walls appeared here almost to meetabove the deep well of water. There was a little driftwood on the ledgeand they had a fire. The following two nights they were less fortunate.The best they could find were chaotic heaps of fallen rock on which tolay their mattresses, and they slept with extreme discomfort.

  The fifth day was a black day. They were swimming slowly behind theirladen mattresses through deep, smooth black water when, without warning,the river curved and swept over a small fall into heavy rapids.Instantly the mattresses were whirling like chips. The two men foughtlike mad to tow them to a rock ledge, the only visible landing place thecrevice had to offer. But long before this haven was reached themattresses were torn to shreds and Jim and Charlie were glad to reachthe ledge with their surveying instruments and two bags of "grub." Herethey sat dripping and exhausted. It was nearly dark. Night set in earlyin the canyon. They dared not try to look for a better camping groundthat night. The ledge was just large enough for the two of them, withwhat remained of their dunnage.

  Charlie grinned. "Welcome to our city. Well, it's as good as a Pullmanberth at that."

  "And no harder to dress on," said Jim, standing up carefully andbeginning to peel off his wet clothes. "I guess if we wring these dudsout and rub with alcohol, they won't feel so cold."

  Charlie rose and began to undress gingerly. "You can stand up to makeyour toilet," he said, "which is more than the Pullman offers you."

  They ate a cold canned supper and afterward, as they sat shivering, Jimsaid, "If we fail to locate the dam site, no one will have any sympathywith our troubles."

  "We will find it," said Charlie with the calm certainty he never hadlost. "Jupiter looks as big as a dinner plate down here. Sometimes whenI look at the stars I wonder what is the use of this kind of work."

  Jim looked up at the stars which seemed almost within hand touch. Theirnearness was an unspeakable comfort to the two in the crevice. He spokeslowly but with unusual ease. Charlie Tuck had grown very near to him inthe past few days.

  "I've had a feeling," he said, "ever since we actually got down here andon the job, that I'm doing the thing I've always been intended to do. Idon't know how I got that feeling because I've always lived in towns."

  "I feel that way every time I go out exploring," answered Tuck. "I canstand the draughting board just so long and then I break loose. Isuppose someone has got to do these jobs and there is always someonewilling to take the responsibility. Kipling calls it being a Son ofMartha. Do you know those verses?"

  "No," said Jim. "I'd like to hear them."

  Charlie chuckled. "Me reciting Kipling is like hearing a 'co-edyell'--it's the only poem I know, though, and here goes. The Sons ofMartha

  '--say to the Mountains, Be ye removed! They say to the lesser floods, run dry! Under their rods are the rocks reproved. They are not afraid of that which is high. Then do the hilltops shake to their summits, then is the bed of the deep laid bare, That the Sons of Mary may overcome it, pleasantly sleeping and unaware.

  They do not preach that their God will rouse them a little before the nuts break loose, They do not teach that His pity allows them to leave their work whenever they choose. As in the thronged and the lighted ways, so in the dark and the desert they stand, Wary and watchful all their days that their brethren's days may be long in the land.

  Lift ye the stone or cleave the wood to make a path more fair or flat, Lo, it is black already with blood some Son of Martha spilled for that. Not as a ladder from Earth to Heaven, not as an altar to any creed, But simple Service, simply given, to their own kind, in their common need.'"

  The two men sat in silence after Charlie had finished until he said: "IfI were you I'd read Kipling a good deal. He's good food for a man ofyour type. People don't realize what their comforts cost. I hope thatwhen I die it will be on a Son of Martha job. I'm built that way. Mypeople were New Englanders, then middle west pioneers, and now here Iam, still breaking the wilderness."

  Jim sat with his heart swelling with he knew not what great dream. Itwas the divine fire of young sacrifice, the subtle sense of devotionthat has made men since the world began lay down their lives for thething not seen with the eye.

  "I wish you'd teach me those verses," said Jim. "We've got to keep awakeor roll off the ledge."

  And so the night passed.

  The next day the way was unspeakably difficult. They made progressslowly and heavily, clambering from rock to rock, clinging to the walls,fighting through rapids. It was past mid afternoon when they ran a levelin a spot of surpassing grandeur. A rock slide had sent a great heap ofstone into the river. Close beside this they set the transit. Forwardthe river swept smoothly round a curve. Back, the two looked on amagnificent series of flying buttresses of serrated granite, their basesguarding the river, their tops remotely supporting the heavens. Thebuttresses nearest the rock heap and on opposite sides of the river werenot two rods apart.

  They ran the levels carefully and then looked at each other in silence.Then they made another reading and again looked at each other. Then theypacked the transit into its rubber bag, sat down on the rock heap andgazed at the marching, impregnable line of buttresses.

  "It will be even higher than the Green Mountain and a hundred timesmore difficult to build," said Charlie, softly.

  "She'll be a wonder, won't she!" exclaimed Jim. "The Makon dam. It willbe the highest in the world."

  "Granite and concrete! Some beauty that! Eternal as the hills!" saidCharlie. "We will make camp and finish the map here."

  They lay long, looking at the stars that night. "Some day," said Jim,"there will be a two hundred feet width of concrete wall right where weare lying. Doesn't it make you feel a little hollow in your stomach tothink that you and I have decreed where it shall be?"

  "Yes," said Charlie. "It's a good spot, Manning. I hope I get a chanceto lay out the road down here. They will have to blast it out of thesolid granite. It will eat money up to make it."

  "Let me in on it, won't you," pleaded Jim.

  "Well, slightly!" exclaimed Charlie. "Now for a good nigh
t's sleep. Weought to be out in three days. That will make ten days in all, just whatI planned."

  Jim hardly knew Charlie the next day. No college freshman on his firstholiday ever acted more outrageously. He sang ancient college songs thatreverberated in the canyon like yells on a football field. He stoodsolemnly on his head on the top of rock pinnacles. He crowned himselfand Jim with wreaths made of water cress that he found on a tiny sandybeach. When they were obliged to take to the water he pretended that hewas an alligator and made uncouth sounds and lashed the water with thegrub bag in lieu of a tail.

  Late in the afternoon, while they were swimming through a whirlpool, heinsisted on giving Jim a lecture on the gentle art of bee-hunting as hehad seen it practiced in Maine.

  "Now we will pretend that I am the bee!" he shouted at Jim. "You willadmit that I look like one! I am drunk with honey and I hang to the combthus!"

  He caught a point of rock with one hand and lazily waved the other.

  "This is my proboscis," he explained.

  "For heaven's sake, be careful!" yelled Jim. "This is no bloomingten-cent show! Keep both hands on the rock and climb up for a rest."

  Charlie suddenly went white. "God! I've got cramp!" he screamed. "Bothlegs. Help me, Manning!"

  He struggled to get his free hand on the rock, but the water tore at himlike a ravening beast and he lost his hold. Jim swam furiously afterhim. The white head showed for a moment, then disappeared around a turnof the wall.