Part 53 (1/2)

Jim thoroughly enjoyed the long afternoon on the dam with the German.

Herr Gluck's questions were searching and invigorating. They took Jim out of himself and he showed Herr Gluck a scientific knowledge and enthusiasm that few people were fitted to appreciate.

At five o'clock Jim took Herr Gluck up to his house and turned him over to Uncle Denny. The rotund, flaxen-haired German and the rotund, gray-haired Irishman took stock of each other. Uncle Denny moved two chairs before the open door.

Herr Gluck sat down. ”Himmel! What beauty!” he exclaimed, as the faint lavender distances with the far mountains flas.h.i.+ng sunset gold met his gaze. ”Not strange that Mr. Manning has enthusiasm.”

Uncle Denny sighed in a relieved way as if he had catalogued the newcomer.

”They say,” said Dennis, ”that a man must close his soul to the Big Country or else he will become great or go mad. And do you think me boy has done good work here, Herr Gluck?”

The German made some extraordinary rings of smoke and nodded his head slowly. ”He has done some daring things well that may not be great in themselves, but they show imagination. That is the point. He has imagination. Many are the engineers who are accurate, who are trustworthy, but imagination, creative ability, no! You observe the shape of his head, his jaw, his hands--the dreamer, urged into action.

And the impudence of his sand-cement idea! In my country we dare make our concrete only very rich. He shows me this afternoon that diluted rightly with sand, cement can be made stronger.” Herr Gluck chuckled delightedly.

Uncle Denny almost purred. ”He was so as a lad. He was captain of his school football teams because he could think of more wild tactics than all the rest of them put together. And always got away with them, looking sad and never an unnecessary word.”

Herr Gluck nodded. ”He is so valuable here that I think it not possible I get him to come to Germany yet?”

Michael Dennis got red in the face and took a long breath. ”But they don't appreciate him here. He's been asked to resign in a few days now.”

The German's round eyes grew rounder. ”Nein! And why? Has he got into foolishness? He is young, they must remember.”

”It's a long tale,” said Uncle Denny, ”but I'll tell it to you,” and he plunged into the story of the Project.

Herr Gluck listened breathlessly.

”And so you see,” Dennis ended, ”that for all he has done he feels he's failed, for everything the dam has stood for in his mind has come to naught. And that's a bad feeling for a man as young as Jim. He'll never readjust himself, Jim won't. He can get another job but his life's big dream will have gone to smash. His inspiration will be gone. And what will he do then, poor boy?”

”But it's impossible,” persisted Herr Gluck. ”He's a valuable man. It is not possible they would dismiss him. Some day when he is older he will do great things your country can't afford to lose. What is the matter with your Head of the Service?”

”Impossible!” snorted Uncle Denny. ”Impossible! The word is not in the vocabulary of the American politician. The Director is all right, a fine clean fellow. But he can't help himself. It's either Jim or the Project to be smirched. They won't be satisfied, the politicians, till they get the Service attached to the Spoils system. What do they care for scientific achievement? Soul of me soul! I'd like to be Secretary of the Interior for fifteen minutes. I'd discharge everyone in the Department, ending with meself.”

Herr Gluck was visibly excited. ”I tell you it is not possible! He's a great engineer in the making? They cannot know it or they would not so do.”

Uncle Denny lost patience. ”I'm telling you it is so! Don't you know that nothing is impossible to ignorant men?” he shouted. ”Didn't ignorance crucify Christ? Didn't the ignorant make Galileo deny his world was round? Didn't ignorance burn Joan of Arc at the stake? Every advance the world has made has been with b.l.o.o.d.y footsteps. Don't we always kill the man in the vanguard and use his body as a bridge to cross the gulf of our own fear and ignorance? I tell you, I fear ignorance!”

Herr Gluck rose and shook his plump fist in Uncle Denny's face. ”Those are days gone by in my country,” he roared. ”They may be true in this raw land or in besotted Ireland, but in the Fatherland we wors.h.i.+p brain.

Do not include the Fatherland in your recriminations! Once in a while you accomplish great things in your foolish country here with its hysteria and frothing and bubbling. But come to my country if you would see the quiet patient advance of n.o.ble science with scientists revered like kings.”

”There were colleges in Ireland,” shouted Uncle Denny, ”when your ancestors were wearing fur breech clouts and using cairns for books!”

Jim came slowly up the trail and Uncle Denny and Herr Gluck sat down a little sheepishly. Herr Gluck did not waste any time in preliminaries as Jim came in the door.

”Your Uncle tells me of the trouble here on the dam,” he said. ”My government is undertaking some great work which I will describe to you.

We will make you a formal offer if you will it consider.”

Jim sat down in the doorway, pulled off his hat and looked up into the German's face. Herr Gluck concisely and clearly outlined the work. Jim listened intently, then as Herr Gluck finished and waited for Jim's answer, the young engineer looked away.

He saw the Elephant dominating the river and desert, guarding and waiting--for what? Jim wondered. He saw the far road that he had built, winding into the dim mountains. For a long time he sat battling with himself in the flood of emotion that rose within him. It really had come, he realized, with Herr Gluck's offer. He actually was to turn his work over to another man to finish. The two older men watched him intently.

Finally Jim said: ”The New England stock in this country is disappearing, Herr Gluck. Perhaps we are no longer needed. At any rate we haven't been strong enough to stay. This dam has been more than a dam to me. It has meant something like, 'Anglo-Saxons; their mark; by Jim Manning.' Some other man will finish the dam quite as well as I, but I don't think he will have my dream about it.”