“It may or may not be. Anyhow, it’s his misfortune. You can’t make the world over because he’s come a cropper. Take this young tramp of yours. I’d like to try him out and show you whether there’s anything to him. I’d put him on the work and let him find his level. Chances are he’d drift back to the road inside of a week. When a man’s down-and-out, it isn’t because he doesn’t get a chance, but because of some weakness in himself.” Betty knew that in the case of many this was true. For a year or more she had been an employer of labor herself. One of the things that had impressed her among the young fellows who worked for her was that they did find their level. The unskilled, shiftless, and less reliable were dropped when work became slack. The intelligent and energetic won promotion for themselves. But she did not believe that it was by any means a universal truth. Men were not machines, after all. They were human beings. However, she dropped the subject. “He’s gone, so you won’t have a chance to prove your case,” she said. “Tell me about the work. How is it going?” The Sweetwater Dam project had been initiated to water what was known as the Flat Tops, a mesa that stretched from the edge of the valley to the foothills. It had been and still was being bitterly opposed by some of the cattlemen of Paradise Valley because its purpose was to reclaim for farming a large territory over which cattle had hitherto ranged at will. Their contention held nothing of novelty. It had been argued all over the West ever since the first nesters came in to dispute with the cattle barons the possession of the grazing lands. A hundred districts in a dozen States had heard the claim that this was a cattle country, unfit for farming and intensive settlement. Many of them had seen it disproved. The opposition of powerful ranching interests had not deterred Justin Merrick. Threats did not disturb him. He set his square jaw and pushed forward to the accomplishment of his purpose. As he rode or drove through the valley, he knew that he was watched with hostile eyes by reckless cowpunchers who knew that his success would put a period to the occupation they followed. Two of them had tried to pick a quarrel with him at Wild Horse on one occasion, and had weakened before his cool and impassive fearlessness. But he did not deceive himself. At any hour the anger of these men might flare out against him in explosive action. For the first time in his life he was carrying a revolver. Clint Reed was a stockholder and a backer of the irrigation project. He owned several thousand acres on the Flat Tops, and it was largely on account of his energy that capital had undertaken the reclamation of the dry mesa.