Pen eyed Jim intently, trying to get his viewpoint and turning old Iron Skull's words over in her mind. Jim was standing with his hat under his arm and his brown hair blowing across his forehead. "Pen," he said suddenly, "you are the most beautiful woman in the world." Pen blushed clean to her eyebrows. Jim went on eagerly: "Penelope, I want to tell you how I feel about you. Will you let me?" Pen looked at the Elephant helplessly. But the great beast lay mute and inscrutable in the sun. There was a look in Jim's eyes that Pen would have found hard to control had not Jim's secretary chosen that moment to interrupt them. "Mr. Manning," he said, "a letter has just come in for you from the Secretary of the Interior. You told me to notify you when it came." CHAPTER XVI THE ELEPHANT'S LOVE STORY "Coyotes hunt weaker things. Humans hunt all things, even each other, which the coyote will not do." MUSINGS OF THE ELEPHANT. "Don't let me keep you here, Jim," exclaimed Pen so hastily that Jim could not help smiling. She scuttled hastily up the trail ahead of him, her heavy little hunting boots doing wonders on the rough path. The Secretary's letter disturbed Jim very much. It was not the result he had expected from the Hearing at all. Nor was the letter itself easy for Jim to understand. "MY DEAR MR. MANNING: "There are several facts connected with your work that I would like to call to your attention. The Reclamation Service is an experiment, a magnificent one. It is not a test of engineering efficiency, except indirectly. Engineers as a class are efficient. It is an experiment to discover whether or not the American people is capable of understanding and handling such an idea as the Service idea. It is a problem of human adjustment. Is an engineer capable of handling so gigantic a human as well as technical problem? I shall be interested in getting your ideas along this line. "---- Secretary of the Interior." Jim laid the letter down. He recalled the Secretary's fine, inscrutable face and that something back of its mask that he had liked and understood. He felt sure that the letter had been impelled by that far-seeing quality that he knew belonged to the Secretary but for which he had no lucid word. And yet the letter roused in Jim the old sense of resentment. What did the Secretary want him to do; turn peanut politician and fight the water power trust? Did no one realize that the erecting of the dam was heavy enough responsibility for any one man?