"It was in Arizona," began Henderson. The singing quality in his voice was as tender as a girl's. "I had fifty hombres building a bridge over a draw, getting ready for a mining outfit. No whites for a million miles except my two cart drivers, Ryan and Connors. The hombres and the Irish don't get on well together and I was always expecting trouble. "One day I was in the tent door when Ryan ran up the trail and beckoned me with his arm. I started on the run. When I got to the draw I saw the fifty hombres altogether pounding something with their shovels. I grabbed up a spade and dug my way through to the middle." Henderson's voice was lovingly reminiscent. "There I found Ryan and Connors in bad shape. Connors had backed his cart over an _hombre_ and the whole bunch had started in to kill him. Ryan had run for me and then gone in to help his friend. I used the spade freely and then dragged the two Irishmen down to the river and stuck their heads in. When they came to, they were both for starting in to kill all the hombres. I argued with 'em but 'twas no use, so I had to hit 'em over the head with a pick-handle and put 'em to sleep. Then I went back and subdued the hombres to tears with the same weapon." "Did you ever have any more trouble?" asked a man. "Trouble?" said Henderson, gently. "They didn't know but a word or two of English, but from that time on they always called me 'Papa'!" Jim roared with the rest and said as he rose, "If you think you've absorbed enough pie to ward off famine, let's get back to the dam." Henderson followed the Big Boss meekly. They started up the road in silence, Jim leading his horse. Suddenly Jack pulled off his hat and ran his fingers through his bush of hair. "Boss," he said, "I chin a lot to keep me cheered up while I finish Iron Skull's job. I wish he could have stayed to finish it. Of course he helped on the Makon but he never had as good a job as he's got here. Ain't it hell when a man goes without a trace of anything living behind him! A man ought to have kids even if he don't have ideas. I often told Iron Skull that. But he said he couldn't ask a woman to live the way he had to. I always told him a woman would stand anything if you loved her enough." Jim nodded. Iron Skull's life in many ways seemed a personal reproach to Jim for his own way of living. The work at the abutments absorbed Jim until late afternoon; absorbed him and cheered him. About five o'clock he started off to call on Pen, and tell her about the Secretary's letter. He found her plodding up the road toward the tent house with a pile of groceries in her arms. "I missed the regular delivery," she replied to his protests as he took the packages from her, "and I love to go down to the store, shopping. It's like a glorified cross-roads emporium. All the hombres and their wives and the 'rough-necks' and their wives and the Indians. Why it's better than a bazaar!"