"Last night I rode down to Cabillo with a Dutchman, some big bug who'd been up at the dam. I'd just been up there with Miguel. He told us that Jim Manning is attracting notice in the old country by the work he's doing on this dam. And he roasted us as samples of fat cattle who'd let a man like Manning go. At least that's what I made out, for he was so mad he talked Dutch a lot. Miguel and I made up our minds then that we'd got in wrong. What has this fellow Fleckenstein ever done for us? Is he going to get us branded over the country as a bunch that'll jump an honest debt? It looks to me as if Manning had done more for us than we knew. I'm willing to give Manning a new chance. I move we turn this meeting into a Manning meeting and I move we send a petition to the Secretary of the Interior to keep Manning on the job." CHAPTER XXVII THE THUMB PRINT "I have been buffeted by the ages until I dominate the desert. So do the ages buffet one another until they produce a dominating man." MUSINGS OF THE ELEPHANT. Uncle Denny was on the platform before Marshall had ceased speaking. "Friends, Mr. Marshall has said the thing we had in mind to present to this meeting. It was to be me share to ask you for a petition. 'Twill be the pride of Still Jim's life that the request came from a farmer and not from me. If all here will sign and if every man here will make himself responsible for the signatures of his neighbors, the thing can be done in a few days and we will wire the matter to the Secretary of the Interior. Friends, I'd rather see the tide turn for Jim than to see Home Rule in Ireland!" The tide had turned. One of those marvelous changes of sentiment that sometimes sweep a community began in the wild applause that greeted the tender little closing of Uncle Denny's speech. When Fleckenstein arrived an hour late, he found an empty hall. His audience had dispersed to scour the valleys for signatures for Jim. Uncle Denny came home to the dam, tired but with the first ray of hope in his heart that he had had for a long time. The petition might not influence the authorities and yet the sentiment it raised might defeat Fleckenstein at the last. At any rate, it was something to work for these last hard days of Jim's regime.