Jim had seen the last farmer and was devoting the final days of his stay on the dam to urging the work forward that he might leave as full a record behind him as his broken term permitted. Wrapped in his work and his grief, Jim did not hear of the existence of the petition. Henderson had spread word among the workmen of Jim's intended departure. No one cared to speak of the matter to Jim. Something in his stern, sad young face forbade it. But there was not a man on the job from associate engineer to mule driver who did not throw himself into his work with an abandon of energy that drove the work forward with unbelievable rapidity. All that his men could do to help Jim's record was to be done. For three days before the election Henderson scarcely slept. He tried to be on all three shifts. "I even eat my meals from a nose bag," he told Uncle Denny sadly. "And what's a nose bag?" asked Uncle Denny. "A nose bag is the thing you tie on a horse for him to get his grub from. Also it's the long yellow bag the cook puts the night shift's lunch in. But I'd starve if 'twould keep the Boss on the job. I'd even drink one of Babe's cocktails." Henderson waited for Uncle Denny's "Go ahead with the story," then he began sadly: "Algernon Dove was Babe's real name. He was an English remittance-man here in the early days. The Smithsonian folks came down here and wanted to get someone to go out with them to collect desert specimens, rattlers, Gila monsters, hydrophobia skunks and such trash. Babe and Alkali Ike, his running mate, went with them. They took a good outfit, the Smithsonian folks did, and in one wagon they took a barrel of alcohol and dumped the reptiles into it as fast as they found them. They got a good bunch, little by little, snakes and horned toads and hydrophobia skunks. In about two weeks they was ready to come back. Then they noticed the bad smell." Henderson paused. "What was the matter?" asked Uncle Denny. "Babe and Ike had been drinking the alcohol, day by day," he answered in his musical voice. "The barrel just did 'em two weeks. Just because I talk foolish talk, Mr. Dennis, ain't a sign that I don't feel bad. I don't want the Boss to speak to me or I'll cry." The day of the election was a long one for Jim. He packed his trunk and his personal papers and Mrs. Flynn began to wrap the legs of the chairs in newspapers. Her tears threatened to reduce each wrapping to pulp before she completed it. In the afternoon, Jim started for a last tour of the dam. He covered the work slowly, looking his last at the details over which he had toiled and dreamed so long. He walked slowly up from the lower town. The men who passed him glanced away as if they would not intrude on his trouble. The work on the dam was going forward as though life and death depended on the amount accomplished by this particular shift. Jim was inexpressibly touched by this display of the men's good will, but he could think of no way to show his feeling.