It was hard to go. But Jim was young and adventure called him. As the train began its long transcontinental journey, Jim would not have exchanged places with any man on earth. He was a full-fledged engineer. He was that creature of unmatched vanity, a young man with his first job. And Jim's first job was with his government. The Reclamation Service was, to Jim's mind, a collection of great souls, scientifically inclined, giving their lives to their country, harvesting their rewards in adventure and in the abandoned gratitude of a watching nation. Jim was headed for the Green Mountain project which was located in the Indian country of the far Northwest. There were not many months of work left on the dam or the canals. But Jim was to report to the engineer in charge of this project to receive from him his first training. This was Jim's first trip away from the Atlantic coast. He was a typical Easterner, accustomed to landscapes on a small scale and to the human touch on everything. Until he left St. Paul, nothing except the extreme width of the map really surprised him. But after the train had crossed the Mississippi valley, it began to traverse vast rolling plains, covered from horizon to horizon with wheat. At endless intervals were set tiny dwellings like lone sentinels guarding the nation's bread. After the plains, came an arid country where a constantly beaten vegetation fought with the alkali until at last it gave way to a world of yellow sand and purple sky. After a day of this, far to the west appeared a delicate line of snowcapped peaks toward which the flying train snailed for hours, until Jim, watching eagerly, saw the sand give way to low grassy hills, the hills merge into ridges and the ridges into pine-clad mountain slopes. For the last two days of the trip the train swung through dizzy spaces, slid through dim, dripping canyons, crossed trestles even greater than the trestles of Jim's boyhood dreams; twisted about peaks that gave unexpected, fleeting views of other peaks of other ranges until Jim crawled into his berth at night sight-weary and with a sense of loneliness that appalled him. At noon of a bright day, Jim landed at a little way station from which a single-gauge track ran off into apparent nothingness. Puffing on the single-gauge track was a "dinky" engine, coupled to a flat car. Wooden benches were fastened along one end of the car. The engineer and fireman were loading sheet iron on the other end. They looked Jim over as he approached them. "Do you go up to the dam?" he asked. "If we ever get this stuff loaded," replied the engineer. "I'd like to go up with you," said Jim. "I've got a job up there." The engineer grunted. "Another cub engineer. All right, sonny. Load your trousseau onto the Pullman." Jim grinned sheepishly and heaved his trunk and suit case up on the flat car. Then he lent a hand with the sheet iron and climbed aboard.