Iron Skull nodded. "Jicarilla and Mohave Apaches. I've fought with the older men. They make good workmen if you understand them. Old Suma-theek over there is one of my best friends." There might have been fifty of the Indians, stalwart fellows, using pick and shovel with a deliberate grace that fascinated Pen. She watched in silence for a moment, then she said: "Mr. Williams. I'm worried about Jim. Is it really true that they are trying to oust him?" Iron Skull looked at Pen's anxious hazel eyes, then out at the ranges. Then he scratched his head. "I'm a little worried myself, Mrs. Saradokis. He's up against a bad proposition and he just won't admit it. I don't like to nag him. You see, him and me are just naturally partners though I am old enough to be his father. And there's some ways a man can't nag another man." "Do you think I could help him?" asked Pen. "He and I've always been good friends." Williams hesitated, then he spoke with a sudden deep earnestness that surprised Pen: "If you don't help him, things will be bad for Boss Still. And you're the only person I know of that could influence him." He paused as he saw Pen flush painfully, then he went on a little awkwardly: "Maybe you'll understand me better if--if I tell you I was with Boss Still when a--Mr. Dennis wrote about your marriage. I know about how he felt and all and I sort of look on your coming at this particular time as a kind of a godsend. "Now I'm going to tell you some things confidential and leave it to your judgment how to act. Boss Still, he sort of worshiped Freet. You know who he is?" Pen nodded. Williams went on. "Freet, as I size it up, wanted to break a smart cub in to be a kind of cat's paw for him in selling water power to the right folks and running the canals right. It's darn seldom you meet a good engineer that's money hungry. But Freet is. He's a miser in a way. But up on the Makon, he found out the Boss is as innocent as a baby of graft and more'n that he had his head in the clouds so's there was mighty little hope of his coming down to earth. So Freet got him sent down here. "Well, the time's coming down here when there'll be a nice lot of water power. It belongs to the farmers after they pay for the dam, but the idea is for the engineer in charge to show 'em where to sell it to best advantage. If the engineer here ain't the right kind, the Water Power trust can make him trouble. All sorts of ways, you see. Getting the farmers sore at him is one. See?" Pen nodded again, her eyes wide and startled. "Now," said Iron Skull, "don't be offended, but I'm wondering about your husband. I know Freet knows him and if it should just happen that your husband had any old scores to settle with the Boss----" He paused and Pen exclaimed: "I believe we'd better go right back to New York, though as far as I know we're out here just for Sara's health and for him to buy up some land Mr. Freet knew about."