Las Vegas awoke one morning to find itself in the public eye. Destiny had so decreed when it permitted Las Vegas to become the town nearest to the proposed dam site at Boulder Canyon,--the largest governmental project undertaken for many a day. The Panama Canal, said the orators (and no doubt they spoke the truth), had not cost so much as it would cost to dam the Colorado River, to conserve its tremendous power, to control its flood waters and put the river to work tamely watering long rows of cotton, potatoes, great fields of grain. Long enough had it gone leaping down through the wildest, most gorgeous scenery in the country. Now it must be harnessed to new industries and become the servant of plowboys, the friend of prospectors. It must pull trains across the desert which it was to transform into tilled farms. It must keep several States vibrant with the hum of machinery. It must make of the town of Las Vegas a city worthy the name. One can’t blame Las Vegas for being particularly interested in that phase of the project. The town lay fairly under the eye of the Eagle,--and of the sun, whose light the magic alchemy of the desert transmuted into soft tints on the mountains, into a faint lavender glow on the desert. The air was still, with a little nip to it that would later soften to a lazy warmth. A stranger to the desert, standing on the depot platform, would have thought that he might walk quite easily to Charleston Mountains, standing bold and stark against the western sky line. Down the flag-draped main street, coming from the side door of the little post-office, a huge, good-natured negro leaned against a pushcart piled high with dingy, striped canvas mail sacks. When he passed, certain belated citizens swung out to the edge of the pavement and took longer steps, knowing that the train was on time, and that the crowd would already be edging out upon the platform. Automobiles with flags standing perkily from headlight braces went careening past, to swing up into the parking space, trying their nonchalant best to look as if they were not going to hold governors and high officials of the Federal Government and carry them safely down to Boulder Canyon, the most popular dam site on the Colorado.