"No. I'm pretty sure that he's keeping out of sight purposely. I can't make anything out of him these days. He's taking an unusual amount of interest in my work lately. He's been from one end of the canal line to the other and I don't believe that there's a single stone or a shovelful of dirt in the whole dam that he doesn't know the size of; and yet I never run across him. I hear that he's giving the dam his especial attention just now." "More than Helen?" Uncle Sid looked bluntly at Winston. "Oh, that reminds me." Winston was trying to speak indifferently. "The dam will be finished next week. Helen is to swing the last stone into position. She said that she thought you would make up a party to go up with her." "You'll start the first of the week? Yes, I guess I'll go." Uncle Sid was certain of it. "Then I'll go up in a day or two and get things ready for you. The gates are closed, you know, and the reservoir is nearly full. The rains in the mountains have been unusually heavy this season." "How are you makin' out with Mellin?" Winston's smile was not pleasant to contemplate. "I've got him all done but the finishing. He talked fight when I left him, but I think this will take it out of him." Winston held out a bundle of papers to Uncle Sid. "Do you want to look them over?" Uncle Sid shook his head as he pushed the papers aside. "I've got a parcel o' papers too. Betwixt the two of us, I guess we have got things pretty well straightened out." "How does Helen feel about it now?" "She's stickin' to 'Lige like a barnacle. She says that 'Lige meant all right an' would have done all right, if Eunice an' Mellin had let him alone. She didn't say so, but I guess she meant she'd a made him, herself." Winston's expression was skeptical, but it softened as he answered. "She would have tried, all right." "She would have succeeded too, if Eunice had kept out." Uncle Sid spoke with unusual emphasis. "If there's anything worth savin' in a man, a good woman's bound to save it. Things have looked pretty black for 'Lige an' for Helen too, but they'll come out all right. I don't like 'Lige's cat-awaulin' any more than you do, an' you ain't seen the worst o' him yet, unless I miss my guess, an' you ain't seen the best o' him, neither. I can't understan' everything an' so I take some things on trust, an' I want to tell you this, Helen Lonsdale ain't the kind o' fish to bite on a bare hook, an' she bit hard on 'Lige." "So did I. That is, I bit." Winston was thinking of the days when the Las Cruces was hair-hung. He was straight in word and deed. Right and wrong were too sharply defined in his mind to allow room for sympathy towards those differently constituted. "I wish the whole thing was over," he burst out impatiently. "It makes me boil to have these Ysleta sharks looking cross-eyed at me." Uncle Sid held up a warning hand.