Brandon of the Engineers

Some delicate and important work was being done, and Stuyvesant had had

his lunch sent up to the dam. Bethune and Dick joined him afterwards, and

sat in the shade of a big traveling crane. Stuyvesant and Dick were hot

and dirty, for it was not their custom to be content with giving orders

when urgent work was going on. Bethune looked languid and immaculately

neat. His speciality was mathematics, and he said he did not see why the

man with mental talents should dissipate his energy by using his hands.

"It's curious about that French liner," Stuyvesant presently remarked. "I

understand her passengers have been waiting since yesterday and she

hasn't arrived."

"The last boat cut out Santa Brigida without notice," Bethune replied.

"My opinion of the French is that they're a pretty casual lot."

"On the surface. They smile and shrug where we set our teeth, but when

you get down to bed-rock you don't find much difference. I thought as you

do, until I went over there and saw a people that run us close for

steady, intensive industry. Their small cultivators are simply great. I'd

like to put them on our poorer land in the Middle West, where we're

content with sixteen bushels of wheat that's most fit for chicken feed to

the acre. Then what they don't know about civil engineering isn't worth

learning."

Bethune made a gesture of agreement. "They're certainly fine engineers

and they're putting up a pretty good fight just now, but these Latins

puzzle me. Take the Iberian branch of the race, for example. We have

Spanish peons here who'll stand for as much work and hardship as any

Anglo-Saxon I've met. Then an educated Spaniard's hard to beat for

intellectual subtlety. Chess is a game that's suited to my turn of mind,

but I've been badly whipped in Santa Brigida. They've brains and

application, and yet they don't progress. What's the matter with them,

anyway?"

"I expect they can't formulate a continuous policy and stick to it, and

they keep brains and labor too far apart; the two should coordinate. But

I wonder what's holding up the mail boat."

"Do they know when she left the last port?" Dick, who had listened

impatiently, asked with concealed interest.

"They do. It's a short run and she ought to have arrived yesterday

morning."

"The Germans can't have got her. They have no commerce-destroyers in

these waters," Bethune remarked, with a glance at Dick. "Your navy

corralled the lot, I think."

Dick wondered why Bethune looked at him, but he answered carelessly: "So

one understands. But it's strange the French company cut out the last

call. There was a big quantity of freight on the mole."

"It looks as if the agent had suspected something," Stuyvesant replied.

"However, that's not our affair, and you want to get busy and have your

specifications and cost-sheets straight when Fuller comes."