Lift ye the stone or cleave the wood to make a path more fair or flat, Lo, it is black already with blood some Son of Martha spilled for that. Not as a ladder from Earth to Heaven, not as an altar to any creed, But simple Service, simply given, to their own kind, in their common need.'"
The two men sat in silence after Charlie had finished until he said: "If I were you I'd read Kipling a good deal. He's good food for a man of your type. People don't realize what their comforts cost. I hope that when I die it will be on a Son of Martha job. I'm built that way. My people were New Englanders, then middle west pioneers, and now here I am, still breaking the wilderness."
Jim sat with his heart swelling with he knew not what great dream. It was the divine fire of young sacrifice, the subtle sense of devotion that has made men since the world began lay down their lives for the thing not seen with the eye.
"I wish you'd teach me those verses," said Jim. "We've got to keep awake or roll off the ledge."
The next day the way was unspeakably difficult. They made progress slowly and heavily, clambering from rock to rock, clinging to the walls, fighting through rapids. It was past mid afternoon when they ran a level in a spot of surpassing grandeur. A rock slide had sent a great heap of stone into the river. Close beside this they set the transit. Forward the river swept smoothly round a curve. Back, the two looked on a magnificent series of flying buttresses of serrated granite, their bases guarding the river, their tops remotely supporting the heavens. The buttresses nearest the rock heap and on opposite sides of the river were not two rods apart.
They ran the levels carefully and then looked at each other in silence. Then they made another reading and again looked at each other. Then they packed the transit into its rubber bag, sat down on the rock heap and gazed at the marching, impregnable line of buttresses.
"It will be even higher than the Green Mountain and a hundred times more difficult to build," said Charlie, softly.
"She'll be a wonder, won't she!" exclaimed Jim. "The Makon dam. It will be the highest in the world."
"Granite and concrete! Some beauty that! Eternal as the hills!" said Charlie. "We will make camp and finish the map here."