"That's true," gravely agreed the engineer. "What's more, I realize that it is far harder for you than it ever was for me. I want to tell you I admire the way you have stood your loss."

"You do?" burst out the younger man. "I want to tell _you_ I don't admire the way you ruined me--babbling to my father--when you promised to keep still! You sneak!"

Blake looked into the other's furious face with no shade of change in his grave gaze. "I have never said a word to your father against you,"

he declared.

"Then--then how, after all this time--?" stammered Ashton, even in his anger unable to disbelieve the engineer's quiet statement. He was disconcerted only for the moment. Again he flared hotly: "But if you didn't, old Leslie must have! It's all the same!"

"No, it is not the same," corrected Blake. "As for my father-in-law, if he said anything about--the past, I feel sure it was not with intention to hurt your interests."

"Hurt my interests! You know I am utterly ruined!"

"On the contrary, I know you are not ruined. You have lost a large allowance, and a will has been made cutting you off from a great many millions that you expected to inherit. But you have landed square on your feet; you have a pretty good job, and you are stronger and healthier than you were."

"If you break up Mr. Knowles' range with your irrigation schemes, I stand to lose my job. You know that."

"If the project proves to be feasible, I shall offer you a position on the works," said Blake.

"You needn't try to bribe me!" retorted Ashton. "I'm working for Mr.

Knowles."

"Well, he directed you to help me with this survey," replied the engineer, with imperturbable good nature. "The next move is to chain across to the canon."

He pulled his surveyor's chain from the bag and descended the ridge to an out-jutting rock above the head of the tremendous gorge in the mountain side. Ashton followed him down. Blake handed him the front end of the chain.

"You lead," he said. "I'll line you, as I know where to strike the nearest point on the canon."

Ashton sullenly started up the ridge, and the measurement began. As Blake required only a rough approximation, they soon crossed the ridge and chained down through the trees to the edge of Deep Canon. Ashton was astonished at the shortness of the distance. The canon at this point ran towards the mesa escarpment as if it had originally intended to drive through into Dry Fork Gulch, but twisted sharp about and curved back across the plateau. Even Blake was surprised at the measurement. It was only a little over two thousand feet.

"Noticed this place when out with Mr. Knowles and Gowan," he remarked, gazing down into the abyss with keen appreciation of its awful grandeur. "They told me it is the nearest that the canon comes to the edge of the mesa, until it breaks out, thirty or forty miles down."

"How--how about that 'if' you said this measurement would settle?"

asked Ashton.

"What's the time?"

Ashton looked at his watch, frowning over the evasive reply. "It's two-ten."

"I'll figure on the proposition while we eat lunch," said Blake. "I can answer you better regarding that 'if' when I have done some calculating. Luckily I climbed up to examine the rock in the gulch."

He smiled quizzically at his companion. "You were right as to its being unclimbable; but I found out even more than I expected."

Ashton silently took the bag from him and arranged the lunch and his canteen on a rock under a pine. The engineer figured and drew little diagrams in his fieldbook while he ate his sandwiches. Ashton had half drained the canteen on the way up the mountain. Before sitting down Blake had rinsed out his mouth and taken a few swallows of water.

After eating, he started to take another drink, noticed his companion's hot dry face, and stopped after a single sip.

"Guess you need it more than I do," he remarked, as he rose to his feet. "Time to start. I wish to go around and down the mountain on the other side of the gulch."

"How about the--the 'if'?" inquired Ashton.

"Killed," answered Blake. "There now is only one left. If that comes out the same way, Dry Mesa will have good cause to change its name."

"You can tunnel through from the gulch to the canon?" exclaimed Ashton.

"Yes; and I shall do so--if Deep Canon is not too deep."

"I hope it is a thousand feet below Dry Mesa!" said Ashton.

"In the circ.u.mstances," Blake replied to the fervent declaration, "I am glad to hear you say it."

Ashton stared, but could detect no sarcasm in the other's smile of commendation.

CHAPTER XVII

A SHOT IN THE DUSK

They returned to their grazing ponies, and at once started the descent of the mountain, after crossing the ravine where they had seen the wolf. Blake chose a route that brought them down into the valley above the waterhole shortly before five o'clock. They cantered the remaining distance along the wide, gravelly wash of the creek bed to the dike.

Looking down from the dike, they saw that Knowles and Gowan had come up the creek and were waiting for them in company with the ladies.

Ashton set spurs to his horse and dashed across above the pool, to descend the slope to the party. Blake descended on the other side, to water his horse and slake his own thirst.

To Ashton's chagrin, Isobel joined Genevieve in hastening to meet the engineer. He rode down beside the two men and jumped off to follow the ladies. But Gowan sprang before him.

"Hold on," he said. "Mr. Knowles wants your report."

"If you'll oblige us, Lafe," added the cowman. "I'm pretty much worked up."

"You have cause to be!" replied Ashton. "He says the only question left is whether the water in the canon is not at too low a level. We measured across from the creek gulch to the canon. A tunnel is practicable, he says."

"Through all that mountain?" scoffed Gowan. "It's solid rock, clean through. It would take him a hundred years to burrow a hole like that."

"You know nothing of engineering and its tools. We now have electric drills that will eat into granite like cheese," condescendingly explained Ashton.

"Think I don't know that? But just you try to figure out how he's going to get his electricity for his drills," retorted Gowan.

Without stopping for his disconcerted rival to reply, he turned his back on him and started towards Isobel. The girl was running up from the pool, her face almost pitiful with disappointment.

"Oh, Daddy!" she called, "Mr. Blake says that if the water in the canon--"

"Needn't tell me, honey. I know already," broke in her father, hastening to meet her.

She flung her arms about his neck, and sobbed brokenly: "I'm--I'm so sorry for you, D-Daddy!"

"There, there now!" he soothed, awkwardly patting her back. "'Tisn't like you to cry before you're hurt."

"No, no--you! not me. It doesn't matter about me!"