Out Of The Depths Part 26

"But it's right over your temple, Lafayette!" replied Mrs. Blake.

"Lafe was lifting his some-berero to me, and Kid did it to haze him--only a joke, you know," explained Isobel. "Of course Lafe was in no danger. It was different, though, when somebody--we think it was his thieving guide--took several rifle shots at him. Tell them about it, Lafe."

Ashton gave an account of the murderous attack, more than once checking himself in a natural tendency to embellish the exciting details.

"Oh! What if the man should come back and shoot at us?" shuddered Mrs.

Blake, drawing her baby close in her arms.

"No fear of that," a.s.serted Isobel. "Kid found that he had fled towards the railroad. That proves it must have been the guide. He would never dare come back after such a crime."

"If he should, I always carry my rifle, as you see," remarked Ashton; adding, with a touch of bravado, "I made him run once, and I would again."

"I'm glad Miss Chuckie is sure he will not come back," said Blake. "I don't fancy anyone shooting at me that way."

"Timid Mr. Blake!" teased the girl. "Genevieve has been telling me how you faced a lion with only a bow and arrow."

"Had to," said Blake. "He'd have jumped on me if I had turned or backed off.--Speaking about camping at that waterhole, I believe we'll do it, Ashton, if it's the same thing to you. It would save the time that would be lost coming and going to the ranch."

"Save time?" repeated Isobel. "Then of course we'll bring out a tent and camp kit for you tomorrow. Genevieve and I can ride or drive up to the waterhole each day, to picnic with you."

"It will be delightful," agreed Mrs. Blake.

"You ride on ahead and wait for us in the shade," said her husband.

"We'll knock off for the day when we reach that dolerite dike above the waterhole.--If you are ready, Ashton, we'll peg along."

He started off to set up his level as briskly as at dawn, though the midday sun was so hot that he had to shade the instrument with his handkerchief to keep the air-bubble from outstretching its scale. His wife and the girl drove on up Dry Fork to the waterhole.

Mrs. Blake was outstretched on her back, fast asleep, and Isobel was playing with the baby under the adjoining tree, when at last the surveyors came up on the other side of the creek and ended their day's run with the establishment of a bench-mark on the top of the dike above the pool. Blake seemed as fresh as in the morning. He took a moderate drink of water dipped up in the brim of his hat, and without wakening his wife, sat down beside her to "figure up" his fieldbook.

Ashton had come down to the pool panting from heat and exertion. It was the first time that he had walked more than half a mile since coming to the ranch, for he had immediately fallen into the cowboy practice of saddling a horse to go even short distances. He had his reward for his work when, having soused his hot head in the pool and drunk his fill, he came up to rest in the shade of Isobel's tree. Very considerately the baby fell asleep. To avoid disturbing him and his mother, the young couple talked in low tones and half whispers very conducive to intimacy.

Ashton did his utmost to improve his opportunity. Without openly speaking his love, he allowed it to appear in his every look and intonation. The girl met the attack with banter and raillery and adroit s.h.i.+ftings of the conversation whenever his ardent inferences became too obvious. Yet her evasion and her teasing could not always mask her maidenly pleasure over his adoration of her loveliness, and an occasional blush betrayed to him that his wooing was not altogether unwelcome.

He was in the seventh heaven when Mrs. Blake awoke from her health-giving sleep and her husband closed his fieldbook. The girl promptly dashed her suitor back to earth by dropping him for the engineer.

"Mr. Blake! You can't have figured it out already?" she exclaimed.

"What do you find?"

"Only an 'if,' Miss Chuckie," he answered. "If water can be stored or brought by ditch to this elevation, practically all Dry Mesa can be irrigated. Our bench-mark there on the dike is more than two hundred feet above that spike we drove into your porch post."

"Is that all you've found out today?"

"All for today," said Blake. "I could have left this line of levels until later, but I thought I might as well get through with them."

"You would not have run them if you had thought they would be useless," she stated, perceiving the point with intuitive acuteness.

"I like to clean up my work as I go along," he replied. "If you wish to know, I have thought of a possible way to get water enough for the whole mesa. It depends on two 'ifs.' I shall be certain as to one of them within the next two days. The other is the question of the depth of Deep Canon. If I had a transit, I could determine that by a vertical angle,--triangulation. As it is, I probably shall have to go down to the bottom."

"Go down to the bottom of Deep Canon?" cried the girl.

"Yes," he answered in a matter-of-course tone. "A big ravine runs clear down to the bottom, up beyond where your father said you first met Ashton. I think it is possible to get down that gulch.--Suppose we hitch up? We'll make the ranch just about supper-time."

Ashton hastened to bring in the picketed horses. When they were harnessed Isobel fetched the sleeping baby and handed him to his mother; but she did not take the seat beside her.

"You drive, Lafe," she ordered. "I'm going to ride behind with Mr.

Blake. It's such fun bouncing."

All protested in vain against this odd whim. The girl plumped herself in on the rear end of the buckboard and dangled her slender feet with the gleefulness of a child.

"Mr. Blake will catch me if I go to jolt off," she declared.

The engineer nodded with responsive gayety and seated himself beside her. As the buckboard rattled away over the rough sod, they made as merry over their jolts and bounces as a pair of school-children on a hayrack party.

Mrs. Blake sought to divert Ashton from his disappointment, but he had ears only for the laughing, chatting couple behind him. The fact that Blake was a married man did not prevent the lover from giving way to jealous envy. Chancing to look around as he warned the hilarious pair of a gully, he saw the girl grasp Blake's shoulder. Natural as was the act, his envy flared up in hot resentment. Except on their drive to Stockchute, she had always avoided even touching his hand with her finger tips; yet now she clung to the engineer with a grasp as familiar as that of an affectionate child. Nor did she release her clasp until they were some yards beyond the gully.

Mrs. Blake had seen not only the expression that betrayed Ashton's anger but also the action that caused it. She raised her fine eyebrows; but meeting Ashton's significant glance, she sought to pa.s.s over the incident with a smile. He refused to respond. All during the remainder of the drive he sat in sullen silence. Genevieve bent over her baby. Behind them the unconscious couple continued in their mirthful enjoyment of each other and the ride.

When the party reached the ranch, the girl must have perceived Ashton's moroseness had she not first caught sight of her father. He was standing outside the front porch, his eyes fixed upon the corner post in a perplexed stare.

"Why, Daddy," she called, "what is it? You look as you do when playing chess with Kid."

"Afraid it's something that'll annoy Mr. Blake," replied the cowman.

"What is it?" asked Blake, who was handing his wife from the buckboard.

As the engineer faced Knowles, Gowan sauntered around the far corner of the house. At sight of the ladies he paused to adjust his neckerchief.

"Can't understand it, Mr. Blake," said the cowman. "Somebody has pulled out that spike you drove in here this morning."

"Pulled the spike?" repeated Gowan, coming forward to stare at the post. "That sh.o.r.e is a joke. The j.a.p's building a new henhouse. Must be short of nails."

"That's so," said Knowles. "I forgot to order them for him. I'm mighty sorry, Mr. Blake. But of course the little brown cuss didn't know what he was meddling with."

"Jumping Jehosaphat!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Gowan. "That sh.o.r.e is mighty hard luck! I reckon pulling that spike turns your line of levels adrift like knocking out the picket-pin of an uneasy hawss."

Blake burst into a hearty laugh. "That's a fine metaphor, Mr. Gowan.

But it does not happen to fit the case. It would not matter if the spike-hole had been pulled out and the post along with it, so far as concerns this line of levels."

"It wouldn't?" muttered Gowan, his lean jaw dropping slack. He glowered as if chagrined at the engineer's laughter at his mistake.

Without heeding the puncher's look, Blake began to tell Knowles the result of his day's work. While he was speaking, they went into the house after his wife and the girl, leaving Gowan and Ashton alone.

Equally sullen and resentful, the rivals exchanged stares of open hostility. Ashton pointed a derisive finger at the spike-hole in the post.

"'Hole ... and the post along with it!'" he repeated Blake's words.

"On bridge work it might have caused some trouble. But a preliminary line of levels--_Mon Dieu_! A j.a.p should have known better--or even a yap!" With a supercilious shrug, he swung back into the buckboard and drove up to the corral.

Gowan's right hand had dropped to his hip. Slowly it came up and joined the other hand in rolling a thick Mexican cigarette. But the puncher did not light his "smoke." He looked at the spike-hole in the post, scowled, and went back around the house.