th your
wishes."

"It's as I told Daddy," she said. "If there really is a way, the
sooner we know it the better. It is the uncertainty that is bothering
Daddy. If your report is for us, all well and good; if against us, he
will stand up and fight and forget about worrying."

"Fight?" asked Blake.

"Fight the project, fight against the formation of any irrigation
district. He owns five sections. The reservoir might have to be on his
patented land. He'd fight fair and square and hard--to the last
ditch!"

"Isn't that a Dutchman's saying?" asked Blake humorously.

The girl's tense face relaxed, and she burst out in a ringing laugh.
She shifted the conversation to less serious subjects, and they
cantered along together, laughing and chatting like old friends.

By this time Ashton and Mrs. Blake had gradually come to the same
stage of pleasant comradeship. Ashton had started the drive in a
sullen mood, his manner half resentful and wholly embarrassed. Of this
the lady was tactfully oblivious. Avoiding all allusion to the
catastrophe that had befallen him, she told him the latest news of the
mutual friends and acquaintances in whom ordinarily he would have been
expected to be interested.

She even spoke casually of his father. His face contracted with pain,
but he showed no bitterness against the parent who had disowned him.
After that her graciousness towards him redoubled. With Isobel for
excuse, she gradually shifted the conversation to ranch life and his
employment as cowboy. In many subtle ways she conveyed to him her
admiration of the manner in which he had turned over a new leaf and
was making a clean fresh start in life.

After delicately intimating her feelings, she at once turned to less
personal topics. The last traces of his embarrassment and moodiness
left him, and he began to talk quite at his ease, though with a
certain reserve that she attributed to the vast change in his
fortunes. In return for her kindness, he repaid her by showing a real
interest in Thomas Herbert Vincent Leslie Blake.

That young man spent his time chuckling and crowing and kicking, until
overcome with sleep. Two hours out from Stockchute he awoke and
vociferously demanded nourishment. Promptly the party was brought to a
halt. They were among the pinyons on one of the hillsides. While the
baby took his dinner, Isobel laid out the lunch and the men burned
incense in the guise of a pair of Havana cigars produced by Blake.

The