ng them over the range."

"I begin to see, Tom. I might have known it."

"I'm telling you, of course. We're to keep it from them as a happy
surprise, because it may not come off. There's still the question
whether the water in the canyon--"

"But if it is! How delightful it will be to help Mr. Knowles and
Chuckie, besides, as you say, turning this desert into a garden!"

"That valley is a natural reservoir site to hold flood waters,"
continued the engineer. "All that's needed is a dam built across the
narrow place above the waterhole, with the dike for foundation. I
would build it of rock from the tunnel, run down on a gravity tram."

"You've worked it all out?"

"Not all, only the general scheme. If the tunnel comes through high
enough up here, we shall be able to manufacture cheap electricity to
sell. Just think of our settlers plowing by electricity, and their
wives cooking on electric stoves."

"You humorous boy!"

"No, I mean it. There's another thing--I wouldn't whisper it even to
you if you weren't my partner as well as my wife. I have reason to
believe the creek bed above the dike is a rich placer. I've planned to
take Knowles and Ashton in on that discovery--Gowan, too, if Knowles
asks it."

"A placer?"

"Yes, placer mine--gold washed down in the creek bed. But it's a small
thing compared with another discovery I've made. Up there--" Blake
pointed up the steep ledges that he had climbed--"I found a bonanza."

"Bonanza? What is that, pray?"

"A mint, a John D. bank account, a--Guess?"

"A gold mine! Oh, Tom, how romantic!"

"Yes; it's free-milling quartz. We can mill it ourselves, and not have
to pay tribute to the Smelting Trust. That's romance--or at least
sounds like it. You will pay for all the development work, in return
for one-third share. I shall take a third, as the discoverer, and
Chuckie gets the remaining third as grub-staker."

"As what?"

"She is staking us with grub--food and supplies. If she had not sent
for me to come and look over the situation, I should not have been
here to stumble on this mine. So she gets a share."

"I'm glad, glad, Tom! Isn't it nice to be able to do fine things for
others? I'm so glad for Chuckie's sake, because, if Lafayette keeps on
as he is doing now, he may win his father's forgiveness."

"What has that to do with Chuckie?"

"You and I know what she is, Dear; yet if she had no money, his father
might insist on regarding her as a mere farm girl