his shoulders.

He was soon safe at the lower end of the rope, on the shelf beside the
bundled outfit. He waved his hat to the down-peering watchers, and
climbed a few yards up the ravine, to creep in under an overhanging
rock. A few moments later the loosened rope came sliding down the
steep descent, the last length whipping from ledge to ledge with a
velocity that made it hiss through the air.

Blake was not disturbed by this proof of the cumulative speed of
falling bodies. He came down and coolly set about his preparations for
the descent of the gorge bottom. He unlashed the bundle and divided
its contents. This done, he took a vertical measurement by going out
towards the canyon along a horizontal shelf on the side wall of the
gorge, until he could drop his surveying chain down the sheer
precipice to a shelf almost a hundred feet below him.

Unaware of Ashton's mistake and furious flight, the engineer was
proceeding with his work in the expectation that he would soon be
joined by his assistant. He was not disappointed. As he returned along
the shelf, after entering the measurement in his notebook, Ashton came
bounding and scrambling down the ravine bottom at reckless speed. He
fetched up on the verge of the break, purple-faced and panting. His
mouth twitched nervously and there was a wild look in his dark eyes.
But Blake attributed all to the excitement and exertion of the
headlong rush down the ravine.

"No need for you to have hurried so, Lafe," he said. "I suppose you
had to go farther around than I thought would be necessary. But I'd
rather you had kept me waiting an hour than for you to have chanced
spraining an ankle."

"Yes, you need me in your business!" scoffed Ashton.

"Your employer's business," rejoined the engineer. He straightened up
from the packs that he was lashing together and gazed gravely at his
scowling assistant. "See here, Mr. Ashton, this is no time for you to
raise a row. We shall have quite enough else to think about from now
on, until we are up again out of the canyon."

"I've enough to think about--and more!" muttered Ashton.

"Understand? I'm not asking anything of you for myself," said Blake.
"You are doing this survey for your employer."

"I'm here because of _her_!" retorted the younger man. "I'm here to
make it certain that no harm is to come to _her_!"

Blake smiled. "Good for you! I hardly thought you were here for the
fun of it. You are going to prove to us that you h