ave the makings.
We're both working for her, Lafe. I don't mind telling you now that I
am planning to do something big for her." He looked up the ravine
wall, his eyes aglow with tenderness. "Belle! dear little Belle! To
think that after all these years--"

"Shut up!" cried Ashton. "Stop that! stop it, and get to work! I know
what you're planning to do! Don't talk to me!"

Blake stared in astonishment. "Didn't think you were so sore over that
old affair. I told you I had nothing to do about your father's--"

"Don't talk to me! don't talk to me!" frantically cried Ashton. "You
ruined me! Now her!"

"Lord! If you're as sore as all that!" rejoined Blake, his eyes
hardening. "Look here, Mr. Ashton, we'll settle this when we get up
on top again. Meantime, I shall do my work, and I shall see to it that
you do yours. Understand?"

"Get busy, then! I shall do _my_ work!" snarled Ashton.

Blake pointed to one of the three bundles that he had tied together.
"There's half the grub, the tripod and the rod. I can manage the rest.
I've dropped a measurement to the foot of the first incline."

He swung one of the other bundles on his back, under the level. The
third, which was made up of railroad spikes and picket-pins, he sent
rolling down the steep slope, tied to one end of the rope. He had
driven a spike into a crevice of the rock. Hooking the other end of
the rope over its head with an open loop, he grasped the line and
started to walk down the gorge bottom. As he descended he dragged the
loose lengths of rope after him.

Ashton stood rigid, staring at the spike and loop. If the loop should
slip or the spike pull out, he need only climb back out of the
ravine--to her. But Blake's work was not the kind to slip or pull out.
The watcher looked at the powerful figure backing rapidly down that
roof-like pitch. One of the toes of the level tripod under the taut
loop would easily pry the rope off the spike-head. He turned his pack
around to get at the tripod--and paused to look upwards at the three
tiny faces peering down over the brink of the cliff.

He slung the pack over his shoulder and grasped the rope to follow his
leader, who had come to the narrow shelf from which another
measurement must be taken. He made the descent no less rapidly and
easily than had the engineer. He was naturally agile, and now he was
too full of his purpose to have any thought of vertigo. Yet quickly as
he followed, when he reached the shelf he fo