l operation. Yet
he endured every twist and pull of the broken limb without a groan.
When at last the bones were set to his satisfaction and the leg lashed
rigid to the splints, he even mustered a faint smile.

"That beats an amputation," he declared. "Now if you can help me up
under the cliff, where you can plant the fire against a back-log--I
want to dry out and do some planning while you're climbing up for
help. I've an idea we can put in a dynamo down here, with turbines in
the intake and in the mouth of the tunnel--carry a wire up over the
top of the mesa and down into the gulch. Understand? All the electric
power we want to drive the tunnel, and very cheap."

"My God!" gasped Ashton. "You can lie here--here--maimed, already
starving--and can plan like that?"

"Why not? No fun thinking of my leg, is it? As for the rest, you're
going up to report the situation. They'll soon manage to yank me out
of this blessed hole."

Ashton's face darkened. "But that's the question," he rejoined. "Am I
going to go up? Am I going to try to go up?"

Blake looked at him with a steady, unflinching gaze. "There's
something queer about all this. Isn't it time you explained? When the
rope came off that last cliff in the gorge and I saw that you had
untied it before sliding down, I thought you were off your head. And
two or three times today, too. But since we landed here--"

"Your broken leg," interrupted Ashton--"it made me forget. You had
saved me with the rope. I had to help you. Now I see how foolish I
have been. I should have left you to lie here, and flung myself back
over into the water."

"Why?" calmly queried Blake.

"Why! You ask why?" cried Ashton, his eyes ablaze with excitement, his
whole body quivering. "Can't you see? Are you blind? What do I care
about myself if I can save her from you? I shall not try to escape.
You shall never go up there to work her harm!"

"Harm her? You mean put through this irrigation project?"

"No!" shouted Ashton. "Don't lie and pretend, you hypocrite! You know
what I mean! You know she could not hide how you were enticing her!"

Blake stared in utter astonishment. Then, regardless of his leg, he
sat up and said quietly: "I see. I thought you must have understood
when she told me, there at the last moment before we started. She is
my sister."

"Sister!" scoffed Ashton. "You liar! You have no sister. Your sisters
died years ago. Genevieve told me."

"That was what I told her. I be