, Rome Beauties if you will, beginning to make a showing down
there. Water running, seeping everywhere; strawberries carpeting the
ground between the boles; alfalfa, cool and moist, filling in; and even
Cerberus off there losing his sinister shape in vineyards."

"Then it is feasible," she exclaimed softly, and the sparkles broke
subdued in her eyes. "And the price, Mr. Tisdale; what would you consider
a fair price for the property as it stands now, unimproved?" Tisdale rose.
He paused to fold the drawing and put it away, while his glance moved
slowly down over the vale to the goat-keeper's cabin and her browsing
flock. "You must see, Miss Armitage," he said then, "that idea of Mr.
Morganstein's to plat this land into five-acre tracts for the market
couldn't materialize. It is out of range of the Wenatchee valley projects;
it is inaccessible to the railroad for the small farmer. Only the man with
capital to work it on a large scale could make it pay. And the property is
Mrs. Weatherbee's last asset; she is in urgent need of ready money. You
should be able to make easy terms with her, but I warn you, if it comes to
bidding, I am prepared to offer seven thousand dollars."

He turned, frowning a little, to look down at her and, catching those
covert sparkles of her side-glance, smiled.

"You may have it," she said.

"Wait. Think it over," he answered. "I am going down to the gap now to
find the surveyor's monument and trace the section line back to the top of
the plateau. Rest here, where it's cooler, and I will come down this way
for you when I am through. Think the project over and take my word for the
spring; it's well worth the investment."

Doubtless Miss Armitage followed his suggestion, for she sat thoughtfully,
almost absently, watching him down the slope. At the foot of the vale, the
goat-woman joined him, and it was clear he again used his magic art, for
presently he had her chaining for him and holding an improvised flag,
while he estimated the section line. But finally, when they left the bed
of the pocket and began to cross-cut up the opposite mountainside, the
girl rose and looked in the direction of the spring. It was cooler; a
breeze was drawing down from the upper ridge; a few thin clouds like torn
gauze veiled the sky overhead; the blue lost intensity. She began to walk
across the bench towards the granite chimneys. In a little while she found
the dry reservoir, walled, where the plateau lifted, in the