lunch might have been put up in the kitchen of a first-class
metropolitan hotel. The fruit was the most luscious that money could
buy; the sandwiches and cake would have tempted a sated epicure; the
mineral water had come out of an ice chest so nearly frozen that it
was still refreshingly cool. But--what was rather odd for a lunch
packed in a private car--it included no wine or whiskey or liqueur.
Blake caught Ashton's glance, and smiled.

"You see I'm still on the waterwagon," he remarked. "I've got a
permanent seat. There have been times when it looked as if I might be
jolted off, but--"

"But there's never been the slightest chance of that!" put in his
wife. She looked at Isobel, her soft eyes shining with love and pride.
"Once he gets a grip on anything, he never lets go."

"Oh, I can believe that!" exclaimed the girl with an enthusiasm that
brought a shadow into the mobile face of Ashton.

"A man can't help holding on when he has something to hold on for,"
said Blake, gazing at his wife and baby.

"That's true!" agreed Ashton, his eyes on the dimpled face of Isobel.

Refreshed by the delicious meal, the party prepared to start on. But
they did not travel as before. While Ashton was considerately washing
out the dusty nostrils of the horses with water from his canteen,
Isobel decided to drive with Mrs. Blake. Declaring that it would be
like old times to sit a cowboy saddle, the big engineer lengthened the
girl's stirrup leathers and swung on to the pony. This left Rocket to
his owner.

At first Ashton seemed inclined to be stiff with his new road-mate.
But as they jogged along, side by side, over the hills and across the
sagebrush flats, Blake restricted his talk to impersonal topics and
spared his companion from any allusion to their past difficulties.
Throughout the ride, however, the two men maintained a certain reserve
towards each other, and at no time approached the cordial intimacy
that developed between the girl and Mrs. Blake before the end of their
first mile together.

After telling merrily about her dual life as summer cowgirl and winter
society maiden, Isobel drifted around, by seemingly casual association
of ideas, to the troublesome question of irrigation on Dry Mesa, and
from that to Blake and his work as an engineer.

"I do so hope Mr. Blake finds that there is no project practicable,"
she went on. "He has warned me that if there seems to be any chance to
work out an irrigation scheme on