now, as I've told Kid, it's for her to decide on the
man she's going to make happy. If he's square and white, that's all I
ask."

"About my helping Blake with his levels," Ashton rather hastily
changed the subject. "I am in your employ--and so is he, for that
matter. Don't you think I have a right to keep you posted on all his
plans?"

"Well--yes. But he as much as says he will tell them himself."

"Perhaps he will, and perhaps he won't, Mr. Knowles. I've told you
what Leslie is like; and Blake is his son-in-law."

"Well, I'm not so sure. You and Kid, between you, have shaken my
judgment of the man. It can't do any harm to watch him, and I'll be
obliged to you for doing it. If it comes to a fight against him and
the millions of backing he has, I want a fair deal and--But, Lord!
what if we're making all this fuss over nothing? It doesn't stand to
reason that there's any way to get the water out of Deep Canyon."

"Wait a week or so," cautioned Ashton. "In my opinion, Blake already
sees a possibility."

CHAPTER XV

LEVELS AND SLANTS

At sunrise the next morning Blake screwed his level on its tripod and
set up the instrument about a hundred yards away from the ranch house.
Ashton held the level rod for him on a spike driven into the foot of
the nearest post of the front porch. Blake called the spike a
bench-mark. For convenience of determining the relative heights of the
points along his lines of levels, he designated this first "bench" in
his fieldbook as "elevation 1,000."

From the porch he ran the line of level "readings" up the slope to the
top of the divide between Plum Creek and Dry Fork and from there
towards the waterhole on Dry Fork. At noon Isobel and Mrs. Blake drove
out to them in the buckboard, bringing a hot meal in an improvised
fireless-cooker.

"And we came West to rough-it!" groaned Blake, his eyes twinkling.

"You can camp at the waterhole where Lafe did, and I'll send Kid out
for that bobcat," suggested the girl. "You could roast him, hair and
all."

"What! roast Gowan?" protested Blake. "Let me tell you, Miss
Chuckie--you and my wife and Ashton may like him that much, but I
don't!"

"You need not worry, Mr. Tenderfoot," the girl flashed back at him.
"Whenever it comes to a hot time, Kid always gets in the first fire,
without waiting to be told."

"Don't I know it?" exclaimed Ashton. "Maybe you haven't noticed this
hole in my hat, Mrs. Blake. He put a bullet through it."