She laughed. “Really? And in one day? Well, I have to begin some time, don’t I? And if I stay at the ranch for six months I suppose I’ll be as dark as an Indian.” “Oh, then you’re going to be a permanent visitor?” She nodded. “Shall I be a welcome one?” she ventured. “At Camp Forty-seven, yes,” Nash answered. “Oh, I’m carried away with this wonderful country!” she exclaimed, her eyes sparkling. “How much I’ve missed by living all these years in the East! And this aqueduct building is so interesting. You don’t realize how I enjoy watching the work. I should have been a man, I guess. I’d really love to get down with the laborers and mix cement.” “Well,” Nash returned, in mock seriousness, “perhaps I can give you a job. It would be a novelty for our camp, at least.” They laughed. Presently the girl’s horse was brought around to the door. “Maybe you’d like to take a little inspection trip with me?” he suggested. “I generally make the rounds about this hour.” She gladly assented. Nash had the saddle adjusted. “Do you know,” he said abruptly, just before helping her into the saddle, “you haven’t told me your name?” “Miss Breen,” she told him. “I really should have introduced myself yesterday. I was too upset, I guess.” They jogged along the main street of the camp, and then struck sharply up the winding trail, reaching the summit of the hill after a ten-minute climb. From this point of vantage a five-mile view of the conduit construction was visible. “There!” he said, drawing rein and sweeping his hand up and down the valley. A little, amazed cry escaped her lips. “Oh, it’s wonderful, isn’t it?” “It is more than that, Miss Breen,” he replied. “I don’t know where there is a greater undertaking on the face of the earth than this one. Why, every time I ride here and look over that lengthening line of conduit, I feel like shouting to the very heavens. And to think that my city is doing it all!” She turned curiously, moved by his tone. “You--you’re a Los Angeles man?” “To the core!” he answered. “Do you blame me for being proud? How many cities would dare even to dream of such a marvelous waterway? Oh, out here in the West, Miss Breen, men are doing the impossible!” In a calmer voice, he added: “This will be the longest aqueduct in the world--two hundred and fifty miles. Think of it! It will carry ten times as much water as all the aqueducts of Rome combined.” The girl did not answer, but her gaze was riveted upon the winding, glistening length of concrete far below. “We’re bringing the snow waters of the great Sierra Nevada Mountains across the Mohave Desert,” he continued, “across the deep cañons, through many tunnels, and finally beneath the Sierra Madre range. And a city of three hundred thousand people voted a bond issue of twenty-five millions to accomplish this feat of daring.”