"We'll camp there," decided Blake. "It is on the shortest trail to that gulch, and you'll not have time to get your second load farther before dark." The puncher started back. But Isobel, who had come riding up with Genevieve, called out to stop him: "Wait, Kid. It is almost noon. You must take lunch with us." "Can't leave those hawsses standing with the packs, Miss Chuckie, if they're to make another trip today," he replied. "Suppose you unload them and come back along the edge of the canyon?" suggested Blake. "We shall knock off soon and all go over to give my wife her first look at the canyon. We can eat lunch there together." To this Gowan nodded a willing assent, and he jogged away, with a half smile on his thin lips. But that which pleased him had precisely the opposite effect on Ashton. He did not fancy sharing the companionship and attention of Miss Knowles with the puncher. As this interference with his happiness was due to Blake, he showed a petulant resentment towards the engineer that won him the girl's sympathetic concern. She attributed his fretfulness to his wound. Blake made the same mistake. "You've done quite enough for the morning, Ashton, with that head of yours," he said. "We're over the worst now, and can easily run on up to the camp this afternoon. We shall knock off for a siesta." "Needn't try to make out I'm a baby!" snapped Ashton. "Leave your rod here," went on Blake, disregarding the other's irascibility. "I'll take the level. It may enable us to see the bottom of the canyon." He started on up the slope beside his wife's pony. Ashton was somewhat mollified when he saw Isobel linger for him to walk beside her horse. She was carrying the baby, who, regardless of scenic attractions, had fallen asleep during the long climb from the lower mesa. The sight of the child clasped to her bosom awakened all that was highest in his nature. Concern over his wound had sobered her usual gay vivacity to a look of motherly tenderness. "Do you know," he murmured during a pause in their conversation, "you make me think of pictures of the Madonna!" "Lafe!" she protested, blushing and as quickly paling. "You should not say such a thing. It is lovely--a beautiful thing to tell me; but--but I do not deserve it!" "Madonna!--my Madonna!" he murmured in ardent adoration. "Oh, please! when I've asked you not to!" she implored. "It is not right! I--I am not!--" Tears glistened in her soft eyes. She bent over to suppress a sob that might have awakened the sleeping infant. Ashton gazed up at her, wonder and contrition mingling with his deepening adoration. "Forgive me, Miss Chuckie! But I meant it--I feel it! I never before felt this way towards any girl!... I know I have no right to say anything now. I am a pennyless adventurer, a disgraced, disinherited son, a mere cowpuncher apprentice; but if, by next spring, I shall have--"