Under the brusquely jovial directions of their leader, the lucky nine divested themselves of spurs and cartridge belts, tied themselves to the line at intervals of several feet, and promptly started down the dizzy ledges. The others helped them during the first fifty yards of descent with the line that Isobel had drawn up after it had been cast loose by Ashton. They then gathered along the brink, enviously watching the descent of their companions into the shadowy abyss. Genevieve came to where Isobel and her father crouched beside the others. "Thomas will not let me put him down, Belle," she said. "I see you left the glasses beside the rock. If Lafayette has reached the bottom safely--" "If--safely!" echoed Isobel. "Daddy, you look--quick, please!" Knowles hastened to skirt along the brink to where the little field glasses lay at the near side of the split rock. The two followed him, Genevieve smiling with pleasant anticipation, Isobel trembling with doubt and dread. The cowman stretched out on the rim shelf and peered over. "Um-m-m," he muttered. "Can't see anything down there. Too dark yet." "Look straight below you," said Genevieve. "Hey?--Uh! By--James! Well, if that ain't a picture now! These sure are mighty fine little glasses, ma'am. I can see 'em plain as day." "Them?--you say 'them,' Daddy?" cried Isobel. "Sure. Come and look for yourself. Guess Lafe is fixing Mr. Blake's leg.--Which reminds me, honey, that before we left the ranch, Mrs. Blake had me send for that lunger sawbones that's come to live at Stockchute. He'll be here, I figure, before or soon after the boys get Mr. Blake up into God's sunshine." "Brother Tom, Daddy--you mean my Brother Tom!" joyfully corrected the girl as she took the glasses. "Well, you've got to give me time to chew on it, honey. It's come too sudden for me to take it all in." He stood up and gazed gravely at the smiling mother and her comforted baby. "Hum-m-m. Then that yearling is my Chuckie's own blood nephew. Well, ma'am, what do _you_ think of it, if I may ask?" "Can't you make it 'Jenny,' Uncle Wes?" asked Genevieve. He stared at her blankly. "But I didn't adopt him, ma'am--only her." "He is the brother of your dear daughter, and I am his wife. Come now," she coaxed, "you must admit that brings me near enough to call you 'Uncle Wes.'" "You've got me, ma'am--Jenny. I give in, I throw up the fight. That irrigation project now--Chuckie's brother can have anything of mine he asks for. Only there's one thing--you've got to make that yearling say 'Granddad' when he talks to me." "O-oh!" cooed Genevieve. "To think you feel that way towards him! Of course he shall say it. And I--Will you not allow me to make it 'Daddy'?" He could not resist her enticingly upturned lips. He brushed down his bristly mustache, and bent over awkwardly, to kiss his new daughter. "Thought you were one of those super-high-toned ladies, m'm--Jenny," he remarked.