Blake looked down solemnly at his youthful heir. "Hear that, Tommy? Guess we'll have to pull out, too, and make it half and half to the ladies." He looked up at Ashton with a swift change from mock to real gravity. "We've got to begin by installing a turbine power-plant down here. Where will I find another engineer with nerve enough to go down these cliffs? I need you, Lafe." "I am very sorry, Tom." Ashton drew his hand from Blake's wearied clasp, and rose. Isobel slipped past him and stood with her arms outstretched across the entrance of the tent. There was a dimple in each of her blushing cheeks; her eyes were radiant with tenderness and love. "No, you can't get away!" she declared. "Don't you see how we've got you corralled?" "That's what," confirmed Knowles. "I promised her to rope and hogtie you if you made a break." Ashton was gazing into the girl's eyes, his own shining with reverent adoration. "Isobel?" he whispered. "Let us go up on the ridge and look out over our mesa," she murmured. "Wait a moment, dear," interposed Genevieve. "Lafayette, I wish to tell you that as soon as Tom and I return to Chicago, we shall go to your father. I feel certain that when he hears--" "No, no!" begged Ashton. "You must wait. Promise that you will wait. I have only begun to make a beginning. Wait until I see if I can--" He straightened and looked at Isobel, his head well up, his eyes as resolute as his mouth. "Wait until I have proved what I am." "Come," said Isobel. "We're going to look at our dry mesa that we are to reclaim and make into a garden with the waste waters of the depths."