"But about Chuckie?" she returned to the previous question. "You were going to tell me--" "I am going to tell you something you will think is very fanciful--and it is! Do you know why I am so taken with that girl? It's because she reminds me of my sisters--what they might have grown to be!... God!--" he bent over with his face in his shaking hands--"God! If only they had gone any other way than--the way they did!" "My poor dear boy!" soothed his wife, her hand on his downbent head. "Let us trust that they are in a happier world, a world where sorrow and pain--" "If only I could believe that!" he groaned. Genevieve waited a few moments and with quiet tactfulness sought to divert him from his grief: "If Chuckie reminds you of them, Dear--" "She might be either--only Mary, the older one, had dark brown eyes. But Belle's were blue like Chuckie's." "What a pure blue her eyes are--the sweet true girl! Why can't you regard her as your sister, and--and give over further thought of this irrigation project?" Blake looked up, completely diverted. "You little schemer! So that's what you've been working around to?" "But why not?" she insisted. "I'll tell you. It is because I am so fond of Chuckie that I am determined to get water on Dry Mesa, if it is possible." "But--" "To make use of those waste waters," he explained; "to turn this dusty semi-desert into a garden; and to benefit Chuckie by doubling the value of her father's property." "How could that be, when the farmers would divide up his range?" "He owns five sections, Chuckie told me. What are they worth now? But with water on them, even without a single tree planted, they would sell as orchard land for more than all his herd; and he would still have his cattle. He could sell them to the settlers for more than what he now gets shipping them over the range." "I begin to see, Tom. I might have known it." "I'm telling you, of course. We're to keep it from them as a happy surprise, because it may not come off. There's still the question whether the water in the canyon--" "But if it is! How delightful it will be to help Mr. Knowles and Chuckie, besides, as you say, turning this desert into a garden!" "That valley is a natural reservoir site to hold flood waters," continued the engineer. "All that's needed is a dam built across the narrow place above the waterhole, with the dike for foundation. I would build it of rock from the tunnel, run down on a gravity tram." "You've worked it all out?" "Not all, only the general scheme. If the tunnel comes through high enough up here, we shall be able to manufacture cheap electricity to sell. Just think of our settlers plowing by electricity, and their wives cooking on electric stoves." "You humorous boy!"