Out Of The Depths Part 38

He started hastily around between the level and the precipice. The toe of his boot struck hard against the iron toe of the outer tripod-leg.

He stumbled and sprawled forward on his hands and knees. Behind him the instrument toppled over towards the brink.

Genevieve cried out in alarm at Gowan's fall. Her husband sprang to the rescue--not of the puncher, but of the level. It had crashed down with its head to the chasm, and was sliding out over the brink. Blake barely caught it by the tip of one of the legs as it swung up for the plunge. He drew it back and set it up to see what damage had been done to the head. Gowan watched him, tight-lipped.

"This is luck!" exclaimed the engineer, after a swift examination.

"Nothing broken--only knocked out of adjustment. I can fix that in half an hour. She struck with the telescope turned sideways. You must have set the clamp screw."

The puncher's face darkened. "Wish the--infernal machine had gone plumb down to h.e.l.l!" he growled. "It came near tripping me over the edge."

"My apology," said Blake. "I spraddled the tripod purposely to keep it from being upset."

"Oh, Kid, you've hurt yourself," called Isobel, as the puncher began to wrap a kerchief about his hand. "Come here and let me bandage it."

"No," he replied. "Two babies are enough for you to coddle at one time. I've got to hit out."

He turned his back on Blake and hurried up to his horse. The engineer followed as far as the nearest tree, where he set up the instrument in the shade and began to adjust it.

"Good thing she has platinum crosshairs," he said to Ashton. "A fall like that would have been certain to break the old-style spiderweb hairs."

Ashton did not reply. He was absorbed in a murmured conversation with Isobel. Blake completed the adjustments of the level and stretched out beside his wife to play with his gurgling son. A half hour of this completed the two hours that he had set apart for the noon rest. He placed the baby back in his wife's lap and stood up to stretch his powerful frame.

"How about it, Ashton?" he inquired. "Think you feel fit to rod this afternoon? Don't hesitate to say no, if that's the right answer. I expect my wife and Miss Chuckie, between them, can help me carry the line as far as the camp."

"I can do it alone," interposed the girl. "Let them both stay here and rest all afternoon."

"No, Miss Chuckie. I can and shall do my work," insisted Ashton, springing up with unexpected briskness for one who had appeared so fatigued. "It is you and Mrs. Blake who must stay here to rest--unless you wish to keep us company."

"Might we not go to the new camp and put it in order?" suggested Genevieve.

"What if that outlaw should come sneaking back?" objected Ashton. "It seems to me you should keep with us."

"He would not trouble us," replied Isobel.

"Yet if he should? Anyway, Blake and I saw a wolf up here the other day."

"A real wolf! Where?"

"Yes," answered Blake. "Over in the ravine the other side of the head of Dry Fork Gulch."

"He may attack you," argued Ashton.

The girl laughed. "You're still a tenderfoot to think a wolf wouldn't know better than that. Wish he didn't! It would mean the saving of a half dozen calves this winter." She flashed out her long-barreled automatic pistol and knocked a cone from the tree above Blake's head with a swiftly aimed shot.

Blake caught the cone as it fell and looked at the bullet hole through its center. "Unless that was an accident, I should call it some shooting," he remarked.

"Accident!" she called back. "Stand sideways and see what happens to your cigar."

"No, thanks. I'll take your word for it. Just lit this one, and I've only a few left. By by, Tommy! Don't let the wolves eat mamma and the poor little cowlady!"

He picked up the level and started off at a swinging stride. Ashton followed several paces behind. His face was sullen and heavy, but in their merriment over Blake's banter, the ladies failed to observe his expression.

They rested for a while longer. Then, after venturing down for another awed look into the abyss, they rode along, parallel with the stupendous rift, to the place selected for the new camp. As Gowan had brought up the tent in one of the first packs, the ladies pitched it on the level top of the ridge.

"This is real camping!" delightedly exclaimed Genevieve, as they set to gathering leafy twigs for bedding and dry branches for fuel. "How I wish we could stay all night!"

"We can, if you wish," replied Isobel.

"Can we, really?"

"Our men often sleep out in the open, this time of year. We shall take the tent for ourselves. Won't it be fun! But will Thomas be all right?"

"I can manage with what I have until tomorrow afternoon."

"How long do you think they will be down in the canon?" the girl inquired.

Genevieve shuddered. "I wish I could tell! If only Tom finds that he cannot get down at all, how thankful I shall be!"

"And--Lafe!" murmured the girl.

"It is possible that they may be unable to do it in one day," went on Genevieve apprehensively--"Down, down into those dreadful depths, and then along the river, all the way to where the tunnel is to be, and back again, and then up the awful cliffs! Surely they cannot finish in one day! Of course they will succeed--Tom can do anything, _anything_!

Yet how I dread the very thought--!"

"We must prepare to stay right here on High Mesa until they do finish!" declared Isobel. "It will be impossible to go back to the ranch tomorrow if they are still in that frightful place! Kid will have to take the hawsses down to the waterhole. He shall go on home, and tomorrow morning fetch us cream and eggs and everything you need.

They will have to be told at the ranch; and if Daddy has returned, he will come up to help and be with us."

"You dear girl! The more I think of this terrible descent, the more I dread it. I feel a presentiment that--But I must try to be brave and not interfere with Tom's work! It will be a great comfort to have your father with us."

"Daddy will surely come if he has returned. Isn't he kind and good? He couldn't have done more to make me happy if he had been my own real father!"

Genevieve smiled into the girl's glowing face. "Yes, dear. Yet I am far from surprised, since _you_ are the daughter he wished to make happy. I was more surprised to have him tell me you were adopted. You have never said a word about it."

"I--you see, I did not happen to," confusedly murmured the girl.

"Chuckie Knowles is not your real name," Genevieve gently reproached her.

"No, it is the pet name Daddy gave me. My real one is--Isobel."

"Isobel--?"

"Yes. Daddy's sister, in Denver, always calls me that. But here on the ranch--"

"Isobel--?" repeated Genevieve, with a rising inflection.

The color ebbed from the girl's face, but she answered steadily: "Chuckie--Isobel--Knowles. I am Daddy's daughter. I have no other father."

"Is...o...b..l--Is...o...b..l," Genevieve intoned the name musically. "It has a beautiful sound. I had a friend at school--Isabella--but we always called her Belle."

The girl suddenly faced away from her companion, and darted to meet Blake and Ashton, who were bringing the line of levels up over the ridge.