"Hold on," he said. "Mr. Knowles wants your report."
"If you'll oblige us, Lafe," added the cowman. "I'm pretty much worked up."
"You have cause to be!" replied Ashton. "He says the only question left is whether the water in the cañon is not at too low a level. We measured across from the creek gulch to the cañon. A tunnel is practicable, he says."
"Through all that mountain?" scoffed Gowan. "It's solid rock, clean through. It would take him a hundred years to burrow a hole like that."
"You know nothing of engineering and its tools. We now have electric drills that will eat into granite like cheese," condescendingly explained Ashton.
"Think I don't know that? But just you try to figure out how he's going to get his electricity for his drills," retorted Gowan.
Without stopping for his disconcerted rival to reply, he turned his back on him and started towards Isobel. The girl was running up from the pool, her face almost pitiful with disappointment.
"Oh, Daddy!" she called, "Mr. Blake says that if the water in the cañon--"
"Needn't tell me, honey. I know already," broke in her father, hastening to meet her.
She flung her arms about his neck, and sobbed brokenly: "I'm--I'm so sorry for you, D-Daddy!"
"There, there now!" he soothed, awkwardly patting her back. "'Tisn't like you to cry before you're hurt."
"No, no--you! not me. It doesn't matter about me!"
"Doesn't it, though! But I'm not hurt either, as yet. It's a long ways from being a sure thing."
"All the way down to the bottom of Deep Cañon!" put in Ashton.
"And then some!" added Gowan. "I've hit on another 'if,' Miss Chuckie."
"It's this: How's he going to get electricity to dig his tunnel?"
Blake was coming up from the pool, with his baby in one arm and his wife clinging fondly to the other. He met the coldly exultant glance of Gowan, and smiled.
"The only question regarding the power is one of cost, Mr. Gowan," he said. "There is no coal near enough to be hauled. But gasolene is not bulky. If there was water power to generate electricity, a tunnel could be bored at half the cost I have figured. The point is that there is no water power available, nor will there be until the tunnel is finished."
"What! You talk about finishing the tunnel? Didn't you say it is still uncertain about the water?" demanded Knowles.