“Wouldn’t I though,” the lad had hold of the man’s hand and was firmly lifting him to his feet. Then he added confidentially, “I’m something of an inventor myself in a small way. I say, Mr. Wallace, I’ll bet you have a good thing there. May be it needs a little different adjusting. Let’s try it out.”
It was pitiful to see the joy in the dim eyes of the man who had failed. Here was someone, what if only a boy, someone who had faith in him. With shaking hands he lifted the instrument he had a moment before threatened to break into a thousand pieces, and with an eagerness he had never again expected to feel, he led the way up, up the canon with a sureness of step that amazed the lad who had such a brief time before pitied his weakness.
“Are you good for a stiff climb?” the man turned to call. “There’s a wall of rock ahead that’s as perpendicular as a barn door, but there’s no way but to go up over it to reach the spot which I am sure long years ago was the source of a water way. See! See!” he cried excitedly. “Now, you know why I am so sure there has been water here.”
The lad, looking ahead at the huge boulder, saw on its surface a smooth, many-colored groove which could only have been made by running water. “It wasn’t much of a volume, I’ll agree, but there was water, but where is it now?” Then again inquiringly, “Do you think you can climb it?”
“Certainly, sir, if you can,” the boy replied, amazed though that the man so recently weak, could even think of making the attempt.
“Well, then, follow me closely. I’ve been up so many times, I know just where the indentures in the rock will serve for steps.”
The lad inwardly confessed that it was an almost impossible feat, but if one Yale man could accomplish it, he assured himself, then so too could another.
At length they stood above the boulder and saw that the canon had narrowed until the rocks overhanging on one side often touched the opposite wall.
“There’s a hidden spring, I am convinced, somewhere about here,” the man’s eyes were no longer dreamy but shining with the light of rekindled faith.
“I believe you are right, Mr. Wallace.” The lad leaped to a spot where he saw another of the smoothed grooves in the rocks. “Let’s try it here,” he suggested. The instrument was set up, and Mr. Wallace explained that if there were water, it was his hope that the sensitized swinging needle would dip and point toward it, but it made no movement at all.