"The point is that it isn't very wide," he said. "It wouldn't take a great many fathoms of steel rope to reach across it."
Brooke realized that, because the crag projected a little, this was correct; but as yet the suggestion conveyed no particular meaning to him.
"No," he said. "Still, it isn't very evident what use that would be."
Devine laughed. "Now, if you had told me you knew anything about engineering, you would have given yourself away. Have you never heard of an aerial tramway? It's quite simple—a steel rope set up tight, a winch for hauling, and a trolley. With that working, and a skid-slide up the gully, one could send over the props we want without much difficulty. It would be cheaper than buying off the timber-righters."
Brooke gasped as the daring simplicity of the scheme dawned on him. If one had nerve enough to undertake it the thing was perfectly feasible, and he turned to Devine with a glow in his eyes.
"It could be done," he said. "Still, do you know anybody who would be willing to stretch that rope across?"
Devine looked at him steadily, noticing the slight dilation of his nostrils and the intentness of his face.
"Well," he said, drily, "I was going to ask you."
The blood surged into Brooke's forehead, and for the time he forgot his six thousand dollars and that the man who made the suggestion had plundered him of them. He had, during the course of his English education, shown signs of a certain originality and daring of thought which had slightly astonished those who taught him, and then had lounged three or four years away in the quiet valley, where originality of any kind was not looked upon with favor. The men and women he had been brought into contact with in London were also, for the most part, those who regarded everything from the accepted point of view, and his engagement to the girl his friends regarded with disapproval had, though he did not suspect this at the time, been in part, at least, a protest against the doctrine that no man of his station must do anything that was not outwardly befitting and convenient to it.
The revolt had brought him disaster, as it usually does, but it had also thrust upon him the necessity of thinking for himself, though even during his two years' struggle on the worthless ranch he had not realized what qualities he was endued with, for it was not until he met Barbara Heathcote by the river that they were wholly stirred into activity. Then ambition, self-confidence, and lust of conflict with men and Nature asserted themselves, for it was, in point of fact, a sword she had brought him. Still, he was as yet a trifle inconsequent and precipitate in his activities, for at times the purpose which had sent him to the Canopus mine faded into insignificance, and he became oblivious to everything beyond the pleasure he found in the grapple with natural difficulties he was engaged in. Those who had known Brooke in England would have had little difficulty in recognizing him morally or physically as he stood, brawny and sinewy, in ragged jean, high above the thundering river.