"I can!" Geoffrey asserted confidently. "From some knowledge of mining I am inclined to think that a series of heavy charges fired simultaneously along the natural cleavage would reduce the lake's level at least a fathom. Have you got a pencil?"
Here it was that the national idiosyncrasies of the men became apparent; for Thurston, leaning on one elbow, made an elaborate sketch and many calculations with Bransome's pencil. A humming-bird, resplendent in gold and purple, blundered in between the roses shrouding the open window, and hovered for a moment above him on invisible wings. Thurston did not notice the bird, but Bransome flung a crust at it as he smiled on his companion.
"We'll take the figures for granted. Life is too short to worry over them," the rancher said. "Let's get down to business. How much are you asking, no cure no pay, I finding tools and material? I want your bottom price straight away."
Thurston had never done business in so summary a fashion before, but he could adapt himself to circumstances, and he mentioned a moderate sum forthwith.
"Can't come down?—then it's a deal!" Bransome announced. "Contract—this is the Pacific slope, and we've no time for such foolery. I'm figuring that I can trust you, and my word's good enough in this locality. Run that pond down a fathom and you'll get your money. Any particular reason why you shouldn't start in to-day? Don't know of any? Then put that pipe in your pocket, and we'll strike out for the store at the settlement now."
So it came about that at sunset Geoffrey was deposited with several bags of provisions, a blanket, and a litter of tools, outside a ruined shack on the edge of the natural prairie surrounding Bransome's lake. He had elected to live beside his work.
A tall forest of tremendous growth walled the lake, and then for a space rotting trees and willow swale showed where the intermittent rise of waters had set a limit to the all-encroaching bush. The wail of a loon rang eerily out of the shadow, and was answered by the howl of a distant wolf. A thin silver crescent sailed clear of the fretted minarets of towering firs clear cut against a pale pearl of the sky.
"Carlton's prairie, we call it," said Bransome, leaning against his light wagon, which stood, near the deserted dwelling. "Land which isn't all rock or forest is mighty scarce, and Carlton figured he'd done great things when he bought this place. Five years he tried to drain it, working night and day, and pouring good money into it, and five times the freshets washed out his crops for him. The creek just laughed at his ditches. Then when he'd no more money he went out to help track-laying, and a big tree flattened him. The boys said he didn't seem very sorry. This prairie had broken his heart for him, and I've heard the Siwash say he still comes back and digs at nights when the moon is full."
"Carlton made a mistake," said Geoffrey, who had been examining the surroundings rather than listening to the tale. "He began in what looked the easiest and was the hardest way. He should have cut the mother rock instead of trenching the forest." When Bransome drove away Thurston rolled himself in the thick brown blanket, and sank into slumber under the lee of the dead man's dwelling, through which a maple tree had grown from the inside, wrenching off the shingle roof.
An owl that circled about the crumbling house, stooped now and then on muffled wing to inspect the sleeper. Once a stealthy panther, slipping through the willows, bared its fangs and passed the other way, and the pale green points of luminescence that twinkled in the surrounding bush, and were the eyes of timber wolves, faded again. Neither did the deer that panther and wolves sought, come down to feed on the swamp that night, for a man, holding dominion over the beasts of the forest, lay slumbering in the desolate clearing.