“If the project proves to be feasible, I shall offer you a position on the works,” said Blake. 194
“You needn’t try to bribe me!” retorted Ashton. “I’m working for Mr. Knowles.”
“Well, he directed you to help me with this survey,” replied the engineer, with imperturbable good nature. “The next move is to chain across to the cañon.”
He pulled his surveyor’s chain from the bag and descended the ridge to an out-jutting rock above the head of the tremendous gorge in the mountain side. Ashton followed him down. Blake handed him the front end of the chain.
“You lead,” he said. “I’ll line you, as I know where to strike the nearest point on the cañon.”
Ashton sullenly started up the ridge, and the measurement began. As Blake required only a rough approximation, they soon crossed the ridge and chained down through the trees to the edge of Deep Cañon. Ashton was astonished at the shortness of the distance. The cañon at this point ran towards the mesa escarpment as if it had originally intended to drive through into Dry Fork Gulch, but twisted sharp about and curved back across the plateau. Even Blake was surprised at the measurement. It was only a little over two thousand feet.
“Noticed this place when out with Mr. Knowles and Gowan,” he remarked, gazing down into the abyss with keen appreciation of its awful grandeur. “They told me it is the nearest that the cañon comes to the edge 195 of the mesa, until it breaks out, thirty or forty miles down.”
“How––how about that ‘if’ you said this measurement would settle?” asked Ashton.
“What’s the time?”
Ashton looked at his watch, frowning over the evasive reply. “It’s two-ten.”