“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.” 199
“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.”