“She did?”
“Yes,” he replied, and he told about the rattlesnake in the bunkhouse.
“But I ought to have shot quicker,” Isobel explained, when he finished. “I missed the head, though I aimed at it.”
“The way we’ve left Thomas about on the ground!” exclaimed Genevieve. “Are there any of the horrid things around here? Is that why you carry the pistol?”
“No, no, don’t be afraid. We’ve killed them out here, long ago, because of the cattle. I carry my pistol 221 on the chance of killing wolves. They’re dreadfully harmful to the calves and colts, you know.”
“Good for you,” praised Blake, as he picked up the rifle. “Well, we’re off.”
He started away, hand in hand with his wife. They were soon at the top of the dike slope and almost dancing along over the dry turf. It was months since they had been alone together in the open, and they were still deeper in love than at the time of their marriage––if that were possible.
They soon reached the place where the shooting had occurred. Here they picked up the lunch bag, Ashton’s canteen and his hat, now punctured with another bullet hole; and at once started to carry the line of levels out across the valley. A few words of instruction made an efficient rodwoman of Genevieve, so that they soon reached the foot of the ridge up which her husband had led Ashton the previous day. Here he established a bench-mark, and turned along the base of the escarpment to the mouth of Dry Fork Gully, where he checked the line of levels that had been run up the bed of the creek.
“Good work––less than three tenths difference, and all that I am concerned about is an error in feet,” he commented. “It’s getting along towards noon. We’ll go up the gulch, and eat our lunch in the shade. This place is almost as much of a sight as the cañon.” 222
Genevieve more than agreed with her husband’s opinion when he led her up into the stupendous gorge and the walls of rock began to tower on each side ever steeper and loftier.