“Not now, and no chance of any this time of year, else I wouldn’t have brought you in here. A sudden heavy June rain up above there would pour down a torrent that would drown us before we could run three hundred yards. Imagine a flood roaring down that bumpy shoot-the-chutes.”
“I can’t! It’s too terrifying. Is that the way it will be if you get the water and dig the tunnel?”
“No. At this end, the tunnel may terminate any place from down here to a thousand feet up, but in any event far below the top. I hope it proves to be well up. The greater the drop to the level of the mesa, the more turbines could be put in to generate electricity.”
“That sounds so inspiring! But, Dear––” Genevieve looked at her husband with a shade of anxiety––“even if this project is feasible, do you feel you should carry it through?”
“You mean on account of Miss Chuckie and her 224 father,” he replied. “I have considered their side of the matter, and even at the first I saw how––Listen, Sweetheart. No one knows better than you that I’m an engineer to the very marrow of my bones. My work in life is to construct,––to harness the forces of nature and compel them to serve mankind; and to save waste––waste material, waste energy––and put it to use.”
“Don’t I know, Tom!”
“Well, then,” he went on, “in the bottom of Deep Cañon is a river––waste waters down there beyond the reach of this rich but waterless land, down in the gloom, doing no good to anything or anybody, frittering away their energy on barren rocks. Why, it’s as bad as the way Ashton, with all the good qualities we now see he has in him––the way he dissipated his strength and his brains and his father’s money.”
“Ah, Dear! wasn’t it a splendid thing when he was thrown out of his rut of wastefulness?”
“Otherwise known as the primrose path, or the great white way,” added Blake. “It certainly was a throw out. I’m as pleased as I am astonished that he seems to have landed squarely on his feet.”
“What a marvelous change it has made in him!” exclaimed Genevieve. “Sometimes I hardly can believe it really is Lafayette. He is so serious and manly.”