“How could that be, when the farmers would divide up his range?”
“He owns five sections, Chuckie told me. What are they worth now? But with water on them, even without a single tree planted, they would sell as orchard land for more than all his herd; and he would still have his cattle. He could sell them to the settlers for more than what he now gets shipping them over the range.”
“I begin to see, Tom. I might have known it.”
“I’m telling you, of course. We’re to keep it from them as a happy surprise, because it may not come off. There’s still the question whether the water in the cañon––”
“But if it is! How delightful it will be to help Mr. Knowles and Chuckie, besides, as you say, turning this desert into a garden!”
“That valley is a natural reservoir site to hold flood waters,” continued the engineer. “All that’s needed is a dam built across the narrow place above the waterhole, with the dike for foundation. I would build it of rock from the tunnel, run down on a gravity tram.”
“You’ve worked it all out?” 228
“Not all, only the general scheme. If the tunnel comes through high enough up here, we shall be able to manufacture cheap electricity to sell. Just think of our settlers plowing by electricity, and their wives cooking on electric stoves.”
“You humorous boy!”
“No, I mean it. There’s another thing––I wouldn’t whisper it even to you if you weren’t my partner as well as my wife. I have reason to believe the creek bed above the dike is a rich placer. I’ve planned to take Knowles and Ashton in on that discovery––Gowan, too, if Knowles asks it.”