He started hastily around between the level and the precipice. The toe of his boot struck hard against the iron toe of the outer tripod-leg. He stumbled and sprawled forward on his hands and knees. Behind him the instrument toppled over towards the brink.
Genevieve cried out in alarm at Gowan’s fall. Her husband sprang to the rescue––not of the puncher, but of the level. It had crashed down with its head to the chasm, and was sliding out over the brink. Blake barely caught it by the tip of one of the legs as it swung up for the plunge. He drew it back and set it up to see what damage had been done to the head. Gowan watched him, tight-lipped.
“This is luck!” exclaimed the engineer, after a 262 swift examination. “Nothing broken––only knocked out of adjustment. I can fix that in half an hour. She struck with the telescope turned sideways. You must have set the clamp screw.”
The puncher’s face darkened. “Wish the––infernal machine had gone plumb down to hell!” he growled. “It came near tripping me over the edge.”
“My apology,” said Blake. “I spraddled the tripod purposely to keep it from being upset.”
“Oh, Kid, you’ve hurt yourself,” called Isobel, as the puncher began to wrap a kerchief about his hand. “Come here and let me bandage it.”
“No,” he replied. “Two babies are enough for you to coddle at one time. I’ve got to hit out.”
He turned his back on Blake and hurried up to his horse. The engineer followed as far as the nearest tree, where he set up the instrument in the shade and began to adjust it.
“Good thing she has platinum crosshairs,” he said to Ashton. “A fall like that would have been certain to break the old-style spiderweb hairs.”
Ashton did not reply. He was absorbed in a murmured conversation with Isobel. Blake completed the adjustments of the level and stretched out beside his wife to play with his gurgling son. A half hour of this completed the two hours that he had set apart for the noon rest. He placed the baby back in his wife’s lap and stood up to stretch his powerful frame. 263