CHAPTER XXIII
THE TEMPTATION
When the ladies explained their plans for remaining in camp on High Mesa, Blake gave a ready assent.
“All right, Jenny. It’ll be something like old times. Can’t scare you up any lions or fever, leopards or cyclones; but you may see that wolf.”
“I should welcome all savage Africa if it would rid us of this awful cañon!” replied his wife.
“Won’t you please give it up?” begged Isobel. “I am to blame for your coming here. If anything should happen to you, I––I could never forgive myself––never!”
Blake looked at the two lovely, anxious faces before him, and smiled gravely. “There you go again, and you have yet to see that gulch. But even if you find that it looks dangerous, you wouldn’t want me to let a little risk interfere with my work, would you? Think of the fools who climb the highest and steepest mountains just for sport. I am going down there because it is necessary.”
“But is it?” the girl half sobbed. 269
“Someone must do it, sooner or later,” he replied, and he took his wife’s hand in his big palm. “Come, little woman, speak up. Do you want your husband to be a shirker and quitter?”
“Of course not, Tom. Yet one should be reasonable.”