“Resident Engineer?” repeated Ashton, paling and flushing. “Mr. Blake, I––I––It’s impossible that you can mean––”
“Make it ‘Tom’! You’ll have to brush up on mining engineering, too. There’s the bonanza.”
“Oh, yes, Tom!” exclaimed Genevieve. “Tell him about the gold mine.”
“I was going to keep still about it till I had the apex located,” he said. He looked full at Ashton. “But there’s no one here that the secret will not be as safe with as it is with me. Besides, it’s all in the family. I found the vein a thousand feet up the chute of Dry Fork Gulch. We will name it the Genevieve Lode. There are six of us here, counting Tommy. Each of us gets a sixth interest.”
Ashton was now pale. “Mr. Blake––Tom, I cannot! If I were fit to stay and work for you––as an axman––anything!––”
Blake’s eyes twinkled. “Then your sixth will have to go to Belle.”
“Mine too, Tom,” hastily put in Knowles.
Blake looked down solemnly at his youthful heir. 398 “Hear that, Tommy? Guess we’ll have to pull out, too, and make it half and half to the ladies." He looked up at Ashton with a swift change from mock to real gravity. “We’ve got to begin by installing a turbine power-plant down here. Where will I find another engineer with nerve enough to go down these cliffs? I need you, Lafe.”
“I am very sorry, Tom.” Ashton drew his hand from Blake’s wearied clasp, and rose.
Isobel slipped past him and stood with her arms outstretched across the entrance of the tent. There was a dimple in each of her blushing cheeks; her eyes were radiant with tenderness and love.