back at him, dimpling mischievously. “Nor did I go as the Queen of the Rancho, or of the Roundup, or even of the Wild and Woolly Outlaw Band.”
He flushed with mortification. “I am only too well aware, Miss Knowles, how you must regard me.”
“Oh, I do not regard you at all–as yet,” she bantered. “But of course I could not expect you to know that Daddy’s sister is one of the Sacred Thirty-six.”
“Sacred–? Is that one of the orders of nuns?”
“None whatever,” she punned. In the same moment she drew a most solemn looking face. “My deah Mistah Ashton, I will have you to understand my reference was to that most select coterie which comprises Denver’s Real Society.”
“Indeed!” he said, with a subtle alteration in his tone and manner. “You say that your aunt is one of–”
“My aunt by adoption,” she corrected.
“Adoption?”
“I am not Daddy’s natural daughter. He adopted me,” explained the girl in her frank way.
“Yes?” asked Ashton, plainly eager to learn more of her history.
Without seeming to observe this, she adroitly balked his curiosity–“So, you see, Daddy’s sister is only my aunt by adoption. Still, she has been very, very good to me; though I love Daddy and this free outdoor life so much that I insist on coming back home every spring.”
“Ah, yes, I see,” he replied. “Really, Miss Knowles, you must think me a good deal of a dub.”
“Oh, well, allowances should be made for a tenderfoot,” she bantered.
“At least I recognized your queenliness, even if at first I did mistake what you were queen of,” he thrust back.
“So you still insist I’m a queen? Of what, pray?”
“Of Hearts!” he answered with fervor.
His daring was rewarded with a lovely blush. But she was only momentarily disconcerted.
“I am not so sure of that,” she replied. “Though it’s not Queen of Spades, because I do not have to work; and it can’t be Diamonds, because Daddy is no more than comfortably well to do–only six thousand head of stock. But as for Hearts–No, I’m sure it must be Clubs; I do so love to knock around. Really, if ever they break up this range, it will break my heart same time.”
“Break up the range? How do you mean?”
“Put it under irrigation and turn it into orchards and farms, as they have done so many places here on the Western Slope. You know, Colorado apples and peaches are fast becoming famous even in Europe.”
“I do not wonder, not in the least–if I am to judge from a certain sample of the Colorado peach,” he ventured.
This time she did not blush. “I am quite serious, Mr. Ashton,” she reproved him. “Daddy owns only five sections. The rest of his range is public land. If settlers should come in and homestead it, he would have to quit the cattle business. You cannot realize how fearfully we are watching the irrigation projects–all the Government reclamation work, and the private dams, too. There seems to be no water that can be put on Dry Mesa, yet the engineers are doing such wonderful things these days.”
Ashton straightened on his saddle. “That is quite true, Miss Knowles. You know, I myself am an engineer.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed in dismay. “You, an engineer? Have you come here to see if our mesa can be irrigated?”
“No, indeed, no, I shall not do that,” he replied. “I have not the slightest thought of such a project. I am merely out for sport.”
She eyed him uncertainly. “But–We get all the reports–There is an Ashton connected with that wonderful Zariba Dam, just being finished in Arizona.”
“That is my father. He is interested in it with a Mr. Leslie. They are financing the project. But I have nothing to do with it, nothing whatever, I assure you. The engineer is another man, a fellow named–”
He paused as if unable to remember. The girl looked at him with a shade of disappointment in her clear eyes.
“A Mr. Blake–Thomas Blake,” she supplied the name. “I thought you might have known him.”
“Ah–Blake?” he murmured hesitatingly. “Why, yes, I did at one time have somewhat of an acquaintance with him.”
“You did?” she cried, her eyes brilliant with excitement. “Oh, tell me! I–” She faltered under his surprised stare, and went on rather lamely: “You see, I–we have been immensely interested in the Zariba Dam. The reports all describe it as an extraordinary work of engineering. And so we have been curious to learn something about the engineer.”
“But if you’re so opposed to irrigation projects?” he thrust.
“That makes no difference,” she parried. “We–Daddy and I–cannot but admire such a remarkable engineer.”
Ashton shrugged. “The dam was a big thing. I fail to see why you should admire Blake just because he happened to blunder on the idea that solved the difficulty.”
“You do not like him,” she said with frank directness.
He hesitated and looked away. When he replied it was with evident reluctance: “No, I do not. He is–You would hardly admire him personally, even though he did bully Genevieve Leslie into marrying him.”
“He is married?” exclaimed the girl.
“No wonder you are surprised,” said Ashton. “It was the most amazing thing imaginable–she the daughter of H. V. Leslie, one of our wealthiest financiers, and he a rough, uncouth drunkard.”
“Drunkard?” almost screamed the girl. “No, no, not drunkard! I cannot believe it!”
“He certainly was one until just before Genevieve married him,” insisted Ashton. “I hear he has managed to keep sober since.”
“O-o-oh!” sighed Miss Isobel, making no effort to conceal her vast relief. She attempted a smile. “I am so glad to hear that he is all right now. Of course he must be!.. You say he married an heiress?”
“She is worth three millions in her own right, and Leslie is as daft over him as she is. Leslie and my father are the ones who backed him on the Zariba Dam.”
“How interesting! And I suppose Mr. Blake is a Western man. So many of the best engineers come from the West.”
Ashton looked at her suspiciously. He could not make out her interest in Blake. She apparently had come to regard the engineer as a sort of hero. Yet why should she continue to inquire about him, now that she knew he was a married man?
“I’m sure I cannot tell you,” he replied, somewhat stiffly. “The fellow seems to have come from nowhere. Had it not been for an accident, he would never have got within speaking distance of Genevieve, but they happened to be shipwrecked together alone–on the coast of Africa.”
“Wrecked?–shipwrecked? How perfectly glorious!”
“I
