“Town for us to-morrow, Dave,” Lee exclaimed one day, as he rolled and tied his maps in a waterproof canvas.  “We’re due for a rest; our job is done for the present.  We’ll leave the instruments and note-books with the girls at Sarita Creek, who’ve agreed to keep them until we return.  The Mexicans are still hanging around.”

Toward the middle of the afternoon they appeared at the cabins, where they disengaged Dick from his burden of freight and turned him out to graze.  Imogene was nursing an obstinate headache in her darkened bedroom, and Dave immediately settled himself under a tree with a novel of the girls’.  So Ruth and Lee were left to themselves.

“I’m going up the creek to gather raspberries, and you came just in time to carry the basket,” said she.  “I discovered a large thicket of them half way up the canon; the more you pick, the more you’ll have for supper to-night.  And if you don’t bring Imo and me a box of chocolates, and a big box, when you come back from wherever you’re going to-morrow, you need never show your lean brown face again at our doors!  I’m dying for some.  Oh, Lee, I really am.  They help so when one’s lonely.”

The pathetic tone in which she uttered the final words sent Bryant off in a fit of laughter.

“You may count on them,” he said, at length.

“Your heart’s of stone to laugh like that.  Bonbons do help when one is low-spirited.”

Nevertheless, her spirits were high enough on this afternoon.  All the while that they were gathering raspberries she kept up a lively chatter, and when Lee suggested, now that the basket was full, leaving it at the spot and making an excursion to the head of the gorge, she readily assented.  The sun was still far from setting; the air between the rocky walls was pleasant; and the canon held forth a fresh enticement.  They walked for an hour, and though they failed to gain the end of the long mountain crevice they ascended to where the springs that fed the brook had their source, and where the rivulet trickled over ledges and among boulders, finding themselves in the heavy timber that forested the upper mountains.  There they sat on a rock, Ruth holding the wild flowers she had plucked on the way, and talked.

“Does your going now have to do with your project?” she questioned.

“Yes; I’ve finished the preliminary work.”

“But Charlie Menocal said you were making no progress, that you were blocked.”

“What Charlie doesn’t know would fill lots of space,” Lee said.  “In spite of the Menocals’ opposition and tricks, I’ve established my survey—­but don’t breathe it yet!  And now I’m ready for the financing of the scheme.  When that’s done, I’ll begin actual work.”

Ruth considered him with shining eyes.

“I’m glad you succeeded; I knew you would succeed,” she exclaimed.  “You’ve worked so hard.  And I hope that it makes you famous and wealthy.”