"Thank, but having given my word to move that rock, I'm going to stay here until I do it," answered Geoffrey; and Bransome, nodding to him, rode on towards the ranch.
When he reached it Bransome said to Jean Graham in the hearing of Miss Savine:
"The old man has taken in yonder guileless stranger who has put two good dollars' worth of work into that job already, and the rock's rather faster than it was before."
"Did he say Mr. Graham hired him?" asked Helen, and she drew her own inference when Bransome answered:
"Why, no! I put it that way, and he didn't contradict me."
It was afternoon when Thurston realized at last that even considerable faith in one's self is not sufficient, unaided, to move huge boulders. He felt faint and hungry, but the pride of the Insular Briton restrained him from begging for a meal. His own dislike to acknowledge defeat also prompted him to decide that where weary muscles failed, mechanical power might succeed, and he determined to tramp back a league to the settlement in the hope of perhaps obtaining a drill and some giant powder on credit. He had not studied mining theoretically as well as in a costly practical school for nothing.
It was a rough trail to the settlement. The red dust lay thick upon it and the afternoon sun was hot. When at last, powdered all over with dust and very weary, Thurston came in sight of the little wooden store, he noticed Bransome's horse fastened outside it. He did not see the rancher, who sat on an empty box behind a sugar hogshead inside the counter.
"I want two sticks of giant powder, a fathom or two of fuse, and several detonators," said Geoffrey as indifferently as he could. "I have only two bits at present to pay for them, but if they don't come to more than a dollar you shall have the rest to-morrow. I also want to borrow a drill."
The storekeeper was used to giving much longer credit than Geoffrey wanted, but the glance he cast at the applicant was not reassuring, and it is possible he might have refused his request, but that, unseen by Thurston, Bransome signaled to him from behind the barrel.
"We don't trade that way with strangers generally," the storekeeper answered. "Still, if you want them special, and will pay me what they're worth to-morrow, I'll oblige you, and even lend you a set of drills. But you'll come back sure, and not lose any of them drills?" he added dubiously.
"I haven't come here to rob you. It's a business deal, and not a favor I'm asking," asserted Geoffrey grimly, and when he withdrew the storekeeper observed:
"Why can't you do your own charity, Bransome, instead of taxing me? That's the crank who wanted to run your lake down, isn't he? I guess I'll never see either him or them drills again."
"You will," the rancher assured him. "If that man's alive to-morrow you'll get your money; I'll go bail for him. He's just the man you mention, but I'm considerably less sure about the crankiness than I was this morning. There's a quantity of fine clean sand in him."
Meanwhile, and soon after Geoffrey had set out for the store, the two girls strolled down the trail to ascertain how he was progressing. They looked at each other significantly when they came upon the litter of débris and tools.
"Lit out!" announced Jean Graham. "The sight of all that work was too much for him. He'll be lying on his back now by the river thinking poetry. This country's just thick with reposeful Britishers nobody at home has any use for, and their kind friends ship off onto us. In a way I'm sorry. He lit out hungry, and he didn't look like a loafer."
"I'm afraid we were a little hard upon him," said Helen, smiling. "Still, I am somewhat surprised he did not carry out his bargain."
"You can never trust those gilt-edge Britishers," said Jean Graham with authority. "There was old man Peters who took one of them in, and he'd sit in the store nights making little songs to his banjo, and talking just wonderful. Said he was a baronet or something, if he had his rights, and made love to Sally. Old fool Peters believed him, and lent him three hundred dollars to start a lawsuit over his English property with. Dessay Peters thought red-haired Sally would look well trailing round as a countess in a gold-hemmed dress. The baronet took the money, but wanted some more, and lit out the same night with Lou of the Sapin Rouge saloon."
"I should hardly expect all that from our acquaintance of this morning, but I am disappointed, though I'm sure I don't know why I should be," said Helen Savine.
The sunlight had faded from the valley, though the peaks still shimmered orange and red, and the broken edge of a glacier flashed like a great rose diamond, when the two girls sat on the veranda encircling Graham's ranch-house. The rancher and his stalwart sons were away rounding up his cattle, but Jean was expecting both them and her mother and the delayed supper was ready. The evening was very still and cool. The life-giving air was heavy with the breath of dew-touched cedars, while the hoarse clamor of the river accentuated the hush of the mountain solitude. Strange to say, both of the girls were thinking about the vagrant, and Helen Savine, who considered herself a judge of character, had been more impressed by him than she would have cared to admit. There was no doubt, she reflected, that the man was tolerably good-looking and had enjoyed some training, though perhaps not the best, in England. He had also known adversity, she deduced from the gauntness of his face and a certain grimness of expression. She had noticed that his chin indicated a masterful expression and she was, therefore, the more surprised that he had allowed himself to be vanquished by the boulder.
Suddenly a heavy crash broke through the musical jangle of cow bells that drew nearer up the valley, and a cloud of yellow smoke curling above the dark branches spread itself across the fir tops in filmy folds.
"I guess that's our hobo blowing the rock up!" cried Jean. "I wonder where he stole the giant powder from. Well, daddy's found his cattle, and the swearing will have made him hungry. I'll start Kate on to the supper, and we'll bring the man in when he comes round for his dollar."
Presently Thurston knocked at the door, and strode in at a summons to enter. Slightly abashed, he halted inside the threshold. Jean, looking ruddy and winsome in light print dress, with sleeves rolled clear of each plump fore-arm, was spreading great platefuls of hot cakes and desiccated fruits among the more solid viands on the snowy tablecloth. Geoffrey found it difficult to refrain from glancing wolfishly at the good things until his eyes rested upon Miss Savine, and then it cost him an effort to turn them away. Helen reclined on an ox-hide lounge. An early rose rested among the glossy clusters of her thick, dark hair. A faint tinge of crimson showed through the pale olive in her cheek, and he caught the glimmer of pearly teeth between the ripe red lips. In her presence he grew painfully conscious that he was ragged, toil-stained and dusty, though he had made the best toilet he could beside a stream.
"I have removed the rock, and have brought the tools back," he said.
"How much did the explosives cost you?" asked Helen, and Geoffrey smiled.
"If you will excuse me, is not that beside the question? I engaged to remove the boulder, and I have done it," he answered.
Ever since her mother's death, Helen Savine had ruled her father and most of the men with whom she came in contact. She had come to the ranch with Mr. Savine, who was interested in many enterprises in the neighborhood and she was prepared to be interested in whatever occurred. Few of her wishes ever had been thwarted, so, naturally, she was conscious of a faint displeasure that a disheveled wanderer should even respectfully slight her question. Placing two silver coins on the table, the said coldly:
"Then here are your covenanted wages, and we are obliged to you."
Geoffrey handed one of the coins back with a slight inclination of his head. "Our bargain was one dollar, madam, and I cannot take more. Perhaps you have forgotten," he replied.
Helen was distinctly annoyed now. The color grew a little warmer in her cheek and her eyes brighter, but she uttered only a "Thank you," and took up the piece of silver.
Jean Graham, prompted by the Westerner's generous hospitality, and a feeling that she had been overlooked, spoke:
"You have earned a square