Page:J Allan Dunn--The Girl of Ghost Mountain.djvu/137

Rh. The team will be coming back with an empty wagon. Can't I bring them?"

"No, sir. It's all arranged for and paid for."

"But they'll have to be toted up through the tunnel."

"Have you any one more capable of doing that than Thora? Besides, I intend to have them all arranged as a surprise party for you. When we are ready I'll send you the first heliographic invitation. I've been practicing and I can send—isn't that the term?—quite well."

"I haven't seen any flashes." It was an acknowledgment that he had been watching, hoping perhaps, for some message and she flushed a trifle.

"I've been sending them across the valley, not the mesa. I won't have you laughing at my jerky trials. And you are not going to have anything to do with my house-moving arrangements, only to admire the result."

"It is an order." He admired her independence. It was an essential part of her.

"And here is another. How about the project? How does it go?"

He launched into it. His disappointments diminished as he spoke. Now and then she put in a word of approval, of understanding.

"I dream far ahead, you see," he said. "Too far, except for a dream, perhaps. But ultimately I hope to do away with the commission men, perhaps to establish our own markets. Fair profits and fair prices."

"You will have to be a dictator, if what you say