Page:Stewart Edward White--The Rose Dawn.djvu/295

Rh He's the dearest, most human old soul in the universe; and would be glad to hear what you have to say."

But Kenneth's clear brain had showed him something.

"It wouldn't do any good," he said. "It isn't patch work I would do, I suppose. It just strikes me that if I owned the ranch I'd run the whole thing on a different scheme."

"Tell me how you'd do it. Let's pretend. Dolman is great on making believe." They were seated on the lower limb of Dolman's House, a frequent haunt of theirs. "Now if Corona del Monte were yours, what would you do?"

Kenneth elaborated, his enthusiasm growing as he proceeded. His ideas, which might in ordinary circumstances have been haphazard and fragmentary, had been well-ordered by his former "reports" to his father. Daphne took fire. Her quick, eager, suggestive comments were caught up by Kenneth avidly. Sometimes they both talked at once. Sometimes they argued heatedly on opposite sides. Sometimes they had wonderful inspirations that were entirely new and that struck them momentarily dumb with admiration of their splendour. It was creation: as in childhood the building of cities. They finished rather breathlessly, staring at each other with brightened eyes. Then they both laughed.

"You see!" Daphne pointed out. "It's a fine scheme. And I believe it would work out, too. But it isn't the old Del Monte the least bit in the world. The Colonel wouldn't change all his life-time habits."

"I suppose that's true," conceded Kenneth, reluctantly. He grinned. "I really believe he was secretly a little relieved when the well fizzled, though he pretended nobly."

Daphne chuckled. "So you had that idea, too?"

The attempt for artesian water had failed. All that remained as souvenir was the piped hole and a little pile of borings on the side of the knoll.

"But," she went on, her imagination rekindling, "wouldn't you just love to have a big ranch like the Del Monte to do just as you pleased with?"

"I should like it better than anything else in the world," replied Kenneth, earnestly. "And some day I'm going to have it."