On Saturday afternoon they rode to headquarters to
report, and to spend Sunday.
IX
Toward the end of the season they had worked well past the main ridge on
which were situated Welton's operations and the Service Headquarters.
Several deep canons and rocky peaks, by Thorne's instructions, they
skipped over as only remotely available as a timber supply. This brought
them to the ample circle of a basin, well-timbered, wide, containing an
unusual acreage of gently sloping or rolling table-land. Behind this
rose the spurs of the Range. A half-hundred streams here had their
origin. These converged finally in the Forks, which, leaping and
plunging steadily downward from a height of over six thousand feet, was
trapped and used again and again to turn the armatures of Baker's
dynamos. After serving this purpose at six power houses strung down the
contour line of its descent, the water was deflected into wide, deep
ditches which forked and forked again until a whole plains province was
rendered fertile and productive by irrigation.
All this California John, who rode over to show them some corners,
explained to them.
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