394 files changed, 38490 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6833f05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+* text=auto
+*.txt text
+*.md text
diff --git a/22284-8.txt b/22284-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f33cc1e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,12768 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Forbidden Trail, by Honoré Willsie
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Forbidden Trail
+
+Author: Honoré Willsie
+
+Release Date: August 9, 2007 [EBook #22284]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FORBIDDEN TRAIL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "THE TRAIL LIFTED ZIG-ZAG OVER THE COYOTE RANGE"
+--Page 283]
+
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+THE FORBIDDEN TRAIL
+
+By HONORÉ WILLSIE
+
+Author of
+
+"The Heart of the Desert,"
+"Still Jim," "Lydia of the Pines," etc.
+
+A. L. Burt Company
+Publishers--New York
+Published by arrangement with Frederick A. Stokes Company
+
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Copyright, 1919, by
+Frederick A. Stokes Company
+
+All rights reserved, including that of translation
+into foreign languages
+
+Printed in the United States of America
+
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER                                              PAGE
+
+I. THE DREAMER                                          1
+II. HOPES DEFERRED                                     32
+III. THE NEW DAY                                       52
+IV. CHARLEY                                            81
+V. VON MINDEN                                         105
+VI. THE LETTER FROM WASHINGTON                        130
+VII. THE RUNAWAY                                      151
+VIII. THE LONELY HUNTER                               176
+IX. GUSTAV                                            186
+X. DEATH IN THE DESERT                                206
+XI. DICK'S SICKNESS                                   228
+XII. DICKY'S LAST BOUT                                249
+XIII. THE GREAT DIVIDE                                265
+XIV. WASHINGTON                                       275
+XV. RABBIT TAIL'S GANG                                295
+XVI. THE RIVER RANGE                                  314
+XVII. THE BLACK BOX                                   345
+XVIII. PAPA WOLF                                      358
+
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+THE FORBIDDEN TRAIL
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE DREAMER
+
+
+Roger was only seven. He was tall for his age and very thin. He had a
+thick crop of black hair and his eyes were large and precisely the color
+of the summer sky that lifted above the Moores' back yard. These were
+the little boy's only claims to beauty, for even at this time Roger's
+face was too much of the intellectual type to be handsome. Beauty is
+seldom intelligent. Roger's long, thin jaw, his thin, thoughtful mouth,
+his high forehead, were distinctly of the thinking, dreaming type.
+
+It was midsummer and Roger's tanned legs and feet were bare and
+scratched and mosquito bitten. He wore a little blue gingham sailor
+suit, which was much rumpled and soiled.
+
+Charlotte was five. She was tall for her age too. In fact at five she
+was nearly as tall as Roger. But she was not as thin as he. She had
+large brown eyes of astounding depth and softness and bronze brown hair
+that was short and curly. There were lovely curves in her scarlet,
+drooping lips and a fine arch to her head above the ears. There was a
+dimple in her round chin. She sat in front of Roger who was astride one
+end of a great plank that was up-ended on a barrel.
+
+"You go over and get Ernie and Elschen, Charley," commanded Roger in a
+deep, boyish voice.
+
+"I won't!" returned Charley, succinctly, crowding closer to Roger, as
+she spoke.
+
+"Well now, do you think I'm going to play alone all the afternoon with a
+baby?" roared Roger. "You're too little to work this teeter-tauter with
+me. I'm not going to stand it, I'm not. You get off!"
+
+"I won't," repeated Charley, none the less firmly that the red lips
+trembled. "I runned away from our house to play with you and I'm going
+to play, I am."
+
+"You ain't going to play alone and Mamma says I gotta take you home in
+half an hour if nobody doesn't come for you."
+
+"I won't go home." Charley ended this time with a sob.
+
+"Now don't bawl!" exclaimed Roger, in alarm, twisting the little girl's
+head around so that he could peer into her face. He kissed her in a
+paternal manner. "Don't bawl! I'll take care of you."
+
+Charley wiped the kiss off on the sleeve of her checked gingham dress
+and smiled. Roger left the see-saw and climbed to the top of the board
+fence.
+
+"Ernie!" he shouted in a tone that sounded through the quiet village
+like a siren horn. "Ernie! You and Elschen come on over!"
+
+Mrs. Wolf appeared at the back door of the house next door.
+
+"Ernie and Elschen are doing the dishes. When they finish they will be
+over."
+
+"Will it take 'em long?" asked Roger. "I got all my chores done."
+
+"They're nearly done. Here's Elschen ready to go now."
+
+"It was my turn to wipe, so I got through quick. Ernie's awful mad,"
+cried a small girl, scrambling hastily over the fence.
+
+Elsa was six. She was short and plump, an almost perfect miniature of
+her pretty mother, who stood smiling in the doorway. Her hair was true
+gold. While it was not curly it was full of a vitality that gave it the
+look of finely spun wire as it stood out over her head in a bushy mass.
+She was red of cheek and blue of eye, a jolly, plucky little girl, much
+more enterprising and pugnacious than Ernie, who followed her shortly
+over the fence.
+
+Ernest was Roger's age and he looked so much like Elsa that a stranger
+might have thought them to be twins.
+
+He landed with a thud. "Where'd you get the teeter-tauter, Roger?" he
+cried.
+
+"Don't you see, you old ninny? I heaved up the plank Papa put down for
+the walk to the clothes-reel, and the barrel, I sort-of--now I kind of
+borrowed that out of the Sauters' barn. I guess they wouldn't care. I
+left a penny on the barn floor to pay for it. It's the strongest barrel
+I most ever saw. You go on the other end and Charley and I'll stay here.
+Elschen, you can be candlestick."
+
+"I ain't going to be candlestick very long, I ain't. Not for you old
+boys," said Elsa, climbing, however, to the place assigned her, where
+the board balanced on the barrel.
+
+The children see-sawed amicably for perhaps five minutes when Roger
+roared--
+
+"Hey! All of you get off! I got to fix this better."
+
+"I'm not agoing to move," replied Elsa.
+
+"I ain't agoing to move," agreed Charley.
+
+"Come on, you girls, get off," cried Ernie. "What you going to do,
+Roger?"
+
+"I'll show you! If you girls don't get off, I'll dump you," suiting
+action to words, as he tilted the plank sidewise. Elsa got a real bump,
+from the barrel to the ground. Charley's end of the see-saw was on the
+ground so she scrambled up laughing. Not so Elschen. She was red with
+anger. She flew at Roger and slapped him in the face.
+
+Roger turned white, and struck back, the blow catching Elsa in the
+stomach. She doubled up and roared. Roger's voice rose above hers.
+
+"I'll kill you next time! I'll kill you, you low down old German pig,
+you."
+
+Slow moving little Ernie ran to put his arm round Elsa.
+
+"Don't you hit my sister again, Rog Moore!"
+
+Roger jumped up and down and kicked the barrel. "You get out of my yard!
+I hate you all!"
+
+"Not me, Roger?" cried Charley, anxiously, running up to take his hand.
+
+Curiously enough even in his blind passion, the boy clung to the
+childish fingers, the while he continued to kick the barrel and to roar,
+
+"I'll kill you, Elsa!"
+
+The screen door clicked and Mrs. Moore hurried down the back steps. She
+was very tall and slender, with Roger's blue eyes and a mass of red
+hair piled high on her head. She carried one of Roger's stockings with a
+darning ball in the toe in her left hand and the thimble gleamed on the
+middle finger of her right hand as she put it on Roger's shoulder.
+
+"Roger! Roger! You're rousing the whole neighborhood!"
+
+Roger struck the slender hand from his shoulder. "I hate you too. Let me
+alone!"
+
+Mrs. Moore turned to the others. "Children, take Charley over in your
+yard for a little while. Roger is being a very bad boy and I must punish
+him."
+
+Roger hung back, still roaring, but his mother dragged him into the
+kitchen. Here she sat down in a rocker and attempted to pull him into
+her lap, but he would have none of her. He threw himself sobbing on the
+floor and Mrs. Moore sat looking at him sadly.
+
+"I don't know what we're going to do about your temper, Roger. This is
+the third spell you've had this week. I don't see why the children play
+with you. Some day you _will_ murder some one, I'm afraid. I used to
+have a temper when I was a child but I'm certain it was nothing like
+yours. One thing I'm sure of, I never struck my dear mother. Thank
+heaven, I haven't that regret."
+
+Roger wept on.
+
+"I've tried whipping and I've tried scolding. Perhaps I'm the wrong
+mother for you--" A long pause, during which Roger's slender body did
+not cease to writhe in sobs. Then his mother continued: "Poor little
+Elschen, that was an awful knock you gave her! I shall have to apologize
+to Mrs. Wolf again. She's always sweet about your badness."
+
+She began work on the stocking once more. Roger's sobs lessened and his
+mother rose to wet a towel-end and bathe his face. But when she returned
+from the sink, the child was asleep, his head pillowed on his arm. It
+was thus that his temper storms always ended. Mrs. Moore had observed
+that when she had whipped him for one of his explosions, he always slept
+much longer than when she merely allowed him to sob himself quiet. So
+though his father still advocated whipping, she had concluded that
+whipping led only to further nerve exhaustion and she had stopped that
+form of punishment.
+
+Half an hour later Roger rolled over on his back and stared for a moment
+wide eyed, at the ceiling. Then he got up quickly and running over to
+his mother, he threw his arms about her neck and kissed her
+passionately.
+
+"Oh, Mother! Mother! I love you so! I'm so sorry I slapped your hand. I
+will be good! Oh, I will be good!"
+
+He took the hand which he had struck in both his own and kissed it.
+
+"Poor hand," he half sobbed, "poor hand!"
+
+"All right, dear," said his mother, freeing her hand gently. "Now, go
+make up with the other children."
+
+Roger darted out the door and his mother heard him shouting to his
+playmates.
+
+It was an hour later that she went to the back door, to send Roger home
+with Charley. What she saw there sent her flying once more to interfere
+with the children's play. Fastened by bits of rope and twine to the
+plank were her three choicest sofa cushions, of white silk which she
+herself had embroidered. A child lay on its stomach on each of these,
+wildly gesticulating with legs and arms while Roger played the garden
+hose on them.
+
+The four culprits in a sodden row before her, Mrs. Moore sought counsel
+from Mrs. Wolf, who had come hurrying at her neighbor's call.
+
+"What shall I do with him? It was his idea, he says."
+
+"Sure it was," exclaimed Roger stoutly. "We were shipwrecked sailors.
+The tempest had raged for three days like in 'Swiss Family Robinson.'"
+
+"But why did you get the sofa cushions?" asked Mrs. Wolf.
+
+"Oh, that was my invention to make the teeter-tauter more comfortable.
+Then they made nice waves for us to rest our stomachs on when we swam."
+
+"You knew how I prize those cushions. That one with the roses took me
+all last winter to do," said Roger's mother sternly.
+
+"I--I--yes, I kind of knew, but I forgot. I always forget when I'm
+inventing. Don't I, Ern?"
+
+Ern nodded and put his arm over Roger's shoulder.
+
+"I must try to help you to remember, little son." Mrs. Moore sighed.
+"For three days you cannot play with Ernie and Elschen."
+
+Instantly a howl rose from the two little Wolfs. "We can't play without
+Roger! It was our fault too!"
+
+"Indeed, that's too hard on all of them, Mrs. Moore. We'll have bedlam
+for three days," protested Mrs. Wolf.
+
+"But he's always losing his temper and hurting your children," exclaimed
+Mrs. Moore.
+
+"But he keeps them interested, anyhow," replied the little German
+mother. "They never ask to go away when Roger is with them. There's
+something so lovable about him in spite of his temper."
+
+"He hit me in my poor little belly--" began Elschen.
+
+"Elschen!" shrieked her mother.
+
+"Stomach," Elschen substituted hastily. "My poor little stomach. But I
+don't care, I love him anyhow."
+
+"But how about my sofa pillows?" asked Mrs. Moore.
+
+"We'll give you the money out of our banks," said Ernie.
+
+Elsa jumped up and down. "So we will! And you too, Roger!"
+
+"Sure I will. And I'll iron the roses out for you."
+
+The two mothers looked at each other with a glimmer of a smile in light
+and dark blue eyes.
+
+"You can each put a quarter in the Sunday School contribution box next
+Sunday and we'll call it square. Do you agree, Mrs. Wolf?" Then as her
+little neighbor nodded, Roger's mother went on. "Go change your wet
+suit, Roger, and take Charley home. Lend me some of Elschen's little
+things for her, Mrs. Wolf. The child is soaked."
+
+"Mamma! That's a _mile_ out to Prebles'," roared Roger.
+
+His mother looked at him, completely out of patience. "Well, _Roger_!
+after this afternoon's various performances!"
+
+"Oh, I'll go!" cried Roger hastily. "I was just talking, that was all!"
+and he fled to the house.
+
+Roger and Charley, hand in hand, trailed up the street in the haphazard
+manner of childhood. The Prebles lived on a farm half a mile beyond the
+limits of the town of Eagle's Wing. The board walk ended not far beyond
+the Moores' house and the children automatically chose the center of the
+road where the dust was deepest. By scuffling their bare feet
+continuously they managed to travel most of the distance to the farm in
+a cloud of dust which Roger explained was a deep sea fog.
+
+Dick Preble met them at the door of the farm house. Dick was a stocky
+boy of ten with a freckled face surmounted by a thatch of sandy hair.
+
+"Charley! Where have you been? We thought you were asleep upstairs.
+Mamma was just getting scared. And whose clothes have you got on?"
+
+Charley rushed headlong past her brother, shrieking for her mother,
+while Roger struggled with his explanation of certain of the afternoon's
+complications.
+
+"Gee!" was Dick's comment, "I'll bet Charley gets the paddle whacks for
+running away."
+
+"You weren't thinking of driving into town, were you?" asked Roger.
+
+"Naw, lazy bones! You can just foot it, after half drowning my sister."
+
+"You better keep your old sister home then," replied Roger, starting for
+the gate.
+
+It was a long walk for seven-year legs. Roger was considerably less
+active on the return trip than he had been plowing through the sea fog
+on his way out. But his mind was hard at work.
+
+"It would be nice to have a railroad all the way out to Prebles'. One
+that just us children could use--under the road. And I'd have little
+doors that would open up in the road and we'd peek out. And if we saw
+any grown ups coming we'd close the door quick. I'd be the engineer and
+Ernie the fireman. And we wouldn't have that old Dick at all. He's too
+big and cross. The girls could ride if they'd behave and run errands for
+us. Let's see. We'd have to dig it out first. Then we'd want ties and
+rails and a little engine. I wonder how much it would cost. But it would
+be very useful. 'Specially if we let Mr. Preble send his corn to town on
+it. He wouldn't have so much trouble with his hired men if they could
+ride on my engine, I bet."
+
+This delectable dream, with infinite variations, carried Roger home.
+Supper was on the table and Mr. Moore was already in his place. A thin
+man, Roger's father, with a deeply lined face and good gray eyes, under
+a thatch of iron gray hair. He was a master mechanic, now owner of a
+little factory which turned out plowshares. Moore had devised machinery
+which enabled him to turn out plowshares of a superior quality, in
+greater quantity and at a cheaper rate than any of his larger
+competitors in neighboring states. His was only a small concern,
+employing twenty-five or thirty men, but even this made Moore the chief
+manufacturer of the town of Eagle's Wing, whose only other glory was
+that it housed the state university. The members of the college faculty
+did not recognize many of the town people socially. But Dean Erskine,
+the young new dean of the School of Engineering, had visited the plow
+factory and had been so enthusiastic over Moore and his work that he had
+come a number of times to the house, bringing Mrs. Erskine with him.
+Factory management was a new theme in these days and Dean Erskine found
+Roger's father open minded to his theories.
+
+"Well, old son, have you been a good boy to-day?" asked Mr. Moore as
+Roger slid into his place at the table.
+
+"No, sir. I've been pretty bad. Say, Papa, how much would it cost to
+build a railroad, under the ground, from our house to Prebles'?"
+
+"A good deal of money. What way were you bad, Rog?"
+
+"Oh, about every way, temper and all. Papa, I guess I'll build that
+railroad. I got a big piece of pipe and a gauge that might work. Guess I
+might begin to make a engine. Aren't I a pretty good inventor, Papa?"
+
+"I don't know, Son. Nothing you've ever said or done makes me think
+you're one yet. In the first place an inventor is the most patient
+animal in the world. An inventor just can't lose his temper. Why don't
+you begin by inventing a way to control your temper, Son?"
+
+Roger subsided into his bowl of bread and milk.
+
+Mr. Moore was smoking on the front porch when Mrs. Moore joined him
+after putting Roger to bed. She sat down on the steps beside him while
+she told him of Roger's day.
+
+"He's so contrite and so sweet, after one of his passions!" she said.
+"And yet, well, maybe it's his age, but he's so sort of casual about his
+temper. To-night, for instance, after he'd said the Lord's Prayer, he
+added, 'And please God, help me to find some pipe to make that engine
+and some rails too. And bless Charley, she's so little. And bless Mamma
+and Papa. And Lord, you might do something about my temper if you have
+time. Amen.'"
+
+The father and mother laughed together, then Mr. Moore said, "I do hope
+the boy will keep up his interest in mechanics. It's the coming game for
+real he-men. The world's going to turn into a big machine. The way
+things are going now with me, I'll have a real place for the boy when he
+finishes school. Dean Erskine's about persuaded me to let him go to
+college. I've been dead set against a college engineer until I met
+Erskine. He's made me feel as I'd have had less of an uphill pull if I'd
+gone to engineering school, and he says I've made him feel as if he
+never had enough shop practice."
+
+Moore stopped to chuckle. Then he went on, after refilling his pipe,
+"Yes, machinery is the greatest thing in the world. I took on five more
+men to-day, Mamma. All union men. I've decided to give in on that point
+and have a strictly union shop."
+
+"I think you're right," said Mrs. Moore. "After all the union is the
+working man's only protection."
+
+Moore grunted. "I don't care so much about the right of it as I do the
+expediency. And I haven't time to buck the union."
+
+"You've changed a lot since you left off working with your hands,"
+commented his wife, noncommittally.
+
+"A man has to change his point of view when he becomes an employer
+instead of an employee. Old girl, we're on our way up the ladder and
+nothing but old Grim, himself, can stop us. And when I came in from the
+old farm, when I was twelve years old, I had only my two hands and the
+clothes I stood in."
+
+"You've been wonderful!" murmured Mrs. Moore. "Do you know, Mr. Wolf has
+done well too. His wife said he couldn't speak a word of English when he
+came to this country--at just twelve, too, and now he's manager of the
+Grand Dry Goods Company."
+
+"He's a nice fellow with a mighty pretty wife."
+
+It was Mrs. Moore's turn to grunt, which she did, in the manner of a
+wifely sniff. And the two sat in silence, hands clasped in the lovely
+summer night.
+
+After all, Roger did not get beyond a first attempt at the railroad
+building. He began the tunnel the next day, he and the two little Wolfs
+digging vigorously until a hole as large as a bath tub was completed.
+While resting from this toil, Roger conceived the idea of making a
+wading pool, with the aid of the hose. Some vague lesson won from
+previous experience made him ask permission of his mother and this
+given, the three children spent an ecstatic, though muddy, day in the
+improvised pond.
+
+Roger's father suggested that evening that the pool be gradually
+enlarged to make a swimming pool. He enlisted Mr. Wolf's aid for the
+summer evenings and in a couple of weeks a very creditable pool, brick
+and concrete lined, made a summer heaven of the back yard for the little
+friends.
+
+It was the pool that made this summer perhaps the most memorable one of
+Roger's childhood. It was the one, anyway, to which in after years his
+mind harked back with the most pleasure and with the greatest frequency.
+
+Even little Charley learned to swim. Roger never was to forget her
+slender beauty, as she stood ready for her dive on the pool edge. This
+was his last memory of the little girl, for the Prebles gave up farming
+that fall and moved away. Somebody said that Mr. Preble drank up his
+farm, which at the time seemed mere nonsense to Roger.
+
+Roger's tenth summer was memorable too. But he ceased to think of
+himself as a child then, because that was the summer his mother had
+typhoid fever and all summer long he was practically his own man. His
+father could give him no time, for there was a strike in the factory
+that lasted during the six weeks that Mrs. Moore was the sickest. The
+night that his mother was passing through her crisis, men threw stones
+in the kitchen windows.
+
+Mrs. Moore believed that she was going to die. One day when her mind was
+clear, despite her deathly weakness, she made them leave the little boy
+alone with her while she told him of her consuming anxiety over his
+temper. And she talked to him too about a motherless young manhood and
+how he must try to keep clean and straight. She made him promise that if
+any of the facts of life puzzled him, he would go to his father and not
+let naughty minded little boys tell him bad stories. Then while Roger
+sobbed, she fell asleep and when she woke she was definitely better. But
+Roger never felt like a child again. He felt that he knew all that men
+knew about life, and death as well.
+
+Mrs. Moore never was really strong again. Their keeping a servant dated
+from that summer and so did a little electric car, the first one in
+Eagle's Wing. Yes, perhaps this was as memorable a summer as Roger's
+seventh. Yet it lacked the magic and the beauty that made imperishable
+the joy of the swimming pool summer.
+
+And then came his fourteenth summer.
+
+Roger was a strapping big lad at fourteen. He was as tall as his father,
+who was five feet ten, and was still growing rapidly. He was thin but
+hard-muscled, with good shoulders that were not as awkward as they
+looked. After a year of pleading, his father agreed to let him spend his
+vacation in the plow factory; and Roger in overalls, his dinner pail in
+hand, was his father's pride and his mother's despair. She did like to
+see her only child well dressed.
+
+Ernest's father wanted Ernie to come into the store that summer. But
+after his years under Roger's tutelage, Ernie was all for mechanics, so
+he too acquired overalls and a dinner pail and went into the plow
+factory. Elschen was broken hearted because there was no way in which
+she also could become a wage earner.
+
+The university lay at the south end of the little town. The plow
+factory, now employing two hundred men, lay at the north end. Jim Hale,
+the chief engineer, blew the whistle every morning at seven o'clock and
+again at five o'clock. There was an hour off for dinner pails at twelve.
+A nine hour day, a few years ago, was not considered a long day, that
+is, not by employers of labor. That the employees were beginning to feel
+differently, Roger was to learn that summer in a manner that was to
+shape his whole life.
+
+The workmen were of a type little known now in our big industrial
+centers. Without exception they were North Europeans: Germans,
+Norwegians, Swedes and Danes. About fifty per cent. of them were foreign
+born. The rest of them were American born. A good many of the German
+born had not taken out first citizenship papers, but the Norwegians and
+Swedes had done so, so had the Danes. Enough of them had a certain
+amount of pride in their work to make the factory an interesting and
+profitable place for a boy to serve his first apprenticeship in.
+Practically all married men in the factory wanted to settle permanently
+in Eagle's Wing and send their children through the town's splendid
+schools. A majority of them planned to send their sons through the State
+University.
+
+John Moore had a good eye for men. He had built up an apparently solid
+and permanent organization. Yet for all his keen eye, the more
+successful he became, and the larger his business, the more incapable he
+grew of winning his men's liking. He had worked unbelievably hard from
+his boyhood up. He had given himself to his work without stint. He had
+no sympathy with any of his employees who would do less. His wage, as a
+mechanic, had never exceeded two seventy-five a day. He bitterly
+resented any man's wanting more.
+
+Moore was the entire brains of his factory. He was his own manager, his
+own superintendent, his own purchasing and sales agent--a man of
+splendid mind, hidebound by the egotism and prejudices of the self-made
+man. At fifty, he was going at his highest speed, every nerve taut,
+ready to break at the least disturbance of the load.
+
+Roger admired his father with a blind idolatry that was quite foreign to
+his ordinary mental attitude. He was naturally critical of men and
+things. To be a forge boy in his father's factory was to Roger to be
+touching the skirts of real greatness.
+
+"Father," he said one night at supper, "I had a row with Ole Oleson
+to-day."
+
+"Which Ole Oleson?" asked his father. "There are nine of them in the
+factory."
+
+"The second forge foreman. His girl Olga is in my grade at school."
+
+His father nodded. "What was the row about? As I warned you, Rog, if I
+catch you with the lid off that temper of yours, I'll treat you exactly
+as I would any other employee."
+
+"But you didn't catch me, this time!" Roger grinned. He had fine white
+teeth and his eyes were still the wonderful sky blue of his childhood.
+"Ole said you were as hard as one of the plowshares and that some day
+the men would soften you like they take temper out of steel and that
+then you'd never be any good again."
+
+John Moore snorted. "And you let the fool get a rise out of you, of
+course!"
+
+"I knocked him down."
+
+"And what did he do?"
+
+"He knocked me down."
+
+"Then what?" asked Moore.
+
+"We shook hands and went to work again." Roger grinned at his mother's
+horrified face.
+
+"I'd have fired you both if I'd seen it," said his father. "You were
+late again this morning, Son. Remember you're docked for that."
+
+"Anyhow," Roger went on without noting apparently his father's warning,
+"he got confidential, while we were eating dinner, and told me that if
+you didn't give them an increase they were going on a strike that would
+make you sit up and take notice. He says you won't give the increase so
+the strike's due about the middle of July."
+
+"Oh, the fools!" exclaimed John Moore. "I can't have a strike now with
+that big Russian order to fill. That order makes or mars me."
+
+"Then you'll give 'em the raise! That's good!" Roger gave a sigh of
+relief.
+
+"Raise nothing! Why, I can't raise them! Roger, you're old enough to
+begin to understand these things. The only way I'm able to compete with
+the trust is by working on such a narrow margin of profit that it makes
+their overhead look like Standard Oil profits. So far they've let my
+patents alone, chiefly, I suppose, because my machinery is efficient
+only for the comparatively small output. I never have been able to
+accumulate much working capital. A protracted strike would put me out of
+business. On the other hand a material increase in wage would kill that
+Russian contract and I've already borrowed money on it."
+
+"Roger, you shouldn't have told your father that when he was tired,"
+said Mrs. Moore, handing her husband his third cup of tea.
+
+"Don't be a goose, Alice," returned Roger's father. "What are they going
+to ask for, Son?"
+
+"A minimum of three dollars a day and eight hours."
+
+"Then I'm finished!" exclaimed Moore, setting his lips.
+
+"Why don't you tell them when they come to you just what you've told
+me?" asked Roger. "They'll understand."
+
+"They won't believe a word of it. Nobody knows so much about a business
+as one of the workmen. And the poorer the workman the more he knows. I
+think I'll go up to see the Dean."
+
+Roger and his mother sat late on the porch, while Mr. Moore conferred
+with his friend. Mrs. Moore summed up her own feelings on the matter of
+the strike when she said just as Roger started for bed:
+
+"Well, as far as I'm concerned, I've never been so happy as I was when
+your father was just a plain mechanic, earning his two and a half or so
+a day and with no responsibility except to do his work well. Ever since
+he's been his own boss, he's been changing. I don't feel as if he were
+the same man I married. And what does he get out of it? Worry, worry,
+fuss, fuss. I tell you, Roger, my dear, I've come to the conclusion that
+the more complicated life gets, the less happiness there is in it."
+
+Roger bent and kissed his mother. "Maybe I'll feel like that when I'm
+older," he said, "but I don't now. And I guess Father likes the worry.
+It's like playing a game. I'm going to get into it, you bet, just as
+soon as I get through school."
+
+His mother made no reply.
+
+On the morning of July fifteenth, a delegation of three workmen waited
+on John Moore in his office. They made exactly the demands that Roger
+had reported and they received the same reply that Roger had received,
+with just about the same amount of detail as to the running of the
+business. The strike was scheduled to begin on the first day of August.
+
+Roger and Ernest, plugging away at the forge, heard the men's side
+constantly. At night Roger heard his father's. At first, naturally
+enough, both boys' sympathies were all with Roger's father. Then,
+because he was now a working man himself, Roger began to notice that
+his father had brutal ways with the men. Three or four times a day Moore
+always went through the factory. A careless mechanic would receive a
+cursing that, it suddenly occurred to Roger, no real man ought to
+endure. The least infringement of the factory rules was punished to the
+limit by a system of fines. Moore drove the men as relentlessly as he
+drove himself. This aspect of his father Roger naturally never discussed
+with his chum, but he spoke of it to his father on the morning of the
+first of August as they made their way to the factory.
+
+"They think you feel to them just like you do to a machine and it makes
+them sore, all the time," said the boy.
+
+"Heavens! what do they want? Must I kiss them good morning?" exclaimed
+Moore.
+
+Roger laughed. "No, but I know what they mean. I've seen you when you
+talked as though you owned them--and not that either. It's sort of like
+if you could recollect their names, you'd hate 'em."
+
+"Shucks, Rog! You're getting beyond your depth!" said his father.
+
+The seven o'clock whistle did not blow that hot August morning. All the
+neighborhood of the factory was full of lounging men with clean faces
+and hands. It was like Sunday. Ernest went to work in his father's
+store. Roger spent the morning in the office with his father. In the
+afternoon he circulated among the men. At first many of them resented
+this. Naturally enough they looked on the boy as his father's spy.
+
+But Moore had nothing to conceal nor had the men. Roger was intelligent
+and thoughtful far beyond his years, and little by little the men got
+in the habit of debating with him the merits of the case.
+
+Roger forgot that summer that he was a boy. Even at Saturday afternoon
+baseball, his mind was struggling with a problem whose ramifications
+staggered his immature mind.
+
+Ole Oleson, the forge boss, talked more intelligibly, Roger thought,
+than any of the others. There was a bench outside the picket fence that
+surrounded Ole's house, and Ole's house was not a stone's throw from the
+forge shed. Here nearly every afternoon Ole, with some of the strike
+leaders, would gather, and when not throwing quoits in front of the
+shed, they would talk of the strike.
+
+Roger, his heavy black hair tossed back from his face, his blue eyes
+thoughtful, his boyish lips compressed in the effort to understand,
+seldom missed a session. The strike had lasted nearly a month when he
+said to Ole.
+
+"My father says that if the strike isn't over in two weeks, he's
+ruined."
+
+"That's a dirty lie!" exclaimed a German named Emil.
+
+Before Roger's ready fist could land, Ole had pulled the boy back to the
+bench.
+
+"What's the good of that!" said Ole. "Emil, this kid's no liar. Don't be
+so free with your gab."
+
+There was silence for a few moments. The group of men on the bench
+stared obstinately at the boy Roger and Roger stared at the group of
+factory buildings. Unpretentious buildings they were, of wood or brick,
+one-story and rambling. John Moore had bought in marsh land and as he
+slowly reclaimed it by filling with ashes from his furnaces, he as
+slowly added to the floor space of his factory. Roger could remember the
+erection of every addition, excepting the first, which was made when he
+was only a baby. He knew what the factory meant to John Moore and with
+sudden bitterness he cried,
+
+"I don't see what good it will do you to ruin my father!"
+
+"'Twon't do us no good," returned Ole. "He ain't going to be ruined.
+Look here already, Rog. I got a girl, your age. She goes in your class.
+What kind of girl is she?"
+
+"She's a smart girl. Smart as lightning," answered Roger.
+
+Ole nodded. "Sure she is. Now Emil, he's got two boys and three girls.
+Canute, over there, you've got three little girls, ain't you? Yes--and
+Oscar, you got one boy, and John Moore, he's got one boy. Now, listen
+once, Rog. I tell you about myself and that tells you about all of us
+here.
+
+"I am born in Norway, the youngest of nine, and when I am ten years my
+folks come to America. They come to give their children a chance to live
+comfortable and not have to work like dogs all the time, just to keep
+alive. All right. They come here to this town. My father gets a job and
+my big brothers get a job and we all do fine. They put me into school
+and my father says I can go clean through the University. Then he dies
+and my brothers all marry and when I have just one year in the High
+School I have to quit and go to work.
+
+"All right! I get a job in a machine shop where a fellow named John
+Moore has a machine next to mine. He's a good smart fellow. We're good
+friends, many years. But he has a good education."
+
+"He has not!" interrupted Roger, flatly. "He's never been in school
+since he was twelve and he's supported himself ever since he was
+twelve."
+
+"He's educated all the same," insisted Ole.
+
+"He taught himself everything he knows," Roger cried.
+
+"All right! All right! Anyhow, he makes a new kind of a machine and
+takes his savings and starts to make plowshares, ten a day, over in that
+little brick house, there. And he works like the very devil. Why? Why,
+so that little Roger Moore that's come along can have it easier than he
+had. Same as I'm working for my little Olga and same as Canute and Emil
+and Oscar is working."
+
+"That's only part of it, with father, anyhow," Roger exclaimed. "Of
+course, he's ambitious for me, but, you see, he has these ideas inside
+of him that have to come out. He'd have done it if I'd never been born."
+
+"He does it so's his children gets ahead. Every married man's that way.
+Otherwise, why work?" This was Emil's contribution.
+
+"All right," Ole pushed on. "Anyhow first thing I know I'm working for
+John Moore and he's getting ahead while I'm staying in the same old
+place, same old pay. And now listen. Already, when he gets ahead he
+changes. He gets bossy and ugly. Seems like a man can't be a boss
+without changing, without getting so he curses the fellow he bosses. And
+Emil and Oscar and Canute and I and all of us say, 'Here's Moore getting
+ahead. His boy goes through the university on what Moore makes us earn
+him. He has a hired girl for his wife. Now our children can't go to the
+university on what Moore pays us. And our wives can't keep a hired girl.
+Moore couldn't earn a cent without us. He's got to give us enough of
+what we earn him so's we can live easy as he does.'"
+
+"He don't live easy," retorted Roger. "You ought to see him. He works
+harder than any of you, day and night, he never stops. My mother's
+always complaining that she's lost him. And if he's your age, Ole, he
+looks ten years older. I tell you carrying that factory is an awful
+load. None of you folks could run it. You haven't got the brains. Father
+ought to be the big earner. He's got the big brains."
+
+"He can be the big earner," said Canute, a thin, slow speaking Dane, "if
+he gives us a chance to save and enough time to enjoy a little every day
+the sunshine and make gardens or bowl or play with our children. That's
+what we came to America to get and, by God, we're going to get it."
+
+"He doesn't get it." Roger spoke with an unboyish sadness in his voice.
+"That factory has him body and soul. I don't see what's the use."
+
+Again there was silence. Then Ole said, "I guess the thing that makes me
+hate him is how he's changed already. Look, Rog, I'm an American
+citizen. I can't have any man curse me like I was a slave. No money can
+pay for it. And one reason this strike's going to hang on till your
+father gives in is because he don't know how to boss men. And they all
+hate him."
+
+"And envy him!" cried Roger.
+
+"Sure," agreed Emil. "Envy him, we do. That's why we're striking."
+
+"And supposing the factory goes out of business?" Roger asked. "You'll
+all have to move away or take any old job. This is the only factory in
+this town."
+
+Ole laughed. "Your father's got you bluffed too, Rog."
+
+"You'll see!" returned Roger, through his white teeth. "You'll see." And
+he started abruptly for home.
+
+The first week of September slipped into the second. The night of the
+fourteenth, John Moore said at the supper table, "I bought the old
+Preble place, to-day. Traded in this place for it, so we'll have that
+free and clear out of the wreck."
+
+"What do you mean?" faltered Mrs. Moore.
+
+"What I say," he snapped. "The Russian contract has been canceled. Money
+never was so tight in thirty years as it is now. Wolf says he thinks
+there's a panic coming, and so does the bank. I can't borrow a cent
+more. I'm through with my fling, Alice, and I'm going back to a farm."
+
+Roger choked a little on his tea. His mother said, unsteadily, "John
+dear, if going back to the farm brings you back to me, I shall thank God
+for the strike."
+
+Roger's father scowled at his wife for a moment, then suddenly
+something, perhaps the gentleness of her voice and the sweetness of her
+eyes, caused him to push his chair back and going around to her side to
+kneel with his head against her shoulder.
+
+Roger slipped out of the room, blowing his nose. He went into the back
+yard and sat scowling at the swimming pool until he heard the front door
+click on his father, then he went to bed.
+
+The following day when Roger went into the office, his father's coat was
+hanging on the accustomed hook, but his father was not there. Vaguely
+alarmed, Roger started a search through the factory. His alarm proved
+unfounded, for he discovered his father in the little building that had
+been the original factory. He looked up when Roger came in.
+
+"Look, Rog," he said. "I'd like to take this old machine up to the farm
+with us. We could store it somewhere. It's the first machine--the one I
+started business with."
+
+Roger nodded but could not speak. Moore looked around the room.
+
+"Well, I've had a good run for my hard work," he said, bitterly. "An old
+man at fifty and a worn out farm to spend my old age on."
+
+"You've got Mother and me. And why don't you start again, Father? I'd
+help."
+
+"I'm too old, Roger. I've lost my vim. We'll close the shop, to-day. A
+man's coming up from Chicago to buy in the machinery."
+
+A half hour later, Moore posted a great sign on the office door. "This
+factory goes out of business to-day." Then with the various keys of the
+buildings in his pocket, he went home. Roger hung about to see how the
+men took the news.
+
+By noon, the two hundred employees of the factory with many of their
+wives and children were gathered in the factory yard. At first they
+seemed cynically amused by what they called Moore's bluff. By
+mid-afternoon, however, after repeated assurances from Roger that his
+father was going to be a farmer, the crowd became surly. A strange man
+got up and made a speech. He said that capitalists like Moore should be
+destroyed, that men such as he were a menace to America. Roger, standing
+by Ole's side, saw suddenly in his inner mind his father's gray head on
+his mother's shoulder.
+
+"You lie, you dirty anarchist!" he roared, and heaved a brick at the
+speaker's head.
+
+There was an uproar. Some one helped the speaker wipe the blood out of
+his eyes and tied his head up, while Ole pinned both Roger's arms behind
+him.
+
+"They say that's Moore's boy threw that brick," cried the speaker. "Come
+up here, you hell cat, and show yourself to these downtrodden workmen."
+
+"Let me go, Ole," said Roger, with sudden calm. "I want to say
+something."
+
+Ole looked into Roger's blue eyes. "All right," he said, after a moment,
+"only if you get mad again, I can't answer for this crowd. They're
+sore."
+
+"I'm all right," muttered Roger, and he pushed his way to the office
+steps where the speaker stood. "Here I am," he cried; "what about it?"
+
+"Here he is," roared the stranger, pulling Roger round to face the
+crowd. "If he tries murder now, what'll he do when he has a factory of
+his own?"
+
+Roger thrust his trembling hands into his trousers pockets. "Don't you
+think it!" he shouted. "What do I want of a factory? To let a crowd of
+ignoramuses like you ruin me--just out of ignorance and envy? Not on
+your life! My father's going onto a farm and I'm going with him. I hope
+you're all satisfied."
+
+"Farm!" sneered the stranger. "Why, he'll have a bunch of scabs up here
+to-morrow. I know Moore!"
+
+What Roger might have said, one cannot know, for at that moment a man
+drove up in an automobile and shouldered his way up to the office door.
+He pulled a bunch of keys from his pocket as he mounted the steps.
+
+"Who are you?" asked Roger. "I'm Mr. Moore's son!"
+
+"I'm Mr. Wrench of Chicago. Trouble serious?"
+
+"No," replied the boy. "Just a lot of hot air."
+
+"One moment please," said the strange speaker. "There'll be serious
+trouble here if some questions aren't answered. What is your business
+here?"
+
+"I'm to see to the dismantling of the factory," answered Mr. Wrench,
+indifferently.
+
+A long breath seemed to rise from the listening crowd. Automatically it
+broke up into little groups and the best efforts of the strike leaders
+could not pull it together again. Roger felt that the excitement was all
+over and he made his way slowly home.
+
+At midnight that night a terrific explosion shook the little town of
+Eagle's Wing. Roger had not finished pulling on his clothes when the
+fire bells began to ring. He caught his father rushing out of the front
+door. Ernie and his father joined them and they followed other hurrying
+groups toward the factory.
+
+It was all ablaze, as well as several of the workmen's houses, which
+with the main factory building had been demolished by the explosion.
+Everybody asked questions at once and a hundred pairs of hands tried to
+help unreel the hose and bring it to bear on the main blaze.
+
+"Turn on the water!" shouted a fireman.
+
+"No! No!" roared a voice, and a man in his undershirt rushed up and
+tried to tear the hose away from those that directed it. It was Oscar.
+
+"No! Let her burn! Let her burn! We'll show that infernal hound of a
+Moore if he can take our chances away from us!"
+
+"Oh, then 'twas you!" cried Moore, and he leaped for Oscar.
+
+A dozen men sprang to pull them apart, but Roger was there first. He
+hung onto his father in desperate silence, while others pulled Oscar
+away. Mr. Wolf and Ernest followed the Moores as Roger led the way to a
+seat on a heap of débris.
+
+"There, old friend, there!" said Wolf. "Don't take it so hard! I know! I
+know! If it was my store it would break the heart of me. But we cannot
+break. We cannot."
+
+Roger kept his hand on his father's shoulder. Moore rested his head on
+his hand and said nothing.
+
+"It's all right, Daddy! You walloped him a good one," said Roger.
+
+"His old snoot was all over his face," added Ernest in a cheerful voice.
+
+"Hush, boys, come away for a little bit," said Mr. Wolf. And he led the
+two back toward the hose. But Roger would not go far. He loitered behind
+lest some one should molest that silent figure on the heap of débris.
+All the vicinity was brilliant with firelight. And standing waiting thus
+he saw a sight that he never was to forget. It was his father, bowing
+his head on a piece of the twisted, wrecked machinery--the machinery
+into which he had put the passionate hopes and dreams of his manhood.
+And moving nearer lest some one else should see, Roger saw that his
+father was sobbing as if indeed his heart was broken.
+
+That picture was to direct the entire course of Roger's life. For it
+never left him. And at first it filled his boyish mind with such
+bitterness that he could not hear of labor and its strivings and
+troubles without seeing red.
+
+But as the years on the farm slipped by and the atmosphere of
+competition and of feverish ambition gave place to the sweet silences,
+the quiet plodding, the placid sureness of farm living, the bitterness
+gave way to a dream.
+
+Gradually Roger ceased to blame the factory workmen who had destroyed
+his father, or to blame his father for the egotism and selfishness that
+had driven his employees into reckless stubbornness. He saw behind both
+the urge of the inevitable, unquenchable desire of human beings for
+happiness; for the happiness that comes only when men have sufficient
+leisure in which to expand their minds and souls.
+
+And as he grew older and read deeper it seemed to him that the solution
+lay only indirectly in any system of government. It seemed to him that
+until man had learned how to use directly and freely the power sources
+of nature, inequalities of wealth would always persist. And he had
+learned in one bitter lesson that unhappiness and economic inequality go
+hand in hand.
+
+And so Roger dreamed his dream. For many years it was such a mad seeming
+dream that he was ashamed to speak of it, even to Ernest. And yet it was
+simple enough in its first outlines.
+
+This was, Roger told himself, a machine age. The more perfect became
+man's use of machinery, the more leisure could he have and the more
+wealth. Ultimately man's efforts must concentrate on the effort to find
+power with which to drive the world's machinery. Coal was disappearing,
+water power was coming into its own. Was there not, however, some
+universal source of power that could be harnessed and given to the use
+of man? Some power that capital could not control nor labor misuse and
+destroy?
+
+It was thus that Roger came to study the possibilities of Solar Heat
+utilization. It was thus that he became the world's first and greatest
+pioneer in a new field of engineering--a field so mighty that it was to
+become the dean of all other fields of power engineering.
+
+He dreamed a dream of solving the problem of labor versus capital. He
+was to learn through years of heart breaking endeavor that neither
+capital nor labor has use for a dreamer of dreams no matter how
+practical the dreams may be, unless the dreamer is selfish enough, is
+grasping and ruthless enough to trample over other men to the top.
+
+Roger was to learn, before he achieved success, that a man's genius can
+go no higher than his character permits it to go. He was to learn that
+only out of a man's will to conquer himself can come the finest
+accomplishment of his work. And he was to learn that for most of us fate
+works with curious indirection. So that the story of Roger's dream deals
+not with a struggle between capital and labor, but with a man's struggle
+with solitudes; it deals not so much with machinery as with nature; and
+not so much with scientific facts as with human passions.
+
+Thus for most of us, if we could but see it so, life is not a matter of
+colorless and naked straight lines but is a rich mosaic made up of a
+thousand seemingly unimportant items.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+HOPES DEFERRED
+
+
+Although John Moore never became reconciled to the failure of his
+factory, still he was not really unhappy on the farm. There is something
+too normal, something too entirely natural about a return to the soil
+after middle age, to permit a man broken and worn, as was Roger's
+father, really to be discontented when working in his own fields.
+
+The farm never paid very well. After the first year or so they were
+obliged to mortgage it, and sometimes the interest was hard to meet. But
+after the stormy factory years, these anxieties seemed innocuous enough
+and Roger and his mother, anyway, were deeply happy.
+
+Roger made an old corn crib over into a laboratory. During his High
+School period, with his faithful henchman, Ernest, he spent all his free
+moments on various and mysterious experiments in the patched-up little
+shack. Many were the vile smells and the outrageous noises that floated
+out over the farm, but nobody complained, except Roger's mother, and she
+only mildly. No startling results were forthcoming from these
+experiments, but John Moore encouraged the boys in their attempts.
+
+"Chemistry was my weak point," he would say. "Get all you can of it,
+Rog. Perhaps you'll succeed where I failed."
+
+"All the chemistry in the world couldn't have run Ole Oleson for you,"
+Roger would reply.
+
+"No, but it would have made a real engineer of me," his father would say
+thoughtfully.
+
+When Roger was a freshman and sophomore in college, he suffered a
+complete relapse from his interest in experimental work, and his father
+was very much depressed, but both his mother and Dean Erskine laughed at
+Mr. Moore's fuming.
+
+"Let the poor child have his play time," said Alice Moore. "Between the
+farm work and that nasty laboratory the boy hasn't known anything but
+work since we came out here. If you'd had more chance to play, John
+dear, your nerves would be in better shape now. I'm glad he's learned to
+dance, bless him."
+
+"Give him his fling, Moore," said the Dean. "He was getting one sided,
+and he's way ahead of his class now, as a result of all his corn crib
+grinding. Football and girls won't hurt him at all for a year or so.
+I'll see to it that he doesn't neglect his work. If I'm any judge of men
+at all, that boy of yours is going far. You've no cause to worry."
+
+So Roger was not nagged at home. Somehow his father raised the money to
+pay a hired man so that except in the long summer vacations Roger was
+relieved from farm work. Until well into his junior year, he merely
+carried the required work in college and devoted all his excess energy
+to football and girls. He was notably successful in both fields. He was
+six feet tall, lean and muscular and a splendid half back. He was eager
+and chivalrous and had a charming smile and was a famous schemer of
+things to do, and places to go. The University was co-educational and
+Roger had no rival with the girls except perhaps Ernest. Ernest was
+whimsical and sweet and very musical, and he took the girls seriously,
+which Roger refused to do.
+
+But all the playing came to an end in Roger's junior winter. A venomous
+epidemic of La Grippe swept over the world that year and Roger's mother
+succumbed to it. A month after her death, John Moore gave in to
+pneumonia and early in February Roger found himself alone in the world.
+
+Roger escaped with only a mild attack of the disease, but the shock of
+his loss left him for a time, it seemed, spiritually and physically
+bankrupt. There was nothing left. The worn out farm was eaten up by
+mortgages. The stock and implements would only just pay food bills, the
+doctor, the funeral expenses.
+
+One cold gray afternoon Roger closed the gate for the last time and,
+suitcase in hand, started down the road to town. He had not covered half
+the distance when he met Ernest.
+
+"Hey, Rog, old man, I was just coming up. Where are you going?"
+
+"To Mrs. Winkler's. Got my room there for taking care of the furnace,
+walks, and any old thing."
+
+"Forget it!" exclaimed Ernest. "You're coming home with me until you get
+braced up. Mother and Dad said so."
+
+"That'll make it harder when I do get back. Besides, old lady Winkler
+might not hold the place for me." Roger spoke firmly. Nevertheless he
+allowed Ernest to help him with the suitcase and made no objection when
+his chum turned off Main Street toward the Wolf home.
+
+Mrs. Wolf kissed him and put him to bed, while Elsa brought a hot water
+bottle and a cup of hot milk. He hung about the house for several days,
+dreading the return to college and Mrs. Winkler. But Mrs. Wolf knew
+Roger almost as well as his own mother had known him. She left him alone
+until one snowy afternoon, after a prolonged absence in his room, he
+came into the kitchen with traces of tears about the eyes. Mother Wolf
+was paring apples for mince meat. Papa Wolf would eat no food not
+prepared by hers or Elsa's hands.
+
+"Help me with these nut meats, Roger, there's a good boy," she said.
+
+Roger sat down by the table with a long sigh and began to pick at the
+hickory nuts.
+
+"Elsa's gone to Choral Union practice," volunteered Mother Wolf. "Ernie
+is doing some laboratory work he said he was behind in. You must be
+getting somewhat behind, too, Roger."
+
+"I guess so," agreed Roger, indifferently.
+
+"Papa met Dean Erskine in the Post Office yesterday. The Dean said you
+were the most promising man in your class."
+
+"What good does that do," asked Roger, "when they're gone and can't
+know?"
+
+"How do you know they can't know?" asked the little woman sharply.
+"Older and wiser people than you believe otherwise. One thing is sure,
+that the only real thing you can do for your parents now is to carry on
+what they began. Life is short and there's no time to waste, Roger dear,
+no time to waste."
+
+"Are you getting tired of me here?" asked Roger quickly.
+
+Mother Wolf's pretty blue eyes filled with tears. "Do you have to be
+unkind, Roger?" she asked.
+
+"Forgive me!" he exclaimed. "I know you'd let me live here if you
+thought it would be good for me."
+
+There was silence. The coal range glowed and the snow without sifted
+endlessly past the window. Suddenly Roger rose and putting on his
+overcoat and cap went out into the storm.
+
+Dean Erskine was in the little office off the junior laboratory. Roger
+had not seen him since the day of his father's funeral, but he kept his
+voice and manner casual.
+
+"Good afternoon, Dean Erskine. How many hours am I behind in lab work?"
+
+The Dean too was off hand. "I've lost count, Roger."
+
+"It's sort of sniveling baby work, anyhow," said Roger. "I did it all
+once; up in the corn crib."
+
+"I know that," said Erskine. "That's why I've let you neglect it so
+outrageously. I had hopes too that you'd wake up and ask to do other
+things. But it seemed that you preferred experimenting with Welsh
+rarebits at Hepburn Hall and marshmallow sundaes at Allen's."
+
+Roger had the grace to blush. He grinned sheepishly, then said soberly:
+"I'm through with all that now."
+
+"Oh, it has its place in a normal man's life! Only you seem to have
+crowded several years of it into two. If you're not in training I don't
+mind if you smoke. Only close that door into the classroom."
+
+The Dean pulled out an outrageous old pipe. Roger closed the door, then
+lighted a cigarette. The two smoked in the silence of old friendship
+for a while, then Roger said,
+
+"Dean, what do you know about solar heat?"
+
+The Dean looked at him suspiciously. "The usual things. Why?"
+
+"I'm not trying to trip you," exclaimed Roger. "I've read all I can find
+on it, and that's darned little. You know those arrangements of mirrors
+in an umbrella-like frame, focussing the sun's rays on a point at the
+center, where the steam boiler is located?"
+
+"Yes," said the Dean.
+
+"Well, I don't believe the fellows that are working along that idea are
+right. The mechanism is hopelessly complicated, unwieldy and expensive."
+
+Erskine nodded, his gaze on Roger's dreaming eyes.
+
+"Ever since I was a kid," said the boy, slowly, "in fact ever since the
+factory went to pieces, I've had a pipe dream. It's sort of nutty, you
+know, and I suppose you'll think it's childish, but--"
+
+"Let's have it. I accept your apologies," said the Dean, smiling.
+
+And so Roger was launched for the first time on the telling of his
+dream. He was a little halting and incoherent at times, but his old
+friend listened attentively. When Roger had finished, he said,
+
+"It's a good dream, Roger, and sound in its general premises. Have you
+ever got down to brass tacks with it and tried to design a solar
+engine?"
+
+"No, I've only a lot of notes and sketches. It always seemed to cost so
+much that I never had courage to go any farther."
+
+Erskine refilled his pipe. "I have a dream too. Only mine is in pretty
+good working shape. My dream has been to turn out of this school men
+who were practical engineers but who also had ideas. Men who were never
+satisfied with a bridge, a motor, a gas engine after they had finished
+it, but would be forever trying to improve it. Such men, of course, are
+rare, but in the fifteen years I've been here, I've sent out five or six
+lads who have given American engineering a real lift. I haven't come
+across a fellow before though who had any concrete vision of the world's
+labor problems in relation to the inventing game."
+
+He fell to brooding and Roger waited patiently. Erskine finally looked
+up. "It's a big dream, boy. Too big for you or any other man to put over
+in a single generation. But we'll do what we can toward giving it a
+start. You cut out junior laboratory and get to work on your designs.
+When you finally get one that seems workable, we'll have the shops make
+a model." He paused, then rose and Roger rose too while the Dean put a
+hand on his broad young shoulder. "You've launched on the finest, most
+thankless, most compelling, most discouraging, most heart thrilling game
+in the world, Roger. You'll probably be poverty stricken all your life,
+but Lord! Lord! what riches of the mind will be yours!"
+
+Roger flushed and lifted his head in a gesture that was infinitely
+young.
+
+"I'm used to poverty, sir."
+
+"I know you are and so am I. Good night, Roger!"
+
+"Good night, Dean! Thank you!" and Roger, in spite of his grief,
+returned to the Wolfs' with his face set triumphantly toward the
+future.
+
+The next morning he deposited his suitcase in old lady Winkler's most
+meager and coldest bedroom and after he had stoked the furnace and
+shoveled the walks he bolted for the college drafting room.
+
+It was not until the fall of his senior year that Roger completed a
+design of a solar engine which Dean Erskine was willing to turn over to
+the University shops, that a model might be made. Roger had taken Ernest
+into his confidence and that faithful friend undertook to make all
+drawings for him. Ernest had no originality of mind, but he was an
+excellent workman and a first class mathematician and laboratory man.
+Early in January, the model was completed, and on a cold Saturday
+afternoon, the test was made. Roger and Ernest came home to the Wolfs'
+for supper deeply discouraged.
+
+"But why wouldn't it work?" asked Elsa, as the boys wiped the supper
+dishes for her.
+
+"If I knew that, I wouldn't be blue, would I?" grunted Roger.
+
+"I wish I understood the stuff you talk," Elsa went on. "I don't see how
+on a cold day like this you'd expect to run an engine with heat from the
+sun."
+
+"We didn't try to," said Ernest.
+
+"Didn't try to!" echoed Elsa. Then she banged the tea kettle angrily
+back on the stove. "I do think you boys are disgusting! Here I'm so
+interested in your work and you treat me as if I were a baby! And I'd
+like to know who does more for you two great hulks than I do. You simply
+disgust--"
+
+"Hold on, Elsa," roared Roger. "For the love of Mike! I'll confide the
+inmost secrets of my being to you if you'll stop jawing. Now listen!
+You can see that we can't get as high temperatures out of the sun's rays
+as we can out of burning coal or gasolene?"
+
+Elsa, much mollified, leaned against the sink and fastened her violet
+eyes on Roger's face.
+
+"I understand that," she said.
+
+"Wonderful!" murmured Ernest.
+
+Elsa made a face at her brother and Roger went on with a grin. "So I'm
+trying first of all to develop a practical, efficient engine that will
+run with the temperatures I'm able to get from Sun Heat."
+
+"And won't the model work at all? Not a bit?" asked Elsa.
+
+"She just sits and looks at me without moving a muscle," replied Roger.
+
+"Can't the Dean tell you what's the matter?" Elsa ventured.
+
+"The Dean!" snorted Ernest. "Isn't that just like a girl? Why, Roger
+knows more about low pressure engines in a minute than the Dean'll know
+in his whole life. Come on, Rog, if you've finished your kindergarten.
+Let's go up to see Florence King and her bunch at the Beta house. It
+will rest our brains."
+
+"Not for me," replied Roger. "I've done enough girling to last me a
+spell. I'll stay here and educate Elsa till she goes to choir practice,
+then I'm going home and bone on that design."
+
+"Sorry for you," sniffed Ernest, and was off.
+
+Roger deposited Elsa at the church door, then returned to Mrs.
+Winkler's. The light burned in his cold little room nearly all night.
+But when he went to bed, sketches for the complete redesigning of the
+engine lay on his table. And it was this changed design which he kept
+through all the vicissitudes of struggling to market his dream.
+
+During his senior year, Roger, with Ernest and other promising men of
+the graduating class, had several jobs offered him by different
+manufacturing and engineering concerns. In the earlier days of the
+University, a young graduate of the School of Engineering had been
+looked on with contempt by the business men of the state. He was a
+"book" engineer to them, just as a graduate of the School of Agriculture
+was a "book" farmer to the farmers of the state.
+
+But, as the years had gone on, it was observed that the minor jobs,
+obtained with difficulty by the men whom Dean Erskine had trained and
+recommended, nearly always became jobs of fundamental importance. The
+observation bore fruit. Little by little "Dean Erskine men" were
+scattered across the continent until even as early as Roger's graduating
+year, it was the custom of engineering concerns and manufacturers to
+watch the Dean's laboratories closely and to bespeak the services long
+before commencement of every promising lad in the class.
+
+By the Dean's advice, however, Roger did not accept any of these
+positions. He decided to take an instructorship in the University and
+keep on with his experiments in solar engineering. Both he and Erskine
+felt that in a couple of years, at most, Roger would have something
+practical to offer the world. Ernest also took an instructorship,
+working toward his doctor's degree. His father was delighted. He was
+immensely proud of Ernest's work in college, and a full professorship
+for Ernest would have meant as much to Papa Wolf as the national
+presidency for his boy.
+
+The two years flew rapidly. The summer that he was twenty-five, Roger,
+armed with letters of introduction from the Dean, and a roll of
+drawings, went to Chicago. He was about to market his dream and he
+proposed to give the two summer months to the job. After that--well, the
+possibilities staggered even Roger's imagination, which was an active
+one.
+
+Haskell and Company, makers of Gas-Engines! The sign was as
+inconspicuous as the firm was famous in the middle West. Roger, after
+two days of waiting, was staring at the faded gilt letters until the
+moment of his interview with Mr. Haskell arrived. He was a little
+uncertain about the knees, but very sanguine for all that. Mr. Haskell,
+a small man with a grizzled beard, sat behind a desk in a room that was
+small and dingy. The desk seemed to Roger an unnecessarily long way from
+the door, as he advanced under Mr. Haskell's eyes.
+
+"Well, Sir, so you're one of Erskine's men. Ought to be good. Solar
+engine, though, doesn't sound cheerful. What's the idea?"
+
+Roger unrolled his drawings and began his explanations. Haskell listened
+with keen interest, asking questions now and again. When Roger, flushed
+of cheek, had finished, Haskell lighted his cigar, which had gone out.
+
+"Very clever! Very clever! A nice little experiment. What do you want to
+do with it?"
+
+"I want you to manufacture and sell these solar heat plants," replied
+Roger boldly.
+
+"I see. But are you sure such a plant is practicable?"
+
+"Absolutely!"
+
+"Where have you had one working?"
+
+"At the University."
+
+"You mean in the laboratory."
+
+Roger nodded. Haskell cleared his throat and looked over Roger's black
+head for a minute, then he said:
+
+"My dear fellow, I am a business man, not a philanthropist. When you can
+come to me and say, 'I've got a plant in Texas and one in Mississippi
+and one in Egypt and they've worked for, say two years, and the folks
+want more,' why, then you'll interest me. But I don't see putting a
+hundred thousand dollars into a laboratory experiment, however clever."
+
+Roger's clear blue eyes, still unsophisticated despite his twenty-five
+years, did not flinch. There was a perceptible pause, however, before he
+said:
+
+"But, Mr. Haskell, how am I going to get a dozen plants into use unless
+some one manufactures and installs them for me?"
+
+"Some one will have to do just that. But you'll have to pay for it."
+
+"But I thought great concerns like yours," persisted Roger, "were
+constantly looking for new developments."
+
+"We are. But frankly, Mr. Moore, your whole idea is too visionary. Some
+day, undoubtedly, we shall have solar engineering. But that day is
+several generations away. We have coal and all its by-products and water
+power is just beginning to come into its own."
+
+"Coal would have to retail at a dollar a ton to compete with my solar
+device in a hot climate," interrupted Roger.
+
+"Very interesting if true! But you've erected no plant in a hot climate.
+I'll tell you what I will do though, Mr. Moore. I could very well use
+your unusual knowledge of heat transmission in my concern. I'll give you
+three thousand a year to begin with."
+
+Roger got slowly to his feet, rolling up his drawings. "Thank you, Mr.
+Haskell. But I think I'll stick to my solar engine."
+
+Haskell rose too. "An inventor's life is hell, my boy. Better come in
+out of the rain."
+
+"But why should it be hell?" asked Roger. "The inventor is the very
+backbone of the industrial life of the world."
+
+"I know it. But for every good invention offered there are a thousand
+poor ones. We who pay the piper have to be careful."
+
+"I'm much obliged to you for giving me so much time," said Roger,
+picking up his hat.
+
+"Not at all. And remember that my offer to you is a permanent one."
+
+Roger grinned, and left the office.
+
+Outside the building he drew a long breath, stared abstractedly at the
+passing crowd, then drew out his second letter of introduction. James
+Howe and Sons Company, Marine Engines. Roger decided to walk to his
+second meeting. It would give him time to collect his thoughts. The walk
+was a long one and by the time he had covered the distance his hopes had
+soared again.
+
+James Howe and Sons Company did not seem overjoyed by the letter of
+introduction and for some time it seemed as if Roger could not pass the
+young woman who guarded the main office door. He was finally admitted,
+however, to the office of Mr. Hearn, the general manager. Hearn was a
+man of forty, full faced and ruddy.
+
+"I get the idea! I get the idea!" he said impatiently when Roger was
+about half way through his explanations.
+
+Roger flushed. "You can't possibly, Mr. Hearn. I haven't reached the
+main idea yet."
+
+"I've got enough to convince me that you're hopelessly impractical. Give
+it up, young man! Give it up and get into something that'll pay the bill
+at the corner grocery. Solar power is about as practical as wave power.
+Fit merely for the dreams of poets. Sorry not to be able to give you
+more time. Good day! Miss Morris, call in the foundry boss."
+
+Roger found himself in the street before he had finished rolling up his
+drawings. "Well, I'll be hanged!" he muttered. Then he suddenly smiled.
+"I think I came down here with an idea that we'd be turning out machines
+in a couple of months! Gee, if I'm landed by Christmas, I'll be lucky."
+He pulled out the third letter of introduction, and his head lifted
+defiantly, started off to present it.
+
+The Dean had been generous with his letters, but by the end of the first
+week in Chicago, Roger had presented them all. Curiously enough, in all
+this week of meeting with manufacturers Roger told but one of them his
+ultimate dream. John McGinnis, maker of kerosene engines, was elderly
+and Irish and immensely interested in Roger and his idea.
+
+He slapped Roger on the back. "It's a grand idea, me boy! If I wasn't
+just about to retire, hanged if I wouldn't help you to build one plant.
+How come you ever to take up solar heat though, with the world all
+howling for a real kerosene engine?"
+
+They were sitting in McGinnis' pleasant office, the windows of which
+overlooked Lake Michigan. The old man had cocked his feet up on his
+mahogany desk and had about him an air of leisurely interest. He gave
+Roger the mate to the long brown cigar he himself was smoking and after
+a few minutes Roger said, hesitatingly:
+
+"When I was a kid of fourteen, labor difficulties ruined my father. He
+owned a little plow factory, employing a couple of hundred men. I got a
+good deal of the men's side for I worked as a forge boy that summer, but
+after the crash, for a long time, I was all for father's side of the
+matter. Gradually though, I began to think differently.
+
+"I began to be sorry for the men as well as for my father. They were
+hardworking, ambitious chaps who wanted to get ahead, just as my father
+did. They took the only way they saw for getting ahead. They didn't
+believe that just because father was the brain of the concern, he should
+be well-to-do and they poor.
+
+"I couldn't find any system of government that I was convinced would
+remove the economic inequalities that were the root of the trouble. So I
+began to think about sources of wealth. You can see how my mind fastened
+first on machinery, then on power, then on quantity and accessibility of
+power; then solar heat."
+
+McGinnis nodded, then smiled. "You're a damn queer inventor. What do you
+expect to get out of it?"
+
+"All any man can get on the physical side out of anything is a living,"
+replied Roger. "What I am getting and expect to have more of, is some
+great adventures."
+
+McGinnis smoked for a while and said, "If I were twenty-five instead of
+seventy, I'd look at it as you do. Being seventy I have to say to you,
+me boy, that though some day you may work out a practical plant for hot
+countries, you'll never solve the labor problem. As long as human nature
+exists we'll have social inequalities. But, after all, as long as you
+contribute something real to the world in the way of a power idea, devil
+a bit does it matter what motive put you at the job."
+
+Roger smoked in silence.
+
+"Had any encouragement in Chicago?" asked the older man.
+
+"Not a bit," replied Roger, cheerfully. "But the trip has done me good.
+I've learned that I can't sell an idea. I've got to sell a working
+plant."
+
+"Right you are! And with the patent situation fully covered. Those
+drawings of yours are full of interesting suggestions for makers of any
+kind of engines. Philanthropic of you to show them about Chicago."
+
+"By Jove!" exclaimed Roger, with a startled air. "I guess I'd better
+beat it back to Eagle's Wing until I get out of swaddling clothes. I
+supposed the firm that would take this up would take care of the
+patents. I don't know anything about patents myself."
+
+"Better learn," said McGinnis. "Many of your ideas are clever and need
+protection."
+
+Roger laughed ruefully. "I thought," he confessed, "that I'd have the
+thing marketed in a couple of months."
+
+"Listen," said the old man. "On the average the man who has an invention
+that is of fundamental significance gives his life to perfecting and
+marketing it, then dies hungry. Do you get me?"
+
+"But there are exceptions, aren't there?" insisted Roger.
+
+"Yes, but no such pipe dream as you have there," pointing to the
+drawings, "could be an exception."
+
+"Would you advise me to give it up?" Roger asked curiously.
+
+"I would not. That's your job. Civilization owes its existence to chaps
+like you."
+
+Roger, face flushed, black hair rumpled, blue eyes glowing, rose to go.
+
+"I can't exactly thank you," he mumbled. "Only," his voice
+strengthening, "if I hadn't met you, I'd have gone back home discouraged
+and almost as ignorant as I left. As it is, I feel in bully fighting
+trim."
+
+Old John McGinnis got to his feet. "God bless you, my lad. When I'm
+twanging a harp, up above, I'll be having an interested eye on you."
+
+Roger started back to Eagle's Wing that evening. Ernest and Dean Erskine
+were both deeply interested in Roger's report, which he gave in the
+Dean's library the night he reached home.
+
+"Pshaw! I should have told you a lot of things that would have helped
+you," exclaimed the Dean when Roger had finished. "But one forgets up
+here in the classroom how the war rages out in the industrial world."
+
+"Will patents cost a lot?" inquired Ernest. "You know I don't use all my
+salary. Draw at will, old man."
+
+"Thanks, old top," replied Roger. "Since I cut out girls and golf, I've
+been saving a bit myself."
+
+"The patents won't cost a great deal, if you do the work yourself,
+Roger," said the Dean. "But it's going to take time to learn the patent
+game."
+
+"Well," said Roger, with a sigh, "if I've got to become a patent
+attorney in order to patent my ideas, I suppose I can. But gee, I am
+glad I don't want to get married. You were wise in not letting me give
+up that instructorship, Dean, as I wanted to."
+
+Dean Erskine smiled ruefully. "Seems to have been about the only sane
+advice I've given you."
+
+"Don't you think it, sir!" exclaimed Roger. "If I ever do get away with
+this, yours will be the credit."
+
+"And Ernest's," added the Dean.
+
+"You bet, Ernest! And now, I'm going out to the University library and
+read up on patents," said Roger, with the familiar squaring of the
+shoulders.
+
+He had need to square his shoulders: a greater need than either he or
+his two devoted friends could dream. For as the months slipped into
+years, it seemed more and more obvious that either Roger's ideas were
+utterly impractical or else that he was actually several generations
+ahead of his time. In his brilliant, yet thoroughgoing way, Roger
+studied patent law and registered two years after his trip to Chicago
+_as_ a patent attorney in Washington. He worked constantly on the
+development of his plant, improving here, discarding there, until he had
+reached the point, he felt, where he could do no more until he had funds
+for a practical plant, in a hot climate.
+
+He and the Dean and Ernest estimated that not less than fifty thousand
+dollars would be essential for such an initial plant. The sum might
+have been fifty million for all its accessibility to Roger. Most of the
+wealthy men whom Roger was able to reach admitted the cleverness and the
+interest of his ideas. None of them could be persuaded that the idea
+would be a good investment. Once in desperation Roger went to Chicago to
+a firm whose letter heads read "Bankers, Stocks and Bonds, Promoters,
+Investments." Roger was turned over to a young man who wore a garnet
+ring and who was at the head of the Engineering Investments Department.
+The two had several long sessions. Then the man of the garnet ring
+proposed that a company be organized for half a million dollars and that
+his company undertake to sell the stock. Roger was much encouraged.
+
+"That's fine," he said. "How long would it take to raise fifty thousand
+dollars?"
+
+"Not long," replied the young promoter, whose name was Eaton. "Of
+course, you understand that the first money will have to go for office
+expenses and salaries."
+
+"Whose salaries?" asked Roger. "I don't want any and I need only a few
+day laborers."
+
+"You don't get me." Eaton was patient. "I'm speaking of the Solar
+Company's Chicago office."
+
+"Shucks! We don't want an office in Chicago. What we want is a plant in
+Arizona."
+
+"If you think we can sell stock in a nutty scheme like this without
+plenty of mahogany furniture and high sounding titles on glass doors,
+you're even greener than I thought you were," said Eaton.
+
+Roger looked at him thoughtfully. "Oh, I see!" he said after a moment.
+"When would you want to begin on this work?"
+
+"As soon as you can raise a little preliminary expense money for us, say
+$1500."
+
+"Oh," said Roger again. "Of course, you realize that the only thing that
+will give that stock any value is building plants with the money we get
+from selling it."
+
+"Why, certainly! But we must make a right start. An office in your
+bedroom may go in Eagle's Wing but not in Chicago."
+
+"Oh!" said Roger for a third and last time. And the conference adjourned
+sine die.
+
+Something about this interview depressed Roger profoundly.
+
+He went home, locked up his drawings and threw an old canvas over the
+model of the solar engine that had stood for so many years in a corner
+of the graduate laboratory. It was six months before he could induce
+himself to touch his work again. And it dawned on him that his twenties
+were slipping by and that he was becoming unsociable and grave. But
+there seemed no remedy for the matter. His dream had become the most
+vital part of his life, and would not let him lead a normal existence.
+Such is the price that a dreamer pays for his vision.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE NEW DAY
+
+
+Roger, climbing the steps to the Science Building on the day that he was
+thirty years old, wondered if his working life was to end as it had
+begun within its ugly walls.
+
+The building stood at the western edge of the campus. It was a Gothic,
+Jacobean, Victorian composite, four stories high, built of yellow
+sandstone, marble and brick. It boasted a round dome, rising from a
+Gothic main roof and a little pagoda-like tower on each of the mansard
+roofs that crowned the two wings. There had been a time when to Roger
+the Science Building had been beautiful. But he saw its ugliness now and
+laughed about it with Ernest.
+
+On this December afternoon, Roger stayed late in the laboratory with
+twenty seniors who for some weeks had been carrying on strength tests of
+varying mixtures of concrete. The sun was low in the west and the
+corners of the huge old room were dark. But a red glow from the west
+window filled its center, turning the concrete briquettes piled on the
+table in the middle of the room to gold.
+
+Roger stood by the table, examining the students' reports on the
+fractured briquettes. His black hair, with the sunset full upon it, was
+like molten bronze. Roger's face had changed in the years since his
+undergraduate days. His figure was the same, six feet of lean muscle;
+his eyes were as blue and his face as thin and intellectual as when as a
+small boy he had dreamed of an underground railway. But there had grown
+subtly into his face a look of grimness and unhappiness that robbed it
+of the youth it still should have retained.
+
+A shock headed student came to the table with a briquette.
+
+"How does the thesis go, Hallock?" asked Roger.
+
+"Slow, just now, Mr. Moore."
+
+"What's the trouble?"
+
+"Oh, the best of the information is in German and I'm rotten at
+scientific German."
+
+"You've taken the required work in German, haven't you, Hallock?"
+
+"Squeezed through by a hair's breadth," the boy answered with a grin.
+
+Roger grunted. "Neglected it, of course, when you've been told time and
+time again that a reading knowledge of scientific German is essential to
+research success. I wonder why an undergraduate has to be a fool?"
+
+"I'm not a fool," contradicted Hallock flatly.
+
+"Any man's a fool who's working his way through college and fails to get
+the most he can out of every course offered him. I know, because I
+worked my way through my last two years, neglected my German and had to
+make it up after I graduated. That thesis will make or mar you as far as
+your first job goes. Who'd you have your second year German with? If I
+were you, I'd take a semester of it over again."
+
+"I'd rather never get a diploma than go back to old Rosenthal."
+
+"Mr. Rosenthal," corrected Roger sharply. "Speak respectfully of an
+instructor."
+
+"Aw," exclaimed Hallock, now evidently angry, "why should I speak
+respectfully of a beer-guzzling Dutchman who sneers at the girls in the
+class every time they recite?"
+
+There was sudden silence in the room. Hallock was evidently relieving an
+accumulation of irritation. "If I had been Miss Anderson this morning
+I'd have slapped his fat face for him."
+
+"Be careful, Hallock! I can't permit you to talk this way to me about a
+member of the faculty."
+
+"Then you're no better than he!" shouted Hallock. "The damned Dutch run
+this college and I'm sick of it."
+
+There was a sudden murmur of agreement from the highly edified audience
+now grouped behind Hallock. This was an old sore that had existed in
+Roger's own days under Rosenthal.
+
+"Pshaw, I know all about Mr. Rosenthal's peccadillos, Hallock," he said.
+"But he's a teacher and scholar of the first water. Girls always take
+general remarks personally. Miss Anderson had better forget it, whatever
+it was. Girl hysteria, probably."
+
+Hallock suddenly began to cry with rage. "Hysteria, damn you, don't you
+insult her too!" Then, as an angry sneer appeared on Roger's face, he
+unexpectedly leaned over the table and punched Roger on the nose.
+
+Roger vaulted over the table and with a rapid clip laid Hallock flat.
+The boy was on his feet in a moment, crying, but game. The edified
+audience held the two apart.
+
+"You don't know what the Dutch slob said! You don't know," sobbed
+Hallock.
+
+Roger did not speak. In fact he could not. He stood white and trembling
+for some time, a scarlet trickle of blood running from one nostril. His
+struggle for control was so obvious that even Hallock perceived it and
+was silent. With the other lads he stood in embarrassment while the
+laboratory clock ticked and the end of the winter sunset filled the
+room.
+
+It seemed to Roger that the fight was as difficult now as it had been
+years before, when he had struck his mother's soothing hand from his
+shoulder and later had kissed that same hand and had wept his heart out
+with his cheek upon it. In the brief moment as he stood with clenched
+fists and bowed head, waiting for the red mist to give way to his normal
+vision it seemed as if all his life passed in review before him tinged
+with the hot glare of his mental and spiritual tempests. Then, as many,
+many times before, he seemed to feel the gentle hand, that he had
+struck, laid softly on his forehead. He heaved a great sigh and looked
+up.
+
+"The class is dismissed," he said. "Hallock, hold a snowball to your
+chin as you go home."
+
+When the class had left the room, Roger washed his face at the sink in
+the corner, wiping his hands on a towel that was gray with age. Then, he
+dropped the towel and stood leaning against the table, head bowed, arms
+folded.
+
+The gloaming increased. A cheerful whistle sounded in the hall and
+Ernest came in.
+
+"Well, old top? Ready to go home?"
+
+"Ern, do you know a girl named Anderson?"
+
+"Yes, very pretty. Engaged to young Hallock, they say. What about her?
+Don't tell me you've begun to be interested again in petticoats."
+
+"I had the deuce of a row with Hallock, just now," said Roger.
+
+"Change your clothes as you tell me about it," suggested Ernest. "It's
+late."
+
+Roger obediently started for the closet, talking from the door as he
+dressed. Ernest lighted his pipe and listened thoughtfully under the
+electric light he had turned on. He was a shorter man than Roger and
+stockily built. He was still very fair, with soft yellow hair already
+receding from a broad forehead. His eyes were beautiful, a deep violet,
+soft dreaming eyes that men as well as women trusted instinctively.
+
+"I'm sure you've seen Miss Anderson," he said when Roger had finished.
+"She's a funny foolish little thing. Just the kind to attract an
+unsocialized grind like Hallock. I guess there was a good deal of a row
+in Rosenthal's class this morning. One of the seniors told me. Rosenthal
+said to Miss Anderson--say, Rog, you're not listening."
+
+Roger picked up his hat. "I don't care what Rosenthal said. He always
+was a boor. The point with me is that I've lost my temper in the
+classroom for the last time. Come on, Ern."
+
+They were crossing the snowy campus before Ernest spoke. Then he laid
+his hand on his friend's arm.
+
+"The fool kid brought it on himself. I can see how he got worked up. You
+can be exasperating and he gave you what he'd like to have given
+Rosenthal. Nevertheless, no man can take a crack on the chin with a
+thank you, Roger."
+
+Roger did not reply. They turned into River Street where the street
+lights flashed through the bare branches of the elms. An occasional
+sleigh jingled by. Lights glowed from pleasant windows where children
+were silhouetted against the curtains. Ernest stopped before the big,
+comfortable Wolf house.
+
+"Come in to supper, Roger."
+
+"I'll not be good company, Ern," but Roger's voice was wistful.
+
+"Come along! Mother doesn't mind your grouches, and I guess the rest of
+us can endure one more."
+
+Roger turned up the brick path that led to the door.
+
+"Hello, boys!" Elsa called, as the front door slammed. "You're late!"
+
+Elschen at twenty-nine was still very pretty in an unobtrusive way. Her
+yellow hair was thick and curly. Her eyes were like Ernest's and her
+skin was fair, with a velvety flush in her delicately rounded cheeks.
+
+"Supper's ready," she went on. "Papa just came in. Don't keep him
+waiting, children."
+
+Roger and Ernest went quickly into the dining room where Papa Wolf was
+just sitting down. He nodded to them over his spectacles, then helped
+himself to a slice of meat.
+
+"Where's Mamma?" asked Ernest, passing the bread to Roger.
+
+"Here, liebchen!" Mamma Wolf came in, carrying a steaming coffee pot.
+She set it down, then hurried round the table to kiss first Ernest, then
+Roger.
+
+"You know Rog can't eat without you, Mütterchen," laughed Ernest.
+
+"He doesn't get his manners from the Germans," snapped Elsa.
+
+"Never mind! I've gotten the only home life I've known in eight years
+from them," returned Roger. He and Mamma Wolf exchanged an affectionate
+glance.
+
+"Pass the biscuits, Elsa," said Papa Wolf.
+
+"Going anywhere to-night, Elsa?" asked Ernest.
+
+"Yes, we have choir practice every night from now to Christmas."
+
+"The carols are beautiful!" exclaimed Mamma Wolf. "I heard them last
+night when I stopped by the church for Elsa. Ernest, pass your papa the
+preserves and put the cake where he can reach it. It's fresh, Papa,
+never fear. I only finished frosting it as you came in." Mamma Wolf
+looked at her husband a little anxiously.
+
+"That Smithsonian man telephoned you again this afternoon, Ernest," said
+Elsa. "He wanted to call this evening and I told him to come along."
+
+"I wonder what he wants," mused Roger. "He's been hanging round for a
+long time."
+
+"Pass the biscuits, Ernest," from Papa Wolf. "The cake is very bad,
+Mamma."
+
+"Oh, Papa, is it? And I took such trouble!" The distress in the gentle
+voice made Roger scowl.
+
+"In America, Papa," Elsa's voice was mocking, "where you have lived for
+some forty years, it is not considered courteous to criticize the food
+at the table."
+
+"Hush, Elschen! Papa can say what he wishes, always, to me. Is it not
+so, Karl?"
+
+Papa Wolf pushed away his plate, wiped his mustache and leaned back in
+his chair with a smile and a sigh of repletion.
+
+"You spoil us all, Mamma!" he exclaimed. "Elsa, Uncle Hugo comes
+to-night and we will have a little music. You will give up choir
+practice, just for once."
+
+Ernest glanced at his sister apprehensively. She flushed resentfully.
+"But I must go, Papa!" she cried. "I take the salary the church pays me.
+I must sing well."
+
+"Laughing and flirting with the new bass is not practice," returned
+Papa. "You stay at home to-night, Elschen."
+
+Elsa glanced at Ernest, who shrugged his shoulders. Then she gave a long
+look at her father with eyes that were black with anger.
+
+"Papa, I'm going to choir practice," she insisted.
+
+Her father brought his fist down on the table. "Am I or am I not master
+in my own house?" he shouted. "Elsa, what you have needed was a German
+upbringing. You will stay at home to-night and make music with Hugo and
+me."
+
+"Papa," said Elsa slowly, "I am twenty-nine years old and I can't endure
+this sort of thing much longer. Mother and I are just unpaid servants
+for--"
+
+"Elsa! Bitte! Bitte sehr!" exclaimed Mother Wolf.
+
+Elsa's dark look went to her mother, then to Roger, who was still
+scowling. Her lips trembled. She shrugged her shoulders and rising began
+to clear the table.
+
+The three men went into the library and lighted their pipes. Papa Wolf,
+having with much difficulty persuaded his meerschaum to draw, parted his
+coat-tails and settled himself on the piano stool. Then he threw his
+head back while he touched a few quiet chords. He had a beautiful,
+massive head. Roger, ensconced in a deep Morris chair, thought, as he
+had thought many times before, that it was a head that should have
+belonged to an artist rather than to a dry goods merchant. The chords
+merged into a quiet melody. Ernest buried his head in the evening paper.
+Roger let his pipe go out and his face settled into lines that added ten
+years to his age.
+
+The subdued clatter of dishes from the kitchen finally ceased and Elsa
+came through the room. Her father stopped her as she passed and put his
+arm about her waist.
+
+"Sweetheart, don't be cross with me," he said. "It's just that Papa so
+loves to have his little girl with him."
+
+Elsa put her hand on his gray head and looked down into his face but
+said nothing.
+
+"Come now," he went on, "sing a little song of forgiveness with me."
+
+Still with his arm about her he played with one hand and sang as he
+played:
+
+    "Du, du! liegst mir im Herzen!
+    Du, du! liegst mir im Sinn!
+    Du! du! machst mir viel Schmerzen
+    Weiss nicht wie gut ich dir bin."
+
+There was a sudden ring at the doorbell and with a little laugh that was
+half a sob, Elsa hurried to let Uncle Hugo in. He was tall, thin and
+blonde, yet his resemblance to Mamma Wolf, his sister, was unmistakable.
+
+"So! We make a little music to-night," he boomed in a rich bass, "and
+the audience is set," bowing ironically to Roger, still in the clouds,
+and Ernest, his head still in the paper. "Where is the Mütterchen?"
+
+"Coming in a minute," called Mamma, from the dining room. "I can hear.
+Go ahead."
+
+Elsa sat down at the piano. Papa Wolf opened his 'cello case. Uncle Hugo
+put his silver flute to his lips and played a tentative sweet note. In a
+moment the strains of Schubert's Serenade, exquisitely rendered, filled
+the quiet house. Roger relighted his pipe and let it go out. Whenever
+over her shoulder, Elsa cast a quick glance at him, his gaze was
+fastened intently on the ceiling.
+
+For an hour the music continued without interruption. Then the doorbell
+rang again and Ernest went to answer it.
+
+"Come into the den so we won't disturb the concert," Roger heard him
+say. "Rog, come in here, will you?"
+
+Roger obediently made his way into a little room off the dining room,
+devoted to the men of the household. A short smooth-shaven, sandy-haired
+man was standing by the reading table. Roger and he shook hands.
+
+"I've been talking to Dr. Austin a good deal about your solar heat
+apparatus, Rog," said Ernest, "and he's got a proposition to make. Let's
+sit down and talk it out."
+
+He pushed a jar of tobacco toward Austin and the three men, eyeing one
+another with frank interest, settled themselves in the easy chairs which
+Ernest indicated with a nod.
+
+"I think Ernest said that you represent the Smithsonian Institute,"
+Roger said. "What do you want to do? Put my engine in your museum?" This
+with a short laugh.
+
+Austin shook his head. "I see you are about as ignorant as the rest of
+the world as to the real nature of our work. Confess now!"
+
+Ernest smiled. "I suppose I've been reading papers and reports from the
+Smithsonian for ten years, but until I met you, Mr. Austin, I was
+certainly vague about who or what the work represented. Go ahead and
+give Moore the explanation you gave me, will you?"
+
+"Well," began Austin, "an Englishman named Smithson left his estate to
+his nephew named Hungerford with the stipulation that if Hungerford died
+without heirs, the state was to go to found the Smithsonian Institution
+in America. Hungerford obligingly died without issue. It was in 1835, I
+think, and after a great deal of red tape, about half a million dollars
+was turned over to the American Congress to go to work with.
+
+"Of course, Congress did considerable false stepping but finally the
+Institution was organized with the avowed purpose of increasing and
+diffusing knowledge. Rather a large program, eh! It was proposed to
+carry this program out by stimulating talented men to make original
+researches by offering prizes, by appropriating every year a sum of
+money for particular researches and by every year publishing reports on
+the progress of difficult branches of knowledge.
+
+"The original bequest has been increased until now the Institution has
+use of the income on a million dollars. You'll be surprised to know how
+much real work has been done by this very little advertised branch of
+our government. For example, out of the system of weather observation
+developed by the Institution grew the United States Weather Bureau. The
+United States Ethnological Research is all done by us--as witness the
+monumental studies of our American Indians. Powell's great explorations
+were fathered by the Smithsonian and so were Langley's experiments in
+flying machines as well as his studies of solar heat."
+
+"My word!" exclaimed Roger, "so they were!"
+
+"When I was in the northern part of the state, last summer, studying
+certain Indian mounds, I ran across one of your fellow instructors who
+mentioned your work in heat engineering. I've always been much
+interested in that line of research, so when I came West again I tried
+to get in touch with you."
+
+"I'm not hard to reach, surely," said Roger.
+
+"Oh, yes, you are," returned Austin.
+
+"It was this way, Rog," Ernest's lazy, gentle voice interrupted. "I kept
+Dr. Austin away from you until I felt that there was some hope. I didn't
+want you to have another disappointment."
+
+"As I got your idea from Mr. Wolf, it seems to me that the Smithsonian
+might be glad to back you in further experiments," said Austin.
+
+Roger's thin face flushed as it was apt to do when his work was under
+discussion. "This is mighty kind of you, Dr. Austin, but my work has
+gone beyond the experimental stage. I'm ready to erect Solar Power
+Plants if I can find the money."
+
+"Rog, you're not ready!" cried Ernest, with unusual vehemence. "You've
+no idea of the troubles you'll be up against when you try actually to
+erect a working plant, in a hot country."
+
+"I'm not afraid," returned Roger shortly. "One thing is certain, I'm not
+going on experimenting any longer."
+
+"My understanding of your device is, that it is practical only in
+tropical or semi-tropical climates," said Austin.
+
+"This first device is, yes," answered Roger shortly. "If I can ever get
+this one launched, I shall take up other climates."
+
+Austin eyed Roger keenly for a moment, then he said suddenly,
+
+"Why don't you let me see your plans? We might possibly have something
+to say that would interest you."
+
+"Oh, of course! I wish I had some of them here. And it's too late to go
+up to the laboratory to-night."
+
+"Wait a moment, Roger! Wait a moment," exclaimed Ernest. "Praying that
+we'd get to this point to-night, I brought down a set of drawings." He
+unlocked a drawer of the table and pulled out a roll of paper.
+
+Roger spread some of the sheets on the table and the black, the yellow
+and the sandy heads bent over them.
+
+"This," began Roger, "is the general ground plan of a plant designed to
+produce about 50 horse power. This detail here, which looks like a
+design for a glassed-in hot bed for early cabbage, is the heat absorber.
+It consists of a trough lined with some insulating material, covered
+with two layers of ordinary window glass. Under this window glass I flow
+crude oil, which absorbs the sun's heat as it comes through the glass. I
+get some remarkable temperatures, right here in Eagle's Wing. Here is a
+month's thermometer readings during July."
+
+Austin studied the table thoughtfully. "The heated oil is the fuel for
+a low pressure engine. What engine do you use?"
+
+"One of my own design. Here are the drawings."
+
+Austin bent over these with absorbed interest and for an hour Roger
+answered his questions. At the end of this time, Austin lighted his
+pipe, which had gone out, and took a turn or two up and down the room.
+Then he paused suddenly in front of Roger and said, "Why don't you go
+down into Arizona and put up a small pumping plant as an experiment for
+the Smithsonian? I know this is not the large way, the commercial way,
+but I am convinced that this is the careful, practical way. Your friend
+Wolf tells me that the most popular reason given by the business houses
+you've visited for turning you down has been that you've never actually
+erected a working plant. Why not try it for us? Then you'll be in a
+position to talk business."
+
+Roger, his face a still deeper red, looked from Austin to Ernest and
+back again. He relighted his pipe with fingers that shook.
+
+"How big a plant?" he asked huskily.
+
+"Big enough to irrigate about twenty-five acres of desert for alfalfa.
+I'm convinced that when you actually undertake to put such a plant in
+operation, you'll realize that there are details to be remade that you
+never dreamed of, on paper."
+
+Roger did not speak for a moment. Five years ago he would have refused
+such an offer as this, without hesitation. It was very different, this,
+from turning out say a thousand units in six months. Yet, so long had
+hope been deferred that Roger hesitated, not for lack of enthusiasm for
+Austin's offer, but because the sudden joy that rose within him made it
+difficult to speak. Finally he turned to Ernest, who was watching him
+with a look of inexpressible satisfaction in his beautiful eyes.
+
+"Will you go with me, Ern?"
+
+"The family will kick, but I'm going," answered Ernest.
+
+"What are the terms, Dr. Austin?" asked Roger.
+
+"We'll buy all machinery and apparatus and pay for labor and living up
+to ten thousand dollars."
+
+Roger could not believe that his sterile years of endeavor and
+disappointment were to bring forth even this small fruit. He laid his
+pipe down, picked it up, then said, "I can't tell you what this
+opportunity means to me. It's--it's my work, you see, and--and--"
+
+"That's all right," Austin spoke hastily. "When can you start? I know
+exactly the spot in Arizona that we would wish you to go to--Archer's
+Springs. Have you a map of Arizona?"
+
+"Yes, some of the Geological Survey maps," said Ernest, opening up a
+chart case.
+
+"Here's the spot." Austin put his pencil on the map. "It's about twenty
+miles north of the railroad, a mining country, but we've always believed
+that the valleys here could blossom if we could get water to them. The
+Reclamation Service never expects to get in there."
+
+"I know that," said Roger eagerly, "and yet a cheap power would make an
+inland empire of that section."
+
+"Have you ever seen it?" asked Austin.
+
+"No, Chicago has been my uttermost limit of travel so far. But I've
+studied hot countries and their resources for ten years."
+
+"My idea is," said Austin, "that we buy all our supplies at St. Louis.
+I'll go that far with you. You can buy the essentials for making camp at
+Archer's Springs and by the time you are ready for it, freight will have
+brought the rest. I believe there is an excellent trading store at
+Archer's Springs where you can buy a camp outfit. I'll wire down and
+find out."
+
+"Jove, Rog, doesn't that sound great!" exclaimed Ernest.
+
+"When shall we plan to start?" asked Roger.
+
+"Why not at once, so as to get the plant running by Spring, when the
+real heat comes on?" Austin looked from one eager face to the other.
+
+"We both are teaching, you know," said Ernest. "I thought next June--"
+
+"Next June!" shouted Roger. "This is the first of December, Dr. Austin.
+We'll have found substitutes and be ready to travel immediately after
+the Christmas recess."
+
+Ernest winced. "That's crowding things! But--well, you're the boss of
+the expedition, Rog. I'll be with you."
+
+"Fine!" Austin rubbed his hands together. "We'll start our purchase list
+now, eh?"
+
+The concert, which had proceeded during the evening without
+interruption, now stopped abruptly, just as the clock struck ten.
+
+"How about deferring that until to-morrow?" asked Roger. "I've a number
+of lists in my desk at the Science Building that will help us."
+
+"That's a good idea," Austin rose as he spoke. "Will you both take
+dinner with me at the hotel to-morrow evening and we can give the
+evening to this?"
+
+"We'll be there," replied Roger, following Austin to the door. When he
+returned, Ernest was locking up the drawings. "Well, Ern, old boy, it's
+not big business, but thanks to you, it's a real start in that
+direction, anyhow. How can I thank you?"
+
+"By helping me to break the news to the family. It's most deucedly short
+notice. We'll have some trouble in finding substitutes for our classroom
+work."
+
+"I'm sure Benson and Ames will be only too glad of the chance," Roger
+spoke decidedly. "I thought of them this afternoon. I swear I was in
+earnest in saying I was through with teaching. And now this! It's like a
+double answer to prayer."
+
+"Boys!" called Elsa, "the beer is waiting."
+
+Ernest was well into his second stein and his third cheese sandwich
+before, in response to repeated kicks from Roger, he made his
+announcement. There was a moment's silence, broken by Elsa.
+
+"Lucky dogs! Take me along!"
+
+"But, Ernest, you cannot go," protested Papa Wolf. "Let Roger go if he
+wishes. I have nothing to say to that. But, my son, with the chance for
+a full professorship in a great university--no!"
+
+Roger sighed. He was sorry for Ernest, but he never could understand his
+docile relationship to his father. Ernest came back, pluckily enough.
+
+"I think I ought to go, Papa. It will be a fine experience and I will
+come back to teaching with a new interest."
+
+"But why waste time? Why waste time?" cried his father. "You are nearly
+thirty. Instead of playing in the desert for a year, you should be
+marrying and starting a home."
+
+"It won't be play, Mr. Wolf," said Roger. "It'll be bitter hard work,
+but it will add considerably to Ernest's reputation."
+
+"Pah! Pah! _Was ist's!_" snorted the older man. "You are a good boy,
+Roger, but you are full of foolishness. You are bad for Ernest."
+
+"Pshaw, Papa, don't talk like a goose," protested Elsa, her cheeks
+crimson. "All the initiative Ernest's got, Roger gave him. Why not let
+Ernest see a little of life before he settles down forever? Let him have
+just one adventure, for goodness sake."
+
+"Will you be still, Elsa?" asked her father sternly.
+
+"Hush, Elschen," whispered Mamma Wolf.
+
+"Roger should be settling down and finding a wife for himself," Papa
+Wolf went on. "He'd soon get over his absentminded ways."
+
+Ernest suddenly laughed. "Why, Papa, Roger looks on women about the way
+you look on inventors."
+
+"Dry up, Ern," said Roger.
+
+"What sort of a thing is it, this desert machine?" asked Uncle Hugo.
+
+"It's a method of utilizing solar heat for power," replied Roger.
+
+"Ah, yes, the big umbrella-like things. I've seen them in the pictures."
+
+"Not at all," corrected Roger crossly.
+
+Ernest spoke suddenly, very firmly but without raising his gentle voice.
+"I'm sorry to go against your wishes, Papa, but I'm going, just the
+same."
+
+His father's mouth opened in astonishment. There was silence for a
+moment, broken by a sob from Mamma Wolf. Then Papa Wolf roared: "So
+that's it! You are of age. But disobedience I will not countenance. If
+you go, never again can you live in my house."
+
+"Oh, Karl!" cried Mamma Wolf.
+
+Elsa sniffed audibly. "What a tempest over a little thing! Uncle Hugo,
+have some more beer?"
+
+"I must be going," said Hugo, taking the beer nevertheless.
+
+"So must I," exclaimed Roger, rising hastily. "Then it's settled,
+Ernest?"
+
+Ernest leaned over to take another sandwich. "It's settled. Don't cry,
+Mütterchen. I'll bring you home a horned toad and you can make me a bed
+and serve my meals in the garage."
+
+Roger took Mamma Wolf's hand and kissed her cheek. "Good night, dear,"
+he whispered.
+
+Mamma Wolf smiled bravely and clung to his fingers for a moment. "You
+have made me sad, Roger, but I can't help loving you!"
+
+Roger kissed her again. "I'm not going to let you be sad long. I'll
+bring Ernie back to you safe and sound. Well, I'm off to bed! Good
+night, Elsa!" and he was gone with a bang of the front door.
+
+The days to Christmas flew by with unbelievable speed. Papa Wolf washed
+his hands of the whole adventure, as Elsa continued to call it, and
+refused to allow any mention of it in his hearing. This was Ernest's
+first insurrection, and his father seemed to have no tool but silence
+with which to combat it. Christmas eve and Christmas day were celebrated
+with all the usual beautiful German customs. It seemed to Roger that he
+enjoyed them more each year, and this year, with the novel sense of
+achievement in his heart, the joy of the day was unalloyed.
+
+Although Papa Wolf was obdurate about the adventure, his big heart could
+not permit him to allow him to let Austin spend Christmas day in a
+hotel. When he learned that Austin had a wife and child in Washington,
+nothing would do but that the Smithsonian man should share in a home
+Christmas. Papa Wolf provided another guest also, a stranger named
+Adolph Werner. He was a German banker, traveling across America on
+business, and the Wolf family was instructed to treat him with great
+deference. Stout and bespectacled, he proved a delightful guest and Dr.
+Austin displayed a gift for comic songs that brought the house down.
+
+The two guests discovered that they both had studied for several years
+in Munich and a great meeting of spirits followed, materially assisted
+by Papa Wolf, Uncle Hugo and a bowl of Glüh Wein. And when it was still
+further discovered that Werner's next stopping place was St. Louis, he
+was invited at once to join the Sun Planters, as Elsa had dubbed them.
+He accepted at once and on New Year's Day, with Elsa and her mother
+weeping and Papa Wolf blinking back tears but sternly refusing to say
+good-by, the party pulled out of the little Eagle's Wing station. Herr
+Werner proved to be a delightful traveling companion and he became so
+much interested in the details of the experiment that he insisted that
+he be invited to visit the plant; an invitation that was given most
+cordially by Roger.
+
+Thanks to Dr. Austin's experienced presence, the purchases in St. Louis
+were made in record time and at the end of the second week in January,
+Roger and Ernest set forth alone for the desert country.
+
+It was their first trip west of the Mississippi and both men were
+absorbed in watching the changes of scenery as the train whirled from
+one state to the next. Albuquerque was an hour behind when Ernest came
+into the smoking compartment where Roger was engaged in drawing on the
+back of an old envelope.
+
+"Say, Rog, I know you aren't interested in the sex, but there's the most
+unusual little girl on the train. She's seven years old and traveling
+all alone. Her name is Felicia. She got in at Kansas City. They checked
+her through like a pup. She's going out to join her brother and sister
+on a mining claim near Archer's Springs."
+
+Roger did not stop his pencil. "Seems as if we'd have neighbors," he
+said.
+
+"I hope this is a sample of Archer's Springs girls!" said Ernest.
+"Honestly, Roger, she's a lovely kid. Come on back and see her. I'm
+going to take her out on the observation platform with me."
+
+Roger grunted, and Ernest, with a grin, left him in peace. It was an
+hour later when Roger, having forgotten about the child, but wanting to
+ask Ernest a question, made his way to the observation platform. It was
+so exceedingly dusty that Ernest and his little friend had it to
+themselves.
+
+"Here she is, little Felicia!" cried Ernest. "And here he is, big
+Roger!"
+
+The little girl looked up at Roger. He returned the look with a
+surprised interest. He did not know much about little girls, but it
+seemed to him that she must be rather unusual. She had large brown eyes
+of astounding depth and softness. She was tall for her seven years, tall
+and graceful, in a short soiled blue gingham dress, and socks wrinkling
+down on stubby Oxford ties. Her hair was brown, curly and short. There
+were lovely curves in her scarlet drooping lips, and a fine arch in her
+head, above the ears.
+
+She made a little curtsey and shook hands in the limp manner of
+childhood. Roger smiled at her, and sat down.
+
+"Ernest, what was the size of the glass you and Dr. Austin were finally
+able to get?"
+
+"Eight by twelve. Felicia, tell Mr. Moore where you're going."
+
+"Out to live with Charley and Dick," said the child obediently.
+
+"Have they been there long?" asked Roger, lighting his pipe.
+
+"Ever since Mother died. They left me with Aunt May. But now I'm going
+out to be with Charley. Dear, dearest Charley, that's what Aunt May
+says."
+
+"Charley must be your favorite brother," commented Roger, a trifle
+absentmindedly as he tried to define the disconcerting attraction
+Felicia had for him.
+
+"Ho! How silly you are!" laughed the little girl. "Charley's my big only
+sister. Her whole name is Charlotte Emerson Preble and she looks just
+like me. Aunt May says so."
+
+"Preble!" exclaimed both the men.
+
+"Charley Preble!" Roger went on. "Ern, don't you remember the pretty
+little girl who used to play with us?"
+
+"Of course I do. That's why Felicia has been puzzling us so. We were
+just kids, but seems to me Charley looked exactly as she does."
+
+"Did sister Charley ever talk to you about Eagle's Wing?" asked Roger.
+
+"I don't recollect Charley. She went out to take care of Dick when I was
+so little. Charley's awful good. She'll take such care of me as never
+was on sea or land. Aunt May says so. And I'll love her more than I do
+God."
+
+"Was Dick sick? I remember him as a big, husky boy, don't you, Ern?"
+
+Ernest shook his head. "I don't remember him. You were the one who used
+to go out to Prebles' to play."
+
+"Dicky was sick," Felicia piped on. "Dicky's like Dad. He'll never
+amount to much, Aunt May says."
+
+"Look at the queer kind of cactus we're beginning to pass, Felicia,"
+interrupted Roger, hastily.
+
+Felicia leaned against his knee. No little girl ever had done so before
+and Roger looked at her curiously.
+
+"The desert's awful homely, isn't it?" she said.
+
+"It certainly is," agreed Ernest, lighting a fresh cigar.
+
+For a moment the three stared at the unending wastes of brown and
+gray-green, belled over by a cloudless sapphire sky.
+
+"Homely and hot, but I don't care as long as I'm where Charley is. I
+don't remember her, but I know how I'm going to feel about her." Here
+she took a long look into Roger's gray eyes. "I guess I'd like to sit in
+your lap," she suggested.
+
+Roger lifted her to his knees and she settled back comfortably in the
+hollow of his arm. A flooding sense of tenderness surprised him into
+silence.
+
+"You are deserting me," protested Ernest.
+
+"No, I'm not," returned little Felicia Preble. "I like you very much but
+I feel as if I'd like to sit in Roger's lap."
+
+And in Roger's lap she sat, while the racing purple shadows on the
+yellow desert gradually grew black, until the yellow turned to lavender,
+and both gradually merged into a twilight that was silvered by star-glow
+before the last crimson disappeared in the west. She sat there long
+after Ernest went inside to read, in the same quiet that enwrapped
+Roger. It was a strange quiet for Roger; a quiet of sweetness and
+content that he had not known since his mother's death. With that warm,
+supple little body pressed against him, his mind for once left his work
+and paused to ponder on the loneliness of the past sixteen years and on
+the thrilling promise of the desert star-glow. No human being can be
+completely sane who does not pause at intervals to express the
+tenderness that marks humans from animals. But Roger did not know this.
+
+It was six o'clock in the morning when the train pulled in to Archer's
+Springs and Ernest, Roger and Felicia alighted. They stood for a moment
+in silence after the train pulled out. They were apparently the only
+persons awake in the world.
+
+"Where's Charley?" asked Felicia suddenly.
+
+The station door opened and the baggage man, in blue overalls and
+jumper, appeared. He was frankly interested in the new arrivals and
+answered Ernest's question promptly.
+
+"Preble? Sure! Dick Preble was here the first of the week. Told me he'd
+be in next week to meet the little girl. How'd you come a week early,
+sissy?"
+
+Felicia's lip was quivering. "I don't know! Aunt Mary put me on the
+train and said Charley would meet me."
+
+"Can we telephone them?" asked Ernest.
+
+The baggage man grinned. "Telephone? Boys, come here a minute."
+
+He led them to the other side of the concrete station where the view was
+unobstructed by the train shed, and pointed northeast.
+
+"Take a look," he suggested.
+
+The station platform ended in yellow sand. Across an open space were
+some one-story buildings; beyond these an indefinite level of sand that
+melted, at what distance one could not say, into a line of mountains
+that were black and crimson and at last snow-capped against the
+translucent blue of the morning sky.
+
+"This road," said the baggage man, "goes along pretty good for eight or
+ten miles north, then it's nothing but a wagon track trail. If you
+follow it for twenty-five miles you reach Preble's mine. He says he's
+trying dry farming this spring. There ain't a living human being, except
+a few Injuns, between there and here. Sabez? And they ain't a brute
+thing but coyotes, and lizards and maybe wild burros, and so they ain't
+no call for a telephone."
+
+Roger looked at the group of buildings across the way. "Is this all
+there is to Archer's Springs?"
+
+"Sure, and it's a pretty good little old town, don't forget it. All the
+miners in the range south of here trade here. You'd better go across the
+street to the Chinaman's and get some breakfast."
+
+Preble's claim lay twenty-five miles northeast. So did the government
+land where the Solar plant was to be built. Roger and Ernest discussed
+the matter at breakfast and decided to carry Felicia along with them on
+the morrow when they started for their own camp.
+
+"And think how surprised Charley will be when you drop in on her,
+Felicia," suggested Ernest.
+
+Felicia blinked back the tears and began to nibble her breakfast.
+
+"It's a darn big desert and a darn small town," said Roger. "I wonder if
+Austin was right in telling us we could outfit here. Let's ask the
+baggage man."
+
+The obliging baggage man pointed out the largest of the sheet-iron,
+adobe buildings across the way. "Best trading in a hundred miles," he
+said.
+
+With Felicia dancing between them, the two made their way to Hackett's
+Supply House. The exterior was not promising, but within was everything
+the desert dwellers could need. Working from Austin's list they were
+soon supplied with tents, working outfit and tent boards. Hackett, a
+stout, slow-speaking man, was not staggered even when Roger asked him to
+deliver the goods.
+
+"Expect a lot of freight in a couple of weeks, you say? All right, I'll
+send you up with a team and when your freight comes in you can drive it
+back again. You can board the horses at Preble's."
+
+Their purchases were complete by noon, but Hackett would not let them
+start until morning. "No use," he said, "for tenderfeet to try camping
+on a short trip and it would be hard on the little girl. Get a dawn
+start and make the trip in one shift."
+
+So they whiled away the afternoon by a tramp over the desert, and after
+supper turned Felicia over to the landlady at Delmonico's, the adobe
+hotel, which was clean if it was meager. They were sitting in the
+office, which boasted a rusty sheet-iron stove, a desk, and a hanging
+lamp, when a thin, middle-aged man came slowly in the door and walked
+hesitatingly up to Ernest.
+
+"My name is Schmidt," he said. "I saw you at supper. Mr. Werner, he
+wrote me you vas coming and asked me to do vat I could for you."
+
+Ernest and Roger shook hands delightedly.
+
+"I come here for my health," Schmidt went on, "and maybe I help you. I
+vork for my board."
+
+"We'll see how things are after we get settled," said Roger, carefully.
+"Have a cigar and tell me how you came to know Mr. Werner."
+
+"I clerked by a bank he vas interested in," replied Schmidt, settling
+himself with the cigar. Roger and Ernest liked him at once, from his
+stiff brown pompadour and kindly blue eyes behind his spectacles to his
+strong, capable looking hands. Before they parted for the night it was
+agreed that Schmidt would come back with them when they came in for the
+freight. Austin had warned them that help was almost impossible to get
+in the desert and this seemed a wise thing to do.
+
+The sun had not risen the next morning when the three climbed aboard the
+heavily laden wagon and started along the trail Hackett had carefully
+described for them.
+
+It was not a smooth trail. Even the first eight or ten miles, mentioned
+with pride by the baggage man, were cut with draws and strewed with
+heavy rocks. But the air was like a northern May. The cactus was full of
+singing northern birds preparing for their spring migration. The horses
+plodded steadily without urging. The mountains lifted in colors ever
+more marvelous and the Adventure seemed to Roger satisfactory beyond
+expression.
+
+"I think it's beautiful, Ern," he said at last.
+
+"Gad, I don't," replied Ernest, wiping sand out of his eyes.
+
+"I do!" cried Felicia, jouncing up and down on the wagon seat between
+the men. She was powdered white with sand. "Charley will c'lapse when
+she sees me."
+
+The horses were used to desert going. The tenderfoot drivers let them
+have their own way. Hackett had tried to describe certain landmarks
+along the route so that they could gauge the distance covered, but with
+small effect on Ernest and Roger. All points of the desert looked alike
+to them. They only knew that if they followed the trail north long
+enough, they would strike Prebles' late that night.
+
+Just at sundown, however, Roger pulled in the horses. "That trail's
+getting awfully faint," he said.
+
+"Sand's drifted like snow across it," agreed Ernest. "In fact, there
+hasn't been any trail for the last mile. But we can't miss our way. That
+white peak with three points is at right angles anyhow to us, as it
+ought to be."
+
+Roger started the horses on, but after a short time stopped again.
+
+"I'm not going on till we locate the trail," he announced.
+
+"What are you going to do? Not stay here all night," protested Ernest.
+
+"You bet I am. Ernest, we're off the track right now. We won't be able
+to find the trail until daylight."
+
+Ernest's obstinate chin set. "I'm for going on."
+
+Roger flushed in the fading light. "I'm the leader of this expedition
+and I say stop."
+
+"Pshaw! I didn't think you were so timid, Roger," exclaimed Ernest.
+"I'll go on foot and find the trail."
+
+"Don't be a fool, Ernest," cried Roger.
+
+But if a quick temper was Roger's besetting sin, pig-headedness was
+Ernest's. He jumped down from the wagon and disappeared into the dusk.
+
+Felicia and Roger waited for a time patiently. Then Roger shouted, half
+a dozen times, "Ernest!" There was no answer.
+
+"Darn chump!" muttered Roger. "Come on, Felicia, let's make a fire of
+grease wood so he can find us."
+
+They built the fire and an hour passed, then two, but Ernest did not
+appear.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+CHARLEY
+
+
+Felicia soon grew weary of the game of fire building and begged off.
+Roger, with the aid of the ax, gathered a huge pile of grease wood, then
+with Felicia beside him, wrapped in a blanket, he sat down before the
+fire to wait.
+
+The child, her deep eyes glowing like black rubies in the flickering
+light, the lovely curves of her mouth drooping, leaned against Roger's
+shoulder, for a little while, then she turned and looked up into his
+face for a long minute. Roger returned the look, a little wonderingly.
+Felicia's attractiveness still puzzled him.
+
+"I love you very much," she said, "more than I do Ernest."
+
+Roger smiled down at her. "But you must love our old Ernest too, even if
+he has deserted us."
+
+"Oh, I do love him, but it's you I think about, last thing at night!"
+
+Felicia gazed up at Roger with a look of such mysterious depth that he
+caught his breath. Felicia suddenly shivered.
+
+"The desert's awful big! Oh, why do you suppose Charley didn't meet me?
+I want Charley," with a sob.
+
+Roger jumped to his feet and brought another blanket from the wagon. He
+spread it before the fire and urged Felicia to lie down on it. This she
+was persuaded to do only after Roger loaned his lap for a pillow and
+she finally fell asleep, her head on his knee, his hand clasped against
+her cheek.
+
+Another hour slipped by. Cramped and cold, Roger tossed an occasional
+branch in the fire with his free hand and speculated with uneasiness for
+Ernest, as to the nature of the faint sounds that came from the
+eastward. He decided that coyotes must be in the vicinity and he drew
+the blanket close over Felicia's shoulders. He was strangely unlonely.
+The desert silence and space about him, the low-lying stars, the faint
+cloud of mountain range were not alien to him. They all were the setting
+for the work toward which his whole life had moved. He knew too little
+of the desert really to be fearful for Ernest, whose return he expected
+any moment.
+
+He dozed a little. A sudden sound of hoof-beats roused him. A man jumped
+from his horse on the opposite side of the fire. He was a stocky fellow,
+wearing blue overalls and a red sweater. Before he had given Roger more
+than a quick "Hello!" another horse came up and a woman alighted. Roger
+laid Felicia's head on the blanket and clambered stiffly to his feet.
+The young woman gave Roger a quick glance, then ran toward the sleeping
+child.
+
+"Felicia! Baby Felicia!" she cried. "Did you think Charley had deserted
+you?"
+
+Felicia sat up with a jerk. "Charley!" she screamed. "Charley! I knew
+you'd come!"
+
+"Hello, Roger Moore!" exclaimed the stocky young man. "Are you the same
+young plutocrat who used to own a swimming pool?"
+
+Roger laughed. "The same, except that I'm no longer a plutocrat. How did
+you recognize me?"
+
+"Oh, we met Ernest Wolf meandering about the desert. Hello, baby, do you
+remember brother?" kissing Felicia, who was in Charley's arms.
+
+Charley was tall, nearly as tall as Roger, and he noticed as he turned
+to shake hands with her that she held the child easily, as if she were
+very strong. Then he was looking into eyes that suddenly seemed deeply
+familiar.
+
+"I don't remember much except the pool," said Charley. "How are we going
+to thank you for taking care of Felicia?"
+
+"I don't know how we are going to thank Felicia," Roger replied. "Where
+is Ernest?"
+
+Preble laughed. "He was pegging for all he was worth in the wrong
+direction. We had some trouble to persuade him that he was wrong."
+
+"That's Ernest, sure enough!" exclaimed Roger.
+
+Preble went on more soberly. "It really isn't a laughing matter though,
+a tenderfoot astray in this country. I tried to impress that upon him.
+It just happened that Charley and I were out looking for our pet cow and
+we ran on Wolf about five miles north of here, heading west and going
+strong. He had picked up a wagon trail I made last week going for
+adobe."
+
+"Where is he now?" asked Roger.
+
+"Oh, we left him herding the cow. We'll pick him up on the way back.
+Let's get started. Lord, but you've grown, Felicia! Come here and let me
+look at you."
+
+Big brother and little sister looked at each other attentively in the
+firelight. Dick Preble was still red headed and freckled, with only a
+vague resemblance to his sisters.
+
+"Four years since we left you, little Felicia. Charley, she looks just
+as you did at her age, only not so tall. I don't see how Aunt Mary could
+have been such a fool as to have sent her a week ahead of time."
+
+"Aunt Mary never managed anything correctly in her life, bless her
+heart," replied the older sister. "Help hitch up, Dicky. We're only five
+miles from home, Mr. Moore."
+
+They were ready for the trail in a few minutes. Felicia delayed the
+start by refusing to be separated from Charley and finally Charley's
+horse was hitched to the tailboard of the wagon and Charley mounted the
+high wagon seat. Felicia, established between Roger and her sister, was
+in a state of great excitement and at first monopolized the
+conversation. But after a time, she quieted down and by the time they
+overtook Ernest, she was asleep, her head against Roger's arm, her hand
+clasping one of Charley's. Nor did the greetings waken her.
+
+"Well, Ern, old chap, how's the North Pole?" called Roger.
+
+"You go to thunder!" replied Ernest with a laugh. He tied the cow in the
+place of Charley's pony and mounting the pony rode ahead with Preble.
+
+Roger wanted a number of questions answered. Where had the Prebles gone
+after leaving Eagle's Wing and what had they done in the interim, were
+his opening queries.
+
+"We went to a little town, near St. Louis," answered Charley, "and
+Father did well. Dick and I both went to college. What in the world are
+you doing out here, Mr. Moore?"
+
+"For heaven's sake don't 'mister' me, old friends and neighbors as we
+are. Why, we lived on your old farm till Father and Mother died!"
+
+"Did you indeed? And what brought you out here? Mining?"
+
+"No, some experimenting in irrigating for the government."
+
+"Heaven send that you're successful!" exclaimed the girl. "Dick is going
+to get some alfalfa in this winter, and I know that our well won't take
+care of it. But he _will_ go ahead."
+
+"Felicia is startlingly like you, as a child. I have just one picture of
+you in my mind--standing on the edge of the pool, ready to dive, but
+looking around at me and laughing. Felicia laughs just that way."
+
+"Poor baby, coming all this way alone! But there seemed nothing else to
+be done. We couldn't afford to go back for her nor could Aunt Mary come
+on with her."
+
+"She got along famously and made friends with every one," said Roger.
+"Jove, isn't it wonderful, running on you people out here!"
+
+"It's going to be wonderful for us, I know," returned Charley.
+
+The wagon rumbled and bumped, and then Charley asked:
+
+"Where is your camp to be?"
+
+"We don't know, except we're to take up some government land adjacent to
+yours. But your name isn't on our survey map."
+
+"No, we have the old Ames claim," replied Charlotte. "You must plan to
+stay with us until your camp is set up."
+
+"You're very kind," said Roger.
+
+"It's a God-send to have neighbors coming to us," the girl went on.
+
+Roger made no reply and the road becoming unbelievably rough, Charley
+gave her attention to holding Felicia on the seat and nothing more was
+said until Preble called back,
+
+"Careful through this gate, Moore! Wait till I get a light."
+
+"We're home," said Charley. "Wake up, Felicia dear."
+
+Dick appeared in a moment with a lighted candle stuck within and on the
+side of an empty can. It threw a long finger of light on the gate posts
+of a corral.
+
+"We call those candle-lanterns, 'lightning bugs,' down here," explained
+Charley. "'Bugs,' for short."
+
+"I want one for myself," exclaimed Felicia, suddenly. "Only very small,
+so's my doll can use it."
+
+"You shall have a dozen if you want them, baby!" cried Dick, lifting her
+down carefully over the wagon wheel.
+
+The men unhitched and attended to the horses, then followed a short,
+winding trail up to the lighted doorway. They entered a long, low room,
+with adobe walls a muddy yellowish color. The floor was of rough plank
+with a single Navajo blanket of gray and black before a little adobe
+fireplace. There were half a dozen camp chairs in the room, a couch in a
+corner, covered with a blue Indian rug, a homemade table in the middle,
+several pelts and shelves of books in the walls and more books and an
+alarm clock on the mantel shelf. It was a crude room, but one felt its
+harmony of tone and homelike quality at once.
+
+"Put your suit cases in here," said Dick, leading the way through an
+open door into a candle-lighted room. It was a barren little place, but
+there was a comfortable cot on either side of the room and a packing box
+between that was half washstand, half bureau. Charley appeared in the
+door:
+
+"Supper'll be ready as soon as the kettle boils," she announced. "Little
+Felicia is in bed and fast asleep. Dick, you'd better go milk that poor
+cow."
+
+Dick started off obediently and Ernest sat down on his cot.
+
+"I'll wait till the kettle boils. Gee, I walked a thousand miles. Roger,
+go out and help with the supper, you lazy brute."
+
+Charley laughed. "There's nothing to do unless you want to start a fire
+in the fireplace."
+
+Roger followed her to the kitchen, where she pointed to a brimming
+wood-box. He looked with interest at the immaculate kitchen. The walls
+were whitewashed, the floor scoured to a silvery purity, the stove was
+shining.
+
+"What a bully camp you have!" he exclaimed, pausing with his arm full of
+kindling to look at Charley. For the first time, as she stood watching
+the teakettle with the lamplight full upon her, he got a clear view of
+his hostess.
+
+She was slender but not thin. Her shoulders were broad and square and
+her chest was deep and she was slim-hipped like an athletic boy. She
+gave Roger a curious impression of strength, very unusual to connect
+with a girl. Yet for all her height and vigor, she was very lovely. Her
+hair was darker than Felicia's, a wiry, burnished bronze, in a braided
+mass about her head. Her face was long, with a well-cut short nose and
+an oval chin. There were lovely curves in her scarlet, drooping lips.
+Her eyes were large, a melting brown that was almost black. It was the
+child Felicia's face, but with a depth of sweetness, a patience and
+pride in lips and eyes, acquired by what difficulties of living, Roger
+could not have told, even had he had sufficient understanding of women
+to have noted the existence of those qualities. He did, however, see her
+wonderful resemblance to Felicia.
+
+"You are like Felicia, grown up, all of a sudden," he said. "It's hard
+to rid myself of that illusion. Ernest and I have had a bully time with
+that small girl."
+
+"I'm so glad to have her here that--well, when you have been in the
+desert longer, you'll realize what human beings can mean to each other,"
+said Charley. "There! The kettle's boiling. Fly with your wood."
+
+Roger flew. Dick came in with the milk and the four sat down to a supper
+of baked beans, tea and canned apples. It was a pleasant meal, but Roger
+and Ernest, weary beyond words, were delighted when it was finished and
+they could tumble into bed.
+
+Roger was wakened the next morning by the alarm clock in the dining
+room. Ernest jumped up at once and Roger lighted the candle.
+
+"Six o'clock," he said. "Well, our new job has begun, Ern."
+
+There was a great rattling of the stove lids in the kitchen, above
+Dick's whistle, then through the windows a light dawning toward the
+corral. By the time that Roger and Ernest had shaved and were hurrying
+down the little trail, the red glow in the east had made the "Bug"
+unnecessary. All the horses were munching alfalfa and Dick was
+whistling in the cow-shed.
+
+The two men stood a moment at the corral gate and looked about them.
+
+The house faced the west. It had been carefully placed on a broad ledge
+of the mountain, a few feet above the desert level, yet the few feet
+were enough to give a complete view of the valley that swept forty miles
+to the west into the range that held the Colorado within bounds. The
+sandy levels of the desert swept to the very foot of the mountain, and
+Dick had fenced in about twenty-five acres. It was not yet under
+cultivation, but a scraper half-filled with sand near the corral fence
+testified to Dick's intentions. There were practically no farm
+buildings: just the cow-shed, with a sheet-iron roof and a canvas
+covered shelter in a corner of the corral. Shed and corral were on the
+desert level and a good two hundred feet from the house. As they stood
+in silence, Dick came up with his pail of milk.
+
+"Great view, isn't it? I'm going to have twenty-five acres of alfalfa
+here by June."
+
+"I thought you were mining," said Ernest.
+
+"I came to the desert to dry-farm but I got sidetracked with turquoise
+mining up the mountain yonder. Nothing in that, but alfalfa is thirty
+dollars a ton and we get five crops a year."
+
+"Which way does the government land lie?" asked Roger.
+
+Dick grinned. "Look in any direction! You'll have no trouble locating
+yourselves. Let's go in to breakfast."
+
+Charley and Felicia were sitting at the breakfast table and the meal was
+quickly eaten.
+
+"What do you two do first?" asked Charley as Ernest finished his second
+cup of coffee.
+
+"Locate the camp site and set up housekeeping, so as not to intrude on
+you any longer," replied Ernest.
+
+"Shucks! You wouldn't talk that way if you'd lived here a few years,"
+exclaimed Dick.
+
+"You're the first human beings," remarked Charley, "except Dick and a
+few Indians and old Von Minden that I've seen in six months."
+
+"But don't you ever go to town?" asked Roger.
+
+"Not often. It's a hard trip and some one has to stay with the stock."
+
+Dick looked at Charley with quick reproach. "You know it's always
+something urgent that takes me in, Charley. And you nearly always refuse
+to go."
+
+"Nearly always, yes, Dick," replied Charley.
+
+Dick shrugged his shoulders and there was a moment's silence which
+Ernest broke.
+
+"When are you coming to see us, Felicia?"
+
+"Every day, Ernest," replied the child.
+
+"Mr. Ernest," corrected Charley.
+
+"No! No! We're old friends," protested Ernest.
+
+"And Roger's a friend too," added Felicia. "A dearest friend."
+
+Ernest grinned. "Felicia! How can you forsake me so! Here's Roger, a
+notorious woman-hater, and you wasting your young affections on him,
+when you might have me with a turn of your finger."
+
+"You shut up, Ernest!" exclaimed Roger. "Don't pay any attention to him,
+Felicia."
+
+"I won't," replied the child. "But I'll keep right on liking him, next
+to you."
+
+"I see some work ahead for me!" ejaculated Dick.
+
+Charley refilled Dick's coffee cup and smiled at him.
+
+"I'll bet on you, Dicky," she said. "We'll have supper at six, Roger.
+I've put up a lunch for you two men."
+
+"By Jove," said Ernest, "we'll have to supply water to this ranch for
+nothing, Rog."
+
+"Right!" answered Roger, rising. "Come ahead, old man."
+
+It was not yet eight when they drove out of the corral, along the line
+of fence that edged Dick's prospective alfalfa field. There was a
+monument, Dick said, at the southwest corner of the field that would
+start them on their way. Neither man spoke for some time, then Ernest
+remarked in his gentle voice:
+
+"Extraordinarily lovely girl!"
+
+Roger grunted.
+
+Ernest flushed. "Honestly, Roger, you are the limit! She's too fine a
+woman to be turned off with a grunt."
+
+"Who's turning her off?" demanded Roger. "I don't see why you're always
+accusing me of hating women. I don't hate 'em. I'm keen about them and
+you know how I ran after them until I had to cut them out and attend to
+business. But now, my scheme of life can't include them. You waste
+enough time and thought every year on petticoats to have made you
+president of the university. Now, I'm trying to concentrate on one
+thing, solar heat. It's a full job for any man, that's all. If you want
+to get up a case on Charlotte Preble, go to it. She's too big for my
+taste, even if I had time to think about her."
+
+Ernest groaned and once more silence fell until he roused himself to
+ask: "Would that be a monument yonder?"
+
+They pulled up before a heap of stones, the marker of a mining claim, so
+familiar to the desert dweller, and spread the government map on their
+knees.
+
+"Let's see," said Roger. "Here's Preble's claim, and next him, west, is
+the Mellish claim, and beyond that, still west, is government land.
+Simple enough if the sand hasn't drifted on their monuments."
+
+It was not difficult. They passed the Mellish workings, a great hole in
+the ground, with a deserted shack beside the windlass. A short distance
+on, they located his monument and quickly found themselves on government
+land.
+
+"Well," sighed Ernest, "it certainly is God-forsaken!"
+
+They looked about them. Far to the west lay a jagged line of blue
+mountains, against a blue sky. To the east, the barren tortured peaks of
+Coyote Range, brown and black in the blazing morning sun, so near that
+they could see the smoke rising from Charley's kitchen chimney, so far
+that the adobe looked like a doll house against the range. Between them
+and Coyote Range lay the desert valley, a rich yellow, thick dotted with
+fantastic growths of cactus and cat's claw.
+
+"Lord, I think it's great!" Roger drew a deep breath. "Let's unload, old
+man."
+
+They worked without stopping except for lunch, until five o'clock. With
+ax and shovel they cleared away cactus and drifts of sand for a level
+space on which to set up their living tent. Austin had given them plans
+for this. They laid a rough floor and raised around this a four foot
+wainscoating. They used no tent pole, but stretched their canvas on a
+frame of two by fours, above the wainscoating. The result was a pleasant
+airy compartment with headroom even for Roger. They had not finished
+their tent when suppertime arrived. But they took Dick's word that tools
+and supplies would be unmolested.
+
+"We may have trouble locating water," said Ernest as they started the
+team homeward. "Austin thought we'd strike it most anywhere in the
+valley, you remember, but Dick says Mellish never reached it."
+
+"I'll bet we find water if we go deep enough." Roger lighted his pipe
+with the sense of comfort of a man whose back is aching from honest
+toil. "Dick's information is only hearsay. He's got a good spring there
+at the corral and he told me there was considerable water in the lower
+workings of the old mine up in the range. We'll dig till we reach water
+if we have to tap Hades. And the Lord send that we don't have to waste
+much time on a detail like that!"
+
+"Right-O! Those must be buzzards circling toward the mountains. Rog,
+what do you suppose the folks at home are doing about now?"
+
+"Thinking about us. It's pretty early to be homesick, old boy."
+
+Ernest smiled in his gentle way. His eyes looked bluer than ever in his
+parboiled face. "Don't worry about me, old man. I'm not getting cold
+feet, only your folks were pioneers and mine were not. We Germans are
+gregarious."
+
+"Shucks!" replied Roger. "Some of the best pioneers in this country were
+Germans. And you aren't German, anyhow. You're an American. Buck up,
+Ernest!"
+
+"I will! See what's coming!" Ernest pointed with a laugh to a tiny
+figure flying toward them along the trail.
+
+"I came further than I dared to come!" screamed Felicia, "but you were
+so slow. And Charley's got a great big supper for you. Dicky shot some
+quail. And oh, I've missed you both so!" This last as she climbed up on
+the wheel and Ernest lifted her to the seat.
+
+"Now, everything's all right," said Ernest.
+
+Eight o'clock the next morning found Roger and Ernest finishing the
+living tent. By noon the kitchen tent, which really was a fly resting on
+four poles, was up, and the gasoline stove installed. It required the
+remainder of the day to knock together a rough table, two long benches
+and to prepare supper. And at eight o'clock that night both men were
+glad to go to bed.
+
+The next day they began work on the well. The ultimate success of the
+plant rested on the premise that not too far below the surface of the
+valley there was water. Dick was pessimistic on the subject. He came
+down one evening to view progress when, after three days of toil, the
+boys had dug to the depth of about ten feet. The three men lighted their
+pipes and squatted in the sand by the well hole.
+
+"I don't see why you don't establish your plant up in the range and use
+your power for mining," said Dick. "You'll never strike water here."
+
+"Unless we can develop irrigation plants, the idea would be just a toy
+here," replied Roger. "There's bound to be water here, if we go deep
+enough. You tell me the lower levels of the mines up in the ranges on
+both sides are wet."
+
+"Yes, they are," agreed Dick. "Why don't you fellows get an Indian to
+help you on this kind of work?"
+
+"Where would we get one?" asked Ernest doubtfully.
+
+"Oh, one is liable to mooch along the desert any time."
+
+"Are they good workmen?" Roger's voice was absentminded as he scowled at
+the well.
+
+"Some of them are wonders, but they are no good, unless you get a bunch
+of them under a chief. Then they're O. K."
+
+Roger groaned. Ernest laughed. "Remember, Rog," he said, "what Austin
+told us about the unexpected problems in the building of a desert
+plant."
+
+"You'll get plenty of those," agreed Dick. "Well, I'll be going back. If
+I see an Indian, I'll send him to you. In the meantime, remember that
+I'm your first purchaser of water, though my well's a regular gusher and
+will take care of more than the twenty-five acres I can get in this
+winter."
+
+"Don't be so sure," Roger chuckled. "You may come and apologize to our
+well and ask for a drink yet."
+
+Dick joined in the laugh at this suggestion and started homeward and the
+two Sun Planters went to bed.
+
+As if the desert were determined to show them early in the game a fair
+sample of its lesser annoyances, when Ernest entered the cook tent the
+next morning he found it fairly wrecked. All the canned goods had been
+rolled off the shelves and the labels had disappeared. Flour, sugar,
+crackers were knocked about in the sand. Ernest roared for Roger, who
+came on a run.
+
+"Looks as if a burro had been here from the tracks," exclaimed Roger.
+
+"Two or three burros, I should judge," said Ernest. "Why, Rog, the
+beggars have eaten all the can labels! We'll never know whether we're
+opening tomatoes or beans. That flour's useless, and so's the sugar.
+Look at the coffee! I told you not to leave it in a sack. Oh, hang it
+all! What a country!"
+
+"Let's see where the little devils went." Roger started out of the tent.
+The small hoof tracks were not difficult to find. Beyond the confines of
+the camp, the sand lay like untracked snow. When they picked up the
+trail, it led directly to the Coyote Range.
+
+Ernest suddenly spoke cheerfully. "We'll have to go up and ask Charley
+for some breakfast. It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good!"
+
+"We'll have to shave if we're going up there and that takes time,"
+protested Roger.
+
+"What are you going to eat? No sugar, no flour, no coffee!"
+
+"Let's be quick about it, then," said Roger, hurrying into the living
+tent.
+
+The Prebles laughed, but they were very sympathetic and blamed
+themselves for not warning the boys that stray burros and coyotes were a
+menace to any stores left unprotected.
+
+"String some wire about six inches apart around your four poles and
+weave yucca stalks in and out. It makes a bully cool wall and keeps the
+varmints out," said Dick.
+
+"My heavens, man! I haven't time to do raffia work," cried Roger, half
+laughing, half serious.
+
+"I'll do it for you," said Felicia. "I can weave like I did in school.
+And if I do that, Charley won't make me have lessons with her every
+day."
+
+"Oh, won't I!" returned Charley. "Roger, you get the wires up. That
+won't take but a few minutes and when old Fanny Squaw comes along in a
+week or so to sell ollas I'll send her down to cut and weave yucca for
+you. It can't cost you more than four bits. In the meantime, I can let
+you have some supplies to tide you over till some one goes to town."
+
+"You see what it means to have brains in the family," said Dick.
+
+"It's lucky some one in this bunch possesses them," laughed Roger. "By
+the way, how do there come to be stray burros in the mountains?"
+
+"Miners die or desert them and they go wild," replied Dick. "I must try
+to catch and tame one for Felicia, after the alfalfa is in. Which
+reminds me that I must get on the job. I've got your barrel of water
+ready in the wagon, so come along."
+
+The start was late that day and they had not gone down a foot when they
+struck rock. Another trip had to be made to the Prebles to procure some
+sticks of dynamite from Dick's little store at the neglected turquoise
+mine. And still no sign of water.
+
+The evenings were lonely. At first the two went frequently to the ranch
+house, as Dick, sweating in his barren alfalfa fields, insisted that the
+house be called. But everybody was too tired for social effort. Dick was
+grading and plowing all day long and Charley, after her housework was
+finished, often drove for him in the field. The mid-day heat and the
+unwonted labor made Ernest and Roger glad to go to bed early. After they
+had eaten supper and cleared up the dishes, they would build a little
+fire in the sand outside the living tent and for an hour sit before it.
+Even on chilly evenings the fire had to be small, for the firewood was
+bought from Dick's none too great supply. He in turn bought from an
+Indian who cut mesquite far up in the ranges and toted it by burro pack
+to the corral.
+
+Ernest, sitting thus, would pluck at his banjo and sing to the stars,
+finding ease thus for his homesick heart. Roger sat in silent
+contemplation, now of the fire, now of the stars. In spite of his
+impatience over petty details, he was happier than he had been since his
+undergraduate days. The marvelous low-lying stars, the little glow of
+fire on Ernest's pleasant face, the sweet tenor voice and the mellow
+plunking of the banjo were a wonderful background for his happy dreams.
+Roger still believed that a man's work could fill every desire of his
+mind and soul.
+
+    "I have so loved thee,"
+
+(sang Ernest one evening),
+
+    "But cannot, cannot hold thee.
+    Fading like a dream the shadows fold thee,
+    Slowly thy perfect beauty fades away,
+    Good-by, sweet day! Good-by, sweet day!"
+
+There was the soft thud of a footstep in the sand and an Indian appeared
+in the soft glow of the fire. Ernest broke off his song, abruptly. The
+newcomer was of indeterminate age, with black hair falling nearly to
+his waist over a bright red flannel shirt. He wore black trousers
+girdled at the waist by a broad twist of blue silk. His feet were bare.
+
+"How!" he said, nodding and smiling. "I hear music way out. Come see
+maybe white medicine man."
+
+"Good evening," returned Ernest. "Sit down by the fire."
+
+"How'd you like a job?" asked Roger. "Did Mr. Preble send you?"
+
+"No job!" The Indian shook his head. "Sick!"
+
+"Is that so?" Roger's voice was sympathetic. "My friend's a good
+medicine man. Where are you sick?"
+
+"In my tooth!" The visitor opened a capacious mouth, displaying a badly
+ulcerated gum.
+
+"That's easy! Get the peroxide bottle and a teaspoon, Ern. We'll fix him
+up, poor duck. What's your name, old man?"
+
+"Qui-tha," replied the Indian.
+
+"All right, Qui-tha. Now you take a teaspoonful of this and hold it in
+the front of your mouth, see!"
+
+Qui-tha looked closely into the faces of the two men, then with touching
+docility he did as Roger bade him. In a moment he was blowing foam
+violently into the fire. The two men looked at each other a little
+aghast.
+
+"You should have held it in your mouth, Qui-tha!" cried Ernest.
+
+The Indian reached for the teaspoon and poured himself another dose.
+This he held in his mouth for a moment, gazing at his physicians
+solemnly the while. Then he again blew foam into the fire.
+
+"Heap strong medicine," he said. "Fine, strong medicine. Never saw such
+strong medicine. You good medicine men. Qui-tha stay work for you. You
+let keep bottle."
+
+"Sure," replied Ernest, "only be very careful of it. Don't use it up too
+fast."
+
+Qui-tha nodded. "You give blanket. Qui-tha sleep here by fire."
+
+And sleep he did, rolled up even as to his head, his feet to the dying
+embers, while his hosts, undressing by candle light, grinned at each
+other in silent amusement. When Dick came down with the triweekly
+barrel of water he was astonished to see Qui-tha slowly weaving yucca
+stalks into the wire that now bound the poles of the cook tent.
+
+"For heaven's sake, Qui-tha, you old bum, you've always refused to work
+for me!" he shouted.
+
+The Indian grinned, then explained very seriously. "These white men heap
+smart. Make strong medicine. Qui-tha work one week, pay white medicine
+men."
+
+Ernest called Dick into the living tent and made him an explanation
+while Qui-tha looked inquiringly at Roger at the sound of Dick's
+laughter.
+
+"Do, for the love of all of us, keep feeding him peroxide until he's
+cajoled into giving me a hand in the field. Won't Charley be amused by
+this?"
+
+But Qui-tha was not to be cajoled. He prolonged his promised week to
+two, but would serve only his two medicine men. He was a most erratic
+workman, but what he did, he did exceedingly well. The cook tent with
+its woven sides of faded green was a structure of real beauty. Qui-tha
+consumed a week in the doing of this job, and ate all of three dozen
+cans of tomatoes, for which he displayed what Ernest called an
+abandoned passion. After he had finished with the cook tent, he sat for
+a day at the edge of the well, watching the two white men at their back
+breaking toil, then he silently undertook to man the bucket hoist for
+them. At frequent intervals he would refuse to hoist for a time and
+would urge Roger and Ernest to rest with him.
+
+"Why work all time, uh? Wind no blow all time. Sun no shine all time.
+You no dig all time, uh? Sit with Qui-tha and smoke and think."
+
+"He's got a lot of horse sense, Roger, after all, hasn't he?" said
+Ernest one day after the Indian had laughed at them for their mad
+driving at the waterless well.
+
+Roger straightened his tired back. "Fine, for an Indian! I like to hear
+him laugh. On things that don't demand our white sophistication, do you
+notice what a good sense of humor he has?"
+
+"By Jove, I wish he'd go up and help the Prebles. I think it's a fright
+for Charley to be working in the fields," exclaimed Ernest.
+
+Roger nodded. "Guess I'll try him on that angle." He clambered out of
+the well and squatted by Qui-tha on the ever-increasing pile of sand and
+stone by the well edge.
+
+"Do you see that white girl up there in the field, driving the horse?"
+pointing over the lifting desert to the distant figure, difficult to see
+now as the sun sank.
+
+"Yes," replied the Indian.
+
+"Won't you go up and help so the girl can go back to the house and do a
+woman's work?"
+
+The Indian puffed thoughtfully at his cigarette. "Why?" he asked,
+finally.
+
+"Because they need help. They'll pay you."
+
+"Would you go help Indian squaw so she no have do hard work?" queried
+the Indian.
+
+Roger scratched his head.
+
+"Charley Preble, she heap strong, like a man. Work no hurt her. No hurt
+Injun squaw. Let 'em work."
+
+Roger had nothing more to say. But the fact that Charley worked so hard
+bothered both men, though Ernest, with his unconsciously German attitude
+toward women, was much less troubled about the matter than Roger. Roger,
+for all his neglect of the gentler sex for the past few years, had that
+attitude toward women, half of tenderness, half of good fellowship, that
+is characteristic of the best American men. And although he laughed at
+Ernest's sentimental mooning about Charley, he really was more concerned
+over the girl's hard life than was his friend.
+
+She was still to him Felicia, grown up, and Felicia was still the little
+Charley Preble of the swimming pool. It was a confusion of personalities
+that might easily have grown into romance had not Roger been too
+completely and honestly preoccupied with his work.
+
+The next afternoon the hoist broke and leaving Ernest and Qui-tha to
+patch it up, Roger plodded up to the alfalfa field.
+
+The valley sloped very gradually from the mountains. Dick was working
+with a scraper, carefully throwing line after line of the shallowest
+possible terraces at right angles to the valley's slope. The irrigating
+ditch which was to carry the water that was to flow gently over the
+terraces was already finished.
+
+Charley, who had been driving the horses while Dick handled the scraper,
+sat on a heap of stones beside the fence. She was very brown, yet in
+spite of her rough work she looked well. Her khaki blouse, her short
+skirt and high laced boots were smart and her broad soft hat, though
+covered with dust, was picturesque and becoming. Roger dropped on the
+rocks beside her, with a sigh.
+
+"Tired?" asked Charley. "Aren't you off duty early?"
+
+"I came up to labor with you," replied Roger, his blue eyes very clear
+in his tanned face. "You're working too hard."
+
+"What would you have me do? Sit on the front porch and watch Dicky work?
+That's not my idea of a pioneer's mate."
+
+"But can you stand it?" asked Roger.
+
+"It's no harder than golf and tennis and a swim all in one day. I've
+done that many a time. And I'm as eager as Dick is to reclaim this
+desert. I'm almost if not quite as interested in this as you are in your
+work."
+
+"I didn't mean to intrude or criticize," began Roger.
+
+"You didn't do either. I appreciate your interest, and I'm just trying
+to make you see that the pioneer women aren't all dead yet. Some day
+there'll be pepper trees and peach trees along that ditch, and for miles
+and miles round here, the green of alfalfa."
+
+"If you get enough water," murmured Roger.
+
+"If we get enough water," agreed Charley.
+
+They both paused and looked from Dick, sweating behind the horses, to
+the unending yellow of the desert against which Dick and the horses
+looked like pygmies. Finally Charley said with a sudden chuckle,
+
+"Roger, one thing I do remember is your spitfire rages--very vaguely,
+but they must have been rather devastating to have made an impression on
+my baby mind."
+
+Roger's smile was a little twisted. "Nice thing to remember of me. Where
+is your tact, woman!"
+
+"Mercy! You aren't sensitive about it after all these years? I thought
+it funny that your baby temper and the pool were all I could rake up out
+of our past."
+
+"Where is Felicia?" asked Roger, abruptly.
+
+"She went up to the spring to fill my little canteen with water."
+
+"Thank heaven," said Roger, "that she can't rake up my past. I'm going
+to stroll up to meet her." And he doffed his hat and was off, feeling
+that somehow he had not made great headway.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+VON MINDEN
+
+
+That evening, after the little fire had burned to a bed of coals, Ernest
+said: "About time for the stuff to have come from St. Louis."
+
+"I've been thinking of that," returned Roger. "And we've nearly run
+through the Prebles' extra supplies. Why don't you go in to Archer's
+Springs and bring a load out. Dick is planning to go day after
+to-morrow."
+
+"Wouldn't you rather go?" asked Ernest.
+
+"Not if I can help it."
+
+"Thank heaven!" exclaimed Ernest. "I was afraid you'd want the job, and
+even Archer's Springs would look good to me!"
+
+Roger laughed and slapped Ernest on the shoulder. "You homesick
+Dutchman! Crazy for the mail, aren't you? There must be something there
+from Austin. I'm glad you want to go, for I'd hate the trip. Let's turn
+in!"
+
+Wednesday morning, just at dawn, Dick and Ernest, each driving a team,
+pulled up before the cook tent where Roger and Qui-tha were finishing
+breakfast.
+
+"Charley says you're to come up there for supper to-night," called Dick.
+"Felicia has permission to come down to fetch you at five o'clock."
+
+"All right," returned Roger. "When do you expect to be back, Dick?"
+
+"All depends on luck. Perhaps not before Friday noon."
+
+"Take care of Ernest," called Roger as the two teams started on. "He's
+flighty!"
+
+"Don't get drowned in that fine well of yours, Rog!" shouted Ernest.
+
+Roger lighted his pipe and helped Qui-tha clean the plates and cups with
+sand and old newspaper.
+
+"Don't know how we'll do dishes when the newspapers give out, Qui-tha,"
+he said.
+
+"Keep burro. He clean 'em," suggested Qui-tha, with a mischievous grin.
+
+"Wah! Go way! We're not Hualapais like you," retorted Roger.
+
+Qui-tha laughed, and followed Roger to the well. The chill of the early
+March morning was beginning to lift.
+
+Roger pulled off his coat, preparatory to dropping down into the well,
+then paused. The sun was just lifting over the peaks. The ranch house
+was in black shadow. No man with Roger's capacity for work could be
+lonely with that work at hand. No man with Roger's fine imagination
+could have failed to have felt his pulses quicken at the sudden
+conception of the desert's wonders that flashed before his mind as his
+outward eye took in the sunrise. He saw in flashing panorama the
+desert's magnificent distances, its unbelievable richness of coloring,
+its burning desert noons, its still windswept nights, and a vague waking
+of passions he never had known stirred within his self and work-centered
+soul.
+
+The air was full of bird song. What Ernest called the dawn's enchantment
+was just ending. Blackbird and robin, oriole and mocking bird, piped
+full-throated from every cactus. To Ernest this was the one redeeming
+touch to the desert's austerity. To Roger it was the crowning of an
+almost unbearable charm. The sun wheeled in full glory over the peaks.
+The adobe flashed out from the shadow and Roger slid down into the well.
+
+He loaded the bucket with broken rock and called to Qui-tha to hoist
+away. To his surprise, there was no response. Roger climbed hurriedly
+out, calling to the Indian. He looked in the cook tent and the living
+tent and then his eye caught Qui-tha's tall figure already diminished by
+distance, moving rapidly westward toward the River Range.
+
+"By Jove," he exclaimed, "that's cool! I wonder if he took anything with
+him but the peroxide bottle?"
+
+A quick inventory showed nothing missing, and with a sigh Roger returned
+to the well.
+
+It was slow work, filling the bucket, clambering out to hoist it, then
+down again. But at noon, when the sun shone full into the well, Roger
+noticed a sudden darkening of the brown rock at the bottom. He seized a
+pick and worked rapidly. Water! Not a gushing spring, but a steady
+increase of moisture that, as he dug on, became a trickle, then a slowly
+rising pool about his ankles.
+
+No discoverer of a noble river ever felt prouder than Roger as, after he
+had hoisted out the bucket and tools, he stood at the well's edge gazing
+far down at the dirty pool.
+
+He was standing so, a tall figure, his face streaked with dirt and
+sweat but with satisfaction radiating from every line of his thin tanned
+face, when, "Hello!" called a man's voice behind him.
+
+Roger turned with a jerk. A little gray-headed man and a little gray
+burro were standing by the work tent.
+
+"Perhaps I could get something to eat here," said the stranger.
+
+"Certainly," returned Roger, not too enthusiastically. He did not know
+desert hospitality, excepting what he had met at the Preble ranch. The
+man turned promptly to the burro.
+
+"I'll take off your pack, Peter, if you see to it that you don't stray."
+
+The burro looked at his master with the gaze of a wise old dog and,
+relieved of his pack, moved slowly to the shade of the living tent.
+Roger, looking his guest over, from faded overalls and blue flannel
+shirt to battered sombrero, led the way into the cook tent.
+
+"Whew!" said the stranger. "Sun's getting higher. Noons are hot. When
+did you reach these parts?"
+
+"A couple of weeks ago. My name's Moore,--Roger Moore."
+
+The man nodded. "Mine's Otto von Minden. I'm an engineer. Been in the
+desert country ten years."
+
+Roger was moving about, making coffee and slicing bacon. "What are you
+doing, prospecting?" he asked.
+
+Von Minden jerked a quick look at Roger from a pair of small brown eyes.
+"Yes, I'm prospecting. What are you doing?"
+
+"Experimenting with solar heat. This is the place to get it if this
+noon is a promise of more to come."
+
+"Heat!" cried the stranger with sudden excitement. "Heat! God! What I
+have known of heat. Blistering, burning, blinding! Nights when the very
+star rays scorch and the moon's a caldron of white lava. Ten years of
+it, Moore, ten years!"
+
+Roger looked at his guest with interest. "You aren't an American?
+There's just a little accent in your speech."
+
+"Me? No. I'm German born and bred. What are you going to do with your
+solar heat?"
+
+"Harness it," replied Roger, "and see if I can make it work for me."
+
+"There's a fool born every minute," said Von Minden.
+
+"You're quite right," returned Roger, cheerfully.
+
+There was no further conversation until Roger had put the coffee, bacon
+and cold biscuits with a can of pie-fruit on the table. Von Minden fell
+to voraciously. His table manners were very bad, his hands were dirty
+but there was something about him that interested Roger.
+
+"I've had great trouble getting water," he said. "Just struck it, this
+noon. 'Twill be enough for drinking and my condenser, I guess, but
+nothing for irrigation."
+
+"Can't do anything with a dug well, here," grunted the guest. "Better
+drive one."
+
+"Is the sand really fertile in this region?" asked Roger.
+
+"Fertile? Friend, there's an empire waiting to be born, right here, if
+only they can get water and fuel."
+
+"If we can get the fuel we can pump the water," said Roger. "You're
+right! There is an empire here. Mineral resources beyond the dreams of
+avarice, four or five crops a year of food-stuffs. Why, man, millions of
+people could come in here and be self-sustaining."
+
+"What do you mean by 'in here'?" Von Minden spoke sharply.
+
+Roger hesitated. "I mean really something pretty big. A cheap fuel would
+open up Arizona, New Mexico, Southern California and Northern old Mexico
+as no one can conceive who's not studied the subject. If I can put over
+my experiment, I shall add to the potential wealth of this country as no
+single individual has ever done. I'm going to get some one's ear at
+Washington, some day, if it's not till I'm a doddering old man. We ought
+to have Mexico, you know, because when the inland empire begins to grow,
+we'll overflow into Mexico. But we never can have her, of course. We can
+only hope that she'll grow into a real nation we can neighbor with, like
+Canada."
+
+"Ah hah! And how're you going to bring about this millennium?" asked Von
+Minden.
+
+But Roger, whose outburst to a stranger had been unprecedented, had
+nothing more to say on the subject.
+
+"Will your burro eat table scraps?" he inquired.
+
+"Yes, especially bacon rinds. Oh, Peter, come here, liebchen!" he
+called.
+
+There was a sound of little light footfalls in the sand and Peter's wise
+gray face appeared in the doorway.
+
+"Come here, sweetheart." The little burro crowded carefully around the
+table end until his head rested on Von Minden's shoulder. One by one,
+the old prospector handed up the bacon rinds and biscuits to him and
+Peter chewed sedately, flopping his ears back and forth.
+
+"You are a good little boy. Now run along out," as the last rind
+disappeared and the burro trotted sedately out to browse industriously
+among the roots of the cactus.
+
+"He really seems to understand," exclaimed Roger delightedly.
+
+"He _knows_!" cried Von Minden. "And now, tell me about this solar heat.
+How are you going to harness it?"
+
+Roger shook his head. "That I won't tell you now. But if you'll come
+back in three months' time, I'll show you the plant."
+
+"You're afraid of me, eh? Well, perhaps that's a good idea. Afraid of
+me! Afraid of poor old Von Minden! There was a time when--ach!
+Well--perhaps you'll let me have a nap here on a bench. Then Peter and
+I'll go on up into the ranges."
+
+"Make yourself at home," replied Roger.
+
+Von Minden stretched his short length on the bench and closed his eyes.
+Before Roger had finished the dishes he was snoring. The little burro
+was standing in the shade of the living tent when Roger came out of the
+cook shelter. He looked pathetically small and thin and Roger, who had
+taken a great fancy to him, brought him a pail of water, and scratched
+his head and talked to him before going on into the tent. Here he was
+shortly absorbed in sorting his blue prints. He was studying the ground
+plan of the absorber, when an uncanny sense of being watched made him
+look over his shoulder. Von Minden, a sawed-off shot-gun aimed at
+Roger's back, was standing in the doorway.
+
+"You will come down here and open up the world's best empire, will
+you--for America, eh? Not yet, my friend!" Von Minden's voice was husky
+and unsteady.
+
+Roger did not move. In fact, he was incapable of moving.
+
+"Look here," he began. Then as in a mist he saw Peter's gray head appear
+at his master's elbow and Peter himself, with his pack on his back,
+thrust his way past his master into the tent, just as Von Minden pulled
+the trigger. The shot seemed to hit everything in the tent but Roger.
+The mist before Roger's eyes turned to red and he made a spring for his
+guest. But Von Minden turned and fled, Peter after him, straight
+eastward across the desert toward the Coyote Range. They ran with
+surprising speed. Roger delayed long enough to get Ernest's rifle out of
+his trunk. By the time he had loaded it, after searching frantically
+several minutes for the box of cartridges, Von Minden and his little
+burro were far beyond rifle shot.
+
+Roger started after them, hot foot, swearing viciously as he ran. As he
+saw the little German turn into the ranch trail a sudden fear for the
+two girls mingled with his anger. But Von Minden did not stop at the
+ranch house. As Roger reached the alfalfa field, burro and man veered to
+the right, around the adobe and rapidly on up the mountain trail, where
+they were quickly lost to view.
+
+Roger saw Charley come hastily out of the house, followed by Felicia and
+when, panting and shaken with rage, he reached the house, they were
+still looking curiously toward the mountain trail.
+
+"What's the trouble, Roger?" called Charley.
+
+"He shot at me, the damned hound! Tried to kill me!"
+
+He would have passed on up the mountain trail, but Charley had hurried
+down the trail and interrupted him quietly, with a steady hand on his
+arm.
+
+"It's only Crazy Dutch!" she said. "You mustn't mind him!"
+
+"Mind him!" shouted Roger. "I tell you he tried to kill me."
+
+"You should have kept his gun for him until he was ready to go. That's
+what we always do. And as for his taking a pot shot at you, why, that's
+all in the day's work in this part of the country."
+
+She smiled as she spoke, looking levelly into his eyes from her splendid
+height. Felicia caught his sleeve.
+
+"We were coming down to call on you, Roger, and now you've spoiled it,"
+she said.
+
+"Sit down on the steps and cool off a little," suggested Charley. "You
+know you can always kill Crazy Dutch if you want to. He's always around.
+He's really a dear old man when you come to know him. He's helped me out
+here many a time when Dick's been sick or away." She was smiling still
+more broadly as she led Roger to the steps. He felt as if he were being
+hypnotized.
+
+"But he tried to kill me," he repeated feebly, as Charley stood his
+rifle in a corner of the porch and sent Felicia for a cup of water.
+
+"Poor child! Did he try to kill you?" Charley patted his arm as if he
+were a small boy. "Sit down in the shade here. I know you think we're
+all crazy down here and I guess we are. But you'll get fond of poor
+Crazy Dutch yourself. Dick loves him and he tried to shoot Dicky, when
+they first knew each other."
+
+The red mist cleared suddenly from Roger's vision. He drank deeply of
+the water Felicia brought him and looked at Charley curiously. She was
+the first person since his mother had died who had been able to ease his
+outbursts of temper. Felicia was still aggrieved. She looked at Roger
+reproachfully.
+
+"We were coming down to call on you and now you've spoiled it."
+
+Roger jumped to his feet with a laugh. "I'll go home at once. Come
+along."
+
+"No, we've got to dress up. It's going to be a regular call," said the
+child.
+
+"We were coming down about half past four to bring you back to supper
+with us," said Charley.
+
+Roger was suddenly conscious of the fact that he had a day's beard on
+his face. He started down the trail, hastily, after retrieving his gun.
+
+"I'll be glad to see you ladies whenever you call," he said, "but I'm
+not going to promise not to shoot Crazy Dutch if he comes round again."
+
+The call, which was made with due ceremony at the hour mentioned, was a
+great success. Roger, fresh shaved, and quite recovered from the shock
+of Von Minden's visit, played host with just enough formality to delight
+Felicia. Charley was deeply interested in the plans for the Sun Plant.
+It was the first time Roger had explained his general scheme of solar
+heating to her and he was surprised by her eager intelligence.
+
+The sun was setting when they started back to the ranch house, with
+Felicia chatting like a magpie. Roger did the milking and the other
+chores, by the light of a "bug."
+
+Charley gave them a simple supper, but the beans and bacon, hot biscuit
+and canned blackberries seemed extraordinarily delicious to Roger. He
+and Felicia washed the supper dishes while Charley put a batch of bread
+to rise.
+
+The evening tasks finished, they established themselves before the
+living-room fire. Roger lighted his pipe.
+
+"Can't I sit up till quarter after eight to-night, Charley?" asked
+Felicia.
+
+"You wanted to do that last night," replied Charley.
+
+"And you wouldn't let me. Won't you to-night?"
+
+"No, dear."
+
+"Then," great eyes on the implacable face of the alarm clock, "I've only
+five minutes to sit up. Charley, I can't bear it."
+
+"Oh, yes, you can," said Roger. "Think how awful it would be if you had
+to go to bed at half-past seven. That's what happened to me when I was
+your age."
+
+"Didn't your mother love you? I don't see how she could help it. You
+must have been a cunning boy."
+
+"I was a long-legged, awkward, freckle-faced brat, but she loved me.
+Mothers are like that."
+
+Felicia nodded understandingly but did not take her eyes from the clock.
+"There it goes, that nasty little minute hand! I'm sorry I ever learned
+to tell time."
+
+"Say good night to Roger, Felicia, and run off to bed. There's a dear."
+
+Felicia rose obediently, put her arms around Roger's neck and kissed
+him. "I don't like a man's kiss, when it tastes of tobacco," she said,
+"but I suppose I might as well get used to it for when we're married,
+Roger."
+
+"I'm sorry," said Roger, meekly. "I'll give up smoking if you really
+want me to."
+
+Felicia giggled, picked up her doll, then turned to look at the clock.
+It pointed to one minute after eight. She put out her tongue at her
+enemy, then dragged slowly into the bedroom which she shared with
+Charley, and shut the door.
+
+Roger and Charley smiled at each other. "Were you a chatterbox, too, at
+her age?" he asked. "I can't remember that you were."
+
+"Dick says I was."
+
+"But you're very silent for a girl. What has changed you?"
+
+Charley laughed, then answered soberly: "The desert."
+
+They both sat looking at the fire after this. The silence had lasted
+some time when Charley said thoughtfully: "And so a big dream will
+materialize in our valley after all. I can't tell you how glad I am."
+
+"Why?" asked Roger, with interest. "Did Dick come out here with a big
+dream?"
+
+"Yes, we were going to make the desert blossom like the rose. We were
+going to have the biggest alfalfa ranch in the southwest."
+
+"Well, you've got a good start, haven't you?"
+
+Charley shook her head and lapsed into silence again. Roger refilled his
+pipe and replenished the fire. The flames leaped up and turned the gray
+Navajo to rose color. The night wind which Roger had learned to expect
+about nine o'clock swooped down the chimney. The faint bark and long
+drawn howl of a coyote pack sounded from the valley and from behind the
+adobe rose a whimper that increased to a scream that was almost human.
+Roger sat forward in his chair.
+
+"Wild cats!" said Charley. "Dick and I both have shot several but we
+can't get rid of them."
+
+"Look here," exclaimed Roger. "I'm going to stay here all night."
+
+"What's the matter? Afraid to go home?"
+
+Roger grinned. "Yes, but I'm more afraid to leave you two girls here
+alone."
+
+"My good man, I've been staying here alone about every two months for
+four years. I'm not a bit afraid."
+
+Roger looked at her keenly, but her deep eyes did not waver. "You may
+have got used to it," he said obstinately, "but I'll wager anything that
+when you first came you were just paralyzed with fear."
+
+"I was indeed!" Charley shook her head as if in wonder at that early
+fear. "I used to barricade myself in the bedroom and slept with the
+little .22 at the head of the bed."
+
+"I don't see how your brother--" began Roger.
+
+"He _had_ to go," interrupted Charley. "Don't you try to prove that Dick
+isn't devoted to me, for he is. He had to see the doctor because he came
+out here with bad lungs. He's all cured of that now. No one could be
+more of a dear than Dick, when he's--well."
+
+She spoke with such vehemence, leaning forward in her chair with such a
+depth of protest in her wide eyes that Roger was surprised.
+
+"Good Lord, I wasn't criticizing Dick. I think he's a fine chap. Only I
+don't think a girl ought to be sleeping alone, twenty-five miles from
+the nearest neighbor."
+
+"I'm safer here alone than I would be in St. Louis or Chicago,"
+exclaimed Charley, leaning back in her chair with a little laugh. "Now
+tell me what you are going to do after your Sun Plant begins to pump
+water?"
+
+"Try to get money interested in developing this and other waste
+countries. There are untold mineral riches in these ranges, if only
+there were a cheap way to get them out. Now don't get excited as Crazy
+Dutch did and shoot me up! By the way, he told me his name was Otto von
+Minden."
+
+Charley nodded. "I believe he comes of good family. He speaks the finest
+kind of Berliner German. Poor old thing!"
+
+Roger snorted. "I'll _poor_ him when I catch him! I'll have him
+committed to an asylum."
+
+Charley laughed. "You'd have hard work getting that done. Asylums are
+rare here and every one is fond of the little German. I wish I knew as
+much as he does about German literature. Some day I'm going to Germany.
+It must be a wonderful country."
+
+"Did you learn German in college?"
+
+"In High School and the University both. I'd like to have had some
+French too, but there were no native French teachers and I didn't fancy
+learning French with somebody's accent plus my own. On the other hand
+the German teachers and the courses they offered were fine. I feel as if
+I knew more about Germany than any other country outside the United
+States."
+
+"So do I," replied Roger, thoughtfully.
+
+"I think that instead of getting Crazy Dutch committed you'd better get
+to know him," Charley went on. "He's so well connected in Germany, in
+spite of his forlorn appearance, he might prove a valuable acquaintance
+for you."
+
+Roger, whose wrath against Von Minden had disappeared much to his own
+astonishment, nodded his head, and once more silence fell between them.
+
+It was ten o'clock when Roger next observed the inexorable hand of the
+alarm clock.
+
+"I wish I'd never learned to tell time," he said as he rose reluctantly,
+"and I wish you'd tell me as much about yourself as I've told you about
+me."
+
+"There's so little to tell," protested Charley.
+
+"Oh, there's a great deal to tell," contradicted Roger. "The chief thing
+being why the desert has changed you from a chatterbox to a Sphinx."
+
+"That you'll never know! Run along home now before the coyotes or Von
+Minden get you."
+
+Roger grinned and said good night.
+
+He was up with the birds the next morning, prepared to give a long day's
+work to cleaning the well and covering it. It was not yet noon when he
+saw a curious procession moving toward the camp along the Archer's
+Springs trail. It appeared to consist of a small string of burros, led
+by a bright red or pink umbrella.
+
+"I thought somebody said the desert was lonesome," said Roger to
+himself. "Me--I run a regular wayside inn." He lighted his pipe and sat
+down on the well curb to wait. Gradually he discerned that the pink
+parasol, undulating now against the sapphire of the sky, now against the
+dancing yellow of a sand drift, was upheld by a woman who sat astride a
+tiny burro. It was ten minutes after he discovered this that the lady
+rode majestically into the camp and dismounted, with magnificent
+gesture, throwing one leg over the burro's drooping head. The three
+burros who were strung behind her stopped in their tracks as though half
+dead.
+
+Roger rose and doffed his hat. This was the largest woman he ever had
+seen. She was easily three inches taller than Roger and splendidly
+proportioned, huge of shoulder, broad of hip, but without an ounce of
+fat upon her. Her face was gaunt and brown: thin lips, long thin nose,
+gray eyes set deep, iron gray hair straggling over her forehead from
+under a dusty pink sunbonnet. She wore a linen duster buttoned close to
+her chin.
+
+"How do you do, sir," she said in a pleasantly modulated voice. "My name
+is Clarissa Foster von Minden."
+
+"Mine is Roger Moore. Won't you come into the cook tent and let me get
+you some lunch?"
+
+"Yes, thank you," looking about her with keen interest. "This is the
+place."
+
+Roger, lighting the gasoline stove, looked at his caller inquiringly.
+She smiled at him as she pulled off her sunbonnet and dust coat,
+revealing a robe of pink calico not unlike an old fashioned "mother
+hubbard."
+
+"I am a disciple of the Yogis, Mr. Moore. I dreamed that my husband was
+to be found in such a camp as this and here I am."
+
+"I suppose you're referring to Otto von Minden. Yes, he was here
+yesterday. He's a genial soul. He tried to shoot me."
+
+Mrs. von Minden nodded. "That's Otto. He had those ways. I've not seen
+him for five years. No bacon, Mr. Moore. I never touch animal fats. Just
+some tea, fruit and crackers. Later, I'll unpack some olive oil which
+you may use when cooking for me."
+
+Roger nearly dropped the tea kettle. His mouth fell open as he stared at
+his caller.
+
+"Don't be startled, my friend," she cried. "Great things are to come to
+you if you obey the Voices. And I've brought my own tent and supplies."
+
+"But your husband isn't here, madam," protested Roger. "To tell you the
+truth, I wouldn't have him about the place. He's just plain crazy."
+
+"Oh, no, he's not crazy. He's had a touch of the sun, undoubtedly. But
+he's not crazy. He's a brilliant man. I can make him very useful to
+you."
+
+Roger scratched his head and grinned. "You haven't by any chance had a
+touch of the sun yourself, Mrs. von Minden?"
+
+The lady laughed. "I must seem so to an outsider. You are still on the
+first plane while I am on the seventh."
+
+"I'll water the burros while the kettle boils," said Roger hastily. He
+provided plentifully for the poor brutes, at the same time gazing
+desperately toward the ranch house. He felt badly in need of advice.
+
+As if in answer to his need he saw a tiny figure come down the trail
+from the corral. It was Felicia, evidently coming to the Sun Plant.
+Roger slipped into the living tent and wrote a hasty note to Charley,
+apprizing her of events and begging her to come to his aid. By the time
+he had established Mrs. von Minden at her luncheon, Felicia reached the
+camp. But before his visitor caught sight of her, he had sent the child
+back with the note. He felt immeasurably relieved when this was
+accomplished.
+
+"Now, madam," he said, "perhaps you would not mind resting here in the
+cook tent while I finish covering in the well. It is dangerous to leave
+it open with all the people that run about the desert in this
+neighborhood."
+
+Madam graciously gave her assent and Roger fell to work briskly,
+laughing now and again to himself in a half vexed way. Sooner than he
+had dared hope, Charley and Felicia appeared. Leaving Felicia to watch
+the burros, Roger led Charley into the living tent and gave the details
+of his predicament. Charley laughed quietly but immoderately and Roger
+joined her.
+
+"How many crazy people have you in the desert?" he asked, finally.
+
+"Uncle Otto is the only one I've known in my four years here. You're
+having wonderful luck. And the old boy has always pretended he's a
+bachelor."
+
+"Perhaps he'll shoot her on sight," said Roger in a hopeful voice.
+
+"Oh, what an awful thing to say!" protested Charley.
+
+"Wait till you see the dame," returned Roger. "Charley, I can't have her
+staying the night here and I don't dare to send her up to your place.
+She might run amuck."
+
+"Pshaw, no, she won't! I'll take care of her. Show me the lady."
+
+Roger led the way to the cook tent. Mrs. von Minden sat on a bench, her
+back against a tent pole, her eyes closed. She opened them, however,
+when Roger spoke her name and acknowledged the introduction to Charley
+and Felicia with considerable air. She refused Charley's offer of
+hospitality, with utter finality.
+
+"Here my Yogis directed me, and here I must stay until my husband comes.
+I will be no burden, after my tent is set up, if the young man will cook
+for me. And my gray hairs are sufficient chaperone."
+
+"But I will not cook for you," said Roger very firmly. "My partner and I
+find it hard enough work cooking for ourselves. We are under great
+nervous and physical strain, Mrs. von Minden, and I must tell you
+frankly, it will be extremely inconvenient to have you here. This rough
+camp is no place for a woman."
+
+"No place for a woman, eh?" repeated Mrs. von Minden. "Why it's paradise
+compared to some of the places Otto von Minden has kept me in." She rose
+suddenly and began to pace the sandy floor, a majestic figure in spite
+of her grotesqueness. "What was I when he found me, an unsophisticated
+girl of twenty, living in my quiet New Hampshire home. He promised me
+everything--travel, court life, the emperor's favor. What does he give
+me but desert camps? Camps where he and I were the only human beings
+within a thousand miles. Camps where I worked like any squaw--where a
+bit of tent and a blanket made our entire equipment. Five years ago he
+left me. I've taught school long enough to save money for an outfit and
+now I shall not leave till I have found him and given him the message of
+the Yogis."
+
+"But, Mr. von Minden comes to see me every once in a while. You'll be
+much more apt to find him at the ranch than here."
+
+"Here I must stay," reiterated the unwelcome guest, with a sudden quaver
+in her voice that made Roger say hastily:
+
+"Oh, very well! Mrs. von Minden. If you'll show me which is your tent
+pack, I'll try to make you comfortable."
+
+"I'll stay and help," said Charley.
+
+"So will I," cried Felicia. "I'd love to unpack the burros. All the
+bundles are so knobby. Are there any doll dishes there, Mrs. von
+Minden?"
+
+As if she saw the child for the first time, Mrs. von Minden gazed at her
+in astonishment. "Why, my dear, how much you look like your sister! No,
+there are no doll dishes there, I'm sorry to say. Come, children!" and
+her pink robe blowing she led the way to the patient burros.
+
+"Isn't this fun?" whispered Charley to Roger.
+
+"Maybe! But how'll I explain to Ernest?"
+
+The mere thought of this sent Charley off into a gale of laughter that
+caused Mrs. von Minden to ask sharply:
+
+"What is so funny?"
+
+"I'm just laughing at what Mr. Moore's partner and my brother will say
+when they get in some time to-night and find a lady established here,"
+answered Charley frankly.
+
+The visitor smiled grimly and set about her unpacking. The particularly
+knobby bundle which had fascinated Felicia proved to be a rocking chair,
+enwrapped by the canvas tent. There was a compact little cooking outfit,
+several large books on Occultism, an air mattress, two pink quilts, a
+pink pillow and a suitcase of clothing. One burro was loaded with
+provisions, consisting of olive oil, sugar, coffee, flour and canned
+cheese.
+
+Roger knocked together a crude tent frame and stretched the tent over
+it, Mrs. von Minden directing while Charley and Felicia tugged with him.
+The guest refused to allow Roger to make a bunk for her. The Yogis, it
+seemed, had told her to sleep on the ground. When the mattress and
+rocking chair and a box for a table had been established in the tent
+Madam expressed herself as satisfied.
+
+"You may rest now, children," she said, "while I concentrate."
+
+"By the way," suggested Roger. "How about the burros? With all the good
+will in the world, I can't feed them, for I have no fodder."
+
+"You have a ranch, Miss Preble," said Mrs. von Minden. "I will pay you
+for boarding them. What is the charge?"
+
+"My brother will take care of that on his return," answered Charley.
+"We'll lead them up when we go home."
+
+"You're not going yet, Charley," exclaimed Roger, in alarm. "You must
+stay to supper."
+
+"I never was so popular in my life," laughed Charley. "Of course I'll
+stay. Let me have a look at the new well, Roger. Do you think it's going
+to meet your demands?"
+
+She crossed the camp to admire the new pump, Roger following.
+
+"I don't think it will do more than supply engine and camp needs,"
+replied Roger. "I don't know whether to go ahead, prospecting for water,
+or to erect the plant first."
+
+"Why don't you erect your plant, then if you don't find enough water
+after drilling for it, with your engine, move up to the ranch and use
+our spring. I'm not trying to graft something free. We'll be glad to pay
+for it. But our old gasoline engine is an awful lemon and it's going to
+be an awful job to keep up the supply of gasoline."
+
+"Jove! My first customer? Charley, you're a peach!" exclaimed Roger. "I
+suppose I might put my plant up on your place to begin with. But no,
+this is the spot the Smithsonian picked, it's government land, and to
+move now might make endless complications. But you'll have your pumping
+plant, Charley, before any one else does. And we'll make the alfalfa
+crops pay for it."
+
+Charley nodded, then gasped, "Look, Roger! Oh, if Ernest and Dick could
+only steal in now!"
+
+The guest had pulled her rocker out before the tent flap and was seated
+in it, eyes closed, hands clasped over her stomach, immovable except for
+a light swaying of her chair.
+
+"Concentrating, I suppose," muttered Roger. "Charley, I'll bet the old
+bird will never leave me. I have the feeling."
+
+"What on earth does she mean by concentrating?" gasped Charley, through
+her laughter.
+
+"Oh, it's some of that occult rot, I don't doubt," groaned Roger.
+"Charley, stay till the fellows come. I'm frightened."
+
+"On the contrary," laughed Charley, "I'm going to get us all an early
+supper and put those burros to bed before dark."
+
+She was as good as her word. The afterglow had not faded from the sky
+when Roger returned to the camp, after helping Charley with her chores.
+His guest had retired to her tent and Roger withdrew to his and threw
+himself down on his cot to await the return of Dick and Ernest.
+
+It was midnight when the teams rattled into camp. Roger hastened out at
+once.
+
+"We'll unhitch and leave both wagons here to unload in the morning,"
+said Ernest.
+
+Dick already was silently unchecking his horses, returning only a grunt
+to Roger's greeting.
+
+"I'll go with you, Dick, and take our team to the corral," said Roger.
+
+"Don't be a fool!" growled Dick. "I'll take them without any help. If
+I've got to board 'em, I'll do the work for 'em. Don't you butt in!" He
+mounted one of his own horses and stringing the others behind, he rode
+off under the starlight.
+
+"For the Lord's sake!" exclaimed Roger, following Ernest into the tent,
+"what's the matter with Dick?"
+
+Ernest tossed a pile of mail onto the trunk beside the candle. "I
+haven't the remotest idea. He was as jolly as usual when we had our
+supper at sunset. About an hour ago I spoke to him and he took my head
+off. I haven't tried him since. Sweet for poor Charley."
+
+"I didn't know he was subject to grouches," mused Roger. "Say, Ern,
+before I read the mail, I've got some news for you."
+
+"Qui-tha done some real work?" asked Ernest with a yawn.
+
+"Oh, Qui-tha! I'd forgotten him. He departed that morning without a
+farewell. We have, however, another guest, who is at this moment asleep
+in her own tent, near the cook house."
+
+"Get out, Roger! It's too late for joking. Let me get to bed."
+
+"A regular lady, Ern, six feet two or three in height and as near as I
+can make out she's here for keeps. She's Von Minden's wife."
+
+Ernest stopped yawning. "Who the deuce is Von Minden?"
+
+"Oh, I forgot to mention him. He's the man who tried to shoot me
+yesterday."
+
+Ernest stared at Roger incredulously. "Rog, what's the matter with you?
+You're positively maudlin."
+
+Roger chuckled. "Next time you want excitement, Ernie, don't go to
+Archer's Springs. Stay right at home here in the God-forsakenest spot on
+earth. Now I'll make my story as short as I can, but you've got to hear
+it to-night. I can't sleep with it on my chest and she's liable to break
+loose with something any time."
+
+He finished his story as rapidly as possible, Ernest's consternation
+growing as he proceeded.
+
+"But, my Lord, Rog, she can't stay here!" he cried.
+
+"So I told her. So Charley told her. But she's here. In her tent. On her
+air mattress. Her rocking chair beside her. Her books on occultism at
+her head."
+
+"I was going to ask you to read that letter from Washington to-night,"
+said Ernest, feebly, "but I feel that I need immediate rest. I'll go up
+in the morning to see Dick and if he still has his grouch with him, I'll
+bring him back to tackle the lady."
+
+Roger yawned. "Guess I will leave the mail until morning. That woman
+has exhausted me more than any job we've tackled yet."
+
+He blew out the candle and in a few moments the little camp was silent
+in the star glow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE LETTER FROM WASHINGTON
+
+
+In spite of his weariness, Roger could not sleep. He scarcely had closed
+his eyes when the memory of Dick's curious ugliness made him open them
+and stare into the darkness. What in the world could induce a seemingly
+pleasant fellow like Dick to go off apparently without cause into a deep
+seated grouch?
+
+Roger shook himself. What a fool he was to lie awake over a thing as
+trivial as this. All men were moody. Roger told himself that, excepting
+Ernest, every man he knew had unaccountable grouches. Then he closed his
+eyes and opened them again. Would Dick row Charley? It was unthinkable
+that a man should row a woman of her type. Roger had discovered that he
+admired his old time playmate very much. She was so calm, so clear
+headed and keen thinking. With all the dignity of her splendid boyish
+physique added to her splendid intelligence, it was very unpleasant to
+think of her having to submit to bullying.
+
+Roger turned over with a sigh. After a time of tossing, moved by an
+unaccountable impulse, he crept out of bed and peered from the tent flap
+toward the ranch house. A faint speck of light flecked the darkness. He
+scratched a match and looked at his watch. It was half past two. He went
+back to bed, where he lay for a half hour, wondering what was going on
+at the ranch house.
+
+This was an unusual proceeding for Roger. Like most only children Roger
+had grown up self-centered and more or less selfish. His work had tended
+to increase these characteristics. Not since his mother's death, with
+the single exception of his thoughtful affection for Mamma Wolf, had
+Roger spent so much of himself on another's problem as he now was
+spending on Charley's.
+
+He rose again. The light still shone from the adobe. He slipped into his
+clothes and noiselessly left the tent. It was nipping cold and he walked
+as fast as the heavy sand permitted. As he neared the ranch, a second
+light appeared and moved down to the corral. A few minutes later Roger
+had reached the bars.
+
+"Dick," he cried softly to the dark figure that was pulling the harness
+off one of the horses. "It's Roger! Anything the matter? I saw the
+light." The figure dropped the harness and ran over to the bar. As the
+"bug" light caught her face, Roger saw that it was Charley.
+
+"Oh, Roger!" she exclaimed. "I'm so glad, so glad to see you!"
+
+He vaulted over the bar.
+
+"Hush," she said, "Dick's sick and I've just gotten him to sleep."
+
+"Sick! That accounts for his grouch then! Why couldn't he say so! Shall
+I go for the doctor, Charley?"
+
+"No! No! He's subject to these attacks. Did--did Ernest mind his being
+cross?" In the candlelight Charley looked anxiously into Roger's face.
+
+"Not a bit. He just wondered about it because the change came on so
+suddenly. What is it? His stomach?"
+
+"Yes, his stomach," replied Charley.
+
+"Sure you don't want me to go for the doctor?"
+
+Charley's voice trembled a little. "Very sure! But you can hang up the
+harness for me while I hold the light." Then, as Roger obeyed with
+alacrity, she asked: "What made you come up this hour of the night?"
+
+"I couldn't sleep. Then I began to think about your brother's grouch. I
+got up and took a look in this direction and saw the light. I don't know
+just why I came. Restless, I guess!"
+
+He tossed the lines over a peg and came back to take the lantern from
+Charley. As the light flashed on her face he saw that she looked very
+tired and that her lip was quivering. A wordless surprise swept over
+Roger. The feeling he had had that Charley was like an interesting boy
+whom he would wish to keep for a friend was rudely shocked by that
+quivering lip. Only a girl's lip could tremble so.
+
+"Something _is_ wrong," he said, anxiously. "Let me help you."
+
+"You have helped me, more than you can know. Go home to bed now or you
+won't be fit for work to-morrow. And that work is just about the most
+important thing in this valley."
+
+Roger could think of no adequate reply. He lowered the bars for Charley
+and put them up again. The two stood in silent contemplation of the
+desert night. The night wind was dying as dawn approached. Above and
+below was one perfect blending of dusky blue, with only the faint fleck
+of star silver to mark the sky from the earth. Roger's nerves quickened
+to the wonder of the night. He turned to Charley.
+
+"I don't feel as if I'd ever lived before," he half whispered.
+
+"I know," replied the girl. "I don't believe a person could be a real
+agnostic in the desert, do you?"
+
+"No," said Roger, simply.
+
+"You must go to bed," repeated Charley. "And you mustn't worry any more
+about me." She turned to run quickly up the trail to the adobe.
+
+Roger started campward.
+
+He was wakened later in the morning by the sound of conversation.
+
+"I'm sorry, madam, but I'm no cook, and I dislike olive oil, anyhow. If
+you'll eat the pancakes as I fry 'em, in bacon fat, you're more than
+welcome to all you wish. But if you want olive oil used, you must fry
+them yourself."
+
+"Where's the other young man?" asked Mrs. von Minden.
+
+"Hey! Rog!" roared Ernest. "You're wanted."
+
+Roger sat up on the edge of his cot with a yawn. As he did so, his eye
+fell on the unopened letters on the trunk.
+
+Without waiting to dress he opened the one postmarked Washington. He
+read it through twice, then very deliberately rose and pulled on his
+clothing. His face was pale beneath the tan as he stepped out into the
+morning sun.
+
+"Ernest, here's some bad news!" he called. "Come over to the tent a
+moment."
+
+As Ernest hurried up, Roger said slowly, "Austin is dead and the
+Smithsonian Institute says it doesn't know anything about the deal with
+me."
+
+Ernest dropped the pancake turner he was holding. "Good God!" He read
+the letter, then looked up into Roger's somber face. "Dropped dead in
+New York three weeks ago. Poor chap!"
+
+Roger nodded. "But what was he up to? The writer of that letter says
+that although the Smithsonian was interested in a general way in our
+work, Austin had no authority to go ahead. Now, where did he get the
+money?"
+
+"I suppose he was afraid some one else would get in on it while the
+Smithsonian was hesitating, so he funded up himself. I suppose they'd
+have paid him back. You remember his cursing out the delays and the red
+tape that hampered everything connected with the government. I thought
+he was hipped on the subject, but now--"
+
+"What makes you think all that?" asked Roger.
+
+"Well, don't you remember in St. Louis, when he was ordering stuff from
+the Condit Iron Works he said he'd pay the bill himself, to get the
+stuff started?"
+
+Roger shook his head. "I don't remember. But I guess you're right. Lord,
+what a good scout he was to have so much faith in me! I wonder how much
+he spent on us, and whether his wife is provided for?"
+
+"That won't be hard to find out. What we've got to worry about now is
+the situation with the Smithsonian. They can't realize how far we've
+gone."
+
+"Yes, they do," replied Roger. "That letter from, what does he sign
+himself--Hampton?--is in reply to the report I sent Austin from Archer's
+Springs, two weeks ago. Why, they've got to go on with it!"
+
+"If they won't, we are up against it," groaned Ernest. "I don't want to
+ask father for money, and you and the Dean have tried every one in the
+world."
+
+"And who the devil wants you to ask your father for money for me?" Roger
+shouted. "Haven't we got practically all the material we need, bought
+and paid for? We don't need anything except food. We'll do the work
+ourselves."
+
+Ernest's gentle voice interrupted. "But, Rog--"
+
+"Don't _but_ me," roared Roger. "I tell you nothing shall stop me now!
+If it takes twenty years, I'll go through with this. I'd rather cut my
+throat than not go on with it. I've waited for five years for this
+chance. The death of one man won't stop me, nor the indifference of some
+fool government clerk. This plant is going to be built."
+
+"What I started to say," said Ernest quietly, "when you began your
+brain-storm, was that if you'd sell your laboratory equipment up home it
+would guarantee us food for six months. The Dean would attend to it for
+you."
+
+Roger sat down on his cot, rather suddenly. "That's a good idea, Ern,"
+he said, meekly.
+
+Ernest picked up the pancake turner. "I'm with you to a finish in this,
+Roger. You don't have to jaw me, you know."
+
+"Sorry, old man," muttered Roger.
+
+"It's all right," replied Ernest. "I'll finish getting breakfast. We've
+got all day to talk this over. One idea occurs to me. Perhaps this man
+Hampton who signs this letter would be less cold to the project if he
+had details. Why don't you give him the whole story, both of the plant
+and of our relationship to Austin?"
+
+"That's a good hunch," exclaimed Roger, immensely cheered up by the
+suggestion. "Well," with a sigh, "I might have known I was having too
+much luck."
+
+"It's the old lady. She's a bird of ill omen. I knew it the minute I saw
+her, this morning. Come out as soon as you can, Rog. I don't dare to be
+alone with her."
+
+Roger grinned, but did not hasten his shaving. Ernest could be
+facetious. After all, the building of the plant was not Ernest's dream.
+Roger was shocked by the news of Austin's death, but the shock was not
+due to grief. Austin simply represented opportunity to the young
+inventor. A sudden fear was clutching at his heart lest now the plant
+would never be completed. Roger had learned much since his arrival in
+the desert. He had begun to realize that the desert fights ferociously
+any attempt to subdue her. He knew now that it was going to take much
+longer than the outside margin he had allowed to build the plant. If a
+driven well failed, he must try out the Prebles'. Perhaps Dick's
+knowledge of irrigation would prove to be sketchy and that water supply
+too would prove inadequate. He believed still that his plans for the
+plant itself would not have to be changed.
+
+"I heard every word you two said," Mrs. von Minden's voice rose
+suddenly. "You needn't worry at all. I'll concentrate for you
+immediately after breakfast."
+
+"In that case, we are ruined," Roger muttered, smiling in spite of
+himself, as he dropped the tent flap behind him.
+
+The lady visitor was sitting on a bench beside the table in the cook
+tent, contemplating a cup of coffee and a plate of crackers.
+
+"Was it your idea, madam," said Ernest, attacking a pile of pancakes
+some ten inches high, "that your husband would find you in this camp?"
+
+"So the Yogis say," replied Mrs. von Minden.
+
+"Why don't you fry yourself some cakes, Mrs. von Minden?" asked Roger.
+
+"Part of my creed is never to prepare food for myself if it is possible
+to get some one else to do it. A complete inertia is a vital step toward
+Nirvana."
+
+Roger grunted. "Then you'll never find Nirvana in this camp, I can tell
+you."
+
+"Good morning!" cried Felicia, appearing suddenly in the doorway.
+
+"Dicky is sick," she announced, "and Charley sent me down here for the
+day. She said please for you not to come up because Dicky is so cross,
+she doesn't want any one around."
+
+Ernest and Roger looked at each other.
+
+"I think I'd better go up," said Roger.
+
+"No, I'll go," insisted Ernest.
+
+"Charley doesn't want you," cried Felicia. "She says so and she always
+means what she says."
+
+"Oh, you've found that out, have you?" asked Ernest. "Well, have a
+flapjack; my cook is an artist."
+
+"I've had breakfast, thank you," replied the little girl. "I'm going out
+and look at the things in the wagon."
+
+"Go to it!" exclaimed Ernest. Then to Roger, "I see you've struck water
+at last. That news evidently impressed you less than other events, last
+night."
+
+Roger nodded. "There's not much of it and it's vile to taste. But it'll
+take care of our camp wants and the engine. Charley suggested that if we
+didn't strike an adequate supply when we drove the well farther, we'd
+better set the plant up at their place. They'd be our first customers."
+
+"Better not take her up till you've done a lot of experimenting down
+here," said Ernest, quickly.
+
+"I don't expect to do much experimenting," replied Roger. "But I've
+started here and I'll keep on here, especially since this unexpected mix
+up."
+
+Mrs. von Minden, who seemed to have been lost in thought ever since
+Felicia's appearance, now spoke suddenly, but with closed eyes.
+
+"No, don't leave this spot. You are destined to great good luck here."
+
+The two men looked at each other. Ernest shrugged his shoulders and
+Roger sighed and asked:
+
+"Did the pump come?"
+
+"Yes, and the hose and the pipe for the condenser. We brought that and
+the glass, the cement, more lumber, and the drum of sulphur dioxide.
+There are two more big loads down there."
+
+Roger nodded. "I'll take my turn at it to-morrow. Did you see Schmidt?"
+
+"Yes, and he suggested that if we'd tie Preble's team to our wagon, he'd
+drive a load back for us, so only you would need to come in."
+
+"We can't afford to have Schmidt come out here now," sighed Roger.
+
+"Let him come!" murmured the visitor, still with closed eyes. "He will
+be provided for. It's a great work and must go on."
+
+Roger jerked himself to his feet. "Let's go outside, Ern," he exclaimed.
+
+Madam opened her eyes for a moment to say, "Send the child in to wash
+the dishes!"
+
+Ernest turned a chuckle into a hiccough and followed Roger over to the
+well. "Roger, it won't cost much to keep him for a week and that
+provides for getting Hackett's team back and stopping that expense."
+
+Roger nodded. "Let's leave those dishes on the table till she does 'em
+or we have to get lunch."
+
+"O. K.! There she goes into her tent. Rog, she's plain crazy. Well, what
+do we tackle to-day?"
+
+"We'd better get the pump ready and then start to build the engine
+house. I want it big enough to include the laboratory."
+
+"Right-o! Dick suggested we save lumber by making the engine house of
+adobe. He says the sand storms that'll blow next month will ruin our
+apparatus if we don't cover it well."
+
+"Where'll we get the adobe?" asked Roger.
+
+"He said that that layer of clay we struck about four feet down in the
+well is extra fine adobe and that he'll show us how to handle it. I
+wonder how long he'll be sick, poor chap! Was Dick ever sick this way
+before, Felicia?" he called.
+
+"Lots of times!" the child called back. "Oh, Ernest, here's a little,
+little bundle that's so soft it can't be a machine. Can't I open it? It
+might be for me."
+
+"Go ahead!" replied Ernest.
+
+"If the adobe won't take too long, I like the idea," said Roger. "But
+with our new financial problem, we're working against time."
+
+"Oh, isn't it awful. Nothing but dish cloths for Charley!" shrieked
+Felicia.
+
+"She'll have all the small items in those wagons in a hard knot,"
+exclaimed Roger. "Felicia! Come and help unpack the pump, there's a good
+girl!"
+
+When the wagon had been unloaded, the two men began the installation of
+the pump. By noon they had not finished the job. Roger had infinite
+patience with machinery. Ernest practically none.
+
+"You'd have kicked the face off any human being that acted as mulish as
+this pump, Rog," growled Ernest. "Hang the thing! Let's throw it away
+and get a good one."
+
+Roger laughed. "And you'd have no end of patience with a pupil as onery
+as this pump, Ern. It's all right. We'll have it going in a moment."
+
+And go she did, to the excited admiration of Felicia, who had been an
+attentive audience during the entire performance. Mrs. von Minden did
+not leave the confines of her tent until mid-afternoon, when she spent
+some time preparing herself a meal. After lunch, Ernest would have gone
+to offer his services at the adobe, had not Felicia protested to the
+point of tears, that Charley would be angry. Somewhat to their own
+amusement the two men gave in to the vehement small girl, and the ground
+work for the absorber being complete, they began to clear space for the
+engine house and consumer. Felicia with a kitchen knife and the pancake
+turner, toiled away after the two men all the afternoon.
+
+About five o'clock Ernest took her home. He was gone some time and Roger
+had supper ready on his return. Ernest had fed the horses and milked
+for Charley, who said that Dick would be around on the morrow.
+
+"Then I'll write my letter to-night and start in with the two teams at
+daylight," said Roger. "You finish grubbing off for the condenser,
+Ernest, and make a carpenter's bench. And try not to kill our visitor."
+But the visitor was invisible all the evening, nor had she appeared
+before Roger left the next morning. He was well on his way toward
+Archer's Springs by daylight. The wagons were empty and the horses
+fresh, so that he reached the railroad station by mid-afternoon and had
+the wagons loaded by dark ready for the return trip.
+
+At the Chinese restaurant where he went for his supper he saw Schmidt.
+
+"Well!" exclaimed the German. "You vas here at last, nicht wahr!"
+
+Roger nodded. "I hear you are coming up for a visit."
+
+"Visit? No! No! To stay. Ya! To stay!"
+
+Roger shook his head. "Can't feed you, old man!" and then, before he
+knew it, he was telling the sympathetic German of the Smithsonian's
+dereliction.
+
+"These American governments!" groaned Schmidt. "Vat a stupidness! In
+Germany such a foolishness is impossible. Vell, I come for a veek and
+bring my own grub. I haf a leetle money, enough to feed me. Vat I lack
+is vork--vork to keep me from going crazy with the heim-weh in this
+ocean of sand, and some one mit brain to talk to. The baggage-man--the
+storekeeper--the Chinaman--Gott! I know their every mind like a primer,
+so long have I talked to them."
+
+There was to Roger something irresistibly likeable about Schmidt's
+sentimental, jovial face.
+
+"Come ahead, then!" he said. "You'll have to bunk in the cook-tent, and
+bring your own bed with you, but we'll be delighted to have you with
+us."
+
+Schmidt rubbed his stubby hands together. "I go at vonce and pack up,"
+he exclaimed. "Ve vill drive by my place in the morning and pick me up,"
+and he started for the door.
+
+At five o'clock the next morning the two heavily laden wagons crawled
+out on the desert trail, campwards. It was slow going, particularly
+after they struck the deep sand which began ten miles out of the town.
+Gustav Schmidt was rather silent when they stopped at noon, to water and
+feed their horses and to eat the lunch the Chinaman had put up for them.
+He was heavily coated with dust and his face had burned badly.
+
+Half way through the second sandwich he said: "Ve'll get even with that
+sun, eh? Ve harness him and make him pump vater on us and on this damn
+sand, eh? Gott, vat a country!"
+
+"What's the matter with this country?" asked Roger, blowing the sand off
+a ripe olive. "It's exactly the kind of country I want to make solar
+power with and it's exactly the kind of country you want to cure your
+bad lungs. If you don't like it--"
+
+"Vait! Vait!" interrupted Schmidt. "I know vat you vill say. If I don't
+like it, go back to Germany. Some day I do go back, but not yet. Ven I
+go, I try to take you and young Wolf mit me. This is the land of
+nature's opportunity. In the Fatherland, the government gif the
+opportunity. This is the land for the adventure, for the exploitation,
+nicht wahr? Germany the land for the thinker, like you? Nicht wahr?"
+
+Roger shook his head. Nevertheless, his eyes were wistful. Many times
+during the afternoon he thought of Schmidt's remark. Roger's education
+and reading had long ago persuaded him that Germany was the land for the
+thinker, that there a man would not have to struggle for ten years to
+give birth to an idea such as his. He wondered why he never had cut
+loose and gone to the Fatherland. Some subconscious sense of obligation
+to his own country, he supposed. And yet, he thought bitterly what a
+fool he had been! Surely there could be no passion, not even the love
+for women, as deep-rooted, as overwhelming and as racially right as a
+man's desire to express his dreams. And that expression was denied him
+in his own country unless he put up a fight that depleted his creative
+force, surely by half.
+
+He sighed heavily and yet his thoughts returned to the little new power
+plant with a vague heart warming as though already it spelled home to
+him.
+
+Toward sundown, a curiously picturesque group passed them on the trail.
+Half a dozen squaws, with bare black heads and capes of red bandannas
+sewed together, were plodding toward town laden with ollas. Roger pulled
+up his team and called to them. Dick had told him to buy one of the
+great Indian water jars at his first opportunity.
+
+"Will you sell me one?" he asked.
+
+The oldest squaw nodded and held up a fine two gallon jar. It was just
+the color of the desert sand and was ornamented with swastikas and
+triangles in lines of vivid black.
+
+"How much?" asked Roger.
+
+"Eight bits," she said.
+
+Roger dropped a dollar into her slender brown palm. The squaw flashed
+white teeth at him and a younger woman pressed forward holding up an
+olla no bigger than a teacup, a duplicate in design of the one he had
+just bought.
+
+"I'll take that for Felicia," he murmured. "How much?"
+
+"Two bits."
+
+He tossed her the quarter. "You make 'em camp up there?" asked the old
+squaw.
+
+"Yes," replied Roger. "Come and call on us, ladies."
+
+"We bring 'em baskets, maybe," replied the squaw.
+
+Roger nodded and started the horses on, looking back from time to time
+for pure pleasure in the beauty of those scarlet fluttering capes.
+
+They reached the camp about ten o'clock and were vociferously welcomed
+by Ernest, who, before taking the horses up to the corral, insisted on
+showing them his day's work.
+
+"Nothing doing on the carpenter's bench," he said, flashing the
+"lightning bug" toward the site of the engine house. "Look here. Dick
+came over right after breakfast and we were hard at this all day."
+
+All the lumber in the camp had been requisitioned to make adobe molds.
+"We mixed the adobe with that clutter of broken hay that the glass came
+in," explained Ernest. "Dick says the Mexicans use stable scrapings,
+but I couldn't stomach that. You see you just peg the boards up in the
+sand, a foot apart and pack them full of the adobe. That'll be the
+thickness of the house. Then when the strips are dried, we'll cut them
+the length we want. Two days more work will give us all we need."
+
+"Vat a country!" exclaimed Gustav.
+
+Ernest and Roger laughed. "I take it Dick is O. K. again," said Roger.
+
+"Quite himself. Said Charley was used up, but she came down late this
+afternoon with Felicia and she said she was feeling fine. Felicia made
+those little bricks yonder. Charley has put her into overalls. She's
+simply ravishing in them."
+
+"And how is your guest?" asked Roger. "I've been telling Schmidt about
+her. He's heard of Von Minden at Archer's. And it seems she outfitted
+there. Claimed to have come up from Phoenix and said she had an
+engagement with us."
+
+"Well, she was invisible, practically until noon to-day. Then she
+brought her rocking chair here where Dick and I were at work and
+concentrated on us all the afternoon."
+
+"Concentrated? Vat iss concentrated?" asked Gustav.
+
+"Well, she rocks in the chair, holding the pink umbrella till Dick
+lashed it to the chair back for her. She keeps her eyes closed and
+doesn't speak, though she did explain that she was talking to her
+mother, who is on the seventh plane, concerning the successful erection
+of the engine house. Dick seems quite smitten by her. He gazes on her
+and gazes as if fascinated, then he goes off behind the living tent and
+laughs."
+
+"My God, what a country!" groaned Roger.
+
+"I've got a bed fixed up for you in the cook tent, Schmidt," said
+Ernest. "You'll be safe if none of Mrs. von Minden's spirit friends
+bother you. She told me that she heard them playing the accordion in the
+cook tent last night."
+
+"I love music," was Schmidt's response, and the three men went laughing
+to bed. Roger wakened in the night but once. Through the open tent flap
+he beheld Mrs. von Minden rocking silently in the starlight before her
+tent.
+
+"She's going to get on my nerves," he murmured and fell asleep again.
+
+Dawn was just breaking over the mountains the next morning when Roger
+entered the cook tent. He was greeted by Gustav, who was purple with the
+cold but grinning cheerfully, and the smell of coffee.
+
+"It vas not so soft, sleeping on Frau Nature's heart in the desert,
+nicht wahr!" he exclaimed. "Coyotes vere eating the garbage last night
+mit gulps and snortings and I slept not. It vas not the music I had been
+promised. So I make the breakfast early."
+
+"I didn't sleep well myself the first night or two," said Roger. "Desert
+silence makes a lot of noise to a town-bred man. Hey!"--going to the
+door--"Ern! You lazy Dutchman! The new cook'll leave if you don't get up
+for your breakfast."
+
+Gustav and Roger were half through the meal when Ernest appeared.
+"Mud-pie making is hard work," he groaned, sliding stiffly onto the
+bench beside Roger.
+
+"I certainly hate to make adobe brick when every day counts so," said
+Roger. "Let's use sheet iron."
+
+"It'll be better to take Dick's advice," insisted Ernest. "He says the
+dust storms are frightful here and the heat worse. The adobe shelter
+will be grateful on many counts."
+
+"Ve'll all vork hard," said Gustav, "and the 'dobe vill be up strong,
+before ve know it. Ven it is done, it is done good, and that is right. I
+vash the damn dishes. You go make the mud mixing. Then I come."
+
+"We're going to hate to let that chap go when his visit's up," said
+Roger, as he and Ernest began work on the adobe.
+
+"Maybe we won't have to let him go," replied Ernest. "You stir the mess
+up, Rog, and I'll put it into the molds. Dick is going on with his
+grading, but he'll be over in a day or so and show us how to begin the
+house building."
+
+"The trouble with you is, Ern, that you're flighty-minded. You're tired
+of making a Sun Plant and all excitement over building a mud house."
+
+"I wouldn't have a single track mind like yours for a million dollars,"
+returned Ernest cheerfully.
+
+Roger grinned and presently began to whistle as he worked. Mrs. von
+Minden proved to be an exceedingly unexacting guest. After it was
+evident to her that her hosts had not the slightest intention of doing
+special cooking for her she did her own. She ate only two meals a day,
+preparing one at mid-morning and one at sundown. The remainder of the
+day she spent within her tent, reading or rocking in her chair,
+concentrating on the camp work. She seldom talked and then only on the
+matter of what she called Yogi-ism.
+
+Gustav took a violent dislike to her and refused to work if she looked
+at him. Roger declared that on the next trip to town he was going to
+telegraph Phoenix and see if she had not escaped from an insane
+asylum. But Ernest only laughed.
+
+"Poor old soul! She's not crazy except on her religion. Let her alone.
+She's no expense and no trouble!"
+
+"She gives me the willies," insisted Roger. "I never knew before that I
+had a temperament."
+
+"Gosh, I could have broken that to you twenty-five years ago," said
+Ernest. "Only I supposed obvious facts were as plain to you as to other
+people. Here she comes for her afternoon's work, bless her, pink
+umbrella, pink nighty and all. What a lucky dog Von Minden is."
+
+Roger chuckled and joined Gustav, who moved hastily to continue his
+brick making back of the lady's chair.
+
+Working so, he was facing the ranch and presently he saw Charley cross
+the alfalfa field to join Dick. A moment later, the two figures were
+following the team across the field. Next Felicia flashed down the
+trail, a tiny dot of blue, and shortly he saw Dick lift her to one of
+the horse's backs. Roger's mind harked back to old days. He recalled
+Charley's father giving her and him just such a ride over the fertile
+corn fields of home. And he pondered for a moment on the thing called
+fate.
+
+There was a little hand that clung to his as he and Charley scuffled up
+the dusty road to the farm. There was Dick's ruddy boyish face, sternly
+disapproving. There was a childish treble, "I shall love Charley. She'll
+take such care of me as never was on sea nor land. Aunt May says so."
+And finally there was the woman's voice. "Go home to bed now, or you
+won't be fit for work to-morrow. And that work is about the most
+important thing in this valley now."
+
+And now, Charley drove a team over a desert field, while he--what was he
+doing after all? Roger rose abruptly and lighting his pipe began to
+stroll aimlessly around the camp. Was this dream that had worked itself
+into the very fiber of his nature worth while? The desert, shimmering in
+endless silence about him, seemed very far from that world of machinery
+that he had worshiped so long. Supposing that Charley did bring the
+desert to bearing. Supposing that he did harness the sun and start an
+empire to building in these barren wastes. To what avail?
+
+Though his dream were the very foundation of their existence, men would
+fight here for the supremacy of riches, just as of old. And why not?
+Through the welter of cut-throat striving man had won his intelligence.
+Who was he to endeavor to lessen that competition?
+
+How restless, how discontented he had been for nearly ten years! Was he
+not missing the best of life and was not happiness the real goal of
+living? And did not men get the only real joy from wife and child? Did
+any work that did not focus round these two bring real content?
+
+A sudden swelling of his heart, a sudden rush of blood through his
+brain, a sudden thrill of his lean strong body that seemed to extend to
+the very heart of the desert, brought Roger to pause in his walking. He
+gazed for a long moment at the little blue figure astride the horse, and
+at the tall figure in khaki beside Dick.
+
+The March afternoon was hot but with a clear tang that was as
+exhilarating as winter frost. The range back of the ranch house was
+brown where the sky line shone clear. But the gashed and eroded sides of
+the mountains were filled with drifts of purple clouds that melted now
+in soft blue billows into the sky, now in ragged streams of crimson into
+canyons black in the distance. The little sounds of the camp were as
+nothing. The pygmy figures in the alfalfa field were infinitesimal. A
+new sense of the immensity of the universe poured into Roger's soul with
+devastating force and for the first time in his life Roger realized his
+own lack of importance.
+
+A moment of this and then the instinct that has lifted man above the
+brutes spoke in him again. He would not belong to life only through
+children. He would make himself immortal through his work, work by which
+men should live and think and have their being for ages to come.
+
+With a long sigh, Roger tossed his black hair back from his face and
+returned to his brick making.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE RUNAWAY
+
+
+The three men toiled arduously for two days on the brick making. At the
+end of that time the desert all about the camp was paved with adobe
+brick, baking in the sun until Dick should come to start them on their
+house building. On the evening of the second day, Roger tramped up to
+the ranch house and proposed to Dick that they exchange work for half a
+day; Roger to finish Dick's grading, while Dick instructed Gustav and
+Ernest in the gentle art of adobe laying.
+
+But Dick would not strike the bargain. "I've only an hour's work before
+I'm ready to start the seeding," he said, "and I won't trust any one to
+attend to that but myself. I'll just ride over to the Sun Plant in the
+morning and it won't take half an hour to teach you fellows all I know
+about putting up the house."
+
+"I'm going too," said Felicia. She was sitting, cuddling her doll before
+the fire, for the nights were still cool.
+
+"Almost your bedtime, Felicia," warned Charley.
+
+The child gave Roger an agonized look.
+
+"I brought you a present, Felicia," he said, and pulled the tiny olla
+out of his pocket.
+
+"Oh, a water jar! Just like yours, Charley!" shrieked Felicia, taking
+the little bowl carefully in her slender childish fingers. "Where did
+you get it, Roger?"
+
+Roger described his meeting with the squaws, and Dick added, "The whole
+outfit is camping on a canyon the other side of the range. Old Rabbit
+Tail told me this morning when he brought down the wood. It's there they
+find the rock they make these ollas of. It's a kind of decomposed
+granite. They pulverize it with their metates, add boiling water and get
+a very fair clay. Qui-tha is up there with them and his strong medicine
+has made a hit."
+
+"Do they make dishes cheap, Dicky?" asked Felicia, crowding close to her
+brother's knee. "Would they make me some doll dishes cheap, do you
+think?"
+
+Dick lifted the little girl to his knee and kissed her. "Why cheap,
+little old chick-a-biddy?"
+
+"Because I heard you tell Charley funds were getting awful low now you'd
+sold the last of the turquoise. But this doll will starve, Dicky, if she
+doesn't have dishes to eat off of."
+
+"She looks fairly well fed," suggested Charley, shaking her head a
+little helplessly over the frank statement of the family finances.
+
+"She mustn't get run down, though," said Dick. "When I see one of the
+squaws, I'll order some dishes, money or no money."
+
+"I don't see why Aunt May didn't send along more of her toys," sighed
+Charley. "It was so stupid of her! There is nothing at Archer's
+Springs."
+
+"Don't you worry, Charley!" cried Felicia. "The squaws will make me
+some. I'll ask 'em."
+
+"That's a good sport," said Dick, hugging the child against his broad
+chest. He was Felicia's devoted slave, and Charley had no help from him
+in maintaining discipline. It was she who said now:
+
+"Look at the clock, Felicia, dear."
+
+"I'd rather not," answered Felicia. Nevertheless, she slid off Dick's
+lap and with the doll and the olla in her arms, kissed each of the
+grown-ups in turn, and went off to bed.
+
+"She's the best kid I ever saw," said Dick, after her bedroom door had
+closed.
+
+"And the prettiest," added Roger.
+
+"You men spoil her," protested Charley, "and it's too bad because she
+really is unusual."
+
+"Pshaw! You were just like her," grunted Dick, "and we all petted you.
+And heaven knows, you aren't spoiled. Of course, you're much too strict
+with Felicia--and me."
+
+Charley flushed. "You don't really think so, do you, Dick?" she asked.
+
+Roger joined Dick in a chuckle at this. Charley's adoration of her
+brother was obvious to the most casual observer. She laughed a little
+herself and it occurred to Roger that her laugh was much like Felicia's,
+just as innocent and spontaneous.
+
+"I can always get a rise that way, eh, old girl," cried Dick. "And I
+know why you're blushing. You hate on top of this, to remind me that I
+haven't bedded the horses. Well, I'll attend to it instantly and relieve
+your embarrassment. I'll be back in a moment, Roger."
+
+"Dick is in good trim again," said Roger.
+
+"Oh, I do so hope he'll stay well!" exclaimed Charley with a sudden
+fervor that surprised Roger. "He's such a dear and he's been so
+handicapped! I think it's going to make a big difference to him, having
+Felicia and you people here. He's been so lonely."
+
+"Haven't you been lonely?" asked Roger.
+
+"Yes," replied Charley. Then after a pause, "How does your work go?"
+
+"Very slowly! I get half crazy with impatience. Even after all the
+warnings I received, I had no idea of the difficulties in the desert. I
+realize now that I'm only about half equipped, for desert building."
+
+"You mean mentally or financially?" asked Charley with a quick look.
+
+"Financially, of course--or--what made you ask me that?" Roger's voice
+was a little indignant.
+
+"Well, you see," answered Charley, "I've been in the desert longer than
+you and I know that impatience leads to madness. And you're an impatient
+sort of person."
+
+"Impatient!" Roger burst out. "Impatient! When for ten years I've clung
+to one idea, hoping against hope, believing that the impossible would
+happen."
+
+"You poor boy! Don't you suppose I know? But now that you're down here
+at work, you've got to be even more patient. The desert is cussed mean.
+You and Dick have both got to contend with the old vixen for a long time
+before you put your dreams through."
+
+"Don't you worry about my impatience," replied Roger. "My middle name is
+patience. You'll see!"
+
+Dick's cheerful whistle came up the trail. Charley looked at Roger as he
+thoughtfully relighted his pipe. His bronze black hair was ruddy in the
+firelight, Charley liked his hair and she liked his square jaw and deep
+gray eyes, though they seemed to her a little cold and selfish as were
+his lips. Charley had been educated with boys in the big middle western
+town whither the Prebles had moved. From the time that she had entered
+kindergarten at four until she graduated from college at twenty-two she
+had buffeted through life shoulder to shoulder with boys. Charley knew
+men and she had read Roger as clearly as though his mind were an open
+book. She knew that the desert would either make or ruin a man of
+Roger's temperament.
+
+Dick swung open the kitchen door. Roger rose, slowly.
+
+"You folks had better have supper with us, to-morrow night," he
+suggested.
+
+The Prebles accepted with alacrity and Roger wandered slowly home across
+the desert. He liked the Prebles, better than he had ever liked any
+family but Ernest's. Patience! He'd show that tall, dark-eyed girl that
+his fund was limitless.
+
+Schmidt was worth two ordinary men, in spite of the fact that he was not
+in full health, and that he was deliberate in all his movements. His
+deliberation meant that he used his head to guide his hands. What with
+his steady persistent following of Roger's rapid, feverish energy and of
+Ernest's cheerful conscientious poddering, by mid-afternoon the engine
+house walls were half finished. When Charley, carrying a great basket,
+reached them about sundown, the door frames were almost covered in.
+
+Ernest introduced Schmidt, who laughingly showed his muddy hands.
+
+"I never saw three people who more evidently needed baths," Charley
+laughed in turn. "I suppose Felicia is the worst of the lot. Where is
+the child?"
+
+"Felicia!" ejaculated Roger.
+
+"She hasn't been here to-day," exclaimed Ernest.
+
+Charley set the basket slowly down on the sand while her face whitened.
+"She started down here at nine o'clock with her doll and her olla."
+
+There was a moment's silence, then Roger cried cheerfully, "Well, don't
+be frightened! Nothing could have happened to her. She must have gone on
+an investigating trip of her own."
+
+"I'll go after Preble," said Ernest, "and we'll take the horses and
+round her up in a jiffy."
+
+He and Gustav started immediately up the trail. Roger stopped long
+enough to carry the heavy basket to the cook tent. "Look out for Miss
+Preble, will you, Mrs. von Minden?" he said to that lady who was
+finishing her second meal.
+
+"I must go home," faltered Charley. "She may--Roger, look in the old
+Mellish shaft." She gave a little sob and Mrs. von Minden suddenly put
+her arm about her.
+
+Roger started on a run after the others.
+
+They overtook Dick, just as he was turning out of the lower end of the
+alfalfa field into the trail. At their shout he pulled up the horses and
+waited. He began to unharness before the first sentence was finished. He
+and Roger both mounted, leaving Gustav and Ernest to go up to the corral
+after the other two horses. Just at this moment there came through the
+afterglow a familiar treble shriek.
+
+"Oh! Oh! Dickeee!"
+
+The four men were motionless. Coming down the trail from the mountains
+was a little figure in blue overalls, curly head glorious in the last of
+the sunset gleam.
+
+"Wait for me, Roger, wait!" shrieked Felicia, trying to quicken a very
+tired gait, and much impeded by a basket, which she clasped with both
+arms. Ernest suddenly broke into a run and picked the child up, basket
+and all. Dick dropped from his horse and followed to lift her away from
+Ernest's clinging arms.
+
+"She's my sister, let me take her," he said hoarsely.
+
+"Vere vas you, liebchen?" asked Schmidt.
+
+"Well," said Felicia, looking a little bewildered--"Oh, Roger dear,
+look--the squaw gave me a basket and some eenty dishes, just like the
+olla."
+
+"Felicia, where have you been?" begged Roger; "tell us, honey."
+
+"Why, I just went over the mountain to find the place Dick told about
+where the Indians make dishes. And I got lost, and a squaw found me and
+I had a funny dinner with her and I bought these dishes and I told her
+Dick would pay for them and I brought you each a present and I'm awful
+tired." She stopped for lack of breath.
+
+Dick looked helplessly at the other men. "It's five mountain miles to
+that Indian camp," he said.
+
+"I got tired," Felicia nodded her head, "but Qui-tha brought me home. He
+wanted some more peroxide. So I gave him the bottle in your room, Dicky.
+He was so good to bring me home. He went right back with it."
+
+"I wish I'd had a quart for the good old fool," said Dick.
+
+"Where are you all going? Where's Charley?" asked Felicia.
+
+"She's nearly frantic about you," exclaimed Roger. "We were all going to
+look for you."
+
+Felicia's liquid eyes widened with sudden understanding. "Put me down,
+Dick, I want to go to Charley."
+
+"Here she comes now," said Ernest.
+
+Charley was breathless with running. Felicia set her basket in the sand
+and rushed into her sister's arms. The men all started explaining at
+once. Charley, still clasping Felicia, listened, then looked down on the
+curly head resting against her heart.
+
+"Felicia, how could you be so naughty," she asked gently.
+
+"Now, don't you scold her, Charley," protested Dick.
+
+"Do I ever scold any one, Dick? Only Felicia must realize that she did a
+very dangerous thing that she must never, never do again."
+
+"How do you mean, dangerous?" asked Felicia. "Did I make you feel badly,
+Charley?"
+
+"You made me sick at heart with fear, Felicia," replied Charley.
+
+Felicia gave a great sob. "Oh, I wouldn't do that for anything!"
+
+"I move," said Roger, "that we go on over to the Sun Plant and that the
+two ladies talk this over after supper. And I'll carry Felicia
+pig-a-back."
+
+The motion was unanimously carried. Ernest went up to help Dick with the
+chores and Roger and Gustav prepared supper while Charley sat on the
+bench with Felicia in her lap, and directed operations. The pot of beans
+and the biscuit she had brought in the basket made the meal-getting a
+simple matter. Mrs. von Minden was almost human, that evening. She sat
+with the young people during their meal and for an hour afterward, once
+rising, unexpectedly, to kiss Charley.
+
+Felicia went to sleep when half way through supper, just after she had
+given Roger his present.
+
+"It's a little clock," she said, holding out a small steam gauge, rusty
+and battered. "I found it in one of the sheds up on the mountain, where
+I stopped to rest."
+
+Roger looked at it curiously. "That was an expensive gauge in its day,"
+he said. "How do you suppose she happened to find it?"
+
+"Harder not to find it," replied Dick. "The ranges are full of deserted
+mines. They took out all the free gold, then tried to work out the rest,
+found it too expensive, went broke and walked out. There's enough fine
+machinery up in the mountains to make you believe what folks say around
+here, that more money goes into the ground than ever comes out of it."
+
+Roger looked at Dick thoughtfully. "I'm glad to know that," he said.
+"Felicia's given me a sure-enough present, haven't you, little girl?"
+
+But Felicia, her head burrowed against Dick's willing shoulder was fast
+asleep.
+
+"When do you expect to cut your first crop, Dick?" asked Ernest.
+
+"If the alfalfa gets a toe hold before the first of May I'll get a crop
+this summer. The dust storms don't begin till May. They all blow down
+from the north or west and I'm sure that that draw between here and the
+field will protect me. I shall start cottonwoods and arrow-weed wind
+breaks as soon as I turn the water in. Hackett is getting some young
+trees for me."
+
+"Isn't farming a terrible thing--terrible," said Mrs. von Minden
+suddenly. Then she closed her eyes and began to speak rapidly. "When we
+first came out here Otto wanted me to run a ranch for him while he did
+his other work. I was so innocent and so ignorant that I let him start
+me at it.
+
+"In the Colorado river bottoms it was, below Fort Mohave. A group of
+fools like me thought to grow alfalfa in the bottom land, and dike the
+fields to keep the Colorado out at flood. Covered with arrow-weed, six
+and eight feet tall, the land was, when we got there. But the dikes were
+finished and some of the folks were beginning to clear the land.
+
+"Otto cut enough arrow weed to put the tent up and then he found that he
+must put our bed high on a platform, the rattlesnakes were so thick.
+This done, he left me some money and told me to get an Indian to help me
+and off he went on one of his prospecting trips. I used to lie at night
+staring at the sky and crying with fear, fear of Otto and fear of the
+snakes that rattled and whirred all night.
+
+"I found an Indian and he and I cleared about five acres of land and got
+the seed in. But the water used to run out of my mouth every minute with
+the snake fear. Then one night a rattler got one of our horses and my
+fear of what Otto would say if the other was bitten was greater than my
+fear of the snakes, and one night, while I watched beside the remaining
+horse, I killed a rattler. I waited for him to coil, then as I had seen
+the others do, I brought the butt end of an arrow-weed down on the coils
+and my fear of snakes was gone.
+
+"Food was hard to get. There were only eight of us there. And as it got
+hot, some of them left. By the time we were expecting the river to rise
+in spring flood, there were only three fools in the colony. And I seldom
+saw the other two. There was a hundred acres of arrow-weed between them
+and me. My Indian left, after the crop came up. So I was all alone when
+the flood came. The first day my dikes began to leak. For eighteen hours
+I toted adobe to mend them with. When my strength gave out the water was
+two feet deep over my little field. My baby came that night, much too
+soon. I'd have died just as it did, if my Indian with a squaw hadn't
+happened back to beg for food. They took me over to the California side
+in their flat boat, and I never went back to the ranch again, though
+Otto tried to make me."
+
+There was silence for a time. Mrs. von Minden, eyes still closed, seemed
+to be concentrating. Suddenly Charley leaned forward to say a little
+huskily,
+
+"But why are you going back to him, Mrs. von Minden?"
+
+"I have a message for him from the Yogis."
+
+"I know him pretty well," Charley went on, carefully, "and he's been
+very kind to me. But he's never mentioned you. He's quick and queer,
+he's been alone so much, and very quick with his gun."
+
+"He won't touch me," answered Mrs. von Minden. "He's afraid of me, the
+German bully."
+
+"Tut, madam, tut!" exclaimed Gustav. "Germans no more mistreat their
+vomen than other peoples."
+
+Madam opened her eyes. "Tell that to some one who hasn't been married to
+one."
+
+"There are brutes in all nations," said Ernest. "You certainly have had
+more than your share of trouble."
+
+"Hah!" the gaunt face in the rocking chair was scornful, "I merely told
+you my ranching experience. I've mined with Otto, too, and prospected
+and herded sheep and cattle and run a boarding house."
+
+"Mrs. von Minden, you can't be very comfortable in this rough camp,"
+pleaded Charley. "Do come up to my comfortable house. I'd love to have a
+woman visitor."
+
+"You're very kind, my child, but I must stay here. I've been so
+ordered."
+
+"We'd better be starting back, Charley," suggested Dick. "Felicia is
+getting sounder asleep every minute."
+
+And so the party ended.
+
+The erection of the engine house went on briskly. Before even Roger's
+impatience could have demanded it, the sheet iron roof was on and
+Schmidt began to putter with the doors and windows. The completed
+building was not unpicturesque. The dull yellow-gray walls were topped
+by a roof of red corrugated iron, with deeply projecting eaves.
+
+Roger had bought the sheet iron from Dick, who had used considerable of
+this material in the buildings round his turquoise mine. Ernest and
+Gustav toiled up to the mine one morning and at night returned with a
+good supply of the sheet iron. Roger made a concrete base for the
+engine, at one end of the building. Gustav made two doors, one for
+either end, by nailing the corrugated iron onto a wooden frame. A work
+bench and shelves erected by Ernest completed the work on the engine
+house except for the hanging of the doors.
+
+The three workmen were pleased with their job and sat contemplating it
+in great contentment, one evening after supper.
+
+"The engine should be here next month," said Roger.
+
+"That is to be of your design?" asked Gustav.
+
+Roger nodded. "The Dean of our old college is getting it made for us. He
+began work on it as soon as we closed the deal with Austin. If he
+doesn't hustle we'll be ready for it before he is. We'll begin work on
+the absorber, to-morrow."
+
+"I must uphang my door to-morrow," said Gustav. "Vat place did you put
+the hinges?"
+
+"Hinges! By Jove, we haven't a hinge to our names!" exclaimed Ernest.
+"Dick will have to help us out again."
+
+But for once Dick failed them. "It's too bad," he told Ernest the next
+day, "but I've been meaning to get hinges every time I've gone to town.
+But I forgot. You'll have to use some stout leather, the way I do."
+
+"Well, let me have some leather, then," begged Ernest
+
+"Sorry, old chap, but there's not a scrap of leather an inch long around
+this place. You see I sole Charley's and my shoes, and I've robbed all
+the mines around here of belting to do it with and that doesn't mean
+that I've had much belting either. Lots of other people have had the
+same idea I've had. But take a day off and go up to the Sun's Luck, five
+miles up that trail yonder and I think you'll find a few pieces."
+
+Ernest groaned, then laughed. "Dick, poor old Roger will faint at the
+idea of more delay, and for hinges! We'd better let the doors go till
+some of us go into Archer's."
+
+Dick shook his head. "Ern, you get those doors up, and up right. I'm
+betting on there not being a real sand storm for six weeks yet, but if
+one should come, and you have any delicate apparatus in the engine
+house, you'll regret not having sand proof doors and windows. And to
+tell the truth, Charley and Felicia are both nearly bare foot."
+
+"So am I," said Ernest, "and Rog is too."
+
+"What's a day in the desert?" laughed Dick. "Go on and bring down some
+leather for the crowd, Ern."
+
+And go he did, although Roger protested until Ernest mentioned the
+matter of Charley's and Felicia's shoes. Then he gave a ready consent.
+Ernest returned by mid-afternoon with perhaps a yard of belting, the
+half of which he gave to Dick, much to that hard worked gentleman's
+delight.
+
+The days passed swiftly. Ernest was less homesick after Schmidt's
+arrival and the intelligent German's industry and interest in the work
+completely won Roger's heart. When the week of his visit was up, Roger
+resolved that he would find a way to feed three instead of two if he had
+to start the camp to eating desert mice. He wrote now to the Dean,
+asking him to sell his laboratory equipment. Dick took the letter to
+town.
+
+The absorber was not as ambitious a structure as the engine house.
+Nevertheless, it took twice as long to build as Roger had thought it
+would. The foundations consisted of a shallow trough raised from the
+ground on four by four supports. It covered several hundred square feet
+and sloped very gently to carry the flow of oil. It was covered with
+double layers of window sash. The task of laying this was considerable
+and in spite of the men's best efforts, the breakage was large enough to
+use up practically all the reserve glass. But the most trying task of
+all was that of making the great trough leak proof with asphaltum. Even
+after the rest of the job was done and the huge cold frame lay gleaming
+mightily in the desert sun, the men still puttered with leaks in the
+trough, which they tested by pouring water over in lieu of the oil which
+would ultimately form the flow.
+
+Roger and Ernest were at work on this task one morning when Gustav
+returned with a barrel of water from the ranch. Before driving back with
+the team he came excitedly round the corner of the engine house.
+
+"The alfalfa vas up already!" he shouted. "A little shadow of green on
+yellow sand. Lieber Gott! vat a country! And the kleine Felicia almost
+eating it like a little rabbit. And Dick talks like it vas golt. And he
+vas vorried. He says a sand storm vas coming to-day. Look!"
+
+Gustav pointed down the valley to the south. A gray blue haze, not
+unlike a sea fog, was slowly advancing.
+
+"Fasten up the tents. I go back mit the horses," said Gustav,
+disappearing as abruptly as he had arrived.
+
+"If any one thinks a little thing like a sand storm can stop work on the
+plant, he's mistaken," grunted Roger. "Anyhow Dick said one wasn't due
+for six weeks."
+
+Ernest looked from the approaching gray cloud to Roger's obstinate
+mouth, shrugged his shoulders and daubed another brush full of hot
+asphaltum over a crack.
+
+Suddenly a hot blast of air took their hats off. The tent gave a boom.
+The window-sash resting against the engine house wall fell with a
+tinkling crack. Without a word the two men ran to close the tent. When
+they had finished, the whole world was a swirling dust cloud through
+which they could not perceive each other when ten feet apart.
+
+"Make for the engine house!" roared Ernest. "I'll fetch the old lady."
+
+He was better than his word for he brought not only the madam, but her
+rocking chair and a book. Certainly no one could have accused their
+visitor of being a trial. She took the storm with the utmost philosophy
+and spoke scarcely a hundred words until the storm was over.
+
+When he had stowed Mrs. von Minden and her rocker inside Ernest slammed
+the door shut and turned the button. "If Gustav tries to get back
+through this, he'll lose his way, without fail," said Roger.
+
+"How long do you suppose it'll last?" asked Ernest.
+
+"The Lord knows! Have you got any tobacco with you?" Roger sat down on a
+box of window glass and took out his pipe. For half an hour they sat
+listening to the howl of the wind while Madam read.
+
+"Evidently it doesn't intend to quit for a while," said Roger finally.
+"Guess I'll make up my diary and write some letters. I understand now
+why Dick was so insistent on this adobe. You take a look at the cook
+tent and I'll see if the house tent is still standing while I get some
+paper."
+
+The wind increased in violence until long past noon. They retrieved some
+canned stuff from the kitchen tent and ate it with their mouths full of
+the sand that sifted through the cracks of the doors and windows. Madam
+satisfied herself with crackers. It was very hot, even in the adobe.
+About three o'clock Roger wiped the sweat out of his eyes and
+paused--pipe poised:
+
+"It's letting up, Ern," he said.
+
+Ernest paused to listen. There was a perceptible lull in the uproar, and
+the lull increased until at five o'clock they emerged from their
+shelter. The air had miraculously cleared. The sky was a deep, rich
+violet and the desert, lighted by the westering sun, was a beaten gold
+and remodeled to unfamiliar lines. Well known cat's-claw and cactus
+clumps had disappeared. A sand drift a foot in length covered the well
+curb. A drift that touched the thatch lay against the east side of the
+cook tent and had spilled within, half burying the tables and benches.
+Within the living tent, sand lay thick on trunks and cots. But the tents
+had withstood the day's siege, stolidly.
+
+"Let's look at the absorber," said Roger, gloomily.
+
+They plowed through a great billow of sand at the end of the engine
+house. Ernest groaned. Two of the four by fours at the end of the great
+trough had been undermined and had collapsed, carrying a great part of
+the trough with it. The exposed part of the trough was filled with an
+indiscriminate mixture of sand and asphaltum.
+
+"My God! What a country!" cried Ernest.
+
+"My God! What a pair of fools," returned Roger. "After all Dick's
+warnings, why didn't we build for sand storms! Lend me a hand here,
+Ern, with this four by four. My word! Where's Dick going? Hey, Dick!
+What's your hurry?"
+
+He might as well have hailed the setting sun. Dick driving his own team,
+Hackett's hitched to his wagon tail, whirled by at a gallop.
+
+Roger and Ernest stood gaping, first at the receding puff of dust on the
+Archer's Springs trail, then at each other.
+
+"Something's wrong at the ranch!" exclaimed Roger finally.
+
+Ernest nodded and they both turned to stare toward the ranch house. As
+they stood scowling into the blinding desert light, a little gray burro
+rounded the corner of the cook tent, and a moment later Crazy Dutch
+appeared.
+
+"We need a traffic policeman in this desert," said Ernest solemnly.
+"There's too much passing at this corner."
+
+"Get your gun, quick, Ern. It's Von Minden," cried Roger.
+
+Ernest obeyed hurriedly. But the visitor shot his arms even more
+hurriedly into the air.
+
+"Don't shoot!" he cried. "My gun's strapped on Peter. I came to make
+apologies. Search Peter and me."
+
+"I certainly will," said Roger, starting to suit action to word, as
+Ernest came running back with his shot gun. But he was interrupted. Mrs.
+von Minden came slowly forth from her tent, the broom in her hand with
+which she had been sweeping the sand drifts from her bed and floor.
+
+"Gott im Himmel!" roared Crazy Dutch.
+
+"He cannot hear such as you." Madam's tone was grim, as she advanced
+majestically.
+
+She was a good foot taller than her husband, but he did not flinch, even
+at sight of the broom.
+
+"What are you doing here?" he took a threatening step toward her.
+
+"I was waiting for you, Otto."
+
+"Well, I don't want you. I finished with you a good many years ago.
+There are just two things in my life now and they are my work and my
+emperor."
+
+"Fudge!" exclaimed Mrs. von Minden, unexpectedly. "There's just two
+things in your life, just as there's always been, your work and your
+German cussedness. Otto, I want that strong box of yours. Give it to me
+and I'll go back to Phoenix."
+
+Crazy Dutch gave an ugly laugh. "I'm likely to do that! What do you want
+of it?"
+
+"If you won't let me take it, let me go through it. There is something
+in it I want."
+
+"And what is that?" queried her husband.
+
+"I don't know," replied Madam, very simply.
+
+"You don't know?" roared Crazy Dutch.
+
+"No, Otto, I don't know. The Yogis told me to come up and they told me
+that when I went through the papers I would recognize some that I
+wanted."
+
+Von Minden turned appealingly to Roger and Ernest. "Have you any idea
+what she's talking about?"
+
+Ernest shook his head.
+
+"Wouldn't you like to go into the engine house to talk this over?"
+suggested Roger. "You'd have privacy there."
+
+"Don't leave me alone with him," exclaimed Mrs. von Minden. "He's not
+safe."
+
+"All right," said Roger. "I've searched him and now I'm going through
+his pack, and I shall confiscate any weapon I find."
+
+"Don't you dare to give her my strong box," shouted Crazy Dutch.
+
+"I'll put the box back where I find it," replied Roger. "Come on, Ern,
+begin."
+
+It was a pitifully mean little pack, quite poverty stricken compared
+with Mrs. von Minden's. A woolen quilt and a Navajo, a coffee pot,
+frying pan and a small sack of sugar, a canteen, a flannel shirt and a
+pair of ragged socks, a gun, a small strong box, with a geological
+hammer, a barometer and a compass, comprised Peter's load.
+
+Roger took the gun into the living tent and Ernest remade the pack.
+During the search, Mrs. von Minden had not spoken, though she eyed the
+work with keenest interest.
+
+"Now," said Roger, "I will tell you both frankly that I don't care to
+have a family row carried on in this camp."
+
+"I'm not trying to row, certainly," exclaimed von Minden. "It's all this
+woman."
+
+"The woman is your wife, isn't she?" asked Ernest.
+
+"In name only. I tell you I finished with women, years ago."
+
+"But I haven't finished with you yet," commented his wife.
+
+"What can you do to me?" sneered Crazy Dutch.
+
+"I can do what They tell me. And They tell me to hang on to you like
+grim death until They bid me stop. I shall follow you and that strong
+box to the end of the earth, Otto!"
+
+"But why! But why! You've always been glad enough to be rid of me
+before."
+
+Mrs. von Minden, her pink sunbonnet pushed back to her shoulders, her
+eyes gleaming, took a menacing step toward her husband, and her voice
+rose hysterically.
+
+"I know you! I know you! With your sneaking ways and your secret
+letters. I know that you're a dirty German spy. I know what that box
+holds. But what I want out of it is my marriage certificate and whatever
+else They tell me. I can't read German and They can. I can't throw fear
+into your black heart but They can. And if I told you the way They have
+interpreted some of your acts to me, you would crawl on your hands and
+knees to me."
+
+Von Minden watched the woman with a stolid face. "Who are They?" he
+growled.
+
+"They are the spirits of the dead. The great ones of the Universe are
+talking to me now, Otto von Minden! They directed me here. The hand of
+Fate is in it. Listen! You have not long to live, Otto. And all that you
+have lived for will be dust and ashes. All the work that you have done
+will be cast to the four winds of Heaven, while this man," pointing to
+Roger, "will found your empire for you. You have planted in intrigue and
+you will die in shame. Otto, let me go through the strong box."
+
+"Clarissa," exclaimed Von Minden, with for the first time a note of pity
+in his voice, "you've gone crazy."
+
+His wife smiled sardonically. "I'm going to see what is in the strong
+box, if I follow you to China," and with this she turned on her heel and
+disappeared into her tent. Nor did she come out again that night.
+
+"Now, Mr. von Minden," said Roger sternly. "I tell you quite frankly,
+that you're not welcome here. If Miss Preble hadn't interceded for you,
+I'd hand you over to the authorities."
+
+Crazy Dutch nodded affably. "You're quite right. I deserve it. But I've
+had a touch of the sun and for a moment I was out of my head. In this
+lonely country we must bear with each other."
+
+"The way you bear with your wife, I suppose," suggested Ernest.
+
+Von Minden looked half apprehensively over his shoulder at his wife's
+tent, then he said in a confidential whisper, "Now _she_ is crazy and
+has been for years. Only she's crazy all the time so the only thing to
+do is to keep away from her. She was a very good, hard working woman,
+once."
+
+"So I should judge from what she tells us," Roger's voice was grim. "It
+strikes us that you treated her as if she were a horse and not a woman.
+But that's not our business. Why did you come back here, Von Minden?"
+
+"I came to apologize."
+
+"Well, I accept the apology. Now you had better go on about your
+business and I'll get your wife back to Phoenix, some way."
+
+Von Minden drew himself up. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Moore, I'm not in
+the habit of being spoken to in this manner. Apologize at once!"
+
+Roger turned red. "Why you infernal little shrimp--" he began.
+
+But Ernest interrupted. "Keep your temper, Rog. All this isn't worth
+seeing red for."
+
+"Of course it isn't," said the little German briskly. "Now I'm planning
+to spend the evening with the Prebles and then I'll go on into the
+range. Peter, my dear, I'll give you a drink now. We were out in all
+this storm, gentlemen, but we don't mind them, Peter and I. There is a
+beauty about them, these passions of the desert. How are the Prebles?"
+
+The two men started. "We were going up there," said Ernest. "Dick just
+went driving by at a gallop, without a word, toward Archer's Springs."
+
+Von Minden scowled, started to speak, was silent, then said: "What do
+you think was the matter?"
+
+"Let's go find out," urged Ernest.
+
+The three men, Peter trailing at the rear, started hurriedly along the
+half obliterated trail toward the ranch.
+
+The stillness after the day of warfare was heavenly. The violet of the
+sky had changed to the blue of larkspur, that now was shot with lacey
+streamers, rose pink from the setting sun. An oriole, balancing itself
+on Dick's line fence, poured forth a melody of transporting sweetness.
+
+"O, by Jove!" exclaimed Roger suddenly, "look at Dick's alfalfa!"
+
+The oriole fluttered away as they approached the fence. The field had
+not drifted badly. The draw to the north had prevented that. But the
+bright green shadow on the yellow sand of which Gustav had told them in
+the morning, was no more. A huge blight lay on the field with every
+tender plant blackened and dead.
+
+"Poor old Dick!" groaned Ernest. Then he added plaintively, "But he's no
+tenderfoot. He knows desert storms. Why did he attempt it?"
+
+"A storm like this, this time of year, is unheard of," said Von Minden.
+"Close to the mountain like this, Dick was choosing a good spot. See
+there are few drifts. Poor fellow!"
+
+There were actual tears in Ernest's blue eyes as he looked at the
+blackened field. "Let's get to the girls," he urged.
+
+At the corral gate they met Gustav.
+
+"What's the trouble, Gustav?" cried Roger.
+
+"Dick he vent to the field down to see how the alfalfa vas, then he came
+running like a mad man. He scolded Fräulein Charley like it vas her
+fault, then he ran to the corral, hitched up and vent."
+
+"But didn't you try to stop him?" demanded Roger.
+
+"Not Fräulein Charley. She just sat on the step and little Felicia on
+her lap and say nothing. But I vent to the corral to talk to Dick and he
+told me to go to hell. He vas a mad man, I tell you. Now I go milk."
+
+Charley, at the sound of voices, came out to the steps. "Hello, Uncle
+Otto," she called. The men looked up at her. Her tanned cheeks were
+flushed, her fine square shoulders were tense. But her voice was gay:
+
+"Have you and Mr. Moore had your duel?"
+
+"It's postponed," replied Crazy Dutch.
+
+Felicia scrambled past her sister and ran down to Roger: "Dick went away
+mad," she exclaimed. "He scolded Charley and me awful and made me cry. I
+hate to cry. It hurts my insides so."
+
+Charley had joined them now. "Poor Dick!" she said. "That alfalfa field
+was dearer to him than any of you know. He'll cool down by the time he
+reaches Archer's and brings back more seed. Why can't you all stay to
+supper here?"
+
+"It's too much trouble for you," protested Ernest, weakly.
+
+"You can all help," said Charley. "Please all stay." Something in the
+eagerness of her low voice touched Roger as it did the other men.
+
+"Of course, we're delighted to stay," he exclaimed, tossing Felicia to
+his shoulder. "Come along, chicken, we'll split some wood for sister."
+
+"And me, I must wash myself," said Crazy Dutch, "and give Peter some
+hay."
+
+"And me, I'll help get the supper," said Ernest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE LONELY HUNTER
+
+
+As soon as Ernest and she were alone in the kitchen, Charley whispered:
+"How about Mrs. von Minden?"
+
+"Oh, they had a fine row. She wants his strong box. She said at first
+that she didn't know what she wanted but later confessed that it was her
+marriage certificate plus something the Yogis were to put her wise to."
+
+"Poor old soul!" exclaimed Charley softly. "What tragedy do you suppose
+is back of all this?"
+
+"I don't know. But none of us urged the poor old girl to come up here
+with us. He says he's going to spend the night with you, but if Dick
+isn't here--"
+
+"That's all right," said Charley. "He stays here often when Dick is
+gone. He and I are great friends. I shall say nothing at all about his
+wife, unless he does."
+
+"That's the best cue, I think," agreed Ernest; "I'm so darned sorry
+about the alfalfa, Charley."
+
+"Pioneer luck," replied the girl shaking her dark head. "I feel rather
+heartsick about it myself. If only Dick wouldn't go to pieces so! That's
+what worries me, because we may have many failures before the alfalfa
+catches and he is going to have such a hard time."
+
+"I can't see why you chose such a difficult part of the world to farm
+in," mused Ernest.
+
+"That's where the sport comes in," returned Charley with a smile.
+
+Whatever discomfort Dick's surly and erratic moods may have cost her
+Charley gave no sign that evening of having any thought save the comfort
+and entertainment of her guests. Before Felicia had been sent to bed and
+after the men, all smoking, had listened to Von Minden's dissertation on
+sand storms, Charley suggested that Peter be invited in and put through
+his paces.
+
+To the surprise and delight of the others, when Crazy Dutch went to the
+door and whistled, there was the sound of little hoof-beats on the
+porch, then Peter's gray head appeared enquiringly in the doorway.
+
+"Wipe your feet and come in, Peter," said Crazy Dutch, returning to his
+seat by the fire.
+
+The little donkey rubbed one hoof after the other on the straw mat
+before the sill, then advanced into the room. Felicia, who was in
+Roger's lap, trembled with excitement and pleasure.
+
+"Now, Peter dear, here is your pipe," pulling a corncob from his pocket;
+"sit down and smoke it like a gentleman."
+
+Peter took his pipe somewhat gingerly between his teeth and then with
+considerable difficulty backed his haunches down onto the box that Von
+Minden kicked over to him. There he sat gravely holding the empty pipe,
+his long ears moving slowly back and forth.
+
+"All right, sweetheart, there's a bit of sugar for you. Shake hands with
+the ladies and gentlemen."
+
+Like a great gray dog, Peter went from one to another, lifting his tiny
+hoof to be shaken. Felicia was afraid at first but ended by shaking the
+little unsteadily proffered hoof and kissing the little fellow's dusty
+forehead with a squeal of delight.
+
+"Now you give us each a good night kiss, liebchen," ordered Von Minden,
+and as he indicated each person in turn, Peter followed and touched each
+one on the back of the neck, with his velvet nose.
+
+"Now say good night," was the last order and Peter lifted his voice in a
+bray that shook the very rafters, after which he trotted out the door.
+
+Certainly Peter and his master had never played to a more enthusiastic
+audience. Felicia wanted to go out and ride him then and there and
+Charley had to use considerable persuasion to get the excited little
+girl off to bed. But after this was accomplished Roger asked:
+
+"Where did you get Peter? Will you sell him?"
+
+Crazy Dutch darted an ugly look at Roger.
+
+Charley cut in quickly. "Tell us where you found him, Uncle Otto. Mr.
+Moore was merely showing how much he admired Peter."
+
+"I thought he'd be so fine for Felicia," exclaimed Roger.
+
+Von Minden grunted. Then he lighted his pipe. "I have not always been as
+you see me now," he said. "I was a geologist of reputation and when my
+health demanded a hot climate, it was natural I should come here to look
+for mines for a great German company. I am lucky and I have brains and I
+have the greatest training in the world, German training, so I find
+several mines and then jealousies, jealousies--jealousies--" he fell to
+mumbling to himself.
+
+Charley prompted him. "So you decided to strike out for yourself, about
+five years ago."
+
+"Yes, I do so. By then, you see, I had gotten to understand the desert
+loneliness. I loved it and I sold myself to the desert, body and soul.
+All I asked was to wander about on her magnificent barren bosom. It
+seemed to me I was entirely happy. But one day I found a little young
+burro stuck in a crevice in a blind canyon. Evidently he had been
+abandoned by an Indian. Me, I climb down in the crevice and I tie his
+heels so he can't kick and with my geologist's pick and hammer I work so
+carefully all day till I get him out. Why such toil? Because I find when
+I look into Peter's deep eyes that I am lonely--lonely beyond the power
+of thought or word to describe. And Peter, from that day to this, has
+never left me, day or night."
+
+"You are in excellent health again, Mr. von Minden," said Ernest. "Don't
+you plan ever to return to the Vaterland?"
+
+"Yes! Yes!" cried Crazy Dutch, "but only when I can return with an
+empire in my hand for my Kaiser."
+
+"Hoch!" said Gustav softly, "Hoch!"
+
+"Hoch!" Roger and Ernest took up the exclamation with a laugh and a wave
+of their pipes, and Charley joined them, smiling. Von Minden looked
+deeply pleased.
+
+"Yes! Yes!" he cried. "You all are good children, properly educated,
+ready to understand Germany as the citizens of no other country. You all
+speak German? Yes! And you all know German literature and music to be
+the best. Yes, ah, these great universities and high schools, they are
+doing their work wonderfully."
+
+"If I fall down all together in getting my plant funded in this country,
+I'm going to Germany with it," said Roger abruptly.
+
+"No, you aren't!" cried Charley, quickly; "I love Germany too, but
+America comes first."
+
+Ernest rose with a sigh. "That may be, but with me, bed comes first."
+
+"You will not be cross the next time we meet, eh?" asked Crazy Dutch as
+the men made their adieux.
+
+"I'll try not to be!" replied Roger, not too enthusiastically.
+
+When they had crawled into their cots, an hour later, Roger said: "Ern,
+do you realize that we haven't a drop of crude oil for the absorber
+flow?"
+
+"Sure, I do," replied Ernest. "I've been wondering for days what we
+would do about it, but until I had a suggestion, I didn't want to bring
+the matter up."
+
+"How much money do you think the Dean can get for the laboratory
+equipment?" asked Roger.
+
+"Well, I hope at least two hundred dollars. But you know how those
+things go."
+
+"We'll have to save every cent of that for grub," mused Roger. "Dick
+told me that over on Snake Peak there is a mine that closed down four
+years ago and that their engine was an oil burner. He says there hasn't
+been a watchman there for a year. There's a chance that they have left
+some oil."
+
+"How'll you pay for it?" asked Ernest.
+
+"Pay for it!" grunted Roger. "Wait till I find it, will you? You and
+Gustav clean up after the storm to-morrow and go on with the absorber.
+I'll take a tramp up to Snake Peak."
+
+He was on his way before sun-up, the next morning, a canteen of water
+over his shoulder and a lunch in his pocket. He moved as rapidly as the
+heavy walking permitted, driven by a sense of impatience to which he
+gave no name. But subconsciously he realized that forever behind that
+beauty of the desert to which, like Von Minden, he felt he might gladly
+sell himself, loomed the menace of the desert's brutality which he was
+not equipped to fight and which he could overcome only by the
+extraordinary precision and swiftness of his work.
+
+The sun was not half an hour high when Roger reached the top of the
+mountain behind the ranch. Here he gazed eastward across the low ranges
+to a peak which dominated all the crests around it, a jagged, black and
+brown monster, its top crimson now in the morning glow.
+
+Roger stood breathing deeply, hat in hand, the sun turning his bronze
+hair red, his thin strong body erect against the morning sky. He could
+see no trail, so he determined to reach Snake Peak by a direct cross
+line. The peak would be lost to view when he reached the valley below so
+he sighted a lonely cedar on the crest of the opposite range and began
+to climb downward. It was stiff going. The prickly pear cactus and the
+ollas grew thick and the ground was covered with broken rock that made
+short work of his already well-worn shoes.
+
+When Roger reached the lonely cedar the sun was two hours high. He had
+thought to make it in twenty minutes. He dropped, trembling with
+weariness in the shadow of a little tree, drank deeply of the canteen
+and gave himself ten minutes of rest, lying flat on his back, his eyes
+on the magnificent expanse of the heavens.
+
+The ten minutes up, he crossed the narrow ridge and after a moment found
+a landmark on the opposite crest, a single black rock against a lavender
+outcropping. Again he plunged into the narrow valley below him falling,
+sliding and swearing, then scrambling and clambering with knee and elbow
+and broken nail, until after another hour's interval, he cast himself
+down on the lavender outcropping.
+
+Snake Peak was now just across the canyon and he could see clearly the
+gray white of the tailing dump that marked the mine. It was well after
+eleven when in a fury of impatience he reached his final goal.
+
+The loneliness of the untouched wilderness is not so great as that of
+the deserted habitation. Roger had not felt the desert's solitude until
+he dropped on a bench outside the cook house and began to examine the
+lost endeavor about him. There were bunk houses and office buildings,
+shaft and engine houses, aerial tramways and car tracks, all the many
+and costly appurtenances of desert mining. Sand lay thick over
+everything. The silence was complete save for the flopping of the torn
+canvas that had been fastened over a hoist.
+
+A sense of profound depression settled upon Roger. He dropped his head
+in his hands with a groan. A dream, vastly better financed than his own,
+had come to naught in the face of the distances and the difficulties of
+the desert. Was there any greater hell, he wondered than to be hounded
+by a creative desire for which there was no outlet; to have stored
+within one's brain gifts indispensable to humanity's best development,
+of which humanity would take heed only after the creator had been
+crucified by desperate handicaps and indifference.
+
+As Roger brooded, his eyes fell on the engine house and a carefully
+locked shed beside it. His face brightened. He got stiffly to his feet
+and plodded up to the window of the engine house, raised it and
+clambered within. A great engine shrouded with greasy canvas lay in the
+dusky room. It was a gas-producer type, in excellent condition. Roger
+went over it as tenderly and eagerly as a horseman goes over a
+thoroughbred racer. Then he went through the open door into the shed
+adjoining. It was full of oil drums, some of them empty but with a
+sufficient number filled to more than satisfy Roger's needs.
+
+He suddenly began to whistle cheerfully, went over the engine again and
+was still whistling when he climbed out of the window and sat down on
+the bench to eat his lunch. When he had finished eating he lighted his
+pipe and sat smoking at ease. Life was not so bad, by Jove! One could
+make the desert his if one had resourcefulness and courage. As soon as
+Dick's horses were rested after their return from Archer's Springs, they
+must start hauling oil. Of course, though, that beastly re-seeding would
+have to be done first. Roger's shoulders twitched impatiently and he
+started abruptly homeward.
+
+The sun had set, when weary beyond words, he reached the Sun Plant.
+
+"Well! Did you run across the Von Mindens?" was Ernest's greeting.
+
+"No! What's happened?"
+
+"We don't know. The old lady was so long coming out of her tent that
+toward noon I investigated, to find that she was no longer with us. I
+went up to Prebles' and Charley reported that two of the madam's burros
+were missing this morning as well as the pack ropes. We think that she
+hit out in the night and is trailing the old boy up in the ranges. He
+started off early, serene in the thought that she was down here. Charley
+didn't mention the burros to him."
+
+"Well, thank heaven for small favors!" exclaimed Roger. "She certainly
+got on my nerves."
+
+"Did you find oil?" asked Gustav.
+
+"Yes, I unearthed a fine cache of it. I wish you folks could see the
+outfit up there on Snake Peak," and he told them what he had found.
+
+"But you aren't going to annex that oil until you hear from the owners?"
+exclaimed Ernest.
+
+"You write to the owners, when we get it here, enclosing a check for the
+oil at market rates. I may have trouble, but I doubt it."
+
+They were sitting as usual before their tent smoking their good night
+pipes.
+
+"You will get into trouble, Rog," warned Ernest. "Impatience is all
+right and good driving power, but what's the use of laying yourself open
+to difficulties?"
+
+"Don't be an old maid, Ern, with your piffling German conscientiousness.
+I haven't the slightest notion of stealing. I'll pay for every drop of
+the oil--"
+
+"How vas the road?" asked Gustav.
+
+"No road at all," replied Roger. "I just plunged through across
+country."
+
+"Then, the horses, where--"
+
+"Lord, that's right!" interrupted Roger. "I noticed that there was a
+good enough road leading out of the mine to the south--toward Archer's
+Springs. But it's clear on the other side of the range and parallel to
+this trail, of course. No good to us at all. Don't tell me we've got to
+build a road to get that oil out. My lord, what a country!"
+
+"Vell," said Gustav, "if it is too hard to get it out, then you don't
+steal it, then you don't break the law, then you don't get arrested, so
+that is good."
+
+"Don't you think I won't get it out, if I have to pack it out in a
+canteen," said Roger. "High treason, arson, murder are nothing to stand
+between me and that cache of oil."
+
+"You'd better swipe two teams of horses, Rog, on one of your predatory
+expeditions," exclaimed Ernest. "Dick may need his own horses
+occasionally this spring."
+
+Roger rose and knocked the ashes out of his pipe. "I'd like to swipe
+that gas producer engine up there," he replied and went to bed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+GUSTAV
+
+
+It was late the next afternoon when Dick drove slowly along the trail.
+The three men were flat on their backs under the absorber, patching
+leaks, when they heard the squeak of the wagon and the soft tread of
+horses' hoofs in the sand. They made no attempt to greet him.
+
+The next morning, however, Roger plodded up to the ranch house to
+consult with Dick about the moving of the oil. Although it was close to
+eight o'clock, Dick was just finishing breakfast. He was cheerful and
+talkative.
+
+"Don't try to use horses," he urged. "There's old Rabbit Tail lives ten
+miles over the range. He's got a bunch of little wild burros and he does
+packing for the miners when there is any. He'll pack that oil for you."
+
+Roger brightened up, then shook his head. "I can't pay him. The
+Smithsonian folks aren't coming up to the scratch and I've got to finish
+this job without funds. I've about twenty-five dollars in hand and two
+hundred more in sight. I thought perhaps I could exchange work with you.
+Help you to re-seed and then to increase your irrigating capacity here."
+
+"Gosh, that's hard luck!" exclaimed Dick. "Did you hear that, Charley,
+about Roger's money?"
+
+Charley, who had been busy in the kitchen, came in now with a fresh cup
+of coffee for Roger in one hand and an extra chair in the other. Had
+Roger's mind been less concentrated on the problem in hand he might have
+noted the fine ease with which she swung the chair up to the table for
+him before either he or Dick could proffer help. Charley was so slender
+that one did not easily recognize the splendid strength she sometimes
+displayed.
+
+"Yes, I heard," said Charley with a look of sympathy at the restless
+fire in Roger's deep gray eyes. "I guess we're all up against it and
+will have to cultivate patience. Perhaps Rabbit Tail will trust you,
+Roger."
+
+"I call him Roger dear, and he likes it. Why don't you too, Charley?"
+interrupted Felicia, coming in from the porch where she had been
+building an adobe doll house.
+
+The abstracted look left Roger's face for a moment. "Yes, why don't you,
+Charley?" he asked with a grin that made his face look bright.
+
+Charley laughed. "If it will make you look human, like that," she
+exclaimed, "I will call you anything you wish, Roger dear!"
+
+Roger's grin faded to an expression that was curiously tense. Dick, who
+had been giving only half attention to this exchange, now said: "Rabbit
+Tail won't trust you. He's had too many dealings with the whites, poor
+devil. We'll have to break a trail to the mine and use our team. Just
+let me get that alfalfa in again, Roger, and I'll help you out."
+
+"I can pay you up in days' work as far as the use of your time and team
+go," said Roger. "What I'll always be in your debt for is the advice
+and backing you give me."
+
+Dick grunted. "I'm glad my four years' hell down here is of value to
+some one. I'll let you know when I've finished re-seeding."
+
+"I want to help on that," insisted Roger. "Our international debt is
+getting too one-sided."
+
+"Well, I'll be mighty grateful to you," sighed Dick. "I'll take your
+help on the re-seeding, but I'll be still more appreciative if you'll
+take a look at my gasoline engine to-morrow morning. I've spun that fly
+wheel until my hope of salvation's gone. And I've got to wet that field
+down."
+
+"I'll get at it now," said Roger.
+
+With Felicia trailing at his heels, Roger made his way to the shed
+beside the spring. The engine and pump were both old. Roger tinkered for
+a half hour, Felicia standing by to hand him the wrench or the oil can
+on demand.
+
+"Do you love me, Roger?" the child asked, as Roger tugged at a rusty oil
+cup screw.
+
+"I certainly do. Do you love me?"
+
+"Yes. Do you love Charley?"
+
+"Well, I'm fond of Charley. I've known her a long time, you know."
+
+"But you aren't fonder of her than you are of me?" insisted Felicia.
+
+"Certainly not! You're my best sweetheart. Now the oil can, Felicia."
+
+The little girl stared at Roger, with speculative eyes. "Charley says
+you're very interesting. What is an interesting man, Roger?"
+
+"One who knows how to start a gas engine, chicken," exclaimed Charley,
+coming into the shed. "Mercy, Felicia, are you always as personal as
+this?"
+
+"Felicia is nothing if not feminine." Roger tugged at the fly wheel and
+grinned at Charley who made a little grimace.
+
+"Roger likes it!" exclaimed Felicia. "He belongs to me, Charley. He
+likes me bettern you, he says so."
+
+"Well, it is like this, Charley--" began Roger elaborately.
+
+Charley cut him off with a wave of her hand. "Nothing can explain away
+that blow, Roger." Then she went on, soberly. "Do you suppose the old
+lemon will pull us through our first crop?"
+
+"I don't know, Charley. One never does about a gasoline engine. There's
+always more life in an old one though than one realizes. If this does
+fail you, however, I'll be in running shape in two months' time with my
+solar engine. Don't forget that."
+
+"When do you expect to make your first actual test?" asked Charley.
+
+"Well, the engine will be here almost any time now. If the Dean has done
+a good construction job, I ought to be able to make a tentative
+connection in six weeks' time."
+
+"How do you mean a good job?" asked Charley.
+
+"Well, this is the first full size fifty horse power engine that we've
+built. You see, I've had no money and we've worked from models, though I
+did build one ten horse power engine. That worries me a little, but I'm
+sure that any defects that appear will be easily remedied. Now then,
+this old mule ought to begin to kick!"
+
+Roger turned the fly wheel again and an obstinate Put! Put! Put! came
+from the engine, then a long pause, during which the audience of three
+waited anxiously, then a steady Put! Put! Put! Put! Put! that promised
+to last as long as did the gasoline.
+
+"If the old thing could just realize all that depends on its behaving
+itself!" exclaimed Charley. "Roger, let's throw in the pump, I really
+believe it's going to run!"
+
+And run it did, during the entire day, with only three stops for repair.
+Roger worked until late afternoon with Dick and the next day Gustav took
+his place. The damage done by the dust storm to the absorber was now
+completely remedied and Roger and Ernest began work on a shallow
+concrete trough on which the condenser was to be erected. By the time
+this was completed, Dick's second sowing was finished and he announced
+himself ready for road building.
+
+At first, Roger felt violently resentful at the thought of having to
+build a road. It seemed to him that after all his years of patient
+persistency, fate at the last was playing him a scurvy trick. She had
+brought his goal within sight, only to beset it with delays and
+difficulties whose very paltriness it seemed to him he could not endure.
+And a feverish little flame of impatience began to glow within him that
+was not to be extinguished for many months. However when, pick in hand,
+he actually began with the others to break the road, a sudden elation
+swept over him. After all, primitive as this work might be, it was
+empire building of the most fundamental sort. And, in spite of his
+anxieties and impatience, Roger did his share of the road building with
+right good will.
+
+They began work in the range back of the ranch, taking advantage of
+draw and canyon whenever possible, even when this demanded a long
+detour. Sometimes, the canyon bottoms were astonishingly level. At other
+times boulders and crevices would block them until they had made free
+use of dynamite. They had all sorts of minor mishaps. Dick was not an
+expert either in road grading or blasting, although he was far ahead of
+the Sun Planters in his information about both.
+
+In running the road up the side of Snake Peak he used too heavy a charge
+and brought down a land slide which it took them a day to clear. On a
+previous day he had blasted too close to the wagon and a bowlder had
+smashed the rear axle. He took extraordinarily narrow chances with the
+steepness of grade but in spite of the Sun Planters' prophecies they did
+not lose either horses or wagon down canyon or mountain side. Ernest,
+however, slipped on top of one of the finished sections and rolled two
+hundred feet before he could stop himself.
+
+When, after two weeks' steady labor, Dick pronounced the road good
+enough, the others looked at him aghast. "You'll break your wagon and
+your horses' necks, to say nothing of losing the oil!" protested Ernest.
+
+Dick only laughed. "This is a boulevard compared with some of the desert
+routes I've taken. With just a few drums of oil lashed on at a time,
+we'll make it."
+
+And make it he did, though nearly another week was consumed in the
+doing, and four drums of the oil were lost in different draws and
+canyons. After the road was finished, the transporting of the oil was
+turned over to Ernest and Dick while Roger and Gustav began the
+erecting of the condenser. Ernest was now quite reconciled to the use of
+the oil for Hackett had received a telegram from the owner in San
+Francisco that the deal was more than satisfactory to him.
+
+Roger and Gustav worked well together. The self-controlled German,
+evidently accustomed to hard grind and overwork in an office job, was
+not in the least ruffled by Roger's impatient ways. And he distinctly
+enjoyed the vim and imagination that were characteristic of Roger's work
+even when it involved the seemingly simple task of cutting and threading
+condenser pipe. For cutting and threading condenser pipe so that it
+shall be leak proof is not a simple job at all.
+
+April came to the desert with a noon temperature of a hundred degrees in
+the shade. Imperceptibly the daily breeze stiffened to a noon gale.
+There were no sand storms however for six weeks and the second alfalfa
+crop caught toe hold and grew, an amazing patch of green on the thirsty
+yellow sand.
+
+The ranch house engine misbehaved, regularly, but Roger developed what
+Charley called actual genius for tinkering and somehow the five acres
+were watered. When the morning stillness was broken by the first uneven
+Put! Put! of the engine, the Sun Planters would pause in their work and
+listen intently. If, after due patience, the Put! Put! developed into a
+steady throb, they resumed work. But if after a spasm or two, silence
+reigned again, Roger would pull his hat over his eyes and start for the
+ranch, and eventually that day, water would be given the parching
+fields. In the meantime, Dick began to prepare a second five-acre patch
+for late sowing.
+
+Early in the month Roger received a check from the Dean for one hundred
+and sixty dollars. He resolved to put all but a few dollars of this into
+a supply of food and with Charley's help, he made a list that Gustav
+filled at Hackett's. There was provision for over three months in this
+list and Roger felt sure that this period of time would see the
+completion of the plant.
+
+A curt letter had come to Roger from the Smithsonian Institution saying
+merely that his case was being investigated and that in due time a
+report and decision would reach him. With this, Roger was obliged to be
+content. He had little faith, however, that the Institution would go on
+with Austin's undertaking and he resolved to push ahead with all speed,
+taking advantage of what was left of the golden opportunity Austin had
+offered him.
+
+Late in April, the engine reached Archer's Springs. Hackett, who was
+properly equipped for heavy freighting, as poor willing Dick was not,
+undertook to haul the engine to the camp. He was entirely willing, he
+told Roger, to wait for his pay.
+
+"No great loss," he said, "if I don't get it. But I got confidence in
+you and though your idea do seem awful nutty, if anything comes of it, I
+ain't going to have it said I done something to set back our community
+here. We got a great state and a great county and I'm here to promote
+'em both."
+
+So the dismantled engine was landed, without too great difficulty, in
+the waiting engine house and as soon as the condenser was finished, the
+three men began to set up this child of Roger's heart and brain. But
+after the heavy work was done Roger would let no one attempt adjusting
+the parts but himself. He set Ernest and Gustav to digging the oil pit
+for the storing of the sun-heated oil and spent his days and part of his
+nights in the engine house.
+
+As the weeks slipped into May, many were the surmises as to what had
+become of the Von Mindens. The madam's tent stood just as she had left
+it and the burros she had left behind ranged about the desert, near the
+Preble corral, coming home each night for the good feed Dick gave them.
+
+Almost every day Felicia came to the plant. Her love for Roger and
+Roger's for her was an accepted thing now between the two households.
+Only Charley could draw the child away from the abstracted, hard-driven
+young engineer and Dick showed his innate generosity in that though he
+adored the little girl he did not harbor a grudge because Felicia so
+frankly declared her preference for Roger.
+
+After the condenser was finished Felicia took a deep interest in helping
+Roger to find leaks in the system. Roger taught her to squirt oil from
+an oil can over the different points and to interpret bubbles rising
+from the resulting oil flow as leaks. It was the quaintest sight in the
+world to see the slender little figure in blue overalls, brown head
+running over with short curls, crawling like a little lizard over the
+greasy pipes while Roger followed with pipe wrench, cold chisel and peen
+hammer. After Roger began work on the engine, Felicia became a sort of
+plumber's assistant and a clever one, at that.
+
+Sometimes Charley came late in the afternoon to take Felicia home. She
+would perch on the edge of the work bench and talk to Roger about the
+work in a voice and with an unself-conscious manner so like her small
+sister's that Roger, his restless mind on the problems of his work,
+often confused the two girls in his thoughts and answered or directed
+them indiscriminately. And Charley would chuckle as she watched him.
+
+The day in May that the men began a test for oil leaks in the absorber
+dawned with a promise of ferocious heat. Felicia appeared as usual but
+admitted that she had come over Charley's protest.
+
+"We'll have to leave off work at eleven, and not begin again until three
+as Dick suggested, if this heat keeps up," observed Ernest.
+
+"Then we'll begin work at dawn," said Roger, with a sigh. "Every minute
+counts, old man."
+
+About nine o'clock Charley came panting down the trail.
+
+"Felicia must come home at once," she cried. "There's a big sand storm
+coming. Dick is getting the stock under cover as fast as he can."
+
+The men dropped their tools hurriedly and looked up the valley. A great
+gray cloud was approaching so rapidly that as they gazed they caught the
+sound of its increasing roar. The sky, which had been sapphire of an
+unusual translucence that morning, turned all in a moment to a sullen
+red gray. There was a dry rattle of lizards and horned toads scuttling
+into the roots of grease wood and cactus.
+
+"You mustn't try to go home, Charley," exclaimed Roger.
+
+"But I must! Dick and his alfalfa! He _can't_ be alone!"
+
+But Dick was destined to spend the day in solitude. With a very Niagara
+of sound the sand storm struck the camp. Charley and Felicia ran for
+the living tent where the men shortly joined them. They closed the flaps
+and settled to a day of discomfort. The engine house would have been
+more comfortable than the tent but it was too cumbered with machinery
+now to be used as a sitting room. There was no work that could be done
+indoors. The heat was stifling, a hundred and six the thermometer over
+the washstand trunk reported. The tent rocked and bellied, bellied and
+flapped with reverberations like drum-beats. Felicia was frightened at
+first and hid her head in Charley's lap. Charley herself was
+white-lipped, less, Ernest thought, from fear of the storm than from
+that vague apprehension about Dick that never seemed to leave her.
+
+For a time Roger sat scowling with impatience, then Felicia's fear moved
+him and calling the child to him he began to tell her of the old
+swimming pool. The others listened and laughed and when Felicia begged
+for more, Gustav told a charming tale of his own Bavarian childhood. And
+he and Ernest sang together some tender folk songs which Felicia
+insisted on learning. While Gustav and Ernest undertook this pleasant
+task Charley and Roger talked.
+
+At Charley's request, Roger brought out his blue prints and explained
+the plant to her. He felt his impatience lifting as he talked.
+Explaining his work always seemed to increase his critical vision. New
+ideas came flooding, and he pulled out his note book, feeling that after
+all the day was not entirely wasted.
+
+So, in spite of the bitter taste of alkali in their mouths and its sting
+in their eyes, in spite of the breathless burning heat, the morning
+passed cheerfully. They even managed to satisfy their hunger with canned
+beef and canned brown bread. They had washed down the last of the
+unsavory lunch with the tepid, nauseously alkaline water from the olla
+when a gust of wind of tremendous proportions tore open the door flap
+and filled the room with a blinding swirl of sand. At the same moment
+there was a fearful crash from without, followed by the sound of
+breaking glass. Leaving Charley to refasten the door flap, the three men
+bolted toward the absorber.
+
+The sand cloud was so dense that they could distinguish little until in
+actual contact with the edge of the trough. Then the trouble was
+obvious. A part of the sheet iron roof had blown off the engine house,
+and lay in a great twisted heap on the absorber. Roger immediately
+crawled under the trough. The heavy metal had pierced the floor of the
+absorber and oil was pouring out in a thin but steady stream. He pawed
+his way out hurriedly.
+
+"Go shut the oil off, Ernest," he shouted, "and get pails to catch that
+oil. Why the devil did some one leave the valve open? Gustav, give me a
+hand with this mess. Why didn't we have sense enough to fasten it
+securely? If we don't move it, it may blow the length of the trough."
+
+Roger plunged hastily up among the panes of broken glass, Gustav
+following. After a moment of effort the guilty mass of sheet iron was
+shoved over onto the sand. Just at the last a particularly vicious blast
+of wind twisted it violently against Gustav's bare arm.
+
+"Du lieber Gott!" he roared. "Be careful yet!"
+
+"Now let's cover the engine," shouted Roger, giving no heed to Gustav's
+cry.
+
+"Hell mit the engine! Look!" Gustav thrust his left hand in Roger's
+face. The sleeve was dripping blood. Roger seized Gustav's arm tightly
+above the elbow. "Come over to the tent, Gustav," he said.
+
+Stumbling blindly through the sand drifts the two men reached the tent,
+where just as they crept inside the flap, Gustav fainted. Charley ran
+forward and before Roger could protest had helped lift Gustav to his
+cot.
+
+"I don't think it's so bad. He never can stand the sight of blood," said
+Roger.
+
+They stripped back the sleeve as Roger spoke. A gash several inches long
+in Gustav's upper arm had laid bare the bone. Felicia began to cry.
+
+"I've got a first aid kit, somewhere," said Roger, running to dig wildly
+through the trunks, emerging in a moment with a black box, from which he
+produced a tourniquet. They applied this quickly.
+
+"Now, is there some alcohol here?" asked Charley. "We will wash it off
+with that until we can boil some water. Felicia, you go put all the
+things back nicely in the boys' trunks, and don't pay any attention to
+us."
+
+Felicia was quickly absorbed in this altogether fascinating task, while
+Charley's skillful fingers made a temporary bandage for Gustav's arm. He
+was conscious now and offered a sick protest against Charley's
+suggestion:
+
+"Let's cut this shirt off him, Roger. It's saturated with blood. I'll
+sew it up for him later."
+
+Gustav sat up and before he could do more, Roger and Charley had
+removed his shirt. To their surprise they found he was wearing two, the
+second shirt having a particularly huge pocket, full of papers that were
+blood saturated.
+
+"Don't touch that, don't!" cried Gustav. Then catching sight of the
+blood stains, he fainted again.
+
+"Who'd think old Gustav was such a perfect lady," chuckled Roger. "Here,
+let's get him cleaned up now before he comes to, again."
+
+They pulled off the second shirt, and put on one of Roger's fresh ones.
+Then while Charley gave Gustav some water, Roger took the papers from
+the bloody pockets of the second shirt.
+
+"I'll wipe these off before the blood sets," he said. Then his eye
+caught a memorandum in German "Low pressure engine--new detail. Moore."
+Roger quickly opened the paper. It was about six inches square and was a
+copy of a detail of one of Roger's patent drawings.
+
+"I'll be damned!" muttered Roger, his face flushing darkly.
+
+He ran through other sheets. There were more drawings and some carefully
+written notes on Roger's general scheme for heat utilization. He was
+reading these very deliberately when Ernest came in.
+
+"Whew, what a country!" began Ernest, then he stopped with a gasp.
+
+Gustav, who was sitting up again, groaned weakly.
+
+"I vas a chicken-fool, eh, Miss Charley?"
+
+Roger crossed to the bed with a stride. "Look here, Schmidt," he said,
+"the sooner you get your things together and get out of here, the better
+I'll like it."
+
+Gustav stood up. His jaw dropped. Then his eye fell on the papers in
+Roger's hand.
+
+"I told you not to take off the shirt from me!" he cried.
+
+"What's the matter, Rog?" asked Ernest.
+
+"Matter? Matter? Why, this fellow is a thief. He's been stealing my
+ideas. Go on now! Get out of here!"
+
+Ernest took the blood-stained papers and glanced at them hurriedly.
+
+"Hold on! Be cool, Roger! Give Gustav a chance to explain."
+
+"Explain! Explain what? Just how he stole these? Tear those papers up,
+Ernest, and take this Dutchman out of my sight. Get him out, I tell
+you."
+
+Ernest hesitated. In all the years he had known Roger he never had seen
+him in a passion like this. Felicia flew over to Charley who stood with
+wide troubled eyes on Roger's distorted face. The child was white and
+trembling.
+
+"Ernest!" thundered Roger.
+
+With a glance at Gustav, Ernest began to tear up the papers.
+
+"Roger! Please! Bitte! I can explain," began Gustav.
+
+"Don't speak to me. I've heard vague stories of how German manufacturers
+get their ideas. This, I know: in the morning, you'll start for Archer's
+Springs, you skunk!"
+
+"Oh, Rog!" protested Ernest.
+
+"How dare you protest, Ernest?" Roger turned on his friend furiously.
+"You know what that engine means to me. You know the difficulty of
+patent protection and now this dirty hound--"
+
+"Here! That I von't take from any man," cried Gustav. "You vas acting
+like a fool, Roger."
+
+Roger lunged forward with his right fist swinging. But before Ernest
+could interfere, Charley had caught the clenched fist with both her
+hands, and was clinging to it with all her fine strength.
+
+"Oh, Roger!" she cried. "Oh, Roger! Roger!"
+
+Roger dropped his arm and stared at her for a moment. Her eyes, so like
+Felicia's, so unlike them, returned his furious gaze, unflinching.
+Suddenly, he grew pale and without a word, turned on his heel and left
+the tent.
+
+He made his way to the engine house. Ernest had covered the engine with
+a tent fly, but Roger did not even glance at the idol of his heart. He
+made his way back where the roof still offered some protection from the
+storm and sat down on an empty box. An hour, then another slipped by,
+the sand sifting heavily on Roger as he crouched motionless, his head in
+his hands.
+
+At the end of the first hour, the storm had lessened perceptibly and by
+the time the second had passed, the westering sun was flashing through
+the dusty windows. Voices outside did not rouse Roger, but when Charley
+slipped in through the sagging door, he looked up. The girl returned his
+look soberly and sat down on a pile of adobe brick near him.
+
+Roger looked at her curiously. No one, excepting his mother, had ever
+before checked one of his flights of fury, midway. Sometimes, as in the
+episode with young Hallock, he had been able to check himself, but this
+was not frequent.
+
+"Why did you do that? Why did you interfere?" he asked abruptly.
+
+"I couldn't stand by and see you make a mess of your life," replied
+Charley, "just as things seemed to be going well."
+
+"Going well!" repeated Roger sardonically. "Why, I've been sitting here
+for hours, bringing myself to the realization of the fact that my life
+is a hopeless mess. I can't trust any one. I can't get help. I can't do
+it all alone. I'm going to quit this game and get a job."
+
+"Roger," said Charley slowly, "do you want to know what's the matter
+with you, aside from your temper? You're completely work- and
+self-centered. You don't take human beings into your calculations at
+all. And you won't be a real success until you get to studying and
+liking people as well as you do machinery. If you'd given about a tenth
+of the thought to Gustav that you have, say, to stopping the leaks in
+the condenser, and then if you'd used the same patience with him to-day
+that you would to a big leak in the pipes, you'd be farther ahead on
+your job and a good deal bigger man. Roger, the more I see of you the
+more I'm convinced that your failure is a good deal less the result of
+other people's indifference than it is of your own temperamental
+peculiarities and weaknesses."
+
+Roger's face flushed again. "What business have you got talking this way
+to me?" he blurted out, angrily.
+
+"Every business in the world," returned Charley serenely. "I like you,
+and your work is very important. Anything I can do to help get it
+across, I'm going to do, regardless of your feelings. I have an idea
+that no one has really helped you since your mother died--that is, with
+your temper."
+
+The anger died out of Roger's eyes. Once again he seemed to feel that
+faint and heavenly touch upon his forehead. It did not seem to him
+possible that what this girl said of him was true. And yet there was in
+the depths of her steady brown eyes a sort of ageless wisdom that made
+him feel awkward and immature. An ageless wisdom, with the sweetness and
+purity of the child Felicia's gaze. Lovely drooping lips that were
+Felicia's, and yet were, because of their sad patience, not Felicia's,
+but belonged to a woman who reminded him of his mother.
+
+Roger continued to stare at Charley as if he never had seen her before.
+After a moment he said in a half-whisper, "By Jove, I believe you _are_
+a friend to me--with nerve enough to tell me the truth as you see it,
+which Ernest never had. And he's been my only friend. Perhaps you're
+right, perhaps part of the fault has been with myself. O Lord, Charley!
+I do need some one to tell me the truth, I certainly do."
+
+Charley put out her hand to lay it on Roger's shoulder.
+
+"Poor child!" she said, softly.
+
+In a moment, Roger was a little boy again, back at his mother's side. "O
+God!" he whispered, and throwing himself forward on his knees, buried
+his head in Charley's lap. She laid her hand on his head with the touch
+that had been his mother's. "Poor lonely child," she said again. And for
+the first time in nearly ten years, Roger burst into tears.
+
+Charley, smoothing his heavy black hair, said nothing more until Roger
+sheepishly raised his head and pulled out a very dirty handkerchief.
+
+Then she said in a very matter-of-fact voice, "By the way, as soon as
+the storm let up a little, I had Ernest take Gustav up to the ranch. I
+can take care of him up there and I didn't want Dick to be alone any
+longer."
+
+"Where's Felicia?" asked Roger.
+
+"She's asleep in the tent, I must wake her up and take her home now. The
+storm is over."
+
+"Leave her with me a little while," said Roger. "I'll bring her home."
+
+"All right, come up for supper. Ernest and Dick will help me get it."
+
+Roger nodded and Charley started along the drifted trail to the ranch
+while Roger went to the tent. Felicia slept on while he shaved and put
+the tent in order. Then he stooped over the cot and raised her.
+
+"Suppertime, little sweetheart," he said.
+
+Felicia woke with a start. "Don't be cross, Roger," she exclaimed after
+blinking at him for an instant.
+
+"I couldn't be cross with you, Felicia," Roger lifted her in his arms
+and held her against his heart.
+
+"Never, Roger?"
+
+"Never, Felicia. You must never be afraid of me, even when I scold other
+people. Because I love you very much, Felicia."
+
+The child threw her arms around Roger's neck and they both looked off to
+the ranch house, where the windows glowed red in the sunset. There was
+something infinitely soothing to Roger in Felicia's embrace and he held
+her until she wriggled impatiently and announced that she was hungry.
+
+"We'll head for supper," he said, and putting her down he took her hand
+and they started through the sand for the ranch and Charley. Gustav was
+waiting for them at the edge of the corral.
+
+"Felicia, you run on up to the house and tell Charley I'll be there in a
+minute," said Roger.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+DEATH IN THE DESERT
+
+
+"Don't scold Gustav," cried Felicia.
+
+"I won't," replied Roger, grimly, and the child sped up the path to the
+porch.
+
+"Roger! I did not mean nodings to hurt you! Vy, you ver like my own son.
+I vas having a plan to help you. Please, Roger, listen--Bitte sehr!"
+
+Roger was a little pale and his lips were stiff but he had himself well
+in hand.
+
+"Look here, Gustav, you know you sneaked on me, don't you?"
+
+"Yes, but it vas to help you. I vas an inventor, Roger. I haf many
+ideas."
+
+"Oh! That was it, was it?" He looked at Gustav's sweaty face, usually so
+placid, now distorted with pain and anxiety. "Well, all right, old man!
+I guess I was a bit hasty. But I want you to give me your word of honor
+to take no more notes and under no circumstances to give any one any
+information about my work."
+
+Gustav's face cleared as if by magic. He shook Roger's proffered hand
+heartily. "I promise. Absolute, I promise. Thank you; thank you much,
+Roger."
+
+"Right-o--come on now, let's go to supper," and the two swung up the
+trail, and into the adobe, where, after a glance at their faces, their
+waiting friends greeted them hilariously.
+
+"The alfalfa has come through, Roger," shouted Dick. "I guess the worst
+is over for me, all right. I'll take an order right now for five tons of
+alfalfa from you, Charley."
+
+"Better let Felicia order," replied Charley. "I understand that Mr. von
+Minden is going to find a burro for her, the exact twin of Peter."
+
+"And he's going to learn to do everything Peter does," added Felicia,
+"and Ernest says I must name him Re-peater. Please let's have supper."
+
+Gustav made a poor fist at eating. His arm gave him a great deal of pain
+and it was finally decided that Ernest should take the patient team and
+that night drive Gustav to the doctor. They made the start immediately
+after supper and did not return until the third day following. Gustav
+was one-armed for some time but managed to make himself indispensable,
+nevertheless.
+
+As summer advanced, a new working schedule that precluded labor in the
+middle of the day was inaugurated. The more intense the heat grew, the
+more intense, it seemed to Roger, grew the weird beauty of the desert.
+The midnight stars seemed hardly to have blossomed before dawn turned
+the desert world to a delicate transparent yellow, deepening at the
+zenith to blue and on the desert floor to orange. As the sun rose, the
+yellow changed suddenly to scarlet and for a few moments earth and sky
+quivered in a lambent red fire. When the sun had shot clear of the
+mountains, details of landscape and contrasts of color were accented.
+Clear black of peaks, crimson of canyons, purple of rifts in the
+ranges, bright moss green of cactus dots on the yellow desert floor. And
+always to the west that far melting loveliness of blue and gold and
+black that was the River Range. And always the quivering, parching air
+that burned against the body like a furnace blast.
+
+Ernest felt the heat more than Roger did and lost weight. But though he
+complained a great deal he stuck to his work manfully.
+
+After Ernest and Gustav had returned from Archer's Springs and the
+ravages caused by the desert storm had been repaired, Roger started on a
+hunt into the ranges for more window glass. He dared spend his money for
+nothing but food.
+
+He outfitted for a three day trip, carrying a blanket, the two-gallon
+canteen, beans, canned pears and a batch of baking powder biscuits. Dick
+gave him minute directions as to the location of different mines and of
+springs, and Roger started off confidently.
+
+There was very little glass left in the Goodloe mines where Roger had
+located the oil. But Dick knew of mines some ten miles north along the
+backbone of the ranges and these Roger had as an objective when he left
+the camp in the yellow dawn.
+
+He reached the Goodloe district by mid-morning. There was no trail to
+the north but he jogged along all the afternoon by compass and sun,
+keeping to the top of the ridge whenever possible. During all this time
+he saw no sign of human habitation. Indeed the only living beings he
+beheld that day were two buzzards circling meditatively over a distant
+peak and a lonely coyote skulking against the sky on a neighboring
+ridge. By six o'clock he was tired beyond expression and he had lost
+all idea of the number of miles he had covered, so tortuous had been the
+seemingly direct line of the ridge.
+
+Roger was in no wise discomfitted or discouraged, however. He made his
+camp in a little sandy draw on the side of the ridge which was full of
+stunted cedars. He cut up one cedar for his fire and drew on the others
+for sufficient twigs to cushion his blanket bed, then in spite of the
+heat he slept the sleep that belongs to the open.
+
+He was on his way at daylight, whistling cheerfully into the vast
+distances that unrolled about him. Mid-morning came, and then noon. Half
+the time allotted for the trip had gone, and still there was no sign of
+deserted mines.
+
+Roger smoked a long pipe after his lunch, chewing impatiently on his
+pipestem and swearing under his breath from time to time. He was tempted
+violently to keep on to the north, but remembering Dick's repeated
+warnings as to the danger of running out of water he finally won his own
+consent to turning back. He determined, however, to make the return trip
+on the neighboring range, to the east.
+
+He hoisted his pack and started heavily down into the valley that
+separated him from the next range. It was a good two miles of tooth and
+nail climbing and the canyon was filled with afternoon shadows when
+Roger reached the foot-wall of the east range. The heat was almost
+intolerable.
+
+As he paused here, far above his head a donkey brayed. Roger started
+quickly upward and for an hour was led by the brayings that grew louder
+as he neared the top. As he crawled around the last brown rock heap
+that crowned the ridge, he almost stepped on a man beside whom stood a
+little gray burro.
+
+"Peter!" said Roger. Then, "I say, Von Minden!"
+
+He stooped over the quiet form at his feet. The little German was lying
+on his face, his iron-gray head resting on his arm. His blue overalls
+and faded red sweater were covered with a light sifting of dust. His
+pack lay beside him, unopened.
+
+Roger turned him over, and as he did so Peter backed off. Von Minden was
+dead. He had been dead a long time Roger thought, as shuddering, he
+looked down on the bearded, distorted face. Roger took off his own pack
+and went over the body carefully. There was no sign whatever of any
+violence. He made a careful survey of the immediate surroundings, but
+there was no trace of Mrs. von Minden to be found.
+
+Peter watched Roger's every move, moving his long ears back and forth
+enquiringly.
+
+There was nothing whatever in Von Minden's pockets, except a jack knife.
+There was neither food in his pack nor water in his canteen. The one
+sack contained only a few ore samples. The dispatch box was not to be
+found.
+
+It was impossible to dig a grave on that peak of solid rock. Moreover,
+Roger had an idea that the authorities--if there were authorities in the
+desert world--ought to find the body as he had found it. He cut down
+several of the stunted cedars and piled them over the pathetic heap,
+under the blanket. On these he heaped stones, as heavy as he could lift
+until he felt sure that neither coyote, nor yet the buzzards that
+circled meditatively above could disturb the mound.
+
+The sun was setting when he had finished.
+
+"There Peter," said he, "you did your bit, keeping the beasts away. And
+now I've done mine, so we'll move on."
+
+Roger stood for a moment looking from Peter to the mound, then at the
+wide sweep of the ranges about. The whole world was spread before him in
+utter silence; range beyond range, desert beyond desert into a violet
+distance so great that the fancy staggered in contemplating it. For the
+first time a feeling of utter desolation swept over Roger.
+
+What a death! What a burial! Moved by the impulse that is the heritage
+of the ages, Roger took off his hat and bowed his head.
+
+"O God!" he said softly. "Receive this man's soul and give him peace.
+Amen!"
+
+Then he turned south along the range. He had gone a hundred yards when
+he remembered Peter and turned back. The little fellow was standing,
+head drooping, ears flopping beside the grave. Roger whistled but Peter
+gave no heed, and finally Roger was compelled to go back, tie the lead
+rope to Peter's bridle and fairly pull him along the trail.
+
+Roger did not pause until he had put a peak between himself and that
+lonely grave. Then, when the moon was sailing high, he made camp by a
+great bowlder. He turned Peter loose, a little fearfully at first, but
+the wise little burro made no attempt to turn back. When Roger was
+seated cross-legged by the fire eating bacon and beans, Peter dropped
+his nose over Roger's shoulder with a sigh.
+
+"Hungry, old Peter?" asked Roger. "I haven't got much, but by Jove, you
+can have half of that," and he scooped half of the contents of his plate
+on a nearby stone. Peter ate it gravely, after which Roger poured a cup
+of his precious water into the frying pan for the little donkey's
+benefit. Then while Peter seemed to doze with his nose dropped almost to
+the ground, Roger sat long in the hot night, smoking and wrapped in
+thought.
+
+Since the death of his father, Roger had had no contact with the Grim
+Reaper, and the tragic discovery of the afternoon had shaken him. Yet as
+he sat looking out over the impenetrable calm and mystery of the ranges
+that lifted their noble peaks to the sailing moon, it seemed to him that
+death in the desert was a clean and normal part of life. If his Sun
+Plant were finished, if the best of him, his dreams, were made permanent
+in concrete and steel, what more happy ending could he ask than to lie
+at last asleep on a desert peak: these peaks still unsmirched by the
+hand of man; still fresh from the hand of God.
+
+It was with this thought that Roger finally fell asleep while the moon
+sank behind the far horizon, the night wind rose and Peter searched for
+herbage in the rock crevices.
+
+The next day was a long one. Roger found no trace of a trail and by
+mid-afternoon, the last of the water was gone. When this fact was
+established, the heat seemed worse and Dick's many stories of men who
+had thirsted to death in the ranges began to haunt Roger. He noticed
+that Peter's little legs were hourly more unsteady and his heart ached
+for the little chap. He ate sparingly that evening, giving Peter the
+larger share. The food was like dry sawdust in his parched mouth. He
+slept uneasily, waking from dreams of running water to toss for an hour
+before sleep came again.
+
+With the first streak of dawn he was up and on. Going was slow, for now
+the real torture of desert thirst was on him and he knew that unless he
+found water that day, buzzards would be circling over him on the morrow.
+By ten o'clock his tongue was swelling and he seemed to have ceased to
+sweat, and Peter leaned panting against the rocks in the shade of which
+Roger paused to rest. After a half hour, Roger rose to his feet. The
+morning had been breathless but as he rose, a little hot gust of air
+blew up from the canyon below.
+
+Instantly Peter raised his head and sniffed. The gust increased to a
+breeze. With ears lapped forward the burro tottered to the canyon edge
+and began feebly to pick his way downward.
+
+Roger watched him for a moment. Then, "I don't know what you've
+discovered, old man," he said thickly, "but what's good enough for you,
+is good enough for me," and he followed weakly after him.
+
+There was considerable rolling and scrambling done by both Peter and
+Roger before they reached bottom. When Roger finally scrambled panting
+to his feet, face burning, ears ringing, he found that they were in a
+narrow valley thick grown with scrub oak. Peter had rolled the last ten
+feet, and when he brought up against a barrel cactus, he could not rise
+until Roger had pottered over and pulled weakly on his bridle. Then he
+walked shakily across the canyon, Roger close behind him. A little pool
+reflecting the sky and the fern-like leaves of the mesquite that
+bordered it lay at the base of the great brown rock.
+
+Roger, as he drank, had vague recollections of warnings he had read
+about the dangers of over-drinking after water famine. But he was
+developing an implicit faith in Peter's wisdom and Peter was drinking
+till his thin ribs swelled. When he had entirely slaked his thirst,
+Roger rested for a bit, then looked about him. A trail led along the
+canyon from the spring, westward. Roger filled the canteen, then he and
+Peter took the trail. It led perhaps a quarter of a mile to a deserted
+mine, a mine of vast workings and huge ramshackle sheds that were
+innocent of either windows or doors. The engine house had been nailed
+up, but Roger's strength and spirits had been much revived by the water.
+He rested for awhile, then wrenched off some boards and went in, Peter
+struggling to follow, then giving the idea up and standing at rest in
+the shade. A complete ore separator plant was installed within. At the
+fore end of the shed was a gas producer engine in perfect condition as
+far as Roger could tell, except for the sand that had sifted over it. It
+was of a type with which he was not familiar and he spent a half hour in
+thoughtfully examining it, and making notes on a scrap of paper
+concerning it. He was absorbed in a new idea when he closed up the shed
+and whistled to Peter who had found some old alfalfa hay in a manger
+under a shed and was just finishing it off.
+
+There was a trail still leading westward out of the camp, and Roger,
+with a blind faith that his luck had turned, followed it to the opposite
+canyon wall, and here, where it evidently once had been a fair mountain
+road, followed it on up to the top of the range. It was late afternoon
+when this was accomplished. The ridge where Roger now found himself was
+high and barren. At first it seemed to him that the trail ended here
+where the winds had swept unhampered by man so long. But Peter was
+untroubled. He crossed the ridge nimbly, picked up a range trail on the
+opposite side and started to descend.
+
+His new master followed with a chuckle that increased to a laugh as he
+descried far to the north on the west range, the faint outlines of
+buildings, with the trail faintly marked along valley and mountainside
+toward it. Just at dusk they reached it. It was the Goodloe mine! In
+spite of utter fatigue and hunger, Roger would not stop now. In high
+spirits he took the familiar road toward home.
+
+It was nine o'clock when he passed the Preble ranch house, silent and
+lightless, but with the horses munching in the corral. He stopped to
+pick up a measure of oats for Peter, then he began the last lap of his
+journey. There was a bright fire glowing at the Sun Plant. As he neared
+it, he gave a shout. There was an answering shout and Ernest and Gustav
+came rushing through the desert to meet him.
+
+They had been consumed with anxiety about him. Dick had said that they
+must start on the hunt for him at dawn. Ernest had lighted the fire with
+the hope that it might help him.
+
+Gustav took Roger's pack and Ernest threw a helping arm about him. They
+led him straight to the cook tent where they had kept the coffee pot
+warm, and seated him at the table where a place was set for him. Their
+joy and relief almost unmanned Roger.
+
+"My dear chaps," he insisted, "I was in no such great danger!"
+
+"In no danger! You should have heard what Dick and Charley said," cried
+Ernest.
+
+"Well, it's all right now," said Roger. "I've wasted a lot of time but
+I've located some rich loot, believe me."
+
+"Where'd you pick up the burro?" asked Ernest. "He looks just like
+Peter."
+
+"It is Peter," replied Roger. "Gustav, give him those oats in my coffee
+pot and let me eat, then I'll tell you all about it."
+
+It was scarcely dawn and Roger was still fast asleep, when Ernest met
+Dick at the corral with the news of Roger's safe return and of the
+tragedy of poor Crazy Dutch. Dick was much upset at hearing of Von
+Minden's death.
+
+"He was a poor old loon, but mighty good-hearted," he said, "and I swear
+I don't know what we'd have done sometimes without him--especially
+Charley. She's going to be all broken up over this. I'll tell her, then
+I'll come down and talk to Roger."
+
+"Roger thought we ought to notify the folks at Archer's Springs right
+away," said Ernest.
+
+"Shucks! That's not necessary. When some of us go in we can notify the
+sheriff. Dutch had a bum heart and had run out of food and water. Not a
+bad death, poor old chap."
+
+When Dick came down to the camp, and they all had talked a little sadly
+of Von Minden's lonely death, Ernest asked suddenly:
+
+"Did you find any window glass, Rog?"
+
+Roger gave him a blank look. "By Jove, no! I was so excited over Von
+Minden and that new type engine and a hunch I got, that I forgot all
+about it. Well, I'll just have to start out again."
+
+"By the way," Ernest went on, "I went into town while you were gone to
+get the mail. There was just one letter. It was from Elsa. She's on her
+way down here. She's due on Sunday."
+
+Roger looked from Dick to Ernest. "What the devil shall we do with her?"
+
+"Well, she'll have to outfit and grubstake herself. She knows that, and
+she knows we're broke. I think this is a cooked up job of hers and
+mother's just to help us out. And gee!--but I'll be glad to see old
+Elschen!"
+
+"So'll I, old man. But Ernest, this is no place nor circumstances for an
+Old Home week. I'm sweating to finish this plant against almost
+impossible odds."
+
+"Don't I know it? Have I failed you any?"
+
+"You have been absolutely O. K. and we'll try to give Elsa a good time."
+
+"It will be a perfect godsend to Charley," said Dick. "She almost cried
+when Gustav told us."
+
+"Then that's settled," said Ernest with a sigh.
+
+"Just as soon as it can be managed, we'll have to give Von Minden a
+decent burial, Roger," said Dick. "I won't be using the horses to-morrow
+and you'll be in good trim by then, won't you, Rog?"
+
+"Yes," replied Roger, and if he smothered a sigh for another day lost
+from his work, no one noticed it.
+
+Roger spent the remainder of the day in the engine house, going over his
+engine, shaking his head, muttering to himself like an old man, finally
+straightening his shoulders stubbornly and whistling through his teeth.
+
+After an early supper, the three went up to the ranch. Felicia, who was
+wiping the dishes for Charley, hurled herself at Roger, dishcloth and
+all.
+
+"Oh!" she shrieked. "You must never leave me like this again, Roger. I
+worried so about you that my stomach ached all the time you were gone."
+
+Charley laughed with the rest, but quickly sobered. "I'm so glad you
+were able to take care of poor Uncle Otto," she said. "I shall miss him
+so. None of you knew him as I did." There was a pause, then Charley went
+on, "Just think of Ernest's sister coming! I remember her vaguely. She's
+like you, isn't she, Ernest?"
+
+"Not a bit," said Roger. "She's full of pep and very good looking."
+
+"Well, what do you know about that?" asked Ernest, looking at Roger
+wonderingly.
+
+"She's going to stay with us, isn't she? Please say yes," cried Charley.
+
+"Oh, no, don't have her here. She wouldn't like to be here all the
+time," begged Felicia. Then she blushed and retreated behind Roger's
+chair. She refused half tearfully to explain her statement when Dick
+urged her, at first jokingly, then in a commanding manner.
+
+"Tell me, Felicia, don't you like it here?" drawing her to his side.
+
+"Oh, let her alone, Dicky," begged Charley. "Why insist on a child's
+reason for anything?"
+
+"But I want to know! Tell me, Felicia, don't you like it here?"
+
+"Yes," said Felicia, with trembling lips, "I like it here, 'cept when
+you get sick and are so awful cross with me and Charley and make Charley
+cry. I wouldn't want Elsa to see you that way."
+
+Dick turned purple. "Oh, well," cut in Roger, quickly, "Elsa'll have
+three men's crossness to put up with down at our camp, Felicia. Just
+think of that! And if it should happen that we'd all get cross at once,
+probably we'd blow the roof of the engine house off again."
+
+"That's why we want Elsa to stay with us," said Ernest. "You see when
+men are cross, the only thing that cures them is having a nice girl
+around to make them ashamed of themselves."
+
+"Sometimes already, if it gets too much vhen I make myself mad," added
+Gustav, "maybe ve get a squaw to come by our camp to vip us bad boys for
+Fräulein Elsa, eh?"
+
+"If all the men in the world get cross, like you, Dicky," asked Felicia,
+wonderingly, "why do ladies marry them?"
+
+"They don't, chicken! No one's married me."
+
+"Maybe Elsa will. Unless Gustav gets her," suggested Felicia.
+
+"Maybe Roger, he gets her, eh?" asked Gustav.
+
+"Oh, no!" in sudden alarm, crossing over to Roger's knee to look up into
+his face with a depth of love in her brown eyes that tightened his
+throat as he lifted her into his lap. "Roger's going to marry me. Only
+Roger, if ever you're as cross to me as you were to Gustav, I shall just
+walk out of the house and never, never come back."
+
+It was Roger's turn to blush and he did so thoroughly, while Dick burst
+into a roar of laughter in which the other men joined. Under its cover,
+Charley hustled Felicia off to bed.
+
+At dawn the next day Roger and Dick started on their melancholy errand.
+The climbing was in many instances too precipitous for the horses and
+they made many detours. It was late in the afternoon, on a detour across
+a wide canyon that they came upon the end of the Von Minden drama. The
+canyon was really a part of the desert floor and was deep with sand.
+Roger it was, who first noted footprints.
+
+"Look, Dick!" he called. "An Indian must have been here! Look at the
+naked footprints!"
+
+Dick rode up beside him. "I wonder!" he said.
+
+Both men glanced about them. "Yonder are some clothes, let's pick up
+this trail," suggested Dick.
+
+"By Jove, it's Mrs. von Minden's pink wrapper!" cried Roger, "and over
+there are her shoes."
+
+"Rog, we've got to brace ourselves," Dick pulled up his horse. "When
+folks thirst to death in the desert, they often strip off their clothes
+and run around in a big circle."
+
+Roger bit his dry lips. "All right, Dick, come on," he muttered.
+
+The foot marks swung in a wide circle. It was a mile farther on that
+they found the madam, stark naked, her gaunt face turned to the sky. She
+too had been dead for many days.
+
+"I don't see why the buzzards didn't get her. Her burro wasn't Peter, he
+deserted her," murmured Dick. "Look, Rog, under her head."
+
+It was the dispatch box, lightly sifted over with sand as was the body.
+
+"What do you suppose happened?" asked Roger.
+
+"She obviously thirsted to death. But she got the box first. Do you
+suppose she killed him, to get it?"
+
+"Perhaps she found him dead and took it," suggested Roger.
+
+"Well, we'll never know. Let's gather up what we can of her clothes and
+bury her. Poor old devil. Her story's ended," said Dick.
+
+They dug Clarissa von Minden's grave and put her in it, then Dick pulled
+a prayer book from his pocket.
+
+"Charley made me bring it," he explained. "I'm glad of it, now. Somehow
+it seems worse to chuck a woman away without a minister to help, than it
+does a man. I guess she did some tall suffering, from first to last, eh
+Rog?"
+
+Roger nodded. Dick read the burial service reverently and they finished
+this gruesome job. Roger tied the little black metal box to his saddle
+and they started on their way. They made camp in the mountains that
+evening, not far from the peak that sheltered Von Minden. They had ample
+firewood for they camped near a clump of cedars and they went hastily
+through the contents of the dispatch box, by the light of the flames.
+
+There was no marriage certificate. The entire box was filled with notes
+in German in a microscopic hand. Roger read excerpts of it. Von Minden
+seemed to have made an exhaustive study of the resources of this section
+of the desert and of the north of Mexico.
+
+"He had some sort of a huge irrigation scheme in his head," Roger said.
+"He's got some letters copied in here and a lot of stuff. We ought to
+turn this over to a German consul, somewhere and let him notify the
+proper relations."
+
+"That a good idea," agreed Dick. "He used to tell Charley and me
+strange things when he was off his head. Once he said he was charting
+this region for the Kaiser. The poor old lunatic."
+
+"His ideas were not so crazy as they might be," protested Roger. "I've
+some dreams myself for this country, you know."
+
+"What are they, Rog?" asked Dick. "I know in only the vaguest way."
+
+"If I can irrigate your twenty-five acres with my little plant, don't
+you see that I have proven that I am able to tap unlimited cheap power.
+The possibilities of this country with cheap power are staggering. I
+don't blame Von Minden for calling it a kingdom. That's just what it
+might be, with the mountains of the west range and the Rockies to the
+east forming natural boundaries. It seems as if a kingdom really could
+be self-supporting in here. If only I can harness the sun to a cheap
+apparatus that any one can buy and operate! Why all these ranges would
+be studded with going mines. Every valley would be green with growing
+crops. I hardly dare let my imagination go on it. Our little old U. S.
+has got a wonderful unborn commonwealth down here."
+
+"Well, your dreaming is a lot more practical than his, anyhow," said
+Dick. "More power to your elbow, old man, I say."
+
+"I won't forget what you people have done for me!" Roger returned the
+papers to the dispatch box.
+
+They found the crude grave intact, the next morning. They were able with
+the aid of the pick to make a shallow trough in the rock. They built
+this up with stone and the last chapter of the Von Minden story was
+ended. They reached home at dusk.
+
+Ernest and Roger sat before the tent alone that night while Gustav wrote
+a letter in the cook house. The heat did not seem to have lessened much
+with the going down of the sun. The stars low-hung over the engine house
+seemed to glow with fire and the darkness was like a hot blanket over
+the sand. Ernest was unusually silent. He sat with his pipe unlighted,
+staring at the stars so long that Roger said, at last:
+
+"Homesick, Ern?"
+
+Ernest grunted. "What did you say? Eh--no--I don't think so. Say, Roger,
+old man, she's refused me."
+
+"She? Who? What are you talking about, Ernest?"
+
+"About Charley. Who else would it be?"
+
+Roger nearly fell off the box on which he was sitting. "Proposed to
+Charley? Why, you weren't in love with her, were you, Ernest?"
+
+"You great nut! Why else should I propose to her? Just because you don't
+admire her is no reason that other men are wooden headed."
+
+"I never said I didn't admire her," exclaimed Roger.
+
+"You did. You said you didn't care for big women."
+
+"Did I? Well, I guess I don't. But I never think of her as a woman.
+She's just like a fine young fellow that you want for a friend."
+
+Ernest grunted. "I wouldn't have a temperament like yours for real
+money, Roger."
+
+"I don't see that yours is giving you much joy right now, old chap."
+
+"Never you mind," returned Ernest. "I'd rather suffer as I am suffering
+than never have loved her."
+
+Roger, who had helped his friend to recover from a good many
+heart-breaks patted him on the shoulder. "Awfully sorry, old Ern."
+
+"I know what you're thinking," said Ernest, "but this one is different,
+just as she's different. I'll never get over this. You realize that
+she's different, don't you, you wooden image?"
+
+Roger answered thoughtfully. "Yes, Charley is different. I really like
+her very much. But she's like a younger brother, so clean-cut and direct
+and--" His voice trailed away to nothing as suddenly he thought of
+Charley's hand on his head, that memorable afternoon in the engine
+house. Indeed, he wondered if the thought of that touch would ever leave
+him. He believed that it would become as much a part of his memory as
+his mother's gentle touch.
+
+Finally, Ernest said, "If it weren't for you and the help I can give
+you, I'd go home."
+
+"You _are_ hard hit, old man! Maybe it'll be easier when Elsa comes."
+
+"Yes, I think it will," replied Ernest. "I thought I'd go in to-morrow
+and hang around Archer's till she gets here. You'll be tinkering on the
+engine and won't miss me. Suppose we can fix up Mrs. von Minden's tent
+for her, instead of her buying a new one."
+
+"Good idea! But, by Jove, the thought of going to Archer's Springs for
+mental distraction is either funny or pathetic! I don't know which. I
+hope I can have a test of the plant on Monday."
+
+"So do I," replied Ernest. "Guess I'll go to bed. Gustav's blown out his
+bug."
+
+"I'm with you," agreed Roger, and was asleep long before Ernest ceased
+to toss in the hot silence of the tent.
+
+It was late Sunday afternoon when dust on the south trail announced the
+coming of Elsa and Ernest. Gustav and Roger had given the entire morning
+to putting the camp in order. Gustav had achieved his _chef-d'oeuvre_
+in a huge "welcome" made of yucca stalks outlined over the living tent
+door. Roger had given Peter to Felicia and about two o'clock she
+appeared, riding the little burro whose face she explained she had
+washed with soap and water for the occasion. Charley and Dick followed
+not long after.
+
+For the first time Roger realized that Charley's isolation had meant
+more to her than she allowed any of them to suspect. She nearly wept as
+she begged that Elsa be permitted to stay with them and went over the
+living tent and the cook tent with a critical eye. When the cloud of
+dust appeared upon the horizon Roger saw her whiten under her tan.
+
+"Suppose she doesn't like me," she exclaimed suddenly to the three men.
+"Suppose she finds me rough and stupid after all these years of
+hardship. Oh, what would I do! The first woman after so long!"
+
+"Well," Dick's voice was angry, "if she doesn't like you she's a fool,
+that's all."
+
+Tears had sprung to Gustav's eyes. "She vill love you on sight," he said
+slowly.
+
+"You wait!" cried Roger. "You two girls were made to be friends."
+
+Charley gave a nervous glance at her khaki clothing. The men did not
+know that the day before she had routed out a white frock, the remnant
+of her college days and after much debate with herself, had rejected it.
+It was of a bygone date and fashion. It had been worn by a
+happy-go-lucky college girl, who had little in common with the mature,
+sunburned, wind-blown woman who looked back at Charley from the mirror.
+
+The horses plodded slowly through the sand. Dick pulled up before the
+living tent.
+
+"She's come! Here she is!" shouted Ernest, as if the watching group in
+the burning western sun could doubt its eyes. Roger lifted Elsa down
+from the wheel.
+
+"Never knew I could be so glad to see you, Elsa," he said. "And you're
+prettier than ever even if your nose is peeling. Look! Here's Charley
+Preble and Felicia and Dick and Gustav."
+
+Elsa, freshly burned, but with her silk traveling suit smart in spite of
+the dust, shook hands all round.
+
+She turned back from Gustav to Charley again, and looked at her with
+frank interest. "You know, Ernest never told me what to wear, so I
+didn't bring a bit of khaki. Wasn't I foolish? It looks just right down
+here."
+
+"I've some extra skirts you can wear till you can send back for some,"
+said Charley. "Let's go into the living tent out of this heat while the
+boys unload."
+
+They went alone, for Felicia, after standing in an agony of indecision
+for a moment or two, decided in favor of the tantalizing packages in the
+wagon box. The girls were not in the tent long. When they came out, they
+had their arms about each other.
+
+"Elsa's going up to the house with me and get a bath and change her
+clothes. We'll be down for supper," said Charley.
+
+There was a flush of happiness on her face that made Dick say, "I hope
+you stay forever, Elsa! Come along! I'll take the team up and your
+trunk. What do you want done with the cot and things, Ernest?"
+
+"Never mind those," said Elsa, serenely. "I'm going to stay with
+Charley."
+
+The men looked at each other speechlessly. As the wagon rattled off,
+Roger said to Ernest:
+
+"They were in that tent less than five minutes. What do you suppose
+happened?"
+
+Ernest shook his head. "I've given up trying to understand women. Look
+at that cot and the lumber--a whole darned outfit, and I nearly killed
+the horses getting the mess up in one load because Elsa insisted she'd
+have to have it to-night. Women!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+DICK'S SICKNESS
+
+
+All day Monday, Roger and his two helpers sweated to prepare for the
+plant's first trial. Roger would let no one touch the engine but
+himself, but Ernest and Gustav puttered with the condenser and the pump
+and at dawn started the oil circulating through the absorber. All day
+long the burning desert sun poured its heat through the glass into the
+oil which caught and imprisoned it for Roger's purpose, until the
+storage pit was full. Roger had set the time of trial as nine o'clock in
+the evening in order to prove the night as well as the day power of his
+plant. The Prebles appeared shortly before the hour.
+
+"Everything O. K.?" asked Dick, with a creditable effort at being
+off-hand.
+
+"One never knows till afterward," replied Roger. "Come into the engine
+house. No room for you, Peter, old man."
+
+There were three "bugs" lighted over the engine. Ernest and Gustav were
+both smoking violently. Dick was chewing gum. Elsa and Charley said
+nothing but watched every movement on the part of the men.
+
+"Come here, Felicia," said Roger, biting at his cold pipe. "You see this
+little valve? All right. Now, as I've told you many times, I hope that
+when you turn this, that the sun which shone to-day will turn the big
+fly wheel round. When I give the wheel a twist, you turn the valve clear
+over."
+
+"Yes, Roger," replied Felicia, her little fingers quivering as she
+grasped the valve.
+
+"Now!" exclaimed Roger, tugging at the fly-wheel.
+
+There was a moment's breathless silence. Then very slowly and sedately,
+the fly wheel began to revolve, gathered speed and shortly was chugging
+away steadily. A little cheer rose from Roger's audience. He grinned.
+
+"Now Ern, let's throw in the pump." A belt, connecting the engine with
+the pump outside, was quickly slipped in place. The engine slowed down.
+But a moment later the sound of water pouring over the condenser pipes
+was heard above the chugging of the engine and pump.
+
+Gustav and Ernest fell on each other's necks. "It works!" squealed
+Felicia. "It works and I helped make it, I did." Peter, his head as far
+in at one of the windows as a very short neck would carry it, brayed.
+Roger watched the pressure gauge and scratched his head thoughtfully.
+
+Charley and Felicia slipped outside to inspect the pump, and Charley
+called: "Does anybody smell anything?" At the same moment Felicia
+shrieked.
+
+"Oh! oh, Roger! There's a terrible leak out here!"
+
+Roger shut off the engine and followed by the others, he darted to the
+condenser. The odor of sulphur dioxide filled the night.
+
+"By Jove, it's big enough to lose my charge!" groaned Roger. "Bring
+bugs, everybody."
+
+Felicia, "bug" and oil can in hand, was running over the pipes at the
+top before the others had arrived.
+
+"Here it is, Roger! Oh, an awful one. There!"
+
+The leak was in a pipe joint at the top of the stack. The odor grew
+almost unbearable. For half an hour the men wrestled with it, turn
+about, and at last succeeded in stopping it. Other minor leaks occurred
+but all were located and controlled. Finally Roger announced all safe
+and lighted his pipe. In the flash of the match, his face showed tense
+and dripping with sweat, his eyes bloodshot from the gas fumes.
+
+"Darn the leaks!" exclaimed Elsa.
+
+"Well, it's what we'll have to expect as long as I can't afford to buy
+bent pipe or an acetylene welding outfit," said Roger. "But after all,
+the leaks are the least of my troubles."
+
+"What is troubling you?" asked Charley quickly.
+
+"There isn't as much power there as my calculations had indicated there
+would be."
+
+"I told you that you were running pretty close on your absorption area,"
+exclaimed Ernest. "You see your temperature readings have been lower
+right along down here than that table we had up in the laboratory for
+this region."
+
+"But I don't want to increase the absorption area in order to get more
+power. It's a clumsy solution. It makes the plant too large and too high
+priced. The solution to the problem lies in making that engine more
+efficient." Roger sighed.
+
+"Now don't change your engine design, Roger!" cried Ernest. "That is a
+peach and has been for years."
+
+"Yes, I know," replied Roger. "But there's a possibility that you and
+the Dean and I have been too complacent about that engine."
+
+"Gee, but you're a regular pessimist, Rog!" exclaimed Dick.
+
+"No, I'm not. No inventor is. I'm just open minded. And don't think I'm
+blue, either. If I weren't so heckled and worried by the time and money
+element I'd be having the time of my life. Wouldn't I, Felicia, honey?"
+
+There was no answer. Felicia, with the oil can hugged tight against her
+middy, was curled up on the work bench, fast asleep.
+
+"Well, it seems to me I'd better take my family home," said Dick.
+"Where's the rest of my harem? Elsa! Charley! Come with papa."
+
+By eleven o'clock the camp was quiet. Roger prowled about the condenser
+a bit, covered the engine with canvas and then went to bed. It had been
+a hard day and none of the three men were wakened by the smell of
+sulphur dioxide that began to hang over the camp at midnight. The dawn
+wind blew most of it away, but when Gustav rose to get breakfast, he
+sniffed suspiciously and called Roger. They traced a leak in the lower
+tier. Half the charge had evaporated during the night.
+
+"At least two weeks before we get more and a chunk out of the precious
+grub money," groaned Ernest at breakfast.
+
+"Patience! Patience!" exclaimed Gustav. "I'll start to Archer's Spring
+mit the empty drums to-morrow."
+
+Roger, who had been bolting his breakfast in silence, suddenly set down
+his coffee cup. Patience! He had told Charley that he was a patient man.
+Yet every muscle of his body at the moment was twitching with
+impatience. He acknowledged this to himself, then said aloud:
+
+"No use getting nervous, boys, I'm not. You get the new charge, Gustav.
+I'll leave that in your hands and think no more about it. I'm going over
+my heat tables again."
+
+"I'll help you check over," said Ernest.
+
+"If you don't mind I'd rather grind for a few days on it alone. I can
+think better that way. Then I'll go over the results with you."
+
+"All right," returned Ernest, with his usual good nature. "Gustav and
+I'll offer our services to Dick to-day on his new field. Do increase
+your absorbing area, Roger!"
+
+Roger shook his head. "That's an awkward and expensive solution. The
+answer's in the engine!"
+
+He began to figure on an old envelope. When this was covered, he
+continued his calculations on the margin of an old newspaper spread over
+the work house table. Long after Gustav and Ernest had gone about their
+day's business Elsa found him here, sweating in the stifling glare from
+the sun and sand, hair disheveled, shirt open at the throat. Elsa looked
+almost cool in comparison in her soft white blouse and one of Charley's
+khaki skirts.
+
+"Well, Roger," she exclaimed, "hasn't your cook the decency to wash the
+breakfast dishes for you?"
+
+"It does look rotten, doesn't it?" said Roger, staring vaguely around
+the kitchen. "But the cook seems to be on a strike and I forgot to clean
+things up."
+
+"If you'll get out of the way, I'll do it." Elsa began to roll up her
+sleeves.
+
+"It's too hot now. Wait until late afternoon," suggested Roger, glancing
+from his papers out to the yellow waves of heat dancing from sand to
+deep blue of sky.
+
+"I can stand the heat if Charley can," returned Elsa. "She's baking
+bread and cookies. The thermometer on the porch says 112°. I should
+judge that it was about 190° in her kitchen. Rog, do you know that she's
+a highly educated girl? Why do you suppose she's throwing her life away
+down here, cut off from everything?"
+
+Roger looked up from his figures with a little sigh of resignation.
+
+"What did you say, Elsa?"
+
+Elsa smiled but repeated her inquiry.
+
+"She's not wasting her life," replied Roger. "This is really a superb
+country and she takes to pioneering like a fine boy. This is about the
+last big adventure there is in America, this desert pioneering."
+
+"Like a boy!" sniffed Elsa. "Roger, you're hopeless! She's just the most
+womanly woman I ever met--and one of the saddest. She's got some trouble
+on her mind."
+
+"Aw shucks, Elsa! Don't try to make Charley out temperamental. She's not
+and that's why she's such a pal to us fellows. Wholesome and clean-cut
+and direct, that's Charley."
+
+"Oh, well, have it your own way, stupid! Only, go on over to the living
+tent while I clean up here." This with a curious glance at Roger's
+preoccupied eyes; those fine, steady, clear-seeing eyes, that saw so
+much and so little of life.
+
+"Just one thing more, Roger," she said. He paused in the doorway and
+looked at her with a smile. "Yes, ma'am."
+
+"Ernest told me on the way out about your money troubles. I don't want
+you to worry about the cost of keeping me. I can pay my way. I had to
+come against Papa's wishes, of course, but I had my own little chunk of
+savings and Mamma had a little. And I just made up my mind I was going
+to get away from home for a while if it was the last act of my life. And
+I know I can do lots of things to make you all comfortable."
+
+"I'm as glad as I can be to have you here, Elsa. And after all you folks
+have done for me, it makes me sick not to be able to do everything for
+you. But I swear I'm right up against it. Some day I'll make it all up
+to you and Ern. See if I don't. If you can keep homesick old Ern bucked
+up you'll be doing your bit. Your father need have had no fear. Ern'll
+be back in the University when this is done contented to teach the rest
+of his life."
+
+"I know it. And how about you, Roger?"
+
+"Me? Oh, I've struck my gait down here. I'm going to follow heat
+problems round the world, see if I don't."
+
+He looked off over the desert with a glow in his face that the girl
+never had seen there before. She gave a wistful little sigh, and began
+to unroll the kitchen apron she had brought under her arm.
+
+"Run along while I try to make the place fit for white people to live
+in," she said.
+
+It was a comfort to have a woman about the camp. The three men testified
+to this at supper time as they ate the meal she had prepared in an
+immaculate kitchen. That evening after Roger had taken Elsa back up to
+the ranch, Ernest decided he would accompany Gustav into Archer's to get
+some khaki for Elsa and to endeavor to locate some sulphur dioxide by
+telegraph. Elsa announced that although she would sleep and take
+breakfast at the ranch she would spend the day at the Plant as
+housekeeper.
+
+It was perhaps four o'clock the next afternoon, that Roger, at work in
+the engine house, saw Felicia half running, half plodding through the
+sand. Elsa, sewing in the living tent, saw her at the same time.
+
+"What can they mean by letting her come out in this awful heat?" she
+called to Roger.
+
+Roger made no reply but shouted to Felicia, "Don't run, child! It's too
+hot!"
+
+Felicia's answer was to quicken her pace. With a sudden sense of
+apprehension Roger went to meet her. Felicia was sobbing when he reached
+her. He lifted her in his arms.
+
+"What is it, sweetheart?"
+
+Felicia was almost beyond words. "Dicky--he's--sick again! And--he
+yelled at me--and slapped me, and he knocked Charley over with his fist.
+And I ran away--to you--"
+
+Roger's lips stiffened. Elsa had joined them and as he set Felicia down,
+he said hurriedly, "Take her into the tent. Cool her down gradually.
+Keep her there till I come."
+
+And he set off as fast as he dared in the burning sun. As he neared the
+ranch house, he could hear Dick's incoherent shouts and as he ran up the
+trail, Dick appeared on the porch.
+
+"Get out of here, Roger!" he roared, thickly.
+
+Roger ran up the steps. "Where's Charley?"
+
+Dick planted himself belligerently in the doorway, "Get out!" Roger
+moved slowly toward him. A heavy odor of cologne enveloped Dick. A quick
+surmise flashed over Roger.
+
+"Felicia needs Charley, Dick, I've got to fetch her."
+
+"Get out!" repeated Dick sullenly. He gave a lunge toward Roger and
+Roger met him with a quick undercut on the jaw that laid Dick flat. He
+dragged him down the trail to the seed and tool shack, where he turned
+the heavy button on the door. Then he ran into the house.
+
+Charley lay on the floor, her hair in disorder about her. Roger, with an
+oath, stooped over her, then ran for a cup of water and bathed her face.
+In a moment she opened her eyes. Roger's own eyes were black with
+excitement but he met her puzzled gaze with a twisted smile.
+
+"There you are, Charley! Where are you hurt?"
+
+She did not answer but struggled to rise and Roger putting an arm under
+her shoulder helped her to her feet where she leaned dizzily against
+him, for a moment, shoulder to shoulder.
+
+"Where's Felicia, Roger?"
+
+"Safe with Elsa at the Plant. Sit down here on the couch, Charley. Where
+did Dick strike you?"
+
+"He--he--where is he, Roger?" clinging suddenly to Roger's hand as he
+laid her back on the couch.
+
+"Locked in the tool house. Charley, you _must_ tell me what happened so
+I can help you."
+
+"Why--he--he pushed me backward and I must have hit something when I
+fell. The back of my head is very sore and my head aches terribly--and
+I'm a little sick at my stomach."
+
+"Let me see your head," said Roger peremptorily. He parted the mass of
+bronze brown hair, wondering even in his anger and pity at its softness
+and thickness. It was not difficult to locate the great lump at the base
+of the skull.
+
+"He might have killed you if it hadn't been for your hair. The skin
+isn't broken. Be still, Charley, till I get a basin of water and a
+towel."
+
+He was back in a moment and sitting down on the edge of the couch, he
+attempted to bathe the swelling. But Charley groaned in agony at the
+first touch, so he gave that up and bathed her face and wrist awkwardly
+but very gently.
+
+"I guess it's my turn to say 'Poor Child,'" Roger murmured.
+
+The quick tears sprang to Charley's eyes. At this moment Dick gave an
+incoherent shout. Charley gripped Roger's hand.
+
+"It's all right," he said. "He can't get out, the whelp!"
+
+"Roger! Don't hurt him. Promise me you won't hurt him!"
+
+"Hurt him!" Roger burst forth. "How can you be so foolish! He ought to
+be beaten within an inch of his life. He's gotten drunk on cologne!"
+
+"Roger, he's never been this bad before. He's been growing slowly better
+all these years. He never struck me before."
+
+"And you've been living with a drunkard all these years who might have
+killed you. You knew this, yet you let little Felicia come to you. How
+could you do it?" Roger paced up and down the floor.
+
+Charley looked at him piteously, but he went on, his voice growing
+louder.
+
+"You must know that a periodic drunkard is the worst kind and almost
+never cured. I thought you were unafraid of truth, but you've been
+living just like a sentimental woman, after all."
+
+Charley raised her hands and dropped them as if in despair. "I promised
+mother I'd never leave him. And he's put up a fight. Oh, you'll never
+know what a fight! And I love him. He's a dear when he's not drinking."
+
+Dick roared again and Roger stared at Charley's sick white face.
+
+"Promise me you won't hurt him, Roger."
+
+"How can I promise when I know if I get another glimpse of him I'll
+break every bone in his carcass?"
+
+Again Charley dropped her hands with that despairing gesture. "Then how
+can I help fearing your dreadful temper as much as I do Dick's drinking?
+What difference is there?"
+
+Roger jumped as if she had struck him. "You can't mean that! You're sick
+and unstrung and don't know what you're saying. I'll go after Ern."
+
+"I have to mean it," insisted Charley wearily, "after seeing you that
+time with Gustav."
+
+"I'm not like Dick!" shouted Roger. "I wouldn't touch a woman or a
+child!"
+
+"How do you know you wouldn't?" asked Charley.
+
+A sudden burning recollection of the little boy who had struck his
+mother's hand from his shoulder flashed through Roger's mind. He groaned
+and dropped his head. Charley did not speak and for some moments Roger
+did not move. Then he came over to the couch and said quietly:
+
+"I'll not hurt Dick. Where did he get the cologne, Charley?"
+
+"He must have found it in Elsa's room. I didn't know she had it, or I'd
+have put it away. And now, every one will know! Oh, Roger, must they all
+know?"
+
+"I don't see how it can be helped. But you can be sure none of us will
+say more than has to be said. Charley, I'm going to get Peter and take
+you down to the Plant for the night. You need absolute rest and quiet
+and you can't get it so near Dick."
+
+"And Dick?"
+
+"Dick must fend for himself in the tool shack. I'll put a canteen of
+water and a blanket in there and by morning he'll be ready for
+conversation."
+
+"But he won't be. Drink makes him terribly sick. His stomach is very
+bad. That's why I always say it's stomach trouble. He ought to be taken
+care of to-night."
+
+"He'll stay where he is and by himself," said Roger, grimly. "When I
+have a temper fit the next time, you can do the same by me. Lord, I'm
+glad Elsa is here! You lie quiet while I go milk."
+
+When he had put the milk away he found that Charley had braided her hair
+but was still very white and shaken. Dick's shouts and curses floated in
+at the open door. Roger tied the little bundle of night things she had
+made up to the saddle and helped her to mount. She swayed dizzily and he
+put a strong, steadying arm about her. They made their way very slowly
+and Roger heaved a sigh of relief when they were finally beyond ear
+shot of poor Dick.
+
+Elsa met them a short distance from the camp. "Hello, Charley," she
+said. "Felicia has just fallen asleep."
+
+Roger nodded and at the living-tent door, helped Charley from the
+saddle. "Get this patient to sleep too, Elsa, if you can."
+
+Elsa's eyes filled with tears as she looked at Charley. "You poor dear,"
+she said, "come and let me take care of you."
+
+One touch of a woman's sympathy, after her starved years, was too much
+for Charley. She burst into deep drawn sobs. Elsa, motioning Roger away,
+put her arm about the girl and led her into the tent.
+
+Roger paced up and down in the sand for a while, listening to the low
+despairing sobs from the tent. Then he unsaddled Peter and put a huge
+bottle of water to heat. He had heard somewhere that women took great
+comfort in a cup of tea.
+
+Roger passed rather a restless night. He had put Elsa's cot which she
+never had used, in the living tent so that Elsa could be close to her
+two patients, and himself put in the night in Gustav's shack which was
+built against the kitchen tent.
+
+It was early July and the summer's heat was at its height. Three times
+between midnight and dawn Roger scratched a match and looked at the
+thermometer. It never registered below 118°. Even the night wind did not
+rise. The silence of the desert was complete as though torridity had
+overwhelmed every other aspect of nature. The stars were magnificent and
+for an hour or so, hoping to find the air outside cooler, Roger put a
+blanket on the work bench near the condenser and lay there, his face to
+the sky.
+
+He wanted to keep his mind fastened lucidly on his engine problem, but
+he found it impossible to put away the events of the day. Dick's bestial
+voice, Charley's white, proud face, little Felicia's clinging arms,
+Charley's sobs from the living tent and her bitter words concerning his
+temper. These words he pondered unwillingly for some time, following
+with his eye the constellations of the Great Bear. Finally he rolled on
+his face with a groan. Perhaps she was right. God knew though that he'd
+fought the red demon within him. After a time he rolled back. Felicia
+had not wakened for her supper. She had slept straight through. It was a
+great pity, he thought, that she should have seen Dick drunk, that she
+should have seen him knock Charley down. He wondered if there were any
+way he could make her forget it. Then with a deep flush in the starlight
+he wished to God she had not seen him lose his temper like a fool.
+Felicia! tender, high strung little Felicia!
+
+At last when the stars were growing dim, Roger fell asleep. He rose at
+sunrise, and went up to the ranch. Dick was lying on the adobe floor of
+the tent house, evidently very sick and very cross.
+
+"How'd I come in here? Send Charley to me!" he snarled.
+
+"I will, like thunder, you drunken bum! You did your best to beat up
+both of your sisters. I'm going to keep them at the Sun Plant until some
+new arrangement can be made. The best I can do for you is to leave this
+door open. Fend for yourself, hang you!" And Roger walked off to do the
+milking.
+
+When he had finished milking he glanced in at the open door of the tool
+house. Dick lay where Roger had left him, staring with eyes of feverish
+agony at the roof above his head. Roger, without a word, went back to
+the plant. To his relief, Felicia appeared at the breakfast table, very
+hungry and quite herself. But Charley was not able to get up. It seemed
+as if the long years of strain had culminated in yesterday's events, and
+that Charley had no will-power left.
+
+The girl lay on Ernest's cot, the tent flap lifted beside her, with no
+apparent desire save to stare at the desert dancing in heat waves
+against the sky. What thoughts were passing behind those quiet brown
+eyes, no one knew.
+
+It was mid-morning when Roger went in to see her. He pulled a box up
+beside the cot. "Well, old dear," he said. "How is the head?"
+
+Charley smiled. "Sore and aching, but better than during the night. I am
+so tired and that's very unusual. I'm always so strong."
+
+Roger nodded. "It was a bad knock, to leave you senseless for half an
+hour. I suspect you ought to take pretty good care of yourself for
+several days. I've been talking with Elsa and she thinks you ought to
+stay here for a few days. And I do too. Don't worry about Dick. I saw
+him this morning and he'll be himself by sundown. And I've promised
+Elsa I won't see him again until after she does."
+
+Charley eyed Roger's long brown face as if taking in the full
+significance of all he had said. Then she gave a little sigh of relief.
+
+"If I could rest here in this peaceful tent, just for a day or two."
+
+"The tent's all right at night, but I've moved Gustav's cot into the
+engine house, and I'm going to help you over there. It's ten degrees
+cooler than here. Elsa and Felicia are established there and I won't
+disturb you for I'm drawing, which act is noiseless."
+
+In a dim corner of the adobe engine house in Gustav's cot Charley spent
+the day. Elsa, when she was not playing housekeeper sat beside her with
+her sewing and Felicia visited between the cot and Roger's drawing
+board.
+
+Once when Charley seemed to be in an uneasy sleep, Felicia asked Roger,
+"Is Charley very sick?"
+
+"Not really sick at all, chicken. She's just tired. She's worked too
+hard for you and Dick."
+
+Felicia stared at him with her innocent, speculative gaze so like
+Charley's, yet so unlike.
+
+"Can't we live here with you, instead of up at the ranch, Roger? I know
+Charley would like it better."
+
+"You can stay and make us a visit, anyhow. Then we'll see."
+
+At sunset, after the dishes were finished and Charley had moved back to
+the living tent for the night, Elsa went up to the ranch house. She was
+gone a long time. Charley was dozing and Felicia asleep. Roger prowled
+up and down the camp closely followed by Peter until he could bear the
+suspense no longer. A sudden fear that Dick might have discovered more
+liquor somewhere started him along the ranch trail. He met Elsa just as
+the afterglow disappeared and the parching night came down like a star
+dotted curtain. She came trudging through the sand as if she were tired.
+
+"It does seem as if I'd wilt with the heat," she exclaimed. "You
+needn't have worried about me, Roger. Dick came back with me till we saw
+you."
+
+"He did, huh! Then he's neither drunk nor dead?"
+
+"Rog! Don't say such awful things about the poor fellow."
+
+"Poor fellow! You didn't see Charley lying on the floor as I did. Well,
+what has he to say for himself?"
+
+"He's in an awful state of mind. He was trying to cook some supper when
+I got there. He'd succeeded in milking. When he saw me, he gasped. 'Is
+Charley sick?' and dropped the kettle of water he was lifting."
+
+"I told him just what you had seen and what an exhausted state Charley's
+nerves seemed to be in. He just stood and took it looking like a sick
+cat. When I had finished he asked what you had said and I told him and
+he sort of groaned, 'You women should have let Roger beat me to death.
+Why did you interfere?' Poor Dick!"
+
+Elsa drew a long breath and was silent for a moment before she began
+again. "He's in a most awful frame of mind. He's like a man who knows he
+has fits of insanity and feels perfectly helpless to prevent them. He
+cried and cried while he told me how he had fought drink. I never knew
+any one could suffer so. He's much more to be pitied than Charley."
+
+"Huh! Women!" grunted Roger. "Why, he's just the usual thing in drunks,
+you little ninny. What's he going to do?"
+
+"Well, I want Charley to give him one more chance."
+
+"I thought so! Well, he doesn't get it."
+
+"But, Roger, you can't prevent it. And he's not going into Archer's
+Springs again. He's going to let us do his errands. That's where the
+trouble has been."
+
+"Except when he drinks cologne."
+
+"What makes you so hard, Roger?"
+
+"I saw Charley lying where Dick had knocked her down. And I felt little
+Felicia almost in convulsions from fear. Let him keep out of my sight
+until I can forget that."
+
+"Of course, all I can do is to advise, anyhow," said Elsa. "Dick is
+coming down in the morning and take his medicine. He insists on it. He's
+a fine man, Roger, in many ways."
+
+"You've not seen him drunk," returned Roger. "Commend me to a woman
+every time for sentimentality."
+
+"There are other weaknesses men have than drunkenness that their
+sentimentality helps women to endure, aren't there, Roger?" asked Elsa
+quietly. Roger dropped Elsa's arm and left her without a word.
+
+He was at work in the engine house, the next morning when Dick came
+slowly down the trail and was led by Elsa into the living tent. Then she
+went off to the cook tent with Felicia. Roger, working with strained
+concentration on his engine, heard on the one side the low murmur of
+Dick's and Charley's voices and on the other Felicia's occasional happy
+laugh above Elsa's little songs. After perhaps an hour, Dick came out
+and went to the cook tent and in a moment Felicia came flying into the
+engine house and threw her arms around Roger.
+
+"I won't stay where Dicky is," she panted. "I won't!"
+
+The child was trembling violently. Roger sat down and held her to his
+heart.
+
+"Dick won't hurt you, honey, now. It's only when he's sick."
+
+Felicia shuddered. "He slapped me and he knocked Charley over with his
+fist and in the night I dream about it. I am going to live with you. You
+won't get mad again like you did with Gustav, will you, Roger?"
+
+Roger bowed his forehead on the soft bronze brown head that rested so
+confidently on his breast.
+
+"You do love poor old Roger, don't you, sweetheart?" he asked, brokenly.
+
+As if she sensed some secret pain, Felicia turned and put her arms about
+him and kissed him softly on the lips. "I love you as much as I do
+Charley. Don't send me back to Dicky, dearest Roger."
+
+"I won't." Roger's lips tightened grimly.
+
+Charley came out to lunch that noon, looking much stronger.
+
+"I'm so grateful to you, Roger and Elsa," she said, "and after I've
+helped with the dishes, if you'll loan me Peter, we'll go home."
+
+Roger dropped his knife and fork, then looked at Felicia. "Felicia, you
+know Roger's trunk? Well, if you'll run to the living tent and open the
+trunk and take all the things out of it, at the very bottom you'll find
+some Christmas cake Elsa made last year. Then put all the things back
+carefully and bring the cake here."
+
+Felicia gave an ecstatic "Oh, Roger!" and disappeared. Roger turned to
+Charley.
+
+"I'm going to say one more thing. Do you realize fully that in living
+with Dick you jeopardize both yours and Felicia's lives?"
+
+"Oh, no, Roger! He never touched us before. It was the poison in that
+cologne."
+
+Roger shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"How can you be so hard?" pleaded Charley. "Dick's my own flesh and
+blood. It might have been I instead of Dick with this appetite. You're
+hard, Roger."
+
+"I'm not hard. I'm disappointed. I didn't think you were a
+sentimentalist."
+
+"I wonder," exclaimed Elsa, "how women will ever get time to vote when
+it takes all their time to make men endurable to live with. My word! I'm
+glad I haven't one of the critters!"
+
+She said this with such heartfelt sincerity that Charley laughed and
+Roger joined her. By the time Felicia came running back with the
+Christmas cake, the atmosphere was considerably lighter.
+
+"We're going home, Felicia! Aren't you glad I'm well again?" said
+Charley. "And haven't the Sun Planters been kind?"
+
+Felicia whitened under her tan.
+
+"Oh, but, Charley, I'm not going. I don't have to, do I, Roger? I'm so
+afraid of Dicky. He slapped me twice, Charley, and he knocked you over
+with his fist. Oh, let me stay with Roger!"
+
+Charley gasped. "Oh, Felicia! Felicia! Oh, my little Felicia!"
+
+Roger spoke quickly. "Why not let her stay for a little visit, Charley?
+I'll finish Elsa's tent this afternoon and she can share that with Elsa,
+till her nerves become normal."
+
+"But I'm going up to stay with Charley," said Elsa; "that's part of the
+cure."
+
+"Then let her stay alone. She'll be safe and happy with me," replied
+Roger. "Dick deserves punishment."
+
+Charley looked at Roger, then at Felicia. "I think that's a good idea,"
+she said, slowly.
+
+And so when Ernest and Gustav came home that night, they found Felicia
+watching the camp fire beside Roger, and after she was asleep in her
+tent, they heard the whole story. Ernest was indignant at the thought of
+Elsa's staying on at the ranch.
+
+"I am going to be firm with her in the morning," he said.
+
+But Elsa's firmness was greater than Ernest's and shortly the two
+households had settled down and Dick was gradually reinstated in every
+one's good graces but Roger's. Felicia stayed on for a week, to the joy
+of the three camp mates who spoiled her outrageously. Then one Saturday
+evening Dick came down and he and Felicia had a long talk, at the end of
+which Felicia said good-by to Roger, Ernest and Gustav, and returned to
+the ranch, quite happily.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+DICKY'S LAST BOUT
+
+
+The fact that the engine had fallen below expectations brought the Sun
+Planters' food problem into prominence again. When Elsa had begun
+housekeeping for the men she had protested over the meagerness and the
+simplicity of the food supplies. But Roger had explained their situation
+frankly and Elsa had proceeded to make good German magic over the canned
+food of which the camp had been so weary.
+
+"The Lord knows," exclaimed Ernest at the breakfast table one morning,
+"how long we'll be tied up in this Hades. If Roger's begun puttering on
+the engine we may be here ten years."
+
+"This isn't Hades, Ern!" exclaimed Elsa. "I'm having the time of my
+life."
+
+"I notice that Dick's down here a good deal," said Ernest, slyly, "and I
+suppose that adds to the hilarity of the nations."
+
+"By the way," Elsa ignored her brother except for a blush, "what are we
+going to do about the food problem, Ern? All the cotton-tails and quail
+that Gustav shoots, won't keep us much longer."
+
+"Do you suppose Hackett would let us run a bill with him and take a
+mortgage on the outfit here as security? Of course, I haven't any right
+to give a mortgage but I'll explain the whole situation to him."
+Roger's voice had a desperate note in it.
+
+"Well, that is worth the try, eh?" said Gustav. "Me, I might borrow a
+little yet, from a friend in the East."
+
+"You'll do nothing of the kind, Gustav," exclaimed Roger. "You're far
+from home and you may need all your borrowing power for yourself--not
+but what I appreciate your offer, old man!"
+
+"I've got a little--my fare home and about a hundred beside," offered
+Elsa.
+
+"Keep it, old girl," Roger's voice was husky. "By Jove, I may be poor in
+everything else, but I'm rich in friends. Ern, what do you think of my
+suggestion?"
+
+"Well, I hate debt worse than anything in the world. But we're in this
+thing up to our necks and I'm willing to try anything that's honest. If
+Hackett knows the whole story--"
+
+"He knows it now, I guess, but I'll give him all the details. I may as
+well go in to-day and get a yes or no at once."
+
+"I'll go," said Ernest. "I'd like to and you'd better not lose a day."
+
+Roger nodded in a relieved manner.
+
+"Listen! There goes the Lemon!" exclaimed Elsa. "I do hope she goes
+to-day."
+
+"Put! Put!" came over the desert. "Put! Put! Put!"
+
+"I guess she's launched and I've got a clear day for work." Roger rose
+as he spoke. "Dick's having a struggle to get enough water for that
+second five acres of his. He insists that he's going ahead with the next
+five, though."
+
+"Elsa, want to go into Archer's with me?" asked Ernest.
+
+"Sorry, Ern, but I'm going to help Charley can pumpkins to-day. She
+planted some for luck up by the engine house where the pump leaks, you
+remember, and the crop is wonderful."
+
+"Oh, well, if you prefer pumpkins to me and Archer's Springs, I've
+nothing to say," groaned Ernest.
+
+"I'll go," offered Gustav. "I haf letters and other things."
+
+Ernest accepted the offer with alacrity. He was beginning to recover
+some of his old spirits but he had not been himself since Charley's
+refusal. Roger had never known Ernest to take one of his affairs quite
+so hard before. He dreaded to be alone and was often moody: a rare state
+of mind for easy going Ernest.
+
+The two men made a quick and successful trip to Archer's, for Hackett
+agreed to sell them food to the sum of two hundred dollars. He didn't
+see how a mortgage could be given but he was willing to take Roger's
+personal note for ninety days. This Roger gave with some misgivings but
+with a sigh of relief that the day of starvation had been put off once
+more. Then he gave his whole mind to his engine problem.
+
+He was planning some changes in his engine that were fundamental and
+that were really the outcome of his early trip through the ranges in the
+search for window glass. He worked at his redesigning with a single
+minded passion that set him apart from the others. All of them except
+Felicia found him tense and at times irritable.
+
+As August came in, the beauty of the desert seemed to increase daily.
+The heat, whilst it added to one's sense of the desert's cruelty, added
+at the same time to the unreality and to the mystery of silence and of
+distances that are so large a part of the desert's fascination.
+
+The sand was alive with an uncanny, tiny life. Horned toads flopped
+unexpectedly across the trail. Lizards were everywhere, running over and
+under the tent floors and along the thatching of the condenser and the
+engine house. There were many rattlesnakes too, particularly dangerous
+at this time of year because, Dick said, they were shedding their skins
+and were blind, striking at any sound. There were Gila monsters now and
+again. There were many scorpions and centipedes, with once in a while a
+tarantula.
+
+Dick and Charley laid down certain laws of the summer desert. No one was
+to go to bed without examining the bedding for tarantulas or centipedes.
+No one was to dress without subjecting every article of apparel to the
+same scrutiny. No one was to go out at night without a "bug" for fear of
+the blind striking of a rattler. Every one must learn to kill a snake
+with a snake stick. And every one, even Felicia, must learn to treat
+snake bites.
+
+Elsa, clear-headed and matter of fact, was very little annoyed by all
+this gliding venomous summer life. But little Felicia's horror of it was
+difficult to control. It seemed to Roger that the child's nerves had
+been uneven ever since the "cologne affair," as Ernest called it. But he
+could not be sure of this, for Charley insisted that the little girl's
+fears of all that uncanny fraternity of the sand was exactly what hers
+had been four years before.
+
+August was slipping by, quietly enough when Gustav, returning one day
+from Archer's Springs, delivered to Roger a letter from Hampton of the
+Smithsonian saying that on the thirtieth day of August a representative
+of the Smithsonian would reach Archer's Springs on his way to Los
+Angeles; that he had but two days to spare but would be glad to give
+these days to the Moore experiment.
+
+Roger was in despair. "Two days!" he groaned. "Why, it takes two days to
+come up and back. Better stay away."
+
+"Don't be an idiot, Rog," exclaimed Ernest. "You get him here, and he'll
+stay for a day or so. How can he get away? The thing that bothers me is
+that darned engine of yours."
+
+"It doesn't bother me," replied Roger, with a quick gleam in his gray
+eyes and a sudden smile. "I've got a week before he gets here and by
+Jove, the old kettle's got to be ready!" He gave a sudden long sigh and
+looked off toward the distant line of the river range. "I thought it was
+queer of the Smithsonian to treat me as it did. Ern, this puts new life
+in me."
+
+If new life means redoubled effort, Roger had found it indeed. He gave
+himself as little sleep as possible during the week before the expected
+visit. All day and a larger part of the night he was at work in the
+engine house, till his eyes were bigger and his face gaunter than ever.
+Felicia was his little shadow. Her taste for mechanics made her seem
+more like a small boy than ever. And although Roger's tense nerves grew
+tenser and his impatience with the others was shown oftener and oftener,
+to Felicia he showed only the gentleness for which she loved him.
+
+Charley and Elsa were forming a real friendship. The isolation of the
+little desert community was almost complete. Since the death of Von
+Minden no one from the outer rim of the desert or of the world had been
+near either camp or ranch. Even the Indians who had been camping in the
+remote canyon where Felicia had visited them had found good hunting in
+some still more remote section and never had appeared in the camp. This
+isolation forced the friendship between the two young women to a quick
+growth. Charley was happier, Dick said, than he had seen her since her
+college days.
+
+Two days before the visitor was due, Roger announced that one day's work
+would make him ready for a test, so that, and he did not believe that he
+was over-confident, when Gustav arrived with the Smithsonian
+investigator, the plant would be in full action. He made this
+announcement at breakfast. Ernest and Gustav cheered.
+
+"I never thought you'd make it," said Gustav.
+
+"I _had_ to make it," replied Roger. "I have the conviction that if this
+man, whoever he is, sees the plant working, the thing will be done, and
+that if he doesn't find the wheels going round, I'm going to miss the
+chance of my life."
+
+"If the heat would just let up for a little while," sighed Ernest. "If
+he's a northerner, it may put him out of business."
+
+"Pshaw! they'll send an experienced man, never fear!" Roger poured
+himself another cup of coffee. "Hello! Here's a caller!"
+
+It was Qui-tha, riding a half-starved pony whose mangy sides were
+working in the early morning sun like a pair of bellows.
+
+He dismounted and grinned affably. "How! You give Qui-tha more strong
+medicine, maybe!"
+
+"Look here, Qui-tha, I'll give you all the strong medicine you want, if
+you'll stay and help me for a week," cried Ernest.
+
+Qui-tha shook his head. "No got time to work. Must go back to Injun camp
+take care of sick Injun. Qui-tha heap big medicine man, now."
+
+"All right!" Ernest shrugged his shoulders. "No work, no strong
+medicine."
+
+Qui-tha shrugged his shoulders and remounting, he started on up the
+trail to the ranch house. Elsa reported later in the day that Dick,
+having no peroxide, had promised to get some from Archer's Springs if
+Qui-tha would do a day's work for him. Qui-tha, she said, was giving the
+matter due consideration.
+
+Late that evening, while Roger and Gustav were working at the little
+forge, Ernest came out of the living tent where he had been writing
+letters.
+
+"Did you fellows hear a gun shot a little bit ago?" he asked. "You two
+are making such an infernal racket, I can't tell what it was."
+
+Roger and Gustav both stopped work and listened. The desert was
+breathlessly silent.
+
+"Are you sure?" asked Roger. "Did you think it might have been at the
+ranch?"
+
+"I couldn't tell. It may have been nothing at all but you folks here.
+But if I hear it again, I'm going up there."
+
+It was fifteen or twenty minutes later that Elsa's voice came from the
+trail.
+
+"Ernest! Roger! Gustav!"
+
+The three men started on a run to meet her. A dark figure in the
+starlight, she staggered exhausted toward them.
+
+"The Indian--had whiskey--he and Dick both drunk. The Indian shot
+Dick--in the leg and ran away."
+
+"Did he hurt you girls?" cried Roger.
+
+"Not a bit. But Dick's terrible. We've got him in his bedroom. But if
+his leg didn't prevent him he'd climb out of the window."
+
+As she spoke, she turned back toward the ranch with the men. "You go
+ahead. I'm all in and will follow slowly," she said.
+
+"Not with that Indian around in the desert," exclaimed Ernest. "Gustav,
+you come along with Elsa and Roger and I'll run for it."
+
+They could hear Dick's roars as they neared the adobe. When they burst
+breathlessly into the living room, Charley was standing by the door
+holding in place a chair which hung on the knob and against the door
+jamb made an effective bolt.
+
+"Is he armed?" asked Roger.
+
+"No," replied Charley. "There's the only gun in the house," pointing to
+the one on the table. "And Qui-tha had his with him as he ran out of the
+house."
+
+Roger turned to Ernest. "We could just leave him in there alone to wake
+up, if there wasn't danger of his bleeding to death. Come on, Ern.
+Remember he's as strong as a bear and be ready to jump him with me. Get
+some clean rags and water, Charley, and bring them in when we call. And
+keep Gustav out. He'll faint."
+
+They slid quickly into Dick's room, closing the door behind them. Dick
+lay on the bed, blood oozing through his pants leg below the knee. He
+seemed too sick to move, but Roger would take no chances.
+
+"Ern, you hold his hands above his head while I cut off that pants leg."
+
+The precautions were unnecessary. Dick lay muttering and limp while
+Roger uncovered a nasty wound that had plowed to the bone down Dick's
+skin.
+
+"Qui-tha must have been at close quarters when that happened," said
+Ernest. "You'll need help, Roger. Hand me that towel and I'll tie his
+hands."
+
+Roger handed Ernest the towel, then went out for the rags and water.
+Gustav and Elsa had arrived. He had hardly answered them that Dick's
+wound was not very serious when there was a sudden uproar. Dick had gone
+amuck again and even the girls had to be called into service to help
+with the bandaging while the men held him quiet.
+
+By the time the blood flow was staunched and the rude bandaging
+finished, Dick had subsided into a drunken stupor, from which, in spite
+of his evident pain, there seemed little danger of his rousing for some
+hours. Leaving Gustav to watch, the others withdrew to the living room.
+
+"What have you done with Felicia?" asked Roger.
+
+"She's slept through it all, thank heaven," replied Charley. "I ran into
+her room as soon as Qui-tha had clattered away and she was sound asleep.
+So I just locked the door. I'll go in now and attend to her."
+
+She picked up a candle and tiptoed into the bedroom. There was a
+moment's hush, then Charley rushed back into the living room.
+
+"She's not there! Felicia!" Her voice rising to a scream. "Felicia!
+Where are you?"
+
+Elsa ran wildly into the bedroom followed by the others. The little room
+was empty. Felicia's nightdress lay in a heap on the floor. The clothing
+she had taken off was gone. A quick search of the house, then of the
+outbuildings was made. To no avail. Some one gasped:
+
+"Qui-tha!"
+
+But Charley who had recovered her self control, vetoed this idea at
+once. "An Indian isn't like that! Roger, she climbed out of the window
+to run to you."
+
+"I'll go down there at once," replied Roger. "The rest of you keep on
+calling and searching around here."
+
+"Ride old Nell," Charley suggested, as Roger hurried away.
+
+But Felicia was not at the Sun Plant, nor did Roger's stentorian shouts
+raise any reply save faint howls from a coyote pack. With a sinking
+heart he rode back to the ranch and called in the others whose lights
+were flashing about the mountainside.
+
+"If she started for our camp," he said, "I don't see how she could have
+wandered away. She knows that trail so well."
+
+"But she has never taken it alone after dark." Elsa's voice was
+uncertain. "And she's so little! And it was so dark to-night, I kept
+wandering off the trail myself."
+
+"Let's not waste time surmising!" exclaimed Ernest, impatiently.
+
+"But we must use a little system," returned Roger. "Girls, you patrol
+the trail up and down between the Sun Plant and here. I've left a
+lighted 'bug' in the tent. You both carry 'bugs' and extra candles and
+keep calling. The moon will soon be rising, and that will help. Gustav,
+you make a big circle round the camp as far out as you can keep the tent
+light in sight. Ern, you follow the Archer's Springs trail a mile or so,
+then swing inside of Gustav's circle and cover all the arroyas and rock
+heaps you can. I'm going to take the mountain trail. Everybody get
+something for a tourniquet. At sun up, come back here. If you can find
+her, or even get her trail, fire three shots."
+
+Elsa gave a little sob, but Charley was tearless. As they started for
+their respective stations, she asked: "How about Dick?"
+
+Roger flushed a deep red. "Dick rots for all I care until we find
+Felicia."
+
+No one commented on this and shortly the desert was dotted with slow
+moving fingers of light. Roger, as he panted up and down the
+mountainside, knew that never would he forget the wistful melancholy of
+those thin calls that rose and fell all night, now in Gustav's, or
+Ernest's deep notes, now in the high treble tones of Elsa or Charlotte.
+"Felicia! Felicia! Felicia!" But Felicia did not answer.
+
+With the dawn, the wind rose, and there began that perpetual shifting
+and sifting of the sand which in a few hours more, Roger knew, would
+obliterate the little girl's trail, although it was only a summer wind
+which would die down by mid-morning.
+
+At sun up, a weary eyed, hoarse and hectic group gathered in the living
+room of the adobe.
+
+"Now," said Roger, "you girls get three or four hours' sleep, then one
+of you go down to the Plant and one of you stay here. We three men will
+take a day's water and grub supply and keep to the general beats we had
+last night. I can't believe, unless Qui-tha got her, that she wandered
+very far."
+
+"But I saw her after Qui-tha had gone. If a rattler struck her she--"
+Charley stopped.
+
+"How long does a person live after a rattler bite?" asked Ernest, with
+stiff lips.
+
+"A Mexican who worked for us three years ago lived twelve hours but he
+was unconscious most of the time," replied Charley.
+
+"Now, you girls go cook a little breakfast," said Gustav, hastily, "and
+ve vill do the chores, eh?"
+
+They ate a hasty meal in the kitchen a little later. No one talked.
+Charley patted Elsa's shoulder in a helpless way when Elsa now and again
+burst into tears. They had finished their preparation for the renewal of
+the search when Dick called from the bedroom. Charley went to him,
+closing the door after her. What she said the others did not know but
+there was silence in the bedroom for some moments after she came out.
+Then there was a confusion of sounds and Dick dragged himself on his
+hands and knees into the kitchen. He pulled himself up into the chair by
+the table. The others stood silently looking at him.
+
+"O God!" he groaned. "O God in Heaven!"
+
+Still no one spoke.
+
+"Hurry!" he shouted. "What are you waiting for? She may be dead now!
+Hurry, you fools!"
+
+"I'm going to stay here, Dick," said Elsa.
+
+"You'll not! To hell with me!" Dick paused and lifted a shaking hand to
+his eyes for a moment. "Rog, you go along the foot of the range and
+search every canyon. Watch every spot of shade. I've warned her so often
+about desert sun."
+
+Roger nodded and started off, Peter following him with a good supply of
+water and food on his back. Ernest and Gustav were to use the two
+horses.
+
+The sun rose higher and higher, crossed the zenith and traveled toward
+the River Range. Roger, with dogged thoroughness, followed the trail
+suggested by Dick. He was numb with fear. Remotely he recalled that
+somehow he had been expecting this to be a decisive day in his history
+but it was only a fleeting memory. Every sense that he possessed was
+concentrated on finding Felicia. At noon, he ate and drank something,
+then lay down in the shade of a canyon to sleep for an hour or so, with
+Peter standing like a little gray bodyguard beside him. At three he was
+plodding on his way again, around cactus thicket, up and down washouts,
+over rockheaps, talking to Peter when the silence became unendurable, or
+his voice refused to rise longer with Felicia's name. He could with
+difficulty urge his body on through the burning heat. What then of a
+tender little girl? In this summer sun of the desert a man without water
+for twenty-four hours would die. What of Felicia?
+
+By sun down he had covered several miles on either side of the ranch. He
+was covered with dust and his lips were cracking in spite of his free
+use of the canteen. He was tired to the very bones of him. The hot sand
+had blistered his feet. The cholla had torn his hands. When the sudden
+blackness of night descended, he determined to rest once more until the
+moon rose. He did not think that he was more than a mile from the ranch,
+but as there was still plenty of food and water, and as he was within
+ear-reach of possible gun-shots, there was no point in going home for
+the few hours' rest. He removed Peter's pack, gave him some oats and a
+mouthful of water, then started a tiny fire of greasewood twigs. It was
+very hot but Roger had seen several rattlers during the day and the idea
+of lying down in utter darkness did not appeal to him.
+
+Yet, he did not sleep after all. He sat, wide-eyed, feeding the tiny
+blaze, trying to develop some new theory on the little girl's sudden
+disappearance. He had been pondering this for an hour when there came
+the sound of footsteps stumbling through the sand. He jumped trembling
+to his feet.
+
+"Felicia! Oh, Felicia!" he cried.
+
+"No! No! It's Charley!" a hoarse voice answered and in a moment Charley
+appeared within the tiny circle of firelight. She was disheveled and
+pale, and evidently very, very tired, but still outwardly composed.
+
+"Sit down and rest," said Roger. "Here, I've been sitting on Peter's
+pack blanket. There's room for us both, I guess."
+
+Charley sank down with a grateful sigh and Roger, recalling his pipe,
+took it out, filled it and essayed several puffs, then established
+himself beside Charley.
+
+"I couldn't stay indoors," she said. "Dick made us all lie down for a
+few hours' sleep, but I couldn't sleep. I thought perhaps she might have
+gone up the trail that she took when she went to find the Indians. If
+the Indian went down toward your camp, she would try to go in the
+opposite direction. And then, I got to wondering if she stole down to
+the camp, while we were all occupied with Dick, and finding it all dark,
+she got confused and--And then I wonder--"
+
+Roger laid a quiet hand on the interlaced fingers with which Charley was
+clasping her knee.
+
+"Easy now, Charley, easy. Have you had your supper?" Charley turned to
+look at him. His own eyes filled at the glimpse he got of the misery in
+her deep eyes--Felicia's eyes.
+
+"Yes, I think I did," she answered.
+
+"That's fine! Now is any one staying down at the camp in case she
+wanders in there?"
+
+"Gustav's there."
+
+"All right! Good old Gustav. It seems to me your idea about the Indian
+trail is a good one. How did you come clear up here, when you were
+headed into the range."
+
+"My 'bug' went out and I'd lost my matches, so I wandered off the trail,
+I guess, till I saw your light."
+
+"My heavens, Charley. But it was a horrible risk you ran! You might
+have--"
+
+"Don't scold," said Charley drearily. "What does it matter?"
+
+"I won't scold," replied Roger with a gentle note in his voice that no
+one but Felicia had ever heard. "Now, I tell you what we'll do. We'll
+just rest here until the moon comes up. Then we'll try the Indian trail.
+Let's spread this blanket so you can lie down."
+
+"I don't want to lie down. I just want to sit here by you. She loved you
+so."
+
+"All right, Charley. I'll smoke and we'll buck each other up. How's
+Dick?"
+
+"I don't really know. He won't let any of us touch him. He must be in
+great pain."
+
+"I hope so," said Roger bitterly.
+
+Charley made no reply. The process of bucking each other up did not
+proceed with much enthusiasm. The two sat brooding over the tiny blaze.
+Now and again Peter returned from a short foraging expedition and
+thrusting a soft nose over one of their shoulders waited to have his
+forehead rubbed, then started off again.
+
+Roger noted that Charley's pallor had given way to flushed cheeks, and
+suddenly he was aware that he too was parched and feverish; that try as
+he would to think, clearly, he could do nothing but wonder, impatiently,
+when the moon would rise and to fight down the picture that rose
+constantly of tiny Felicia wandering in an endless desert. Measuring the
+depth of his love for the child by the immensity of his fear, he was
+astounded by its greatness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE GREAT DIVIDE
+
+
+The moon appeared at last and suddenly all the desert lay before them
+like molten silver. They rose, stiffly, and Charley helped Roger to
+replace the little pack on Peter. Roger led, Peter followed and Charley
+brought up in the rear. For hours, they toiled slowly up into the range,
+flashing their "bugs" into the shadows, stopping now and again to go
+over rock heap or cactus clump carefully, then on again, neither of them
+speaking, even to Peter, except to call at irregular intervals Felicia's
+name.
+
+Dawn found them high in the range, in a little canyon, sweet with a tiny
+spring about which grew mesquite and bear grass. The black ashes of old
+fires were there, but nothing else. Roger broke the silence of hours:
+
+"We're both going to get a sleep here, then I'm going to take you home.
+We're way out of the reach of gun sound. They might have found her, you
+know."
+
+They stood staring about them for a moment and listening. The
+unutterable silence of the desert was about them. Roger, eyes bloodshot,
+face unshaven, lips cracked, turned to Charley whose great eyes were
+sunk in her head, her lip colorless and drawn.
+
+"Come," he said. "I'll cook the bacon and you unpack the rest of the
+grub. We simply haven't strength to get home without rest and food."
+
+Charley had the remainder of the food ready for Roger when the bacon was
+cooked. They ate in silence, then Charley lay down on the pack blanket
+while Roger stretched out in a drift of sand beyond the spring. In utter
+weariness they both slept, unmindful of danger from snakes or vermin.
+
+It was mid-morning when Roger woke. He sat up with a start and a sudden
+clear picture in his eyes of a spot in the desert where he had not
+searched. About a mile from the ranch and perhaps an eighth of a mile
+west of the trail at the base of the range was a little stone monument.
+Roger had observed it but it was too small to shelter even Felicia's
+small frame in its shadows, so he had not troubled to make a close
+observation of the flat desert round about it. The picture which had
+awakened him was an extraordinarily vivid one of this monument. He
+resolved to examine it thoroughly on his way home.
+
+Roger rose stiffly. Charley was lying on her face, her head pillowed on
+her arm. He moved over and touched her on the shoulder.
+
+"Sorry, Charley," he said, "but we'd better start back."
+
+The girl sat up, slowly. "I wasn't asleep," she said. "I've just been
+napping off and on. I can't sleep until I know."
+
+"Perhaps we'll find her safe at home," Roger even managed a smile with
+his broken lips.
+
+"Let's not stop to eat again!" exclaimed Charley.
+
+Roger nodded. They reloaded Peter who was well gorged on spring water
+and the uncertain looking herbage that grew about its brim.
+
+The trail back was nearly all downward and they had covered it by noon.
+Roger told Charley of his strange awakening dream of which he made
+light, but when they sighted the little monument in the distance, they
+both hurried toward it.
+
+It was there that they found Felicia. On the west side of the monument
+the prospector had begun a hole and left it. It was not over a foot in
+depth nor over three feet square. Too small to show in the vast levels
+of the desert until one was upon it and protected from view from the
+mountain because of the monument, tiny as it was, it was not too small
+to hold her little body, huddled face downward, arms and legs cramped.
+
+Roger lifted her out and Charley, without a word, fainted. Roger groaned
+and covered his eyes for a moment, then he took the pack blanket and
+rolled the little body in it and left it while he turned to Charley. A
+part of the canteen of water poured gently over her face revived her. As
+soon as Roger saw that she was looking at him intelligently he said,
+sternly:
+
+"Charley, you've got to brace up until we can get home. You must help me
+get you and her back by keeping as much of a grip on yourself as you
+can. Remember this is desert noon and we can't temporize. You mount
+Peter. We'll leave the pack here. I'll carry Felicia."
+
+He took the shot gun from the pack and fired three shots into the air,
+followed by two more; the code that Ernest had suggested after the first
+night's hunt had led them to fear the worst. Then he lifted the little
+blanketed form across his breast and slowly led the way back to the
+ranch. He could not weep. He could not curse. He could only hope,
+blindly, that the volcano within him would not burst forth until his
+work was done.
+
+Ernest met him a short distance from the ranch house, and took the
+little body from his arms, without a word. Roger turned back to Charley.
+
+"I'm not coming up to the house just now," he said gruffly. "I'm afraid
+to see Dick."
+
+Elsa, hurrying up to help her friend, tears streaming down her tired,
+pretty face, heard this:
+
+"Don't try to see him, Rog, but you're not fit to go down to the camp
+yet. Lie down on the cot on the porch for a little while first."
+
+Roger who was dizzy and staggering caught Gustav's arm. The good fellow
+had come panting up, uncertain what to say or do to show his sympathy
+and pain.
+
+"Just for a few minutes then," panted Roger; "I don't want to see Dick
+for I'd kill him."
+
+"No--don't vorry. I von't let you," said Gustav. "Come, lieber freund,
+take the steps mit slowness."
+
+Roger dropped on the couch and Elsa and Charley went into the living
+room. Suddenly Dick shouted:
+
+"Snake bite! On the ankle there! O God Almighty!"
+
+Roger jumped to his feet and ran to the living-room door. Dick on an
+improvised crutch was staring down at the little form on the cot. Roger
+lunged for him with an oath, but Gustav caught Roger round the waist,
+and Charley, who had been sitting weakly in one of the camp chairs, her
+face bowed on the table, sprang forward, her eyes blazing.
+
+"Don't you dare bring your hellish temper into this room of death, Roger
+Moore!" she said. "Supposing Felicia had seen you in one of your temper
+frenzies, mightn't she have run away from you just as she did from
+Dick?"
+
+Roger stood as if paralyzed. Charley turned to Dick. "Fratricide!" she
+sobbed. "Murderer!" Then her voice rose hysterically. "Oh, why did I
+risk that little child to your weakness? Why? I killed her by it! I
+killed her!"
+
+Elsa ran to put her arm about Charley. "Come, dear, come into the
+bedroom and let me talk to you."
+
+Roger stood motionless for a moment, staring at the bedroom door which
+was closed in his face. Dick dropped into a chair with eyes closed,
+sweat pouring down his forehead and chin. Gustav gave Roger a tug and
+Roger allowed himself to be led back to the cot.
+
+Here he lay for a few moments glaring up at Gustav who perched himself
+watchfully on the cot edge. Then he said hoarsely: "Is that true,
+Gustav, what Charley said about me?"
+
+Gustav's honest face worked and his lips trembled. "Vell, you haf a bad
+temper, and she was a frightened little thing like a rabbit at a cross
+word."
+
+Roger groaned and closed his eyes. He lay for a long time so silent that
+Gustav was sure he was asleep. The house within was very silent. Elsa
+came out onto the porch and spoke to Gustav, softly and Roger opened his
+eyes.
+
+"It's all right, Gustav, old man," he said gently. "I won't touch Dick.
+Go on and do what Elsa wants and as soon as I've rested a bit, I'll help
+you."
+
+"You'll feel better if you have some food, Roger." Elsa came round to
+the side of the cot where Roger could see her. She was carrying a bowl
+of milk and a plate of bread, which she placed silently on a chair
+beside him, then she and Gustav disappeared toward the tool house where
+Ernest already had gone.
+
+Roger did feel better after he had cleaned the two dishes and he dozed a
+little.
+
+He was roused by the sound of sawing and hammering from the tool house.
+A moment after Charley flew out the door and down the trail to the door
+of the little adobe shack.
+
+"What are you all doing?" Roger heard her ask in a voice totally unlike
+her own, so shrill it was, and broken.
+
+"Don't come in, Charley," cried Elsa. "Roger, come here."
+
+Roger already was hurrying down the trail.
+
+"You must take Charley down to the Plant and keep her there for awhile,"
+Elsa said firmly, as Roger came up. "We'll tend to things here--she's
+reached her limit."
+
+"Wait till I get Peter," replied Roger. He was back shortly with the
+little burro and Charley's broad hat. When the trembling girl mounted he
+walked beside her with a steadying arm over her shoulders. Her
+helplessness suddenly made her seem very like Felicia to him.
+
+"We'll go right to the living tent," he said, quietly, "and you must try
+to rest while I get some supper."
+
+"No! No! Don't leave me. I'm not hungry. I can't rest! I killed her,
+Roger, I killed her!"
+
+"Nonsense! Booze killed her. Come, Charley, dismount, poor girl, and
+we'll turn old Peter loose," as they reached the camp.
+
+Charley dismounted, then stood staring levelly into Roger's eyes. "I let
+my love for Dick kill her. I hate him now. Oh, how I hate him!"
+
+"Don't talk about that," exclaimed Roger. "Charley, let's go into the
+living tent out of the sun."
+
+They sat down side by side on one of the trunks. Roger had a vague
+notion that Charley would find relief if she could weep. But he had no
+notion of how to make her do so. He took one of her feverish, trembling
+hands in his and began talking at random.
+
+"You are so like Felicia. You two always were getting confused in my
+mind and right now it's worse than ever. She loved me as much as I loved
+her. And now you'll have to try to be fond of me too, for her sake,
+Charley, and overlook my failings. You didn't kill her, my dear. She
+might have been bitten anywhere and at any time. Try to think of that.
+Why, you took wonderful care of her. Such care as never was on sea nor
+land, she used to say to me."
+
+Felicia's familiar little phrase was too much for Charley. Suddenly she
+ran over to one of the cots and dropping there burst into tears. Then
+Roger, wiping the sweat from his face, left her while he went out to
+boil the tea kettle. When he returned in about half an hour, he was able
+to persuade Charley to drink a cup of strong tea and eat a cracker. The
+sun had set by the time she had finished, and she asked him to walk with
+her up and down the sand before the door.
+
+How many hours he paced up and down in the hot darkness with Charley
+clinging to his arm, he could not tell. She did not cry again. Her
+agony of mind, like Roger's, was too deep for tears. She could only
+wring her hands and stumble back and forth like a hunted thing.
+
+It was Roger's first experience in trying to assuage the grief of any
+one else. He discovered resources within himself of which he never
+before had dreamed.
+
+"We were all to blame, Charley," he insisted again and again.
+
+"No, the fault was mine! Oh, little, lovely Felicia! Roger, you must
+know that though I wouldn't let you strike Dick, I hate him! I hate
+him!"
+
+"Good God, Charley! Let's not bring Dick in, to-night. We have our own
+private hell as he has his. Do you know that I'm realizing that what you
+said is right? That if Felicia had seen me again in one of my temper
+fits, it might have driven her away, just as this did. I'll never lose
+control of my temper again, Charley."
+
+She did not answer except to groan. After a time, Roger said, "I'm
+thinking about Dick's wound. If it isn't attended to, soon, gangrene may
+set in. You and I had better drive him into town to-morrow."
+
+"We'll not. He deserves to lose his leg!"
+
+"Perhaps he does. But we aren't the ones to say so. Come into the tent,
+Charley, you are staggering and so am I."
+
+Once more he led her into the tent where he lighted a "bug" and once
+more they sat down side by side on the trunk. Suddenly Roger put his arm
+about the girl and pulled her close against him, saying brokenly:
+
+"Oh, Charley! Charley! You are so like her! Lean against me, dear, as
+she would, and we'll try to weather this together." And Charley, with a
+tremulous sigh, laid her soft cheek against his rough, unshaven one.
+They sat there until the tent was filled with the lovely gray of the
+filtered moonlight. Then Roger persuaded Charley to lie down. But when
+she had done so she clung to his hand.
+
+"Stay with me, just a little bit longer," she whispered. Roger seated
+himself on the floor, clasping her hand closely. It was not long before
+Charley, still clinging to his hand, drifted off into uneasy slumber.
+Roger then leaned his tired head against the pillow and cramped as he
+was in his sitting posture, he dropped into a profound sleep.
+
+Thus Gustav found them at dawn. His face was tear-stained but he smiled
+a little with a look that was full of pity and understanding. He tried
+to tiptoe out without a sound but a board creaked and Charley sat up,
+stared at him, then exclaimed:
+
+"I must go up and dress her."
+
+Roger clambered to his feet. Gustav came over to the cot and took
+Charley's hand in both his own.
+
+"Miss Elsa haf dressed her, in the leedle vite dress and sash. And den,
+Miss Charley, you know how in so few hours Gott changes the bodies ve
+love so ve can't vish to haf them longer--so ve lay the little sister up
+on the mountain side last night, ven the moon came."
+
+Charley sat staring at him with horror in her eyes, then when he had
+ceased speaking, she lay back and closed her eyes and the two men left
+her.
+
+Later in the day, it was decided that Gustav must drive Dick, who was in
+great pain, into Archer's Springs to the doctor. Charley absolutely
+refused to see Dick or to offer any suggestions.
+
+Just as the wagon with Dick perching on the cot at the bottom was ready
+to start for the camp Ernest called:
+
+"Oh, Gustav, be sure to find out about the Smithsonian's visitor and
+wire to Washington the reason for our failure to meet him."
+
+Roger, who was standing in the living tent, caught his breath. Through
+his grief for Felicia merged realization that his great opportunity had
+come and gone. For the first time in three days he turned to the engine
+house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+WASHINGTON
+
+
+After the wagon was a receding dust-cloud on the trail, Charley went
+back up to the adobe, where Elsa was to stay on with her, and Ernest to
+sleep at night.
+
+Outwardly life assumed its old routine. Gustav returned on the third day
+and reported that Dick was established at Doc Evans' house and that the
+Doc said "he'd have Dick about again in two or three weeks if no new
+complication set in." He also brought a letter from the Smithsonian man,
+Arlington, somewhat caustically deploring the fact that Roger had not
+been sufficiently interested to meet him and closing with the remark
+that he would not be in the neighborhood again for another six months.
+Gustav brought with him, too, the refilled drums of sulphur dioxide.
+
+Roger handed the letter, without comment, to Ernest and went back into
+the engine house. He did not go up to the ranch for supper that evening
+as he had been doing, but the following morning which was Sunday, he
+appeared for breakfast. He was looking haggard and old but he greeted
+his friends cheerfully.
+
+"Got any victuals for a broken down inventor?" he asked Charley.
+
+She smiled faintly as she set a place for Roger at the table.
+
+"You certainly look the part, Rog," said Ernest. "It's a good thing
+you've got friends with business heads."
+
+"With what?" exclaimed Roger.
+
+"Don't be cynical!" cried Elsa. "We sat up half the night working out a
+wonderful scheme for you. We--"
+
+"Yes," Ernest interrupted eagerly, "we all went over the situation and
+we've made up our minds to a mode of action. You are such an impractical
+old chump, Rog! It's ridiculous for you to waste your time trying to
+make an engine out of a junk pile while the main idea of your invention,
+the real selling part, is neglected." He stopped to butter a biscuit.
+
+Roger sipped his coffee and waited for Ernest to continue. "Now then,
+Elsa has a little money, enough to take me to Washington and back. It's
+her idea that I take that and go to see the Smithsonian people. There's
+not the slightest sense in your going. You're no salesman and I am. You
+remember it was I who landed Austin in the first place."
+
+"I remember," said Roger quietly.
+
+There was a long silence. Roger thought of the tiny food supply and of
+the months of experimentation that must go on before the Sun Plant would
+show efficiency.
+
+"I hate to see Elsa putting money into this thing," he said slowly, "but
+at most I can always take a job and pay her back."
+
+"Of course you can!" exclaimed Elsa.
+
+"I know I can get money from the Smithsonian," said Ernest, "and we'll
+repay her at once."
+
+Roger looked at Charley. "What do you advise?" he asked.
+
+"I wouldn't hesitate for an instant," she replied. "Elsa feels just as I
+would--that the work must be finished."
+
+"I know I can land the Smithsonian," reiterated Ernest, "and we'll repay
+Elsa at once."
+
+"You needn't hurry," exclaimed Elsa. "As long as I have no money, I
+can't go home!"
+
+Roger looked from Ernest to Elsa, then out the door across the desert to
+where the Sun Plant lay in the burning, quivering blue air.
+
+"We'll try it out, Ern," he said. "You know how grateful I am to you
+both."
+
+Ernest nodded. "Nobody's using the horses, so I'll drive in and leave
+the team at Hackett's. If Dick gets well before I come back he can drive
+himself out. Otherwise it will be waiting for me. Elsa, do you think you
+could fix up a clean collar and shirt for me?"
+
+"If she can't, I can," offered Charley.
+
+"Take anything you can find of mine," Roger's face was more cheerful
+than it had been for days. "I'll get the reports and drawings ready for
+you."
+
+So, by the united efforts of the two households, Ernest was made ready
+for a flying trip to civilization. He was so happy and excited over the
+trip that he really lifted some of the sadness that had hung so heavily
+over the ranch house. After his departure, Gustav slept at the ranch, in
+order to do the chores while Roger remained at the Plant.
+
+Ever since he had reached the desert Roger had been conducting heat
+tests and while he was able under perfectly controlled conditions to
+produce higher temperatures than those of the tables he had used for so
+many years, his average readings under the absorber glass were less
+than he had counted on. And so he was at work on a new type, low
+pressure engine, for which his average temperatures would produce ample
+heat.
+
+Ernest took little stock in his new idea. "It may take fifty years to
+work it out," he had said the day he left for Washington. "Increase your
+absorption area and let it go at that. Better men than you have spent
+their lives on the low pressure idea and failed."
+
+"I tell you," Roger had insisted, "that with a few changes of this
+present engine, I'll produce _the_ low pressure engine of to-day."
+
+"Well, go to it, old man! In the meantime, I'll fetch you some money so
+you can buy all the parts needed, and not have to continue your awful
+career of mountain brigand. The devilish thing about you inventors is
+that you putter so. My God, you drive me crazy! I do honestly believe
+that if it weren't for fear of starvation, you'd be puttering here for
+ten years."
+
+"You're getting to be nothing better than a common scold, Ern," returned
+Roger with a laugh. "I'll be glad to get you out of the camp. Run along
+now and do your little errand."
+
+With a routine established for caring for the two households, Roger bent
+all his splendid mind and energies on re-making the engine. Charley,
+coming to the camp one afternoon, as she or Elsa often did to cheer
+Roger's long day, watched him as he worked with infinite care to adjust
+a gauge he had taken apart.
+
+"One of the many things that break me up," she said, "is that you missed
+the visit from the Smithsonian man."
+
+"As it turns out," replied Roger, stoutly, "I didn't miss anything. I
+found when I got to work again that my safety device was inadequate and
+I've been all this time evolving a new one. If I'd run the engine as it
+was, I might have had a nasty blow-up and I've made one or two other
+changes, too, that are important."
+
+"The engine doesn't look so very different to me," said Charley.
+
+Roger chuckled. "Her whole insides have been made over really, by just a
+few changes. When Dean Erskine gets the new parts made and down here,
+I'll be O. K. I sent the design up to him when Ernest went in and some
+new parts ought to be here in a couple of weeks, now. I told Ern to have
+Hackett deliver them on arrival. It's too complicated to explain to you
+but I had another corking good idea the day that Dick went. I'm glad
+Arlington won't get here for six months."
+
+Charley's eyes filled with sudden tears. "You're a lamb, Roger," she
+murmured.
+
+"Where's Gustav?" asked Roger, quickly.
+
+"He's puttering with the Lemon. If you need him, I'll go up for him."
+
+"No, you won't. It seems to me that you need water on the alfalfa badly.
+The second field is getting pretty yellow."
+
+Charley sighed. "I know it! Roger, that well just isn't adequate. I've
+told Dick so fifty times. He should have begun work on a driven well,
+long ago, but he's simply hipped on the powers of this present well. I
+think that the old thing is going dry."
+
+"You do?" Roger's tone was startled. "Here, there's no hurry on this
+job. I'm just waiting really for the new parts. Let's go up and have a
+look at your whole water outfit."
+
+They set off forthwith, the Lemon starting on its uneasy way, just as
+they reached the pumping shed.
+
+"Something's wrong, certainly," exclaimed Roger, watching the stream of
+water that came from the pump. "There isn't half the usual stream there.
+Do you think the pump is all right, Gustav?"
+
+"The pump is new and goot. The vater is low. Sometime, no vater it come
+at all. Then I vait for it to fill again."
+
+"I don't understand it at all," said Charley. "There is plenty of water
+in this range. You see that old silver mine, up there?" pointing to an
+ancient dump on the mountainside back of the house. "Well, the lower
+level of that has a foot of water in it."
+
+"How does it seem, stagnant?" asked Roger.
+
+"I've never seen it," replied Charley. "Dick told me."
+
+Roger lighted his pipe and took a few meditative puffs. "Charley, are
+you and Dick entirely broke?" he asked.
+
+"We've got enough left of the turquoise money to grub stake us to the
+end of the year. Why, Roger?"
+
+"Well, I think you've got to have a decent gasoline engine here, at
+once, if you're going to save that first crop."
+
+"But I thought your plant--" Charley spoke carefully as if fearful of
+hurting Roger.
+
+"So did I," he returned, a little bitterly. "But I've thought a good
+many things in my life that haven't come true."
+
+"I'm very certain that this new engine of yours will do everything you
+expect of it." She smiled a little. "You remember poor old Mrs. von
+Minden said you were to found an empire."
+
+Roger grinned. "She didn't know engineers!"
+
+Charley's smile faded as she stood staring at the Lemon. "No, a new
+engine is out of the question. We--we have some bad debts that keep
+Hackett from giving us credit. We're counting on this first crop to
+clear part of that up."
+
+"Then," said Roger decidedly, "there's just one thing to be done. We'll
+move the Sun Plant up here, now, while I'm waiting to complete the
+engine."
+
+"The absorber and condenser! Oh, Roger man, the whole crop would be
+burned to a crisp while you did that! And only you and Gustav to do it,
+and the team is at Archer's."
+
+Roger bit his pipe stem. "There must be a way," he insisted, doggedly.
+"There's got to be."
+
+"Vy not make the vell, first," suggested Gustav who had been a silent
+auditor to the entire conversation. "If you don't get vater, a gut
+engine is no gut."
+
+"Who's going to dig it?" asked Roger. "If it takes as long to get to
+water up here as it did at the Plant, you and I would be at it till
+October. No! I'm going to get help. I don't know how I'm going to get
+it, but it's going to be done. I could keep twenty men busy here for a
+month."
+
+Charley sighed and Gustav shrugged his shoulders.
+
+Roger relighted his pipe and went into a brown study. Gustav waited
+patiently for several moments, then left to do the evening chores.
+Charley sat on an empty box beside the pump watching now the stream
+that flowed over the field and now Roger's half closed eyes. Finally he
+emptied his pipe and rose.
+
+"Didn't Elsa call supper?" he asked.
+
+"Some time ago." Charley rose too. "But I didn't want to interrupt. Have
+you solved your troubles?"
+
+"I don't know. But I've thought of something I'm going to try out.
+Wasn't that camp Felicia went to a permanent one?"
+
+"Yes, in a way. The Indians come there again and again. But they won't
+work, Roger."
+
+"Old Rabbit Tail works. Charley, take a little trip with me to-morrow.
+Let's see if my idea works."
+
+"I'd like to, Roger. I haven't been away from sight of this adobe hut
+but twice in a year. Once, the night we found you, and once, the night
+you and I--"
+
+"I know, poor old girl! Well, let's have a little picnic trip of our own
+to-morrow. We'll take Peter and some grub--get a dawn start and be back
+by sundown."
+
+"Oh, I'd love it!" cried Charley, looking like Felicia with the sudden
+flash of joy in her eyes. "I'll put up the best lunch ever. Come along,
+Roger, do! Elsa will take our heads off."
+
+Roger invited Elsa to accompany them on the mysterious trip, but Elsa
+refused to go.
+
+"Dick will be back any day now," she said, "and I'm going to be here
+when he comes."
+
+Charley made no reply to this but Roger frankly shrugged his shoulders.
+"I feel as if I never wanted to see him again. I'll be here at dawn,
+Charley. You can meet me at the corral, can't you, so's not to rout the
+others out too early?"
+
+Charley agreed and dawn was just unfolding over the desert when she tied
+the grub pack to Peter's saddle. She waited for some time, sitting on
+the rock, her back against the corral, before Roger came. He appeared at
+last, just as the first rays of the sun shot over the mountains.
+
+"Sorry to be late," he said, "but my gasoline's given out and I had to
+cook breakfast by hand, as it were, over some chips. Whew, it's going to
+be one hot day."
+
+"I don't care how hot it is," replied Charley, recklessly. "I feel as I
+were being taken to the county fair, and I was almost too excited to
+sleep. Come along! I know the trail well."
+
+It was a well beaten trail. The Indians had used it for countless
+generations in their search for pottery clay. It lifted zig-zag over the
+Coyote Range, giving at the crest this morning a superb view of distant
+peaks and of gold melting into blue infinities. It dropped zig-zag into
+canyons that were parched and cracked with late summer heat and lifted
+again to cross a peak whose top and sides had been blasted and left
+purple and gashed by an ancient volcano. Then once more it dropped
+gradually and gracefully into the canyon where the little spring
+mirrored the blue of the Arizona sky.
+
+There were half a dozen Indian sun shelters near the spring, each a mere
+cat's claw and yucca thatch, supported on cedar posts. To Roger's
+surprise and gratification the Indians were at home. It was still early
+and they were at breakfast. With Peter trailing like a dog, Charley and
+Roger stopped a short distance from the camp.
+
+Old Rabbit Tail, in his breech clout, squatted near a pot of simmering
+stew, now dipping in a long handled spoon and eating from it
+meditatively, now puffing at a yellow cigarette. Several squaws in dirty
+calico dresses, squatted near by awaiting their turn. Each shelter held
+a similar group, every one of which paused in breathless interest as the
+two whites approached.
+
+Roger strode directly up to the old chief. "Good morning, Rabbit Tail!"
+he said.
+
+Rabbit Tail grunted.
+
+"I came up to have a talk with you," Roger went on, pulling out his
+pipe. "Sit down, Charley, this is going to be a regular pow-wow."
+
+A tall Indian in the next shelter rose slowly and started quietly toward
+the back trail. "Hey! Qui-tha!" called Roger, sternly, "Come back here!
+I've something to say to you. The sheriff ought to have you. Call him,
+Rabbit Tail."
+
+Rabbit Tail spoke in Hualapai and Qui-tha came slowly up to the old
+chief's shelter and dropping down beside him, lighted a cigarette.
+Charley, sitting on a rock at a little distance, chin in hand, arm on
+knee, shivered slightly in the broiling sun. Roger, who had learned much
+about Indians from Qui-tha, jerked his thumb at Charley.
+
+"You know that white woman, Rabbit Tail?"
+
+"Four years!" replied the chief.
+
+"What kind of a woman is she--eh?"
+
+"Good woman. My squaw have papoose one time in her 'dobe. Charley take
+care her all same she her sister. Heap good white squaw, Charley."
+
+The squaw in question nodded and smiled at Charley, who smiled in
+return, a little sadly. Roger turned to Qui-tha.
+
+"How about her brother, Dick Preble? You like him?"
+
+Qui-tha, his brown face expressionless, nodded. "Yes! Most whites steal
+and lie. Dick he never steal or lie to Injun. Good man, except when
+drunk."
+
+"Exactly," Roger clutched his pipe bowl firmly. "Did you tell 'em about
+the little girl--eh?"
+
+Qui-tha looked up in honest surprise. "Tell what 'bout little girl?"
+
+Roger turned to Rabbit Tail. "You haven't heard about what Qui-tha did
+to little girl?"
+
+"Me no touch little girl," exclaimed Qui-tha, indignantly. "Have fight
+with Dick', no touch little girl. Like little girl, bring her home when
+she get lost up here."
+
+"You know how Dick is a devil when he gets drunk?"
+
+Qui-tha nodded.
+
+"You knew that, yet you brought him a bottle of whiskey and got drunk
+with him and shot him in the leg when you fought."
+
+The old chief turned inquiringly toward Qui-tha. Again Qui-tha nodded
+grimly.
+
+"And you knew that the infernal drunken row you kicked up that night
+frightened the little girl so that she ran away into the desert where a
+rattle snake bit her and she died--died all alone at night, in the
+desert."
+
+A look of complete horror rose in Qui-tha's eyes. "No!" he gasped.
+
+"Ai! Ai! Ai!" cried the squaw who had given Felicia the pottery. "Poor
+little papoose! She was sweet, like her," pointing to Charley.
+
+Then there was silence in the camp, all eyes turned on the old chief.
+Indians are great lovers of children. Their tenderness to them never
+fails, be they white or red or black.
+
+"Dick heap sick?" asked old Rabbit Tail, finally.
+
+"Yes, but he'll get well. He's at Doc Evans's house in Archer's."
+
+"Did you tell the sheriff?" continued the chief.
+
+"No," replied Roger. "Charley wouldn't let me."
+
+Rabbit Tail turned to Charley. "Why?" he queried, laconically
+
+Charley bit her lip. "The whites brought whiskey to the Indians in the
+first place," she said.
+
+There was another silence. Then Roger began again. "Dick has been sick a
+long time now and he can't work much when he gets back. You know his
+alfalfa field?"
+
+"Yes," said the chief.
+
+"Well, Dick has been away and his water pump is no good and the alfalfa
+is dying. If we don't get water on it it will die. If it dies, then
+Charley will have much trouble, bad trouble. They owe Hackett much money
+because of Dick's drinking. So they can't get food unless they pay that
+money. They can't pay that money unless they sell much alfalfa. See?"
+
+Qui-tha and Rabbit Tail both nodded.
+
+"Now, I know you Indians don't believe in work. But if I can dig a big
+well for Charley and move my engine up to the adobe, I can get plenty of
+water on the alfalfa. It would take twenty Indians one week to move my
+plant. Rabbit Tail, you supply gangs sometimes for government work. Get
+Charley a gang for one week."
+
+"You whites," said Rabbit Tail, "work heap hard for what you get--huh?
+If you live like Injun, no worry 'bout food, go out shoot 'em. No worry
+'bout bed. Sleep in sand, huh?"
+
+Roger nodded. "I think many times you're right, Rabbit Tail. But it's
+too late now. Whites have lived like this too many hundreds of years.
+They can't change to your ways any more than Indians can change to white
+ways."
+
+Again there was a long pause before Rabbit Tail began once more.
+
+"You know you whites kill many Injuns. Give Injun dirty sickness--kill
+Injun babies. Me--I see white take Injun baby by feet, smash head
+against rock. See Injun squaw belly cut out by white man. You know all
+that?"
+
+Roger nodded. "The whites have been rotten to the Indians. I don't blame
+you for hating us. But how about Charley and the little girl?"
+
+One of Qui-tha's squaws spoke. She had been educated at an Indian
+school.
+
+"Charley showed me how to cure my baby of sore scalp and how to take
+care of him when he had croup. She lets me stay with her when he is sick
+or I am."
+
+"She lets me use her sewing machine whenever I want it," spoke up a
+pretty young squaw in a red gingham dress.
+
+"When old Chachee die," an elderly Indian woman looked from Charley to
+Rabbit Tail, "she die in Charley's house. Charley help sickness in her
+chest better'n medicine man."
+
+Roger looked at Charley. He knew that she liked the Indians but she
+never had mentioned her good works to them.
+
+The educated squaw spoke again. "I hate most white women. They treat us
+as if we were servants. But Charley treats us as if we were human beings
+like herself. And Felicia was a beautiful child."
+
+"It's queer some of you have never been near Charley then, in her
+trouble," said Roger.
+
+"The men have been working for months on the government dam at Bitter
+Peak. We were with them and just got here three days ago. Of course,
+Qui-tha didn't tell what little he knew. If the men won't help Charley,
+we women will. We could carry water to the field."
+
+Qui-tha rose and walked over to Charley. "Qui-tha heap sorry. You give
+Qui-tha to sheriff."
+
+Charley shook her head. "What good would that do?"
+
+"All right then, Qui-tha go help one week, fix the alfalfa."
+
+Old Rabbit Tail lighted another cigarette. "We come Monday, bring
+fifteen men, one week," he said.
+
+"You know neither Roger nor I have any money, Rabbit Tail," explained
+Charley.
+
+"Money no pay for blood. You good to Injuns. Now Injuns good to you."
+
+Roger rose. "Thank you," he said simply. But Charley was too moved for
+words and as if she understood, one of the squaws put one hand on the
+girl's shoulder while she patted her cheek.
+
+They clambered back to the top of the trail, without a word until the
+camp was out of sight, then Roger said with a half smile,
+
+"You are some girl, Charley dear."
+
+"And you are some boy, Roger."
+
+"I? Why Charley, I'm just beginning to realize that I have gone through
+life with my eyes shut. The man with one idea misses most of life. I
+went up there with the intention of threatening a lot of savages. I've
+come away feeling as if I'd met a group of intelligent and kind hearted
+fellow humans."
+
+"It was wonderful of them, wasn't it!" exclaimed Charley. "I had no idea
+they felt under obligations, to me. I certainly didn't want them to."
+
+Roger nodded and looked at his watch. "It's only nine o'clock now. If it
+wasn't so frightfully hot and there were any place to go, I'd say let's
+continue our spree."
+
+"Just beyond that strip of desert there," Charley pointed into the
+valley to the east, "there are some wonderful Indian inscriptions on
+some rocks around a spring. I've never seen them, but I've always wanted
+to and I know the trail. Dick has shown it to me."
+
+"Let's try it," said Roger. "Peter, come on, you're getting fat and
+lazy. I believe it's about ten degrees hotter than usual."
+
+It was an hour's climb down into the valley. It lost its level look on
+near inspection. In every direction a fine, powderlike sand lay in long
+undulating ridges. Neither rock nor cactus was to be seen. A faint wind
+was stirring and tiny eddies of sand rose against the sky.
+
+"You see that peak, due east?" asked Charley. "Well, the spring is just
+at the foot of that in a little canyon. There's never any trail here at
+all, the sand drifts so."
+
+"I'm glad we're heading for a spring," exclaimed Roger. "I know I can
+empty the gallon canteen by myself."
+
+They started ahead, Roger leading, Peter following behind Charley. It
+was heavy slow walking. After perhaps an hour of it, during which
+conversation languished more and more, Charley said,
+
+"I don't feel as eager minded as I did about Indian writings, do you?"
+
+"Well," replied Roger, stopping to wipe the sand from his face and to
+grin at Charley. "I wasn't eager about the hieroglyphics to begin with.
+I haven't taken a girl for a walk for years and I thought this was my
+chance!"
+
+"How is your enthusiasm for that standing up?" chuckled Charley.
+
+Roger cleared his throat. "You see, it's like this--" he began, his eyes
+twinkling.
+
+Charley interrupted by catching his arm. "Look, Roger! There's a sand
+storm coming!"
+
+Roger looked up the desert to the north. The familiar gray veil of sand
+was plainly visible. "Lord!" he exclaimed. "We'd better start back at
+once."
+
+"No, we're within a mile of the spring, now," said Charley. "We'd better
+get there as fast as we can. I do hope Gustav and Elsa will be all
+right. That poor new field of alfalfa!"
+
+"Perhaps it won't be so bad in the other valley. Certainly this sand is
+going to try its best to suffocate us. Whew, there she comes!" as a
+cloud of sand enveloped them.
+
+They paused long enough to adjust their bandannas across their faces,
+then started hurriedly on, Roger holding Charley by the hand and
+catching Peter's lead rope firmly. In ten minutes the peak toward which
+they were heading was obscured.
+
+"Shall we stop or press on?" shouted Roger.
+
+"Let Peter lead!" cried Charley. "If he stops, we'll stop."
+
+Peter, shoved ahead of the little procession, did not hesitate. He
+dropped his head between his knees and moved very slowly, but none the
+less surely onward. The walking was almost incredibly difficult. The
+very desert underfoot seemed in motion. New ridges rose before their
+burning, half blinded eyes. The uproar was that of a hurricane roaring
+through a forest. Now Roger would stagger to his knees: now Charley. But
+Peter, lifting and planting his little feet gingerly and exactly, never
+stumbled. Panting, sweating, Roger after what seemed hours of this going
+halted Peter with some difficulty and putting his lips close to
+Charley's ear called, "Having a pleasant walk to the county fair, my
+dear?"
+
+"Of its kind, it's perfect!" shrieked Charley in return and not to be
+outdone.
+
+As if thoroughly disgusted by such persiflage, Peter brayed and started
+on without waiting to be urged. A moment later the footing became firmer
+and Peter led the way around a rock heap and buried his nose in a tiny
+pool that seemed thick with sand. Roger sighed with deep relief. He had
+seen the desert strike too often now to face her ugly moods with full
+equanimity.
+
+There was no real shelter from the storm here. But it was vastly better
+than the open desert. They found a hollowed rock facing the spring, just
+big enough for the two of them to crouch with their backs against it.
+Although the sand sifted in on them constantly, they were at least away
+from the fury of the wind. There was water a-plenty at hand and they
+could bide their time. Peter established himself with his forefeet in
+the water, his tail to the storm and appeared to go to sleep.
+
+For a time, Roger and Charley were glad to sit in silence, recovering
+their breath. But finally Roger stretched his cramped legs with a sigh.
+
+"Charley, I find desert life just a bit strenuous," he said.
+
+Charley wiped her face vigorously with her bandanna and nodded.
+
+"So do I. But I like it. I think I must like the constant fight and the
+awful beauty. There's nothing else here."
+
+"Have you anything in you but Anglo-Saxon blood?" asked Roger.
+
+"No," replied Charley.
+
+"That accounts for your loving it, I believe. The Anglo-Saxons are the
+trail makers for civilization. And by Jove, if any two people on earth
+are making trails it's you and Dick."
+
+"You're Anglo-Saxon yourself. What is your work but trail making?"
+
+"We aren't all trail makers!" Roger gave a half cynical chuckle. "You
+know I'm solving the labor question."
+
+"With old Rabbit Tail's gang?"
+
+"Hardly! Yet, by golly, Charley, I don't know but what I'm developing a
+typical labor situation down here. The Indian gang is working as a
+favor, you understand, and not from any necessity."
+
+Charley laughed. "If it weren't for you inventors, we all could revert
+comfortably to Rabbit Tail's philosophy."
+
+"It was to make that philosophy workable that started me inventing. That
+is, to give every man food and shelter with a minimum of work."
+
+Once fairly launched, Roger gave Charley a rapid picture of the strike
+and the burning of the factory. When he had finished the two sat long in
+silence watching the gray veil that roared before them.
+
+At last Charley shook her head. "It's a long trail from the old plow
+factory to the hieroglyphic spring, Roger."
+
+"A long way," agreed Roger, "and I have no idea whether I'm helping or
+hindering labor. I only know now that my job is to make deserts bloom.
+Let labor go hang!"
+
+Charley did not answer. She sat with her brown hands clasping her khaki
+knees, her hat pulled low over her eyes. Roger eyed her affectionately.
+It occurred to him that since Felicia's death, she had seemed more than
+ever like a fine intelligent boy. And yet he was honest enough to tell
+himself that there was infinitely more satisfaction in sitting in a
+hollowed rock with Charley than with any boy he had ever known.
+Suddenly Roger put his long arm across Charley's fine shoulders.
+
+"Charley, you old dear!" he said. "I am mighty fond of you! You're the
+best man I know."
+
+Charley said nothing for a moment. She reached up to clasp the hand that
+hung over her shoulder, then she turned to look into Roger's face and
+there was that in her eyes that held him speechless. There was in them
+Felicia's innocence and Felicia's eternal query. There was Charley's own
+sweetness and wistfulness, but back of these were burning depths of
+which Roger as yet had no understanding but they stirred him so
+profoundly that he paled beneath his tan.
+
+"I'm glad you're fond of me, Roger. I'm fond of you." Charley's voice
+was gentle.
+
+Roger's hand tightened on the girl's. "You are very beautiful," he said,
+a little breathlessly. "Even with your face all dust, and in khaki, you
+are beautiful."
+
+"I am glad," replied Charley with a smile that showed her white teeth.
+
+Roger did not speak again for a long time, but he did not release
+Charley's hand until she said, "Roger, the storm is going down."
+
+Then he rose and stood staring at her until, smiling again, she said,
+"If you'll push your friend Peter out of the spring, I'll see if I can
+get clean water for us."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+RABBIT TAIL'S GANG
+
+
+The dust storm died down almost as rapidly as it had risen. By four
+o'clock the three were on their way home across the strange sea of sand.
+They had reached the home range before Roger said to Charley,
+
+"By Jove, you never did show me the Indian writing! What do you mean by
+such subterfuge? Couldn't you think of any other way to entice a man for
+a stroll?"
+
+"There were inscriptions all around you!" exclaimed Charley. "You were
+leaning against the drawing of a horse, all the afternoon. Where were
+your eyes?"
+
+"That portion of them not blinded by sand was on you, my dear."
+
+"Tut! Tut! Don't try freshman blarney on me, Roger! I'm getting too old
+for it. Besides one man doesn't blarney another."
+
+Roger looked at Charley quickly. "Hum!" he said, "I'm not at all sure
+but what you're totally feminine and that I'm a fool."
+
+"Here's the home trail," said Charley. "I hope they haven't worried
+about us."
+
+Elsa was waiting supper for them and the look of relief on her face as
+they came in at the door told the story of the day's anxiety.
+
+"Gustav and I have been frantic!" she said. "You poor things! Where did
+the storm catch you?" Then without waiting for an answer she went on.
+"We kept the pump going off and on all day. In fact just as steadily as
+the Lemon would let us, which was not very steadily, you can be sure.
+But I'm so afraid that the second field is gone. The sand was not so bad
+this time but the heat was frightful. I don't see how anything green
+could stand up against those heat blasts. The thermometer here in the
+adobe was 118° at five o'clock this afternoon."
+
+Charley pulled off her hat and sank into a chair. "Well," she sighed,
+"why worry! Seems to me I've had all the troubles known to women and I'm
+not going to let the mere loss of the family fortune ruin an otherwise
+perfect day."
+
+Elsa looked at the two sharply. But Charley went on serenely. "I've been
+drowned in sand. I've been bullied and baked and burned, I've been----"
+
+"Good gracious, Els, feed her! She's delirious with hunger!" said Roger.
+
+"Well, of course," exclaimed Elsa, "if the owner of that magnificent
+alfalfa crop----"
+
+She was interrupted by a cheerful call from Gustav who was in the
+corral.
+
+"Hello, Dick! Hello! How vas the leg?"
+
+Elsa set the coffee pot hastily on the table. The smile left Charley's
+face as Dick came slowly over the porch and paused just within the door.
+
+"Well," he said huskily, "the bad egg is back."
+
+"How's the leg?" asked Roger, stiffly.
+
+"All right except for a little lameness. I'll sit down though, if you
+don't mind."
+
+Dick sank wearily into a chair and there was a moment's silence. Roger
+could not have believed it possible for a human being to have changed as
+had Dick in less than a month. His ruddy brown hair was sprinkled
+with gray. He was thin, and his usually round face was sunken of cheek
+with heavy lines showing around his eyes and at the corners of the
+mouth.
+
+"Supper's just ready," said Elsa. "You must be hungry, Dick." Dick
+pulled himself slowly out of his chair.
+
+"Charley," he said, "and all the rest of you, I've just a few things I
+want to tell you before I try to pick up the old threads. Nothing you
+folks can say or do to show how you despise me can hurt me. I'm too low
+in my own opinion--At first, that afternoon Roger brought Felicia home,
+I made up my mind to kill myself. The only thing that kept me from it
+was realizing that Charley couldn't stand much more without losing her
+mind."
+
+He paused to look at Charley, but she only gazed at him silently in
+return and he went on.
+
+"When I went into Archer's Springs, I hadn't the slightest intention of
+ever coming back here. But lying there on the flat of my back, I came to
+the conclusion that the one way to help Charley endure what's happened
+would be to have it make a man of me. Then perhaps in the years to come,
+she would grow to think of Felicia as if she were thinking of the
+ordinary death of a lovely little child and not with the hell of remorse
+she's having now. As for me, I'll always have that remorse. That's
+common justice. But there's no reason why Charley should have it.
+
+"I guess that's about all, except this. For two weeks I've gone over
+every afternoon to the saloon and sat there for two or three hours. And
+the sight and smell of the booze for the first time in my life made me
+want to vomit."
+
+Dick paused again, trembling visibly and staring at Charley.
+
+"I'm sorry, Dick," she said, her lips stiff, yet quivering. "I'm going
+to try to care for you again. But I don't know whether I can or not.
+Every night when I go to bed I see first your face that night all red
+and bloated and distorted, then Felicia's, the way Roger and I found
+her. I--I've got lots to forget, Dick."
+
+"God knows you have, Charley. But you're going to give me one more
+trial, aren't you? Please, Charley!"
+
+"Try if you want to, Dick. I don't seem to care, one way or the other."
+
+Dick's head dropped to his chest. With a little inarticulate cry, Elsa
+ran across the room and pulling Dick's head over to rest on her soft
+breast, she kissed him on the forehead.
+
+"I care, Dicky!" she cried. "I care! It's my whole life whether you make
+good or not."
+
+Dick lifted his agonized face and stared into Elsa's tear wet eyes. A
+slow, twisted smile touched his lips.
+
+"Oh, Elsa! Oh, Elsa!" he breathed. "I think you've saved my soul alive!"
+He turned his face against her and Elsa, clasping the gray-touched head
+to her, looked at the others fiercely.
+
+"Now, who hurts Dick, hurts me!"
+
+Roger dropped his hand on Charley's shoulder. "Then look to it that he
+never hurts Charley again," he said sternly.
+
+There was a silence, broken by Gustav, who came into the kitchen with
+the milk pail.
+
+"Elsa, make me the pans ready!" he called.
+
+"Coming, Gustav," answered Elsa in her normal voice. "The rest of you
+sit down to supper. Gustav and I won't be a minute."
+
+"Better wash up, Roger," said Charley. "Dick, your room is ready for
+you!" and she disappeared into her own bedroom.
+
+When they finally sat down to the belated supper, Roger began at once to
+tell of the crop conditions and of the call on old Rabbit Tail.
+
+"Let's see, this is Friday and he promises the gang here on Monday. I
+think we'd better get busy to-morrow and make the drill connections on
+the old Lemon. What do you think of the whole scheme, Dick?"
+
+"I think it's perfect!" exclaimed Dick.
+
+"Perfect if my engine works," said Roger. "But even if it doesn't,
+you'll still have the old Lemon and a real well. So I'll have done you
+no harm."
+
+"Have you got to dismantle that condenser to move it?" asked Dick.
+
+"Pretty thoroughly, I'm afraid. But if the Indians are any good at
+all--"
+
+"If Rabbit Tail brings his pet gang," said Dick "there'll be four first
+class machinists in it, trained at Carlisle. Fellows who work only when
+they please, but Lord, they are wonders. I saw them put up an oil engine
+once that had been badly smashed en route. It was a poem, I tell you."
+
+"Heaven send them then!" exclaimed Roger. "If they put this thing over
+for us, I'll pay for it in cold cash as soon as I get it."
+
+"Rabbit Tail won't take money for this deal," said Charley.
+
+"The others will, but they won't ask for it." Dick filled his pipe, and
+pushed his coffee cup away with a little smile for Elsa.
+
+"My debts are getting so large now," mused Roger, "that I can begin to
+take a sort of pride in them. Gustav, as Dick's home now, will you come
+down to the Plant in the morning?"
+
+And at Gustav's nod Roger made his adieux and went home to bed.
+
+Monday dawned with the usual promise of merciless heat. It seemed as if
+the torrid days of late summer were harder to bear than July had been.
+Though there was an occasional dust storm, the air was quiet except for
+the little gusts of burning wind. These gusts were too transitory to
+carry a sand storm. But all day long, tall spirals of sand, like water
+spouts, whirled across the desert. One struck Dick's corral, during his
+absence, ripped off the roof of the tool house and overturned the
+watering trough. Several days later, one brought up against the
+condenser and after knocking off the thatch, collapsed, deluging the
+apparatus with sand. There was something uncanny about these gigantic
+figures, whirling suddenly across the desert, now viciously ripping up a
+cholla or a Joshua tree, now collapsing ridiculously against a rock.
+
+It was now too, that thunderstorms were occasionally heard in the
+distant western ranges, though rain seemed forever denied to the desert
+valleys. But on the Sunday noon before Rabbit Tail's gang was to arrive,
+the impossible happened. Roger and Gustav were eating their monotonous
+lunch of corned beef and canned brown bread when a curious roar broke
+the desert silence. As the two men looked at each other questioningly,
+there was a deafening crash and a huge deluge of water smashed down on
+the cook tent. The sun-baked canvas was like a sieve and in a moment
+both men were saturated.
+
+"A cloud burst!" exclaimed Roger, grinning fatuously at the delicious
+sensation of wet clothing and skin.
+
+"Gott, vat a country!" cried Gustav.
+
+Roger's grin disappeared. "The living tent, by Jove!" Heedless of the
+blinding torrent, he dashed to the tent where all the morning he had
+been sorting and checking drawings and notes. He stopped in the doorway
+appalled. Everything in the tent was dripping. Drawings, instruments,
+camera, open trunks and bedding were flooded. The patient work of months
+must be done over.
+
+"Hang this infernal desert!" roared Roger. "This is the last straw!"
+
+He stood glowering at the wreckage, water pouring over his head and
+shoulders, when, as suddenly as it had begun, the rain ceased. Roger
+looked out the door. Every grain of sand, every cactus spine bore a tiny
+rainbow. The whole desert floor was a mosaic of opals. The sky was of a
+blue too deep, too brilliant for the eye to endure. As Roger stood with
+mouth agape he was thrilled by a sensation he had not before
+experienced. The desert, ordinarily entirely odorless, gave forth a
+scent. Just for a moment a pungent perfume for which he could find no
+adjectives swept softly to his nostrils and was gone. Roger stood a
+moment longer as if transfixed. Then he smiled and turning into the
+tent, he began to repair the damage done.
+
+Promptly at eight o'clock on Monday morning, Roger and Dick, at work on
+the Lemon, were greeted by a pleasant
+
+"How! Boss!"
+
+Standing by the corral in various attitudes of ease, all of them smoking
+cigarettes, were the members of Rabbit Tail's gang. They were lean,
+powerful fellows, most of them young. They were dressed almost with the
+similarity of a uniform, black trousers, blue flannel shirts, girdled
+with a twist of bright colored silk, a bandanna twisted and tied filet
+wise about the head. Most of them wore their black hair waist long, but
+there were four men with short hair and Roger wondered if these were not
+the machinists of whom Dick had spoken.
+
+"Any of you men ever drill a well?" asked Roger. Two of the older men
+promptly nodded. "All right, Dick, here you are. Rabbit Tail, how many
+burros did you bring? Thirty. By Jove, that's fine! Now three of you
+must start clearing this space between the corral and pump house. See, I
+have it all pegged out. But, Rabbit Tail, I want all the mechanics down
+at the Plant."
+
+The old Indian nodded, then said, "Where's Charley? You tell her come
+out here."
+
+"She's up at the house," said Dick. "There she is, on the porch with the
+squaw. Oh, Charley! Come here!"
+
+Charley came rapidly down the trail. Old Rabbit Tail shook hands with
+her solemnly. "Here is the gang. Old Rabbit Tail keep promise, see? I
+tell all these men why we come. See? They glad do this for white squaw
+good to Injuns. You say 'How' to them."
+
+Charley's fine eyes deepened with unshed tears. "I am so grateful to all
+of you!" she exclaimed. "I want to shake hands with each of you," and
+she went down the line, the strangers among the Indians looking at her
+with frank curiosity and interest.
+
+This little ceremony having been completed to Rabbit Tail's obvious
+satisfaction, the old chief set his men at the tasks designated at the
+Ranch and then with the rest of the gang and the string of burros, he
+followed Roger down to the Plant.
+
+That was a mad week. The Indians showed a willingness to work that Roger
+had never seen equaled by white men. They were as curious about the Sun
+Plant as children and deeply interested in Roger's explanation of it.
+Their general intelligence Roger found to be high above that of the
+average gang of whites. He never before had had the thrill of working
+with a crowd of mechanics who combined skill, intelligence and interest
+to this degree. The four machinists proved to be all that Dick had said
+and more. In all his life, Roger had never had so deeply satisfying a
+seven days. This, in spite of the fact that he worked like his men from
+daylight until dark, stopping only to eat the bountiful meals that the
+girls, with the Indian women, prepared at the ranch. This, in spite of
+ferocious heat and almost insuperable mechanical difficulties owing to
+the lack of lifting and trucking facilities.
+
+For the first four days of the week, Dick was quite despondent about the
+water problem. But on Friday afternoon, as Roger was superintending the
+reerection of the condenser, he heard a wild shout and beheld Dick and
+his four helpers laughing and slapping each other's backs, knee deep all
+of them in a stream that gushed into the ditch from the new well.
+
+"My luck has turned!" roared Dick. "My luck has turned! Look at it! Look
+at it! It will water fifty acres. I'll bet there won't be an inch of
+water left in the range. Wow!" and he plunged full length into the
+little crystal stream, his helpers following suit with a shout.
+
+It was the signal for a general recess. And the men, including Roger,
+took a ducking and returned to work steaming but unspeakably
+rejuvenated. The sudden appearance of the water seemed to Roger like a
+happy omen for the whole endeavor and it would have been difficult to
+tell who was the most enthusiastic for the rest of the day, Roger or
+Dick.
+
+Rabbit Tail's week was a full seven days. At five o'clock Sunday
+afternoon, the absorber was finished. The old tool shed stood remade,
+roughly to be sure, but securely, into an engine house. The condenser
+was half finished, the engine was standing in its new home, dismantled
+in parts but quite ready for Roger to adjust when the new parts should
+arrive.
+
+When the old iron triangle called supper, Rabbit Tail sauntered up to
+Roger.
+
+"Good job, Boss, huh?"
+
+"Fine! The best ever! Rabbit Tail, the country is missing some wonderful
+mechanics and engineers in not getting you Indians interested in
+civilization."
+
+The old chief grinned and shrugged his shoulders. "To-night, we go," he
+said.
+
+"Let me keep Jo and the other three machinists," pleaded Roger. "I'm
+sure they'll be interested in finishing the condenser for me."
+
+"Ask 'em," grunted Rabbit Tail.
+
+"Come along," said Roger and he strode over to the bench where the four
+Indians were fitting together the condenser pipe. They looked up and
+grinned affably at Roger.
+
+"Rabbit Tail says you fellows may stay and help me finish this
+condenser, if you will. I know I can find the money to pay you for it.
+How about it?"
+
+Jo, the spokesman, was a tall thin Indian, with a fine brow and
+intelligent eyes.
+
+"No, I guess we'll go on back to camp, Mr. Moore," he said.
+
+"But I thought you were interested in what I am trying to put over,"
+exclaimed Roger.
+
+"So we are. It's always interesting to learn what you whites are trying
+to do. You work so fearfully hard that we Indians are always curious to
+find out the idea back of the work. But as for helping you do the
+work--well, it's like this, you folks are always mighty interested in
+what we Indians do--making blankets or pottery or building hogans or
+making ceremonial altars. But I don't notice any of you really wanting
+to help us."
+
+Roger cast a bewildered look about him but the other bronzed faces
+betokened full acquiescence with Jo's words.
+
+"But why did you learn your trades so well?" he asked, finally.
+
+"Interested in the idea--and it helps us compete with the whites, when
+necessary!"
+
+"Then you really don't care about my finishing the plant?"
+
+"Why should we?" returned Jo.
+
+Roger sighed and scratched his head. "Then why did you come at all?"
+
+"The chief asked us and we knew Charley. She's been kind to me and I
+wanted to help her out."
+
+"If the whole gang of you would give me just two more days we could
+finish in good shape," pleaded Roger.
+
+"You can get along," replied Jo. "We've done what we promised."
+
+"Yes, you have, and a bully job. But--well, I'm floored. I just can't
+get your point of view." Roger's voice was rueful.
+
+Jo laughed. "And we can't get yours."
+
+There was an extra good supper that night and formal thanks on the part
+of Charley. Then, in the moonlight, the whole picturesque caravan moved
+off up the mountain trail.
+
+Charley, returning to the living room, said, "Well, children, I'm
+cheerful in spite of the fact that there's not two days' food left in
+the house."
+
+"I've got a little credit still at Hackett's," said Roger. "I think
+Gustav had better go in to Archer's in the morning. I think my freight
+must be there from the Dean and we should be hearing from Ernest."
+
+Dick, smoking in the doorway, nodded, then repeated the remark that he
+had made on the average of once an hour ever since Friday. "There isn't
+a well like mine in a radius of a hundred miles."
+
+Gustav brought back two weeks' food supply, the freight from the Dean
+and letters from Ernest. They were very noncommittal but cheerful. He
+had cleared up the misunderstanding with the Smithsonian Institution,
+but as yet had no money and did not know when he could get back.
+
+"Well," said Roger, "we've got grub for a week or so. I'm not quite sure
+whose grub it is. These two camps seem to me to have become helplessly
+entangled."
+
+"Who cares!" said Elsa.
+
+"Not you, young woman," returned Charley, dryly. She still seemed
+indifferent to Dick but there was no mistaking her warm enthusiasm over
+Elsa as a sister.
+
+"I'm going to cut the first five acres to-morrow," said Dick. "That will
+solve the most pressing problems. The second field is dead. I'm going to
+plow it under. But I should worry. That's the best well in a radius of a
+hundred miles."
+
+"Well, I'll assemble my engine." Roger tamped down the tobacco in his
+pipe. "The Lord send that it goes together right."
+
+"Amen to that," said Charley, while the others nodded.
+
+Another two weeks passed in unremitting industry, but by the second
+Saturday night, Roger with a sigh of unutterable satisfaction announced
+himself ready for a test of the plant on Monday. It was mid-September
+now, and it seemed as if the heat were a little less intense. The
+nights, at any rate, were not so parching. In spite of the sadness that
+would not lift, the little community was experiencing some of the
+contentment that comes from hard work and sympathetic companionship.
+
+Roger was finding that the regular, well cooked meals and the home life
+of the adobe was making a great difference in his mental as well as his
+physical condition. In spite of the nerve strain of the past months, he
+was beginning to feel that life never had been so much worth while as
+now.
+
+On the Sunday afternoon before the test of the rebuilt plant, Ernest,
+driven by Hackett, jogged up to the corral.
+
+After the noisy and excited greetings and after Ernest's delight over
+the moving of the plant had been expressed, Ernest slapped Roger on the
+back. They all were talking at once, on the adobe porch.
+
+"Here, put your eye on that, you emaciated desert blister!"
+
+Ernest pulled a bill case carefully from his inner breast pocket and
+carefully extracted a check which he handed to Roger. It was for five
+thousand dollars. Roger stared at it stupidly.
+
+"Browning! Who on earth is he?" he ejaculated.
+
+"Smithsonian! I had the check made out to me. It was simpler. But I'm
+going to make it payable to you, right now."
+
+He sat down at the table, pulled out his fountain pen and, signing the
+check, handed it over to Roger. The room was silent for a moment then,
+"Ernest," faltered Roger, his thin tanned face working. "I can't tell
+you--why old man, if I'd had a brother he couldn't have done for me what
+you have done. It's wonderful! How did you do it, Ern?"
+
+Ernest beamed. "There's more where that came from. They're crazy about
+your whole scheme."
+
+Roger stood staring at his friend, lost in admiration. "You are a
+genius, Ernest! Your talents as a salesman are lost on a college
+professor."
+
+"Don't you think it! When I'm made President of the University, it will
+be because of my talents as a salesman."
+
+Everybody laughed. "Ernest, do tell us how you did it," urged Elsa.
+
+"Wait a minute!" cried Roger. "What shall I do with the check?" holding
+it as if it were alive and dangerous to the touch.
+
+"Put it in your pocket, you chump! Then have a talk with Hackett. He has
+a connection with a bank at Los Angeles and he does a lot of banking for
+the miners south of Archer's Springs. He'll take care of it for you."
+
+"I can't carry it in the pocket of my shirt, I perspire so!" protested
+Roger. "Why not shift it to Hackett right now?"
+
+"So be it!" returned Ernest, wearily. "Must I hold your hand while you
+do it! Say, did you move my clothes up here?"
+
+"Our living tent is just the other side of the old tool house," replied
+Roger. "Come along, old man, and get rid of your store clothes. You look
+like a tenderfoot."
+
+"Farewell to decency again!" groaned Ernest.
+
+"When you come back, supper will be ready," called Elsa.
+
+Hackett was sitting in the shade of the engine house and Roger reached
+an understanding with him very quickly. He undertook to act not only as
+Roger's banker but as his purchasing agent as well, and Roger undertook
+to furnish him with a list of tools and machinery before his return to
+Archer's Springs at dawn.
+
+Gustav was waiting impatiently during the interview, and when Roger said
+with a sigh:
+
+"Well, I guess that covers everything, Mr. Hackett," Gustav put in
+quickly:
+
+"Did Ernest tell you there is var in Europe. The Vaterland, England,
+France, Belgium. Mein Gott, you should see the papers they brought."
+
+"Good heavens! War! You don't mean it! Not a real one," cried Roger.
+
+"Yes, more or less real! Of course, Germany will be in Paris any time
+now, and that will end it," said Ernest.
+
+"But what is it all about? War! I can't believe it." Roger looked over
+the breathless, shimmering desert to the far calm blue of the River
+Range.
+
+"Nobody knows exactly who started it or why," said Hackett. "Looks to me
+though as if Germany was trying to hog Belgium."
+
+"Belgium deserves to be hogged," exclaimed Ernest, who had changed his
+clothes, "after her Congo history."
+
+"But if it is var, I must get back to the Vaterland," cried Gustav.
+
+"Oh, as to that," returned Ernest, "I saw Werner in New York and he said
+for you to stay here till you heard from him. He plans to be down this
+way, this fall."
+
+Gustav grinned. "That vas good. I don't vant to go, sure."
+
+"Were you in New York?" asked Roger vaguely. "War in Europe! I can't
+realize it."
+
+"Why try?" suggested Ernest. "It'll be over before you succeed. What's a
+war in Europe to us, anyhow? Let's go in to supper."
+
+War was indeed a vague and shadowy affair to the little desert
+community: quite overshadowed by the importance of Ernest's successful
+trip. Roger did brood a good deal for a day or so over the disclosures
+in the bundle of newspapers, then the excitement of the testing of the
+plant swallowed everything else in life.
+
+There was no ceremony about this test. The memory of that other trial,
+with little Felicia as the central figure, was too fresh and too
+poignant. Just before the girls called breakfast on Monday morning,
+there sounded a soft chug, chug from the new engine house. It was so
+very soft that at first Charley thought she must be mistaken. Then she
+slipped out to see. Roger, his hot face tense and eager, was standing
+before his engine watching the perfect mechanism play.
+
+"Look at her, Charley! Look at her! Isn't she a dream? Ernest, look at
+that indicator--does she do any work? Has she power? Why man, she could
+pull the waters of the Yangtse Kiang up through the bowels of the earth
+and throw 'em on Dick's alfalfa fields!"
+
+Ernest stood staring at the engine, round eyed, his mouth open! "Man,
+what have you been putting over on me! Why, Rog, the old girl is
+practically noiseless. Throw in the pump, will you?"
+
+Dick promptly threw in the pump, but almost immediately roared. "Hey,
+slow her down! Slow her down! She's going to pull the pump up by the
+roots."
+
+"Rog, let's see your drawings a minute, you old sly boots, you!" said
+Ernest.
+
+"You will laugh at me and tell me to increase the absorber area, will
+you!" exclaimed Roger. "Why, old man, I've developed _the_ low
+temperature, high speed engine! It's the one the world has been looking
+for for years!"
+
+In all the years Ernest had known his chum, he never had heard him
+express such enthusiasm as this, over his own work. Ernest's eyes were
+still staring, his mouth still open.
+
+"I believe you have, Rog! I believe you have! Lord, I wish I'd known
+this when I went East."
+
+"No more sweating down to Hackett's for gasoline, eh?" exclaimed Dick.
+
+Roger grinned. "Day before yesterday's sun is turning the wheels just
+now. Come on in to breakfast, folks. We can leave her to herself for a
+while."
+
+Then, as Elsa and Dick followed Ernest up the trail, Roger lingered to
+wipe a gauge tenderly with a bit of waste. As he did so, he noticed
+that Charley was standing in the doorway, her eyes fastened wistfully on
+the whirring fly wheel. She looked very like Felicia in her blue denim
+blouse and skirt and once more that old confusion of personalities
+flashed over Roger.
+
+"It's--it's like Felicia's own engine, somehow," said Charley. "She did
+love to help you so. I wish she knew."
+
+"Charley, dear girl--we miss her so, don't we!" Roger half whispered.
+
+Charley's lips quivered and Roger, hastily wiping his hands, took one of
+hers and carried it to his lips. "You are so like her!" he said. "So
+like her!"
+
+Then, they turned slowly and joined the others at breakfast.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE RIVER RANGE
+
+
+Late in the afternoon, after the men had carried on many and
+increasingly satisfactory tests on the Plant, Charley joined Roger on
+the porch. The others were with Dick in the alfalfa fields. They sat in
+silence for a time, then Charley said,
+
+"Roger, has it struck you that Ernest has been unlike himself since his
+return?"
+
+Roger pulled at his pipe and nodded. "He's putting up a good front, but
+the dear old boy does hate this desert life. It was a twist for him to
+come back to it."
+
+"It's more than that, Roger. He's uneasy and irritable. That's
+absolutely abnormal for Ernest, isn't it?" Then without waiting for an
+answer, she went on. "Roger, has Ernest given you any details of his
+interviews with the people in Washington?"
+
+"Sure he has, at least all I wanted. He said he explained everything to
+the Big Boss down there and that after they had spent hours together and
+had gotten Dean Erskine on the long distance, he got the money. It was
+the mistake of some underling, turning me down, after Austin's death.
+The head of the Institution had supposed I had been taken care of."
+
+"Oh!" murmured Charley. She looked at Roger's face, so lined and tanned
+and now for the first time in months wearing an expression of relaxed
+contentment. She bit her lips and with an evident effort began again.
+
+"Don't think I'm intruding, Roger, will you, but I do want to ask you
+one more question."
+
+"You can ask me anything on earth, dear old Charley," replied Roger.
+
+"Well then, have you a clear understanding of the terms on which the
+Smithsonian let you have this money?"
+
+"Yes, on the same terms we had with Austin."
+
+"Do you know that, or do you just take it for granted?"
+
+Roger hesitated. "Why--well, in a way, I just take it for granted. That
+was what Ern and I talked over before he left. He's better than I at
+that sort of thing. He has my power of attorney and signed up the
+papers. I haven't gone over this since he got back, I've been so busy."
+
+"You won't think I'm impertinent or nosey, will you, Roger, if I ask you
+one more question?" Charley's voice had tones in it like Felicia's and
+Roger was very gentle as he answered:
+
+"Nothing pleases me more than to have you show interest in my work,
+Charley."
+
+"Well then, let's have a look at those papers."
+
+Roger looked at her curiously. "You think Ernest is as careless as I? He
+isn't, and you know I'm careless only because I have such confidence in
+him."
+
+Charley nodded. "I know. Just put it down to female curiosity."
+
+Roger laughed and went lazily over to the living tent, returning shortly
+with a tin document box. This he unlocked and ran rapidly, then again
+carefully, through the papers it contained.
+
+"Ern must have them," he said finally. "Come to think of it, he just
+spoke of them but didn't give them back to me. They must be in his box."
+
+"To which you have no access?"
+
+Roger shook his head, still eyeing Charley with undisguised curiosity.
+
+Charley drew a long breath. "Roger, there's something about this deal I
+don't like. Ernest is so queer, and Elsa is worried and absentminded.
+And every time I try to say anything about Ernest's salesmanship she
+takes my head off. And you know what good friends she and Ernest are
+normally. They never row each other. But now they're always quarreling
+in undertones. I would think Ernest was sore about Elsa and Dick's
+engagement if Ernest hadn't told me before her and Dick that he thought
+Elsa was foolish but that he washed his hands of the matter."
+
+"Nevertheless that's probably what the worry is about," said Roger.
+
+"No, it's not," very decidedly. "This noon they were at it again, in the
+kitchen, while I was in my bedroom. I tried not to hear them but all of
+a sudden Ernest shouted, 'I don't see why I told you! You've done
+nothing but nag me, ever since. Werner's all right and what difference
+does it make whether I got the money from him or the Smithsonian?' I
+went right out and told them what I had overheard and asked them to be
+more careful. Ernest merely said they were talking of a family matter
+and Elsa burst into tears and walked away."
+
+Roger laid his pipe down with a scowl. "Pshaw, Charley, you're foolish!
+What could be Ernest's object in deceiving me? He's as honest as
+daylight. He knew I was desperate and wouldn't care where he got the
+money as long as there were no strings to it."
+
+Charley flushed painfully. "I don't blame you for feeling that way.
+That's why I wanted to see the papers in the matter."
+
+"And why should Werner," asked Roger, "put money into a thing he never
+saw, when--Oh rot, Charley! I thought you had a mind like a nice
+fellow--above such hen rubbish."
+
+"My mind is feminine through and through," returned Charley. "I knew
+you'd scold me. But promise me one thing--that you'll ask Ernest to let
+you see the contracts."
+
+"I'll do that, of course. I should have done it before. That's being
+only businesslike."
+
+The opportunity for the request came at the breakfast table but in a
+manner different from what Roger had planned.
+
+"Somebody ought to take Mrs. von Minden's tent down," said Charley. "It
+looks stark lonely now at the dismantled plant."
+
+"By the way," exclaimed Ernest, "Roger, we never sent that poor fellow's
+papers to a German Consul. But it's just as well. When I saw Werner in
+New York it turned out that he knew Von Minden. He said he'd forward his
+papers to the proper persons."
+
+"How on earth did he know Crazy Dutch?" asked Roger.
+
+"Just what I asked him. He says that a part of his work in this country
+is to keep an eye on all the resources of America, particularly of the
+Southwest. They like to keep in touch with the Germans coming to this
+country and help them to a profitable living. Seems that Von Minden
+really was quite an engineering pioneer before he went bug."
+
+"You never did say, Ern," Roger's voice was casual, "how you happened to
+run on Werner."
+
+"Didn't run on him at all," replied Ernest irritably. "I went up to see
+him on my way home. He told us to call on him if we ever were in New
+York. And I wasn't coming back to this God forsaken hole without seeing
+Broadway. Where is the mysterious black box, Rog?"
+
+"I'd rather send the papers to a German Consul, Ern. Now that they're in
+a state of war, over there, it might be more regular."
+
+"I promised Werner he should have them. Don't be a stick in the mud,
+Rog, and try to put anything regular over on me after all your
+high-handed predatory methods down here."
+
+Roger flushed. "I haven't taken a thing that won't be paid for to the
+last dollar."
+
+"Well, I'm not going to quarrel with you about Von Minden's box. I
+invited Werner down here to inspect the plant and you can fight it out
+with him. He'll fall dead when he sees the new engine."
+
+"I'm not sure that I want him down here," Roger scowled, thoughtfully.
+"I have no patents as yet and I had an unpleasant experience with Von
+Minden, another with Gustav and I'm not altogether crazy about trying
+out a third German."
+
+Gustav gulped his coffee and walked out of the room.
+
+Ernest suddenly flushed deeply, but said nothing.
+
+"I thought you were keen about Germans," said Elsa.
+
+"I always have been, and I still am. And yet, ever since I've heard
+about this war--I don't know. I feel uneasy. Hang it! Germany had no
+business hogging across Belgium as she did. It was a dirty trick, just
+like the one, by Jove, Von Minden tried to play on me! Gustav, another
+German, take notice, tried to steal from me, too!"
+
+There was an awkward silence, then Ernest said a little belligerently:
+"Germany must fulfill her destiny, no matter who suffers."
+
+"What is her destiny?" asked Charley, curiously.
+
+"To rule the world. The Vaterland is superman. It's coming into its own,
+now!"
+
+"Superman fiddlesticks!" exclaimed Charley.
+
+"Seems to me you picked up a lot of silly rot on this trip East, Ern,"
+said Roger. "Who is this Werner, anyhow? I'll have you remember, old
+man, when it comes to a choice, I'm all American, as I believe you are,
+eh?"
+
+Slowly Ernest's face darkened. Slowly he rose from his chair. No one had
+ever before seen the look of passion in Ernest's beautiful eyes that now
+blazed there.
+
+"There's not a drop of blood in my veins, thank God, that's not German.
+I say to you 'Deutschland über alles,' and all that Ernest Wolf can do
+to bring it about, shall be done."
+
+"And I tell you," Elsa cried suddenly, as she crossed the room to face
+Ernest, "that I am all American and I hate Germany and all her works. I
+think you've acted like a fool, Ernest."
+
+"Be quiet, Elsa!" roared Ernest, in exactly his father's voice.
+
+"I'll not be quiet! I'm an American girl, not a German Fräulein. I say
+that you've got to cut out all this superman stuff and tell Roger where
+you got that money."
+
+"Do you suppose I'm afraid to tell him? I was just waiting for Werner to
+come to satisfy Roger," shouted Ernest. He turned to Roger. "I got that
+money from Werner. Your Solar Heat Device is sold to the German
+Government."
+
+There was a sudden hush in the room. Roger sat hunched in his chair.
+Charley and Elsa glanced at each other apprehensively.
+
+Dick cleared his throat and spoke for the first time. "Easy, now Roger!"
+
+Roger did not seem to hear him. "How do you mean, you've sold me to the
+German government?"
+
+"What I say. The Smithsonian people turned me down cold and when I told
+my troubles to Werner, he offered to help me out. Germany's crazy to
+develop this neck of the woods. And crazier still to get fellows like
+you and me to using their influence among the educators and scientists
+of this country in favor of German culture."
+
+Roger's face was like stone. "How do you mean, sold my device to the
+German government?" he repeated.
+
+"What I say!" roared Ernest. "I sold it for fifty thousand dollars. I've
+checks for the rest here in my pocket, but I knew you'd get your back
+up, so I was waiting for Werner. Now listen, Roger, you've the chance of
+a lifetime. You've often said you were going to Germany if this country
+failed you, and it did."
+
+Roger looked around the room in a dazed way, then back at Ernest. "You
+sold my invention--the work of my life--without my knowledge or
+permission? Ernest, it can't be true. Why, you're my best friend!"
+
+"Certainly I am."
+
+"And you sold it to a stranger. Sold me out. Why I'd as soon you sold a
+child of mine. Damn it, are you Germans born crooked?" He rose slowly.
+"You picked my brains and sold the contents. You sneaked on me! And I
+thought you were my friend! You've lied to me ever since you came home.
+Why did you lie----" his voice rising now uncontrollably. "Why did you
+lie, you skunk?"
+
+Ernest's face turned purple. He leaned across the table and struck Roger
+in the mouth.
+
+"No one can say that to me!" he shouted.
+
+Roger rushed around the table and seized Ernest by the throat. "Now I'm
+going to kill you," he said between his teeth.
+
+Dick, shouting for Gustav, fought to break Roger's hold. Gustav came
+rushing over the porch.
+
+When Roger next was fully conscious of himself he was climbing from the
+desert up onto a broad mesa. The sun was sinking behind the mountains
+into which the mesa merged. When he reached the crest of the mesa, Roger
+paused, shaken and breathless. There was the scramble of little
+footsteps behind him and Roger turned to look. Peter, packless and
+breathing hard, was following him. Roger drew his shirt sleeves across
+his eyes. He knew that Gustav and Dick had pulled him away from Ernest.
+How much he had injured Ernest he did not know, nor, for the present,
+did he care. He recalled that, with Ernest motionless on the floor, the
+others had united in denouncing him, that Charley had turned on him with
+furious eyes. Then he had fled. Not toward Archer's Springs where he was
+known. But with a vague idea of crossing the Colorado into California,
+he had turned westward.
+
+He was fleeing not from fear nor from cowardice. He was fleeing because
+with the discovery of Ernest's duplicity, the entire edifice of his life
+had tumbled into ruins. A great loathing of the desert, of the work he
+had attempted there, but most of all, a red hate for Ernest, carried him
+across the many burning miles of desert to the foothills of the River
+Range. A blind desire to get away from it all, to lose himself forever,
+to forget all that he had ever been or known, but above everything to
+get away from Ernest was for the time being the motive force of his
+existence.
+
+He was carrying a bag of grub and his two gallon canteen which still was
+heavy with water. For a moment Roger considered some method of
+transferring his burden to the burro's little back. But Peter was so
+small, so winded, that he gave up the idea and trudged on to the west.
+Peter fell in after him and two scarcely discernible specks on the
+immense floor of the mesa they moved toward the black mountain top
+lifting before them. There was no sound save that of their own
+footsteps. There was no verdure here except the martial figures of the
+great cacti, those soldiers of the waste, that guard the eternal
+solitudes. There was no wind. Only a breathless sense of brooding in the
+remote wonder of the sky. The desert is a hard country; a country to try
+out the mettle of a man and leave it all dross or pure gold.
+
+It was starlight when Roger and Peter reached the top of the range.
+Beyond dimly lay another range.
+
+Roger resolved to camp for the night in the valley below. Peter was
+reluctant to go farther. In fact for the last hour, Roger had been
+obliged to lead him. The way down was very precipitous and they had not
+covered a third of it when Roger slipped and fell. He did not lose his
+grip on the lead rope and at the sudden jerk the little burro pitched
+forward after Roger. But Peter got his balance immediately and threw
+himself back on his shoulders, bracing his feet against the roots of a
+giant cactus and stood fast.
+
+Roger dangled helplessly over a black drop for a few seconds, then with
+the aid of the lead rope he crawled up to the root of another cactus
+where he lay for a moment. Then he started on downward, zig-zagging
+carefully this time as one should descend a trailless mountain.
+
+Roger slept fitfully in the sand at the bottom of the valley, waking and
+rising at the first peep of dawn. Peter had fared rather well. There
+were grass tufts growing at the roots of the great cacti, around about.
+Roger ate a cold breakfast. He found a rough hollow in a rock, where he
+gave Peter a small drink of water, then he started on. But, although he
+cursed the little burro roundly, Peter again was reluctant to move
+westward, and Roger had again to take hold of the lead rope.
+
+All day long, he continued the march westward. This range was like the
+Coyote Range, though there were more passes through the ridges, so that
+had he been able to find a trail, he could have moved rapidly. But the
+way underfoot was inconceivably rough and by noon Roger's shoes were cut
+and his feet bruised and bleeding. But he never for a moment considered
+turning back. He was through--through with the old work which had
+brought him only disappointment, through with the old affections which
+had only played him false. Even Peter who had come with him voluntarily
+was now trying to turn back.
+
+It was late afternoon when they reached a low mountain shoulder. As they
+breasted its crest, Peter raised his tail and brayed, starting forward
+at a trot. Roger followed to the mountain edge. The valley of the
+Colorado lay before him, a narrow valley here, with a range of mountains
+on the opposite side lifting brilliant peaks against the afternoon sky.
+The valley was sandy and the river looked shallow and slow moving, with
+arrow-weed growing along its edge.
+
+Peter led the way down. Roger had been fortunate in the time he chose
+for his crossing. The river was at its lowest level, sliding lazily over
+the sand. As Roger descended the mountain he found water marks where at
+flood, the river had filled the valley and gnawed deep into the vitals
+of the range. He followed the burro across the sand to the water's edge.
+Peter buried his nose in the stream, then rolled himself joyfully in the
+moist sand, snorting and blowing. Roger stood staring at the little
+fellow. Then as Peter began to crop the coarse grass which grew in
+sparse clumps among the straight stalks of the arrow-weed, Roger
+gathered together some bits of drift wood for his supper fire.
+
+He fried some bacon, made coffee, and seated himself in the sand. Peter
+dropped his soft nose over Roger's shoulders, and ate the bacon rinds
+one by one, then crowding still closer, tried to nibble at the cracker
+Roger was devouring.
+
+"Hang you, Pete, get round on the other side of the fire!" exclaimed
+Roger.
+
+It was the first time he had spoken in several hours and the sound of
+his own voice startled him. Peter trotted obediently around and stood
+opposite, head drooping as if in thought. Strangely small and gray he
+looked; strangely wise as if the same weathering of the centuries that
+had worn the mountain peaks into shapes of brooding significance had
+worn his little gray head into the semblance of Wise Patience, itself.
+
+When Roger had finished his meal, and packed, he walked slowly up and
+down the river bank. But nowhere could he see a better place for
+crossing than at the spot where he had built his fire. Here a small
+island amid stream made the crossing seem possible. He found a
+cottonwood log to which he tied his food pack and canteen as well as his
+clothes which he took off and rolled up. He fastened Peter to a clump of
+arrow-weed, then waded out into the stream, pushing the log before him.
+
+The water was very cold and the current much swifter than Roger had
+anticipated but he was an excellent swimmer and though the current
+carried him well down stream, he made a safe landing on the island with
+all his goods and chattels. Then he went back for Peter. He could not
+bear the thought of going on alone.
+
+The lead rope was long. Roger pulled the reluctant Peter to the water's
+edge, plunged in and was swimming violently in the current before the
+rope stretched taut and he realized that Peter was braced, stiff-legged
+on the bank. Roger swam back and climbed out of the water.
+
+"Come, Peter," he said gently. "I'll swim beside you so you needn't be
+afraid."
+
+Peter moved his long ears back and forth.
+
+"Come! Come! Don't make me beat you. Come, Peter."
+
+Peter did not stir. Roger picked up a bit of driftwood and belaboured
+Peter's gray sides, but the beating might have been a sand flea hopping
+on him for all it appeared to move Peter.
+
+"Darn you, Peter!" shouted Roger. "Have you quit me too? I tell you, you
+shall not! Come now, I'm too tired to argue."
+
+He plunged once more into the water, once more swam into the current,
+whistling Peter's call as he did so. But to no avail. When he reached
+the bank this time he was angry. He roared at Peter and kicked at him
+with his bare toes. But he kicked him only once. Peter's ribs were
+strong and none too well covered.
+
+Peter looked at Roger's thin white body and his brown angry face, moved
+his ears, breathed hard and snorted.
+
+Roger roared again. "All right, sir! All right, sir! If you won't come
+with me, neither shall you go back to the Germans and their
+sympathizers. I'll fix you, young fellow!"
+
+He led Peter up to a mesquite tree and with trembling fingers tied the
+little gray head as high as he could pull it.
+
+"There," he said, "you can stay there till the buzzards get you" and
+without a backward glance he swam once more across to the island.
+
+Here he dressed and lay for a time resting in the sand. The sun had sunk
+behind the ranges. The night shadows in the valley were cool. Partly
+because of this, partly from sheer nervous and physical exhaustion,
+Roger shivered. Finally when twilight had settled in the valley, he sat
+up and gazed across the river. It was too dark to see Peter. There was
+only the murmur of the river in all that barren solitude. Then suddenly
+Peter brayed. It was not the usual ridiculous hee haw of the burro but a
+strange blending of whinny and scream. Roger shuddered and told himself
+that he would keep Peter company just a little longer, then move on.
+
+The desert night came on quickly and completely. The great desert stars
+had pricked out before the last light had left the mountain tops. An
+hour passed, then two. Roger was too weary to build a fire, too wretched
+to sleep. He sat huddled in the sand, his head against a great
+cottonwood log, his face toward the river. A dim red edge began to show
+over the ranges. It lifted into a crescent, then into a half circle.
+Suddenly the little valley was flooded with white light and the moon
+sailed free over the sliding river.
+
+Roger stared eagerly toward the mesquite tree. Peter stood unmoving, his
+little gray head turned upward, his sturdy neck seeming unusually long
+and thin, stretched thus unnaturally. It seemed curious to Roger that
+the burro did not kick nor lunge. But Peter's patience, won by who knows
+what beaten and burdened ancestry, did not desert him. He did not tug at
+his rope but he brayed again, as if he were giving an eerie shriek of
+warning.
+
+Roger bit his nails nervously, then hollowed out a bed in the sand and
+lying down tried to sleep. The stars glowed down on him quietly. From
+where he lay he could see Peter. The little gray head must be tired. How
+Felicia had loved the little burro. Used to wash his face and brush his
+foolish mane. Felicia! Little lost Felicia! Roger groaned and sat up.
+
+His moment of reckoning had arrived, as it arrives once to every man.
+
+First he thought of Felicia. He recalled that first day on the train
+when she had sat in his lap so long and he had felt the whisper of fate
+in their meeting. He came down through the desert days with her. How
+pitifully few there were of them, after all! And he lived them over, one
+by one. He recalled her loveliness, her childish curiosity, her love of
+his work. He thought of her affection and of her timidity, her shrinking
+fear of a rough word. And suddenly he groaned and said aloud:
+
+"Thank God in His mercy that she didn't see me when I throttled Ernest!"
+
+Ernest! The friend of his boyhood and his young manhood. Generous,
+sweet-tempered, easy going Ernest! How patiently he had endured Roger's
+temper! How loyally he had devoted himself to Roger's experiments. How
+utterly he had given himself to their friendship. Why had he betrayed
+Roger at the last? What had happened? Roger's brain seemed on fire as he
+turned over in his mind the events that had led to Tuesday's tragedy.
+Charley had come to him and had said:--
+
+Well--no matter what she had said. Long before she had told him that his
+life failure was due to his selfish indifference to other people. He
+remembered that he had not believed her. But now the words seemed seared
+into his brain.
+
+Roger took a long drink, then as methodically as he could he examined
+his own temperament. First, he tried to consider himself as if he were
+Ernest looking at Roger. What had Roger ever done for Ernest? He had
+been a constant spur to Ernest mentally, forcing him into new fields of
+research and experiment, but only after all, for Roger's own purposes,
+or Roger's own ideas. What return had Roger ever made for the exquisite
+hospitality of Ernest's home and the tenderness of Ernest's mother?
+None! None whatever! What return even in kindness had Roger ever made
+for Ernest's untiring efforts to promote the solar device. Once more
+Roger whispered huskily:
+
+"None! None at all! Less than nothing!"
+
+So Ernest must see him as a brain devoid of any human qualities save
+that of quick temper. Thank heaven, Felicia never had seen him angry but
+once! But Charley had seen every red hate that had swept him since he
+had come to the desert. What would he not give if this were not so! More
+than any one in the world, he suddenly thought, he wanted Charley's
+good opinion. And how must she see him? Impatient, ugly tempered,
+selfish,--excepting toward Felicia. Thank God, she had seen how he had
+loved that little child.
+
+And so, here he was at thirty, a failure. It was better to acknowledge
+it now: to admit that the fault was his; to go on into some mining camp
+and lose himself than to drag on making a fool of himself at the Sun
+Plant. He would rest a little longer, then start on in the moonlight.
+
+Once more Roger stretched himself out on his bed of sand. As he did so,
+Peter brayed again. Roger jumped to his feet, the cold sweat starting
+from his forehead. Felicia's little burro! What devil could have entered
+into him that he could treat a dumb brute so! He tore off his clothing
+and jumped into the water. It was not easy to breast the current, he was
+so tired. But he made the bank and staggering up to the mesquite tree,
+he untied Peter.
+
+"There, old man," he said gently, "go back to your friends."
+
+Then he turned to cross the river. He was carried far below his camp
+this time and for some minutes after he landed he lay naked and
+exhausted before he could urge himself back to the cottonwood log and
+climb into his clothing.
+
+He was in a state now of utter despair. No grief, no anger can bring to
+the human mind the depth of suffering that self-loathing can. Roger lay
+with his forehead pillowed on his arm, for the first time in his life
+facing his own weaknesses. Just in the degree that his brain was
+clearer, his mind more honest, his nerves more highly strung than other
+men's, just in that degree did he suffer more.
+
+Perhaps, after a time, he slipped into a half doze. But it seemed to him
+that the touch on his forehead was his mother's. No, it was Felicia's or
+was it Charley's? Again Charley and Felicia merged in his mind. Felicia
+was looking at him with adoring eyes. Thank God once more that she could
+never grow up to know the truth about him. But she had grown up and was
+stooping over him with a gentle hand on his forehead as if she
+understood him and forgave him a thousand times over.
+
+It was Charley, of course, Charley with the great heart and the seeing
+mind. What an awful thing for him to have brought another failure to the
+valley! Charley had had a sad life. Perhaps she had had dreams of her
+own, before she merged her destiny with Dick's. Dick was a poor
+weakling. But Felicia's death had saved him. Dick was a man now. If
+Felicia had seen him attack Ernest, she would have run away to her
+death, just as she had for Dick's frenzy. Potentially, he was a murderer
+too. But now he was a failure and as far as his red devil was concerned,
+Felicia had died in vain.
+
+Roger's heart seemed to stop beating with the horror of this thought.
+Try as he would he could not get away from the idea that potentially he
+shared Dick's guilt. And Felicia had been sacrificed in vain. Suddenly
+he clenched his fists. No, by heaven, this should not be!
+
+Roger pulled himself to his knees beside the cottonwood log and lifted
+his ravished face to the stars.
+
+"Listen, God!" he shouted. "It was not in vain! I'm going back! I'm
+going back to Felicia and Charley and prove myself a man. I don't know
+why Ernest did it. But that doesn't matter. I'm going back. Listen to
+me, God!"
+
+Half kneeling, half crouching, with the sinking moon touching his
+burning eyes, his trembling lips, Roger watched the great compassionate
+desert stars as if waiting for an answer. And as he waited, the answer
+came. Roger whispered as if in reply.
+
+"Yes! Yes! I love her! I love her! I love her! Oh, Charley, my darling!
+I'm coming back to you and show you that Felicia did not die in vain!"
+
+Then he slipped down into the sand and fell asleep as deeply, as sweetly
+as a child, and the quiet stars looked down upon the dark slender figure
+with infinite understanding.
+
+The first rays of the sun roused Roger. He lay for a time blinking and
+trying to account for the peace and happiness of which he was conscious
+from the instant he opened his eyes. After a moment, memory spoke and he
+jumped to his feet and stretched himself. Then he gave a sudden shout.
+
+"Oh, I say, old Peter! You are a good scout! Waiting for me, are you?
+Hang it! I couldn't blame you if you were just waiting to kick my brains
+out. Just hold on till I get some breakfast and I'll be with you."
+
+At Roger's shout, Peter left off his desultory browsing, lifted his tail
+and brayed, an honest old fashioned bray that set Roger at his breakfast
+getting with a broad grin.
+
+The sun was not an hour high when the two started on the home trail.
+Peter scorned the lead rope now but led the way nimbly, finding a far
+easier trail than Roger had dragged him over the day before. Roger was
+tired and stiff. He was dirty and unshaven. But he was happy; happy as
+he had never dreamed of being; too happy, too utterly brain weary to
+think. He only knew that he was going home to Charley.
+
+They reached the mesa that evening, at sundown. With all the desire in
+the world, Roger could not go on. So he made camp in a little draw and
+lay down to sleep. He did not waken until morning.
+
+It was well toward supper time when Roger reached the ranch. There was
+no one to be seen. Roger turned Peter into the corral and fed him, then
+went into the living tent, shaved and changed his clothing. Charley,
+Elsa and Dick were at supper when Roger entered and with a quick sense
+of remorse he saw that each face turned toward him wore a look of
+startled anxiety. He paused in the doorway, the lamp glow disclosing the
+lines of exhaustion around his mouth.
+
+"Hello," he said, huskily, "I've come back to you people, if you'll have
+me!"
+
+Elsa was the first to rush to him. "Oh, Roger, did you really want to
+come back?" she cried.
+
+Roger stooped and kissed her cheek. "Want to come back? Why, I've almost
+died of impatience getting back."
+
+Dick shoved Elsa gently aside. "I'm sure things can be fixed up, Roger,"
+he said. "Ernest isn't--"
+
+Roger interrupted by placing both hands on Dick's shoulders. "Old man,"
+he said. "The important thing to me now is for you to understand how I
+feel about you, how I understand what you've been through and how I
+need your help, just because of what you've been through."
+
+There was a sudden silence. Charley, her great eyes on Roger's face, did
+not move. Dick cleared his throat.
+
+"Why--why--Roger!--My God--do you mean it? That you don't hate me any
+more? Don't bluff me, Roger! I've been in too lonely a hell. What's
+happened to you, Rog?"
+
+"I've come to," replied Roger, dropping his hands from Dick's shoulders
+and crossing the room to stand before Charley.
+
+She had risen and was standing quietly behind her chair. Roger, with his
+eyes on hers, lifted both her hands against his breast.
+
+"Charley!" he said, huskily, "Oh, Charley! Charley!" and then, his voice
+and his will failed him and he bowed his head on her shoulder.
+
+Charley freed one hand and laid it on his head. "Poor child!" she
+murmured. "Poor old Roger!"
+
+Elsa sniffed in a manner peculiarly like a sob, and Roger raised his
+head with a sheepish laugh.
+
+"I guess I'm about all in," he said.
+
+"You're hungry and tired out," exclaimed Charley. "Sit down, Roger and
+have some supper."
+
+There was a little flurry of bringing fresh plates and an extra chair
+and the interrupted meal was begun again.
+
+"Where on earth did you go, Roger?" asked Elsa. "We saw you start
+straight across the valley."
+
+"I got as far as the river. I didn't do Ernest any real damage, did I?"
+Roger looked at Dick inquiringly.
+
+"I guess not. He seems to have worked around, as usual. He and Gustav
+went into Archer's Springs yesterday."
+
+There was a moment's pause, then Elsa said, "What do you intend to do,
+Roger?"
+
+Roger laid down his knife and fork, dejectedly. "I don't know! How could
+a man like Ernest do such a rotten trick!"
+
+"He refused to make us any explanation whatever," said Dick. "As far as
+I'm concerned, I'm through with him unless he comes across with a
+satisfactory statement. I don't like the look of the whole thing."
+
+"Elsa agrees with Dick and me," Charley looked at Elsa's troubled face
+sympathetically, "that Ernest's got to be kept in Coventry until
+something drastic is done. We were all hoping and believing that you'd
+come back to see the matter through."
+
+Roger finished his second cup of coffee in deep thought. "I'll have to
+have a talk with Ernest," he said, finally.
+
+"Hackett brought in the new pump yesterday morning," said Dick. "He
+brought a bunch of newspapers. We've been floored by their contents."
+
+"Yes," exclaimed Charley, "the war news is unbelievable."
+
+"They've sacked Louvain!" cried Elsa.
+
+"Who sacked Louvain? It sounds like the Dark Ages!" asked Roger.
+
+"The Germans!" Elsa, evidently controlling her voice with difficulty
+went on, "They've shot old women and children as hostages. Hostages! Why
+that word belongs to the Dark Ages. It's unbelievable! And the
+library--all those priceless things are burned."
+
+"Good God!" exclaimed Roger. Then, "What does Ernest say to this?"
+
+"None of us have talked to him since you left," said Charley.
+
+"But whether it's a war of offense or defense, there's no excuse for
+that sort of thing. I thought German culture--" Roger paused and Elsa
+cut in excitedly--
+
+"Culture! I tell you they never were cultured, the Germans. Look at
+Professor Rosenthal and Dad and Ernest. How deep is their so-called
+culture? Bah! Petty tyrants in their homes and bloody savages, I'll bet,
+if they run amuck."
+
+"Keep your hair on, Elsa, old dear." Dick patted the excited girl on the
+shoulder.
+
+"Some one's coming up the trail," exclaimed Charley.
+
+There was a footstep on the porch as she spoke and Ernest appeared in
+the doorway. His face was sullen and he made no pretense of a greeting.
+
+"I came up to say that Mr. Werner will be here to-morrow and it will be
+necessary for you to see both him and me, Roger, and settle this
+miserable affair. We'll come up as soon as Werner arrives, probably late
+in the afternoon."
+
+Ernest turned abruptly on his heel. Roger sprang to his feet. Charley
+laid a quick hand on his arm. Roger gave her a glance. "It's all right,
+Charley. Don't worry! Hold on, Ernest. We'll have this thing out right
+now."
+
+Ernest turned back slowly. "There's nothing to have out. A man has a
+right to his own political opinion. And as for the Werner matter, you
+insulted me for doing you a favor and I'm through with you."
+
+"Favor!" gasped Roger. "Why Ernest, you're crazy! You lied to me and
+sneaked on me and it wasn't to do me a favor, at all. It was for
+Germany. That's what gets all our goats. For _Germany_!"
+
+"Well, what's the matter with Germany? You've worshiped at her shrine
+all these years, haven't you? And now in her hour of need, you turn
+against her," sneered Ernest.
+
+Roger looked from Charley to Dick in utter bewilderment. "Germany's hour
+of need! The hour of need of a horde of vandals.--Where's your common
+sense, Ern?"
+
+"It's a Dutchman's logic, Roger, that's all!" cried Elsa. "You're just
+beginning to recognize it! Lord, I was brought up on it!"
+
+"Oh, dry up, Elsa! You were always a disloyal minx," growled Ernest.
+"Now, you folks are welcome to think what you please. I'm not like
+Roger, ready to murder a man who has a different political opinion from
+me. I'm going to see that Werner's given a square deal, then I'm going
+to quit the whole bunch of you."
+
+"Look here, Ern, you've got to straighten this business out," insisted
+Roger. "Crazy Dutch and Werner and Gustav and you! It's a dirty deal,
+somehow. Just why did you turn on your best friend, Ernest?"
+
+"Turn on my best friend! I like that from you, with your devil's
+temper. And you've turned nasty nice all of a sudden, about where you
+get your money, after robbing all the mines around here."
+
+"You know I've sent a list of everything I've taken from each mine to
+each mine owner and asked him to send a bill!" shouted Roger.
+
+"Huh! That may be, but when it comes to giving Mr. Werner a chance at
+the Solar Plant, I recalled all that and didn't suppose you'd be
+finicky."
+
+Roger's drawn face burned. Felicia's clock on the mantel ticked and
+Charley's deep eyes did not leave Roger's clenched fists. He ground his
+teeth, then drew a long breath.
+
+"That was a rotten thing to say to me, Ern, but I guess I deserved part
+of it. Of course, the contract with Werner's got to be broken, and I
+want you to chew on this. You've got to choose between Werner and me.
+Our friendship ends unless you drop Germany."
+
+"Oh, hell!" grunted Ernest and he turned and disappeared into the night.
+
+Elsa shrugged her shoulders and began to gather up the dishes. Charley
+followed her example mechanically. Roger and Dick lighted their pipes
+and stood with their backs to the empty fireplace, and no one spoke
+until the dishes were finished and the girls were seated with their
+sewing.
+
+Then, "By Jove," said Dick. "I don't know what to suggest."
+
+"Neither do I," echoed Roger. "But this much I know. The main point is
+to save Ernest. The Solar Plant is secondary. He's got to do what's
+right in this."
+
+"You'll never get away with it, Roger," exclaimed Dick. "Ernest really
+believes in this superman stuff. He's a German."
+
+"He's got to do what's right," repeated Roger, this time with a tired
+break in his voice. "I feel as if I'd never believe in a man again
+unless he does. What can I do, Elsa?"
+
+Elsa shook her head. "I don't know. If you people will think back you'll
+realize you've all been raised on adulation of Germany. Ernest is merely
+the logical product of his ancestry and environment."
+
+"How did you escape the poison, Elsa?" asked Charley.
+
+"Overstuffed," she replied. "And I'm not alone. There's any number of us
+American children of German parents who've been fed up on the
+'Vaterland' stuff."
+
+"Elsa," asked Dick, suddenly, "is Ernest a spy?"
+
+The girl turned crimson. Roger interrupted quickly: "Oh, I say, Dick,
+give Ernest first chance to answer that question."
+
+"No, I'll answer it," replied Elsa. "He wasn't up to the time he came to
+the desert, I'm sure. He was just wonderfully prepared soil, ready for
+the planting of any sort of seed. What Mr. Werner did to him, I don't
+know."
+
+"Do you think Werner is a spy?" asked Charley.
+
+"Probably, of an exalted order. As I look back now, he's been using Papa
+and all the rest of the silly Turnverein, any way he wants to. How much
+they know we never shall know. My heavens, what a dirty place the world
+is!"
+
+No one replied to this comment. Roger sighed deeply and a pitying
+glance passed between the two girls as he dropped his head dejectedly on
+his hands.
+
+"Well, let's postpone more talk until morning," said Dick. "Elsa, going
+to help me put the menagerie to bed?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," replied Elsa with alacrity, adding, as she followed Dick to the
+door, "Don't you think Roger'd better sleep here, to-night? With Gustav
+in the living tent--"
+
+Charley nodded. "I'll make up the cot on the porch." She eyed Roger's
+drooping head with tear-dimmed eyes, as the others went out.
+
+Roger lifted his worn face and gave Charley a long look. She was
+recovering some of her tone. Her eyes were bright and though the
+deepened sadness of her mouth would never lessen, the despondency that
+had marked her face when in repose ever since Felicia's death was gone.
+As Roger watched her, it seemed to him that if Charley as well as Ernest
+failed him, the blackness of the pit would indeed close around him. He
+rose suddenly and crossed the room to kneel beside her. He clasped her
+hands against his heart, and said slowly:
+
+"Charley, look in my face and tell me that you realize I am a changed
+man! That you need never fear my temper again!"
+
+Charley caught her lower lip which would tremble, between her teeth, and
+steady, wise, brown eyes gazed long into deep-set, wearied, blue eyes.
+
+"What happened, Roger?" Charley asked, at last.
+
+"I fully recognized my devil, for the first time, and fought him to a
+finish. I'm going to have many a tough struggle but you'll never see
+again nor will any one else, the thing little Felicia was so afraid of.
+You understand and believe me, don't you?"
+
+Charley nodded, not trusting her quivering lips to words.
+
+Roger dropped her hands and took her face in a tender clasp.
+
+"Charley, it's a poor, broken, futile thing just now, my life, but so
+help me, God, it will not always be so. And whatever it is or will be,
+it belongs to you. Will you take it, Charley?"
+
+There was a long pause during which Felicia's old enemy, the alarm
+clock, ticked loudly. Then Charley smiled and said uncertainly:
+
+"While I'm taking my own share of you, I think I'll take Felicia's too.
+Then I'll have all of you!"
+
+"Charley! Oh, Charley! My dearest love! My dearest!" Roger jumped up,
+pulled Charley to her feet and clasping the slender body in his arms
+laid his lips hungrily to hers. He kissed her eyes, her hair. "Charley!
+Charley! I'm a selfish brute, but you'll never know what you're doing
+for me. You ought to have a man worth ten of me but I'm going to have
+you just the same. Now I can bear even Ernest's failure. Do you really
+love me, my darling?"
+
+"Curiously enough, I do!" replied Charley with the old whimsical lift of
+her eyebrows. "Oh, you dear old single-track thinking machine, you!"
+
+Roger held her off and looked at her wonderingly. "You mean--Oh,
+Charley, I have been a fool in every possible way, haven't I?"
+
+Charley laughed, with her cheek against Roger's, her arm about his neck.
+Roger held her closer still. "Well," he said huskily, "I'm through with
+one kind of foolishness! Charley, will you ride into Archer's Springs
+to-morrow and marry me?"
+
+The girl laughed outright. "I certainly won't! Let me go, Roger. Here
+come Elsa and Dick."
+
+Elsa entered the room, her head on one side, her eyes bright and
+questioning.
+
+"Well, Rog?" she exclaimed breathlessly.
+
+"Yes, Elsa," he replied. "By Jove, I can't believe it myself but Charley
+says she'll marry me."
+
+"Thank the Lord for that!" sighed Elsa.
+
+"You're not good enough for her, Roger," said Dick, coming across the
+room with right hand outstretched but a grim face. "But when I think
+about Elsa taking me--"
+
+He did not finish the sentence but Roger nodded understandingly and the
+two men, regarding each other seriously over a long hand clasp, laid at
+that moment the foundation of a close friendship that was to last them
+to the end of their lives.
+
+"Poor old Ernest!" Roger broke the silence with a sigh.
+
+"Try not to think about him to-night, Roger," Charley laid a gentle hand
+on his arm. "You are so fearfully tired, I'm going to fix the porch
+couch and you must go to bed at once."
+
+Roger was glad to stretch out on the cot and close his weary eyes. But
+he could not sleep. The thrilling joy of Charley's welcome, the burning
+soft touch of her lips on his and with this, the sick sense of loss in
+the constantly recurring thought of Ernest combined to make sleep long
+in coming. He heard Dick, then Elsa call good night. He heard the
+subdued clatter of Charley in the kitchen making her breakfast
+preparations, and after a few minutes the sound of Felicia's alarm
+clock being wound for the night.
+
+"Charley!" he called softly.
+
+In a moment Charley's lovely head was outlined against the lamplight as
+she paused in the door.
+
+"Haven't you been asleep, Roger dear?"
+
+"Charley, how could Ernest have done it? I can't sleep for thinking
+about it."
+
+Charley came over to his cot and sitting down on the edge of it, lifted
+Roger's hot hand against her cheek. "You must realize that he thinks he
+loves the 'Vaterland' and that he is doing the best thing for the world
+in placing loyalty to Germany first."
+
+"Then he should be shot as a traitor," said Roger. "I can't believe that
+he thinks so crooked. Why, he's got a mind that's as pellucid as that
+spring Peter found in Lost Canyon."
+
+Charley smoothed his hair back from his forehead. "Poor old Roger! You
+may have been selfish toward your friends, but you certainly loved them.
+Try to go to sleep now, dearest. You'll need a clear head if you're
+going to save Ernest and the Solar Plant. Aren't the stars beautiful? I
+never lose my awe of their nearness in the desert."
+
+"They were wonderful over in the River Canyon," said Roger, relaxing
+with a long breath at Charley's touch on his forehead, while he clung
+closely to her other hand. "Do you really love me, Charley, my
+sweetheart?"
+
+Suddenly the girl slipped to her knees beside the cot and buried her
+face against his on the pillows. "Oh, Roger! Roger! Just as much and
+more than Felicia did and for nearly as long."
+
+"And I you," replied Roger, brokenly, "only I was such a self-centered
+fool I didn't know it. Don't kneel there, Charley, you're tired and must
+go to bed."
+
+"Oh, Roger! Roger! I've wanted you so! And the years have been so hard!
+Never leave me, dear! Don't make me go now! Let me watch here beside you
+till you sleep, just as you did for me that night Felicia died."
+
+"I'll never leave you, you darling! Even my work shall never drive me
+from you. We'll put things through together from now on. Oh, Charley! I
+don't deserve it!"
+
+"I know you don't!" this with a chuckle that was half a sob, "but
+somehow even old Peter can't bear to be separated from you."
+
+"Bless his old gray head! Charley, let me tell you about Peter and the
+river." Roger began eagerly but before his story was half finished his
+sentences were broken and finally ended abruptly. Roger was fast asleep.
+Charley, with a soft kiss on his hair, rose from the cramped position on
+her knees and went into the house. In a short time the adobe was in
+darkness and Peter, with a wisp of alfalfa on which he chewed
+meditatively, hanging from his mouth, leaned his gray head on the corral
+bars and eyed the stars unblinkingly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE BLACK BOX
+
+
+Roger was awakened the next morning by the sound of Dick uncrating the
+new pump. He rose at once feeling quite himself. He had his belated
+breakfast alone, with Charley hovering in attendance.
+
+"Ernest and Gustav are down at the old camp as usual," she reported.
+"What are you going to do to-day, Roger?"
+
+"I want to go through Von Minden's papers. If I'd done a thorough job on
+that in the beginning, all the trouble might have been obviated."
+
+"I don't know about that," said Charley. "It couldn't have been foreseen
+that Ernest would get in touch with Werner."
+
+"Will you help me?" asked Roger. "I want to get through before Werner
+comes."
+
+"Are you feeling fairly calm for the interview, dear?" Charley smoothed
+Roger's hair back, caressingly.
+
+"Calm!" Roger suddenly caught the girl to him in a passionate embrace.
+"Calm! I don't want to be calm when I think of you and all you are to
+me. Oh, my darling, my darling!"
+
+With Dick and Elsa's help, the Von Minden papers had been thoroughly
+gone over by mid-afternoon.
+
+It was well on toward four o'clock before Ernest appeared with his
+unwelcome guest. Dick had descried a dust-cloud on the Archer's Springs
+trail about three o'clock and they all had seen a buckboard with two
+figures in it drive into the Sun Camp.
+
+"Werner must have come," said Roger, only half succeeding in keeping his
+voice casual.
+
+Dick nodded. "Hackett was telling me that he'd finally made up his mind
+to get a tin Lizzy. These old-time cowboys do certainly hate to give up
+their horses, don't they? But when the Chinaman said that he was going
+to buy a jitney for the miners, poor Hackett had to give in. Of course,
+he'll still have to use his horses and the pack-train for mountain
+work."
+
+Roger grunted absentmindedly and stored Von Minden's box in the kitchen,
+as Hackett drove Werner and Ernest up to the corral.
+
+Herr Werner, badly sunburned and dusty, seemed unfeignedly glad to have
+reached the ranch. He greeted Elsa and Charley effusively, shook hands
+with Dick and showed Roger a mixture of cordiality and deference in
+manner that was irreproachable.
+
+Left alone in the living room with Roger and Ernest, he came to the
+point at once:
+
+"Wolf tells me, Mr. Moore, that you have been much angered at his
+selling the solar device to me."
+
+"I certainly have been and I haven't the least idea of letting the thing
+go through," replied Roger. "A considerable part of the money you
+advanced has been spent but I shall spend no more of it and my friend
+Preble can arrange a loan that will cover what has been spent."
+
+"You know, of course," Werner took an audible sip of lemonade, "that a
+bargain is a bargain and that the contract Wolf signed is binding."
+
+"Ordinarily, yes," said Roger, "but I have an idea that before I'm
+through with you, you'll be glad to let go."
+
+"For heaven's sake, Roger!" cried Ernest irritably, throwing his
+cigarette in the fireplace, and taking a quick turn up and down the
+room, "don't start a row."
+
+"If you mean not to lose my temper, I can promise that," returned Roger,
+"but Germany can never have my solar apparatus."
+
+"How're you going to help yourself?" asked Ernest, with an ugly edge to
+his voice.
+
+"There are ways! Mr. Werner, Von Minden was a part of Germany's great
+system, was he not, for exploiting America? He was one of your agents
+and his job was to outline the desert empire Germany plans to take over.
+But being German, like Ernest's father who never will take the human
+element into consideration, you didn't count on the desert's sending
+your poor tool crazy, so he blabbed. Gustav is your watch-dog and spy,
+keeping you in touch at present with all my doings. Your own activities,
+outside of these minor ones, I imagine, center round the banking and
+educational interests of America. You've seen to it that our high
+schools and universities produce students that admire Germany. I must
+say that you have been highly successful up to now. But the superman
+stuff is a bit thick, Mr. Werner. It makes our American gorge rise in
+our throats."
+
+Roger fingered his cold pipe, swallowed several times, looked out the
+open door where he could see Charley at the bars, rubbing Peter's head,
+then went on:
+
+"What you've done to Ernest is obvious. He's the sweetest tempered, most
+easily influenced chap in the world. You caught him in New York after
+he'd failed with the Smithsonian--probably after some spy in the
+Smithsonian had put you wise, and fed him up with the superman idea and
+he, poor mut, fell for it."
+
+"Roger!" shouted Ernest. "You can't talk about me as if I were
+feeble-minded."
+
+"But hang it, Ern, you have been!" exclaimed Roger. Then, with a little
+break in his voice, "I tell you, you've been thinking and speaking
+treason and I won't have it! I won't have it!"
+
+"Come! Come! Mr. Moore!" said Werner; "supposing what you've surmised
+should turn out to be true. Might is right in this world."
+
+"You can't draw me into a discussion of ethics, Mr. Werner. Ernest and
+I'll have that out afterward. I'm just telling you this, that Germany
+can't have my solar device and it can't have Ernest. There's enough
+evidence in that tin dispatch box of Von Minden's, Mr. Werner, almost to
+persuade Congress to declare war on your super-fatherland. There's
+enough evidence in that box to make headlines in every American paper
+for a month. What it would do to pro-German sentiment in this country is
+a caution."
+
+Werner's sunburned face went purple. "Gott im Himmel!" he roared. "Did
+the fool keep my letters?"
+
+"No, but he copied them into his journal, with all sorts of other data
+of vital interest to the American public. We had a very pleasant morning
+reading his journal. My great regret is that I've so neglected that
+document box."
+
+With surprising quickness for a stout man, Werner pulled a revolver from
+his hip pocket, and pointed it at Roger.
+
+"I want that box, Moore!" he roared.
+
+Quick as a cat, Ernest crossed the room, and with a twist of Werner's
+wrist disarmed him.
+
+"None of that!" he said.
+
+"Keep your shirt on, Mr. Werner!" said Roger. "You're going to need it,
+take my word for that!"
+
+Werner bit his nails for a moment. "Very well, sir. Give me back the box
+and I'll turn back the contract."
+
+"Not on your life! You turn back the contract and I'll give you a week
+to get out of the country before I turn the box over to the Department
+of Justice. Just one week, mind you, no more!"
+
+"Look here, Rog, you can't do that! It would be a dirty trick! Why, it's
+blackmail!" Ernest dropped the revolver on the table with a thud.
+
+"Good God, Ernest! Blackmail! Toward a man who is a spy--a man who plots
+against the physical and moral fiber of your country! Blackmail! Come
+out of your trance. There are some things that can't be done, Ern!
+Life's full of forbidden trails. My temper was one of them and poor old
+Dick's drinking was another. And the one most impossible of all for a
+real man to take is the one you're headed toward--a real man can't be
+renegade to his country."
+
+Werner, chewing nervously at his thumb knuckle, eyed Roger blackly. Then
+he turned abruptly to Ernest.
+
+"And you!" he roared. "A fine German you are, you milk sop! A beautiful
+muddle you've made of this. Von Minden's letters here for months and
+what use have they come to? There'd have been an Iron Cross in this for
+you, had you shown sense."
+
+Ernest gave a sudden short laugh. "An Iron Cross would have been a
+wonderful reward for breaking up a man's life friendship. An Iron Cross!
+My word! Where's your sense of humor, Werner?"
+
+"Come, Werner, the contract!" urged Roger.
+
+"Damn you!" shrieked the German, jerking a heavy envelope from his inner
+pocket and throwing it in Roger's face. Roger caught it and after
+examining the contents, put it into his own pocket with a nod.
+
+"Now, Mr. Werner," he said, "if you'll just annex Gustav, and plan to
+leave at sun down, Hackett will drive you in with Preble's team. I hate
+to lose Gustav. He was born to be a white man, poor devil."
+
+Werner cleared his throat and spoke sneeringly: "And how do I know
+you'll live up to your bargain, Moore?"
+
+"Oh, I'm an American! I promise to hold the papers a week and a promise
+isn't a scrap of paper in America. After the week's up, you won't enjoy
+the climate, I can assure you of that. I'll send you a check for the
+amount I've spent, next week, with the amount still untouched."
+
+"Roger!" shouted Ernest, "Don't be a fool! It's the chance of your life
+you're throwing down!"
+
+"Come with me, Wolf," cried Werner, "Come with me! I'll give you
+opportunities that you never dreamed of. You don't belong to this nation
+of thick-headed numb-skulls. You're a German. You know all that Moore
+knows about using solar heat. Come and help the Vaterland. Let this man
+rot. Bah! He belongs to a nation of swine!"
+
+There was silence in the adobe living room. Roger's face turned a slow
+purple and sweat stood on his forehead. But by a supreme effort he kept
+his clenched fists in his pockets and his eyes riveted on Ernest's.
+
+"Choose, Ernest," he said, suddenly.
+
+Ernest seemed scarcely to hear him. The sullenness that his face had
+worn constantly for many days changed slowly to a look of anger that
+distorted his features until his expression was demoniacal.
+
+He clutched the revolver and leaned across the table with a hoarse
+whisper:
+
+"By God, if you insult America again, I'll shoot you! It's one thing to
+admire Germany. It's another to sling mud at America."
+
+"What, you too, you hybrid!" shrieked Werner. "You play Germany into the
+hands of this swine; this monkey-headed inventor; this letter thief,
+this----"
+
+With an inarticulate roar, Ernest pulled the trigger just as Roger
+knocked the revolver upward. The bullet lodged in the ceiling. But
+Werner had had enough. While Roger clung to the roaring Ernest, he
+rushed down the trail to the corral, where Hackett began at once to
+hitch Dick's team to the buckboard.
+
+"Let go of me, Roger! Let me get at him!" howled Ernest.
+
+Dick came running up the trail. "It's all right, Dick, don't bother!"
+called Roger. "Leave us alone a little while longer. What's the matter,
+Ernest? Be quiet, man! Let's talk like men and not row like a couple of
+dogs."
+
+Roger eased Ernest into a chair and Ernest ceased to struggle, but
+stared at Roger gloomily.
+
+"Well, what are you going to do about it?" he asked sullenly.
+
+"I'm going to make you see the error of your ways." Roger smiled grimly.
+"Use your common sense, Ernest. What could Germany give you, except
+money? All your life ties are here."
+
+"Wonderful ties!" sneered Ernest. "Charley has turned me down, my father
+has turned me out and you've beaten me up."
+
+Roger concealed a grin. "Poor old chap!" he murmured. "So a woman's at
+the bottom of it all, eh?"
+
+"I don't know why her refusing me affected me so," said Ernest, as if to
+himself. "But I felt as if nothing mattered. And then to have the Sun
+Plant a failure and my father's attitude! O pshaw, what's the use? Let
+me alone, Roger. I'm going to pack up and get out of here."
+
+"Ernest," said Roger, "if you don't stay by while we straighten this
+out, I'll never get over it and no more will you. We've loved each other
+too long, Ern. Our lives have become interwoven. If we break now we'll
+go lame all our days. You know that, don't you, old man? You folks have
+all done so much for me. I've got to keep your friendship in order to
+pay up some of my indebtedness, eh, Ernie?"
+
+Ernest drew a long breath and suddenly dropped his head into his hands
+and burst into tears.
+
+"And now I'm crying!" he said. "Now I'm crying! There's no limit to my
+weakness."
+
+Roger, still with a little twisted grin, lighted a cigarette. "A peach
+of a superman you are, eh, Ern?"
+
+Ernest did not answer and Roger walked up and down the room, waiting.
+Finally Ernest lifted his flushed face and took the cigarette which
+Roger offered him, and began to speak, rapidly:
+
+"I was desperate, after the Smithsonian turned me down. Seems that they
+didn't like the look of things Austin did and that's why they dropped
+you. Werner looked me up. I found out later that Gustav had kept him
+informed, and that Werner had got Austin just as they got me. I honestly
+thought I was doing a great thing for you and the world, Rog. Werner
+showed me a list of names of people in this country that're helping
+Germany that would make your eyes start. And he was always praising
+America."
+
+"Ernest, has Werner any drawings of the plant?" asked Roger.
+
+"No, he hasn't."
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Yes, because that's the first thing he asked me for, this afternoon.
+All our stuff that Austin had, his widow burned with his other papers.
+She said he told her to if anything happened to him. And you know I
+brought yours back, as I promised. What Gustav may have sent him I don't
+know, but evidently not satisfactory drawings or he wouldn't have been
+so keen to get more!"
+
+"I wonder about the new engine," mused Roger. "Well, I have little fear
+of that. Gustav isn't enough of an engineer to guess what he doesn't
+see. He couldn't make a drawing of the idea of that engine to save his
+neck. And Dean Erskine's got the only plan I ever finished of it."
+
+"I'm sure you're safe on that," insisted Ernest.
+
+"I think I am," agreed Roger, "and now, Ernest, I want to know how I can
+square up with you for my attack on you the other night."
+
+Ernest looked up at Roger and the sullen look which even his tears had
+not washed out lifted a little.
+
+"You mean--?" he asked.
+
+"I mean that I had no business attacking you as I did. It was a rotten
+trick and I'm ashamed and sorry. My temper has been a brutal thing and
+you've always put up with it. If we can clear this thing up, I'm going
+to do better by you, Ern."
+
+There was a curious look in Ernest's beautiful eyes. "Do you know, I
+hoped for twenty years you'd get to see yourself in that light," he
+spoke thoughtfully. "What you've just said does away with any resentment
+I may have had about your temper, Roger. As for the other thing--" He
+paused.
+
+"Ern, how could you do it?" asked Roger huskily.
+
+"Before heaven, Roger, I did it solely for love of you. And you know I
+was brought up on admiration of Germany. I honestly thought that we
+could make you see it as I do. I've been seeing for days what a skunk
+trick it must have looked to you, but this obstinate streak in me
+wouldn't let me give up until Werner slanged America. Rog, I'll make it
+up to you somehow so you'll trust me again! See if I don't!"
+
+"I'll trust you fast enough, old man, if you'll assure me that you're
+through with this superman stuff. Are you an American or a German,
+Ern?"
+
+With a smile of extraordinary sweetness, Ernest put a hand on Roger's
+shoulder and said in a voice of utter sincerity, "I'm whatever you are,
+Roger. Thy country shall be my country and thy God, my God. After all,
+what is a man's country but the place of his loves and his friendships?
+And America has all of mine, Roger, all of mine."
+
+The two men stood in silence after this until Roger said, brokenly,
+"Thank you, Ernest, you've made a new man of me."
+
+"And now," said Ernest, briskly, "being considerably worse in debt than
+ever, the question before the house is whom do we do next?"
+
+"I don't know! I swear I don't," Roger sighed, as he took one of
+Ernest's cigarettes.
+
+Ernest gave a scornful laugh. "He doesn't know! the poor little woolly
+lamb! He doesn't know! with a plant such as is now established in the
+Prebles' backyard! Why, man, I could sell that to an Egyptian mummy."
+
+Roger laughed and at the sound Dick called in through the open door,
+
+"For the love of heaven, put us out of our misery! What's happened?
+We've been sweating blood!"
+
+Both men hurried out to the porch. Seated in a solemn row on the steps
+were Charley, Dick and Elsa.
+
+Ernest looked at Roger pleadingly. "You tell them, Rog. I want to attend
+to something in the tent."
+
+Roger sat down beside Charley and told the story. When it was finished,
+Dick said, "Are you sure he's not German, Roger?"
+
+"Certainly he's not any longer!" exclaimed Elsa. "The strongest thing in
+Ernest's life is his love for Roger. He'll never give any woman what
+he's given Roger. That love has saved Ernest and will keep him safe. Oh,
+I'm so thankful! So thankful!"
+
+"Don't cry, Elsa! I've had all the emotion I can stand in one day,"
+cried Roger.
+
+"I wouldn't waste a tear on either of you," returned Elsa, stoutly as
+she wiped her eyes. "Come along, Dicky belovedest. You're the only one
+who treats me with respect. I'm going to cook you the most perfect
+biscuits ever invented for supper."
+
+Ernest came into supper that night and after the first moment of
+embarrassment, the meal resolved itself into a frank discussion of ways
+and means, quite as if nothing had happened. Roger flatly refused to
+take Dick's possible loan.
+
+"You keep that for a rainy day fall back," he said. "You and Elsa aren't
+going to have smooth sledding for a long time yet."
+
+"How about you and Charley?" returned Dick. "Don't forget you've got a
+woman to provide for now!"
+
+"Thanks for reminding me," smiled Roger. "She's an extravagant minx too
+and accustomed to luxury."
+
+"Well, something will turn up, see if it doesn't," said Ernest. "In the
+meantime, there's considerable work to be done before Roger can claim
+that he's irrigating twenty-five acres of alfalfa. I'll guarantee that
+something will turn up before he's able to do that."
+
+"Looks to me as if I were going to cash in pretty heavily on this
+business," said Dick. "Well, I'll supply you alfalfa for the rest of
+your lives."
+
+"Thank you for nothing," returned Charley, sweetly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+PAPA WOLF
+
+
+October came in with a decided diminution of heat and with an accented
+brilliancy in sky and sand. The work of getting the remainder of the
+twenty-five acres into alfalfa went on rapidly. And in spite of the
+money uncertainty, there was the lift of hopefulness and happiness in
+the atmosphere of the ranch.
+
+The alfalfa grew amazingly. One morning Elsa electrified the ranch by
+announcing that the second field now in blossom was full of wild bees.
+No one believed her. Every one decamped at once to the field. It was
+quite true. Far and wide swept the burning barrens of the desert. But
+close about corral and pumping plant crowded the unbelievable verdure of
+alfalfa with the fringed green lines of cottonwoods on its borders
+silhouetted against the sullen yellow sand. And wild bees, drunk with
+rapturous surprise, buzzed thick in the heavy blossoms. Whence they came
+no one could guess. Dick was willing to wager that there was nothing
+else within a hundred miles on which a bee might feed.
+
+It was early morning. Roger and Charley allowed the others to drift back
+to their various occupations while they remained to watch the field.
+Seated side by side on a rock heap, Roger's arm around Charley's
+shoulders, they listened to the humming of the bees.
+
+"If you weren't here, it would make me homesick," said Roger. "I can
+shut my eyes and see the old Preble farm and my mother in her phlox bed,
+calling to me to drive the bees away. I wonder if a fellow ever gets
+over his heartache for his mother."
+
+"Not the right kind of a fellow for the right kind of a mother," replied
+Charley, lifting Roger's hand against her cheek. "The price we pay for
+any kind of love is pain."
+
+"I hope when yours and my time comes to go we can go together," said
+Roger, "and that we won't have to start until our work is done. Queer
+how life's values shift. When I came down here, the thing I wanted most
+in life was to make a success of heat engineering. I thought it was
+impossible for me to reach an equal degree of desire about anything
+else. And now, while I want just as much as ever to go on with my
+profession, successfully, I want a thousand times more to be your
+husband and to be the right kind of a husband. I never have pipe-dreamed
+much about marriage, though I've done my share of flirting in my day.
+But for the first time in my life I realize that Bobby Burns knew what
+human life is in its innermost essence when he said:
+
+    "'To make a happy fireside clime for wean and wife,
+    That's the true purpose and sublime, of human life!'"
+
+Charley did not speak but she turned and looked into Roger's blue eyes
+with her own bespeaking a depth of feeling that was beyond words. Roger,
+looking at the splendid brow above the brown eyes, kissed it reverently
+and then gazing at the beautiful curving mouth, he crushed his lips to
+Charley's. Then again they sat watching the bees in the alfalfa.
+
+Charley noted before Roger the sound of hoof beats and looking round,
+beheld Hackett's two seated buckboard crawling slowly toward them.
+
+"Who on earth now!" exclaimed Roger. "It can't be--yes, by Jove it is
+Dean Erskine--and--and Mamma and Papa Wolf! Oh, Elsa and Dick are going
+to have real trouble now!"
+
+They hurried round to the corral, and shouted to the others so that the
+whole ranch was present to welcome the travelers. Ernest was first,
+lifting his mother bodily to the ground and kissing her a dozen times
+before Elsa had a chance.
+
+"Guess I can pull off a surprise party when I try!" he shouted. "Here,
+Papa, this is Charley. Don't you remember the little roly-poly who used
+to play in the swimming pool? And Dick--who tried to boss us."
+
+"Come up to the house! I know you're half dead," said Charley, leading
+the way as she spoke.
+
+"I don't want to go into any house till I've seen the Plant," exclaimed
+Dean Erskine, wiping the sand from his face.
+
+"Not a Plant for me, but coffee and some shade and a little breeze,
+maybe," cried Papa Wolf.
+
+"Better have some breakfast first, Dean," suggested Roger. "There's a
+long story goes with seeing the plant."
+
+"There's a long story goes with a number of things here I would
+suspect," grunted Papa Wolf, mounting the steps to the porch.
+
+"Now, Papa, don't try to talk until you've eaten," called Mamma
+anxiously, from Ernest's arm. "Oh, but children, this is very pleasant,"
+as the party entered the living room. "How do you keep it so cool and
+how have you endured this dreadful heat?"
+
+"Heat!" laughed Elsa, "why, Mamma, this is our cool fall weather we're
+having now. You should have been here in the good old summer time."
+
+"God forbid, if it was warmer than this yet. Papa, take off your coat,
+and you too, Dean." Mamma lifted her dusty little black hat from a very
+flushed forehead. "These boys look cool in their flannel shirts and you
+so hot in your coats. And see what a nice fine place and a nice clock
+and a--"
+
+"Hold, Mamma! Hold! You needn't talk every minute," interrupted Papa
+Wolf. "I promised to say nothing until we all have eaten. So now, enjoy
+your breakfast."
+
+But Papa and probably the Dean were the only persons who really enjoyed
+the meal. Elsa was plainly rattled and Dick whose worn face recently had
+looked much less haggard had settled again into lines of suffering.
+Except in looking after the guests' comfort, he had nothing to say.
+Charley and Roger were apprehensive as to the outcome of what was
+plainly to be a family row. Ernest, who talked a great deal, seemed
+excited and uneasy.
+
+When the coffee pot had been emptied and pipes and cigars lighted, Dean
+Erskine rose. He was small and thin and his Van Dyke beard was nearly
+white but he still gave the impression of tremendous nervous energy.
+
+"Now, I'm ready for the Plant, Roger," he said energetically.
+
+"No! No! The Plant can wait!" protested Papa. "You know all about why we
+have come, Dean, and I want you to stay and lend your good sense to the
+interview."
+
+"But my dear Wolf, it will be very unpleasant for me," exclaimed the
+Dean.
+
+"And for me!" added Roger.
+
+"For you, Roger! Why you're the cause of all our troubles and the Dean
+has backed you in all! Come now, don't be a coward. See it through! I
+must take my two children back with me. That is settled."
+
+"Is that what brought you down here, Papa?" inquired Elsa.
+
+"Ernest's letter brought me down here. It's the only letter he has
+written me since he left my roof. But it was most important."
+
+"You see, it was this way," Ernest cleared his throat, nervously, but
+his blue eyes were steady. "You told me not to communicate with you, but
+I've written regularly to Mother. So, of course, it amounted to the same
+thing. Naturally, I've tried not to write you about our worries. But
+finally, I made up my mind, Papa, that you needed to learn one or two
+things that I had learned down here. I knew there was no use in my
+asking you to come, so I merely wrote you of Elsa's engagement."
+
+Ernest turned to his sister and Dick, who sat side by side on the
+living-room cot.
+
+"I'm not going to apologize to you two. Mamma and Papa had to know
+sometime or other. And I wanted Papa down here."
+
+"You should have let me write, Ernest. I might have given myself a fair
+show, I think." Dick's voice was bitter.
+
+"I did you no harm in the long run, Dick, old man," said Ernest,
+eagerly. "Just bear with me for a while."
+
+"Ernie, you always were an old butter-in," cried Elsa angrily. "As if I
+weren't perfectly capable of managing my own affairs. Now you've ruined
+everything. Papa, I am going to marry Dick. Mamma, you will love him."
+
+"Wait, Elsa, wait," exclaimed Ernest.
+
+But Papa could not wait. "Marry a Preble!" he roared. "Marry a drunkard,
+the son of a drunkard! Oh, don't try to hush me, Mamma! You know you're
+just as anxious about the matter as I am. I had the Dean look Dick
+Preble up. His record in college was that of a drunken rounder. His
+father drank the old farm up, you remember that, Roger."
+
+"I remember folks said so, but all I know and all I want to know about
+Dick is what he is now. He's a new man and a mighty fine one."
+
+"Impossible! His father--"
+
+Dick jumped to his feet, but Charley spoke first. "Leave our father
+absolutely out of this, Mr. Wolf, if you please. He's not here to defend
+himself. Dick is."
+
+"Impossible!" roared Papa Wolf.
+
+Charley crossed the room swiftly and standing in all the dignity of her
+good height and her quiet beauty, she looked down on Papa Wolf.
+
+"I am telling you," she did not raise her voice, "not to include my
+father or my mother in this conversation. My brother and I stand on our
+own reputations and no one else's."
+
+Papa Wolf swallowed two or three times. "But inheritance," he said
+feebly.
+
+"Nobody inherits the drink habit," returned Charley, disdainfully. "You
+can inherit a weak will but not a habit. Dick drank because he thought
+he was going to die and he went the pace, thinking like other fool men
+that he was living life to the full, in that way. By the time he had
+been cured of his illness, he had the drink appetite. But he's cured of
+that now."
+
+"How do you know?" asked Papa Wolf, belligerently.
+
+"Because I know," replied Charley, shortly, returning to her chair,
+while Dick and Elsa stared at her, astonishment and gratitude both
+struggling in their faces.
+
+"Well, do I want my daughter to marry a man who's been a bum, eh? Do you
+think I, Karl Wolf--"
+
+"Hold on, Mr. Wolf," interrupted Dick. "I never was a bum. Drink was my
+failing. I've always, with Charley's help, paid my own way. I have a
+real business down here now. Elsa loves the desert life and she loves
+me. I can take care of her and make her happy, I know."
+
+"You know, huh! Yet you remember Elsa's home. All its luxury?"
+
+"Yes, I remember Elsa's home and I remember that Elsa and her mother
+were high class, unpaid servants in that home."
+
+Papa Wolf jumped to his feet. Ernest laid a hand on his arm.
+
+"Wait now, Papa. You've got the top layer off your chest. Now I'm going
+to tell you the inside story of what has happened in this desert in the
+seven or eight months. Light your pipe, Papa. It's going to be a long
+story."
+
+"Pipe! Pipe! I will not light my pipe!"
+
+"Why not? Nobody's married yet. You've got days and weeks if you wish to
+argue about that and you'll be liking Dick better all the time you're
+arguing. Now Elsa's marriage isn't the important matter you've to decide
+down here, at all. Light your pipe. Papa dear! You always did give me
+good advice, except about coming down here. Here, take a fresh box of
+matches."
+
+Papa Wolf, established once more, Ernest took a turn or two up and down
+the room, coming finally to a stop before the empty fire place. Roger,
+looking at his chum closely, realized suddenly that Ernest had aged in
+the past few months. There were lines around his eyes and his lips.
+Ernest looked from his father to his mother with a little smile.
+
+"Roger and I, in spite of our thirty years, were unsophisticated kids
+when we came into this country. I think we're grown up now. I think
+we're pretty certain to go a straight and decent trail to the end. But
+that I came mighty near to going a forbidden trail as Roger calls it, is
+your fault, Papa--and yours, Dean Erskine."
+
+He paused and although the Dean and Ernest's father looked at each other
+in amazement, neither interrupted and the younger man went on.
+
+"I never saw death until I came down here--I never knew love. I never
+knew real work. But here I have learned all three. We have lived here
+with an intensity as great as the heat. The--the primal passions have
+shaken us, Papa--and burned us clean--You know some creeds speak of
+Christ's hours between the Last Supper and His death as the passion of
+the cross. Sometimes I feel as if I could call my months down here my
+passion of the desert."
+
+Again Ernest paused, and those who had lived with him through these
+months of passion--passion of joy, of fear, of sorrow, of love, of
+personal grief and of world pain, listened with astonishment that
+jovial, easy-going Ernest should have felt as deeply as they.
+
+"Mrs. von Minden died first. Roger and Dick found her dead up in a
+remote canyon. She had thirsted to death. I wrote Elsa of her but not of
+her death. That would have set you to worrying about me, Mütterchen. She
+had the little black box with her that I wrote Elsa she had demanded
+from her husband. Whether she found in it what she wanted no one will
+ever know. But her death ended one of those strange, feverish life
+dramas that this trackless desert is always turning up. Next they found
+Von Minden, alone except for Peter. (You must meet Peter, Papa.) He
+probably died of heart failure. We don't know how she got the box away
+from him. Maybe she poisoned him. And next Felicia,--Felicia was exactly
+as Charley was, Mamma, when she used to come to play with us in the
+pool."
+
+Ernest looked at Charley--"I've got to talk about her, Charley, to make
+them understand."
+
+Charley moistened her lips, but nodded and Dick put his hand over his
+eyes.
+
+"She was like Charley too in that she was the kind of a girl that decent
+men instinctively love--not with one of these headlong, unreasoning
+loves, you understand. But with the kind of a deep-seated adoration for
+beauty and goodness and brain that gets a man where he lives and never
+leaves him. That's the way I got to caring for Charley and that's the
+way, in embryo, we all loved Felicia.
+
+"In the meantime, you understand we were all working like the very devil
+to get the plant up and the alfalfa in. I wrote home of that. How
+difficult the work here in the desert was is beyond description. And,
+what made it more difficult, after the Smithsonian turned Roger down, he
+got to working against time, and though he never said much, he gave an
+atmosphere of desperate hurry and worry to the camp, that simply got us
+all strung up to the breaking point. At intervals, too, he lost that
+famous temper of his. These tempers upset Felicia terribly."
+
+Roger filled his pipe with fingers that trembled a little. But Ernest
+was staring out the door now, with eyes that saw nothing.
+
+"Dick varied the monotony two or three times by getting drunk. He is an
+ugly whelp when he's drunk. Once he knocked Charley down and Felicia saw
+it and Roger and he mixed up over it and Elsa finally straightened it
+out, and we let him out of Coventry. But the next time he got drunk,
+Felicia, in her fright, ran away into the desert and was killed by a
+rattler. Charley and Roger found her. It nearly killed us all. But it
+cured Dick of drinking--that's one reason why I'm telling you. Don't
+cry, Mütterchen."
+
+"But you have Charley, Ernie! You have Charley!" sobbed his mother.
+
+"No, I haven't Charley. Roger has Charley. None of us deserved her, but
+Roger is nearer fit than the rest."
+
+"Don't, Ernest!" pleaded Charley.
+
+"I must, Charley. You'll see in a few moments what I'm getting at. Well,
+Papa, in the meantime, there was no money and it looked as if there
+would be no food. Roger's plant didn't work out as we'd planned. I wrote
+home the difficulties even of hanging a door. You can picture Roger
+trying to build a new engine out of wire and a string he had tramped ten
+miles into the ranges to find and steal. The alfalfa was dying for lack
+of water and there was no adequate pumping system even if we'd had
+adequate water.
+
+"It was at this point that I decided to go to Washington, Papa, and try
+the Smithsonian. You would have been the one, naturally, for me to turn
+to, but even if I'd had the inclination, which I hadn't, Roger
+absolutely wouldn't stand for the suggestion. So I went to Washington,
+all sort of strung up, you understand, and in bad mental trim because
+of--of everything. And in Washington I got a good swift kick. So I went
+to New York and spent the rest of Elsa's good money on Broadway. It
+didn't take me very far but when I went broke, I looked up your friend
+Werner. This is the point where you come in too, Dean Erskine.
+
+"Now I had been brought up at home, naturally, to worship all things
+German. I liked to think of myself not as an American but as a German.
+At school, this home influence should have been counteracted if America
+expects to make real citizens. But it wasn't. The High School taught us
+German and no other modern language. In college, all things mental
+centered on the German idea in the majority of the departments. And
+your department was the worst of all, Dean. You are a Germanophile
+yourself and you taught your students to be.
+
+"So behold me, calling on Werner and finding that Werner among other
+activities has been the head of an organized effort on the part of the
+German government for twenty years to Germanize America--through
+schools, churches, singing societies--oh, countless ways. And he was
+deeply worried about our British sympathies. And he wanted my influence
+in the college and elsewhere and he wanted Roger's big mechanical brain
+for Germany and so he offered me fifty thousand dollars for the Sun
+Plant and I took it."
+
+"Fine! Wonderful!" exclaimed Papa Wolf.
+
+"So I thought," said Ernest dryly, "but Roger and the others here
+thought differently. In fact when Roger found out about Werner, he tried
+to kill me, and then went away into the mountains with Peter for three
+days."
+
+"Oh, Ernie! Oh, Roger!" moaned Mamma Wolf.
+
+Papa Wolf's lips tightened. "But why, Roger?" he demanded.
+
+"Wait, Roger! I'm telling the story. Rog tried to kill me for selling
+out secretly the idea that was bone of his bone. He tried to kill me
+because I sold it to a government that has gone through Belgium like a
+Hunnish horde, and because I claimed to admire it for that. Well, he
+didn't kill me and I was very sore and decided to go to Germany to live.
+Then Werner came down to settle details with Roger, and Roger told him
+what was in the black box and made him give back the contract."
+
+"The black box! What black box?" asked Dean Erskine.
+
+"The Von Mindens' black box. When I brought back word that Werner wanted
+it, Roger and Charley read the contents. It developed that Von Minden
+was one of a group working for the German government with the idea of
+making Arizona and New Mexico into German colonies. Gustav--you remember
+my writing of Gustav--was Werner's spy, keeping Werner informed of our
+every move and what he could about Von Minden."
+
+"I don't believe a word of it! Not a word! It's all British influence,"
+exclaimed Papa Wolf stoutly.
+
+"You'll have to believe it, because it's true," returned Ernest. "Roger
+was angry and threw Werner and Gustav out of the camp and made me choose
+between him and Werner. I chose Roger, because the time had come in my
+life when I'd got to make a tremendous decision. It's one you've got to
+make, Papa, and so has the Dean. I wanted you to make it my way. That's
+why I got you down here to see the things that I'd been up against."
+
+"You don't intend to ask us to break our neutrality, surely, Ernest,"
+protested Dean Erskine.
+
+"I'll develop your job in just a moment, Dean. Papa, what I want is that
+you repudiate Werner and all his works, and undertake to finance Roger's
+project."
+
+"My heavens, Ern!" cried Roger.
+
+"Tut! Tut! Rog--you be quiet. Dean, your job is to sell the Plant to my
+father, after you've both made your decision."
+
+"I cannot understand your talking to me in this manner, Ernest,"
+shouted Papa Wolf, pounding on the table till the belated breakfast
+dishes rattled.
+
+"I'll explain," said Ernest, imperturbably. "There's love of human
+beings. There's love of work. There's love of country. They make up a
+man's life. I had the first two and I thought that they were enough. But
+lately, I've discovered differently and I think a good many people in
+this country are finding out the same thing. I never gave the matter any
+thought until the Werner episode. Then I began to examine this thing
+called patriotism and I found that it was the very wellspring of a man's
+usefulness as a citizen. Without it family pride is a travesty. Without
+it, the impulse to build up sane and humane and lasting governments is
+lacking. Without it, a man may be ever so learned, ever so rich, yet he
+lacks any real place in community life. Patriotism is to a man's
+community life what religion is to his moral life.
+
+"Now I intend to lead a full, normal man's life. I want to love a
+country, and I couldn't see, when I got down to brass tacks, why that
+country should be Germany. This is the land that bred me and fed me.
+Actually I'm a physical part of the soil of America. What do I care how
+cultured Germany may or may not be? Here in America are the hills and
+valleys, the rivers and mountains that I know and care for. Here is the
+kind of government I like. Here is the place of my profession. I
+wouldn't marry a German fräulein for anything. A slangy, athletic,
+bossy, saucy, well-educated American girl for mine! All the people that
+I love are here in America. You folks and all the relatives are here.
+Roger is here, Charley is here and up there on an American mountainside
+lies little Felicia. Papa, I am an American, not a German."
+
+Again there was full silence in the room. Then Dean Erskine cleared his
+throat. "Ernest, I want to thank you very much. I, too, am an American."
+
+Papa Wolf blew his nose and walked slowly out of the house. There was no
+one in the room who had not been moved deeply by the something poignant
+in Ernest's face, even though his voice was so sedulously casual. Before
+any one else had opportunity to speak however, Papa Wolf was back.
+
+"I don't believe a word about Werner," he said to Ernest. "But I am
+surprised, Ernest, after your upbringing that you should have deceived
+Roger as you did."
+
+"But are you an American, Papa?" persisted Ernest.
+
+"You numb-skull!" shouted his father. "I have been an American longer
+than you have hairs to your head. It's my land, even if I am sentimental
+about Germany."
+
+Once more he marched out the door.
+
+"Come, Dean, and see the Plant," said Roger. The Dean rose with alacrity
+and bumped into Papa Wolf, who came in again shaking his head.
+
+"I don't see, Ernie, how you could have treated Roger so. Of course, I
+think he's crazy and all his works. But I've always loved him, though I
+was and am very mad at him for bringing you down here. I don't see how
+you could have done it."
+
+"I thought I owed it to Germany and that it would help him. You forget
+my German superman upbringing."
+
+"I'll look at the Plant, of course," said Papa Wolf, "just to see what
+you have wasted your life blood on. But not one cent of money, boys."
+
+"I don't want your money, sir," exclaimed Roger, proudly.
+
+"You don't eh! Then we're all satisfied," returned Ernest's father,
+following the Dean out of the door.
+
+The last place inspected was the engine house. Ernest made a simple
+explanation of the machinery while the Dean went over the engine almost
+as lovingly and keenly as Roger would have. Then Roger led the Dean back
+to the porch for a talk.
+
+"So this is the result of all your years of work, eh, Ernie?" said Papa
+Wolf. "Do you mean to say that you made that machine out of your own
+head?"
+
+"I only helped Roger," replied Ernest, "but it means a lot to me.
+Father, this solar work of ours will be recorded in history as the
+beginning of a new harnessing of energy."
+
+The older man looked at his son with interest. "You should have taken
+the trouble to explain all this to me, years ago, my son."
+
+"I know it," replied Ernest. "Well, anyhow, I've done my bit down here.
+When you go back I'll go back with you. I'm a teacher, not a pioneer."
+
+Papa Wolf seized both of Ernest's hand. "No! Really! Ernest, you really
+will go on with the professorship! Then I am satisfied. But we must not
+let this work be in vain. This child of your mind, Ernest, it must be
+recorded. It will help you in your professorship, eh?"
+
+Ernest nodded. "It's really a great thing, father. Roger has a wonderful
+mind."
+
+"He's got a good mind, yes, but I'm asking you where would he have been
+all these years without my boy? O Ernie! Ernie! You've taken ten years
+off me! Now, you let me think. I'll sit and watch this engine of yours.
+You go along about your work, Ernie." And Ernest, a tired look in his
+eyes, went along as he was bidden.
+
+It was dinner time before the tour of inspection was done. Mamma Wolf
+spent the morning, after a nap, helping the girls to prepare a huge
+dinner. She and Elsa wept a little on each other's necks, and Mamma Wolf
+promised to take Dick to her heart and love him as another son. And
+somehow Elsa put full faith in Ernest's bringing his father around.
+
+No one talked business or politics at dinner. There were many details of
+the camp life to be told and many stories of the Von Mindens that
+invariably brought Papa Wolf to the verge of apoplexy with laughter.
+Ernest never had been more charming than he was now. And by some magic
+of his own, he drew Dick out to tell the story of his turquoise mining.
+Like almost any story of desert endeavor it was full of drama, of quiet
+heroism, and of weird humor. Papa and Mamma Wolf hung breathless on
+every word of it.
+
+"Himmel!" exclaimed Papa at the end, "if I were thirty years younger,
+I'd like just such adventuring!" The others looked at one another and
+smiled.
+
+When the long dinner hour was over, Papa Wolf lighted his meerschaum.
+"And now let's look at that engine again. You should come and see it,
+Mamma. Run by sunshine and almost as silent as the sun and powerful like
+it. Wonderful! Wonderful!"
+
+"You've hardly looked at the alfalfa, Papa," said Ernest.
+
+"Plenty of time for that. One thing at a time. Come along, Dean. If you
+should explain that engine through to me two or three times more, I'll
+understand it. Ernest and Roger, they never thought to take old Papa to
+see the working model at the University. They thought because I was a
+fool about the working drawings, I knew nothing. Come on, Dean! Come
+along."
+
+Seated on two up-ended boxes before the engine, the two gray headed men
+spent the afternoon. The Dean could have been enticed away to examine
+the alfalfa and the pumping system. But not Papa. He went out at
+intervals to look at the absorber and to read the thermometer at the oil
+storage pit, then back to the engine.
+
+"And this is what Ernie has been working on for all these years. And I
+never could get it through my old head."
+
+"Ernest and Roger too," the Dean would suggest.
+
+"Of course, Roger. But you know Ernest and his fine mind. Observe now,
+Dean, out there the parching, cruel sun, that strikes and kills. Here
+Ernest's magic, this silent machine that catches that sun and turns its
+death kiss into life. And out there, where the honey bees buzz, the
+magic made vital. My boy's brain did such miracles and I never knew it
+until now. I even forbade him the house when he insisted on giving birth
+to his idea."
+
+The others drifted in and out and at last the supper hour came and once
+more the clan gathered at the familiar table.
+
+"Why, Papa, I haven't seen you with such appetite or with such spirits
+since last Christmas," said Mamma.
+
+"You haven't seen me with such cause. And how mad I was when I came--eh,
+Mamma!"
+
+"You know, Papa," said Ernest, "we never could have put over the Plant
+if it hadn't been for the Prebles. I swear Charley has fed us and Dick
+has guided us and had faith in us when it seemed as if the whole world
+outside had turned us down."
+
+"Is it so?" exclaimed Papa as if realizing that fact for the first time.
+"So you stood by my boy, eh, Dick? Well, that's good! My boy has stood
+by you and so will I. Now listen, boys. Why can't I do a little
+adventuring, eh? Let's make this a thousand acre Plant. And the Dean
+says that this engine will put every other low temperature, high speed
+engine off the market. Why not build some and sell them, eh?"
+
+"But Mr. Wolf," said Roger. "I haven't felt as if you ought to put money
+in. If anything should go wrong and you should lose by it, I'd never
+forgive myself."
+
+Papa Wolf put his hand on Roger's knee. "Roger, I've known you since you
+were born and I loved your father. He died a disappointed man. When I
+think of the things Ernie said this morning I realize that perhaps if
+I'd been a better patriot I wouldn't have let a man so valuable to the
+community die a disappointed man. Now you're an even more valuable man
+than your father was, and so is Ernest. Shall I wait for outsiders to do
+for my son and your father's son? Or shall I help you organize so as to
+develop this hot country for America? And again I did my only son an
+unkindness in not understanding his work--almost a fatal unkindness.
+Suppose he had left us for Germany. Shall I not make it up to him? And
+lastly, my son treated you dishonorably. Shall he and I not together try
+to make it up?"
+
+Roger's tense face worked.
+
+"Now, don't speak! I know how you feel," cried Papa. "Now I have more
+than enough tucked away for Mamma and me. And I have two friends, one in
+the brewery, one in the bank. We can organize a company. We have Dick's
+ranch and the turquoise mine and Ernest's and your plant. We can get
+plenty of money. I'll make all those Männerchors come down here. We'll
+irrigate this whole desert. We'll open up mines--we'll--"
+
+He got up to pace the floor. "Why there's an empire here for Uncle Sam
+that the Reclamation Service can't handle. We'll do it."
+
+"Roger has talked of Asia Minor," said Dick, with twinkling eyes.
+
+"Well, we'll tackle that later," replied Papa dreamily. "America is a
+good field. Dean, are you coming in with us?"
+
+"Thanks," returned the Dean. "But Ernest and I have another job,
+fighting _furor Teutonicus_ up at the university. But I'll be on hand
+for such advice as I can give."
+
+"I think," Papa went on after a brisk nod, "we'll spend a month or so
+down here, Mamma and I. Ernest, you can go on up and open the house and
+we'll be back after Christmas. If all works well, I'll have to spend a
+part of each year down here. Dick, can't you get those Indians you talk
+of to build Mamma and Ernie and me a little house, near by? Then you
+and Elsa can have this and Charley and Roger must build them a little
+nest somewhere. And we all are fixed, see!"
+
+There was a little pause, then Elsa ran across the room and threw
+herself in her father's arms. "Oh, Papa! Papa! I never knew what a saint
+you were until now."
+
+Papa Wolf smoothed Elsa's hair tenderly. "I still think you are a fool,
+Elschen. But if your mother and I are down here to watch closely--the
+very first time, sir," he glared at Dick, "that I find--"
+
+"You won't have to do anything, Mr. Wolf," said Dick. "I'll cut my
+throat."
+
+"Don't talk silly," exclaimed Papa. "Just try to be a good boy and we'll
+help. Of course, I think Elsa is a fool but I thought Ernest was one and
+now look!"
+
+The Dean slipped out, unobserved and a moment later Charley whispered to
+Roger,
+
+"Let's get out and let Dick have his chance to clear everything up."
+
+And so Roger and Charley found themselves alone, under the stars.
+
+"I just can't realize it, at all, can you, Roger dearest?" asked
+Charley.
+
+Roger did not answer for a moment. They were standing beside the corral,
+looking toward the shadowy mountainside where lay Felicia's grave.
+
+"I wish I could believe she saw and knew everything," he said, brokenly.
+Then as Charley said nothing, he turned and took her in his arms with a
+sudden passion that found expression in hot kisses and half broken
+sentences.
+
+"Oh, Charley! Charley! After all I'm not a failure. I am--Darling, you
+do love me, you are sure of that--! How beautiful you are! How
+beautiful! You are as lovely as the desert. God, Charley, but I'm
+happy!"
+
+Charley, clinging to him speechlessly, finally raised her head, and
+looked with Roger across the desert night of silence and blue, while the
+rich sense of space, of mystery, of heaven very near and life's
+bitternesses far away touched them both at once. And Peter, a wisp of
+cat's claw hanging from his mouth, rubbed his patient head
+affectionately against Roger's arm.
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Forbidden Trail, by Honoré Willsie
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FORBIDDEN TRAIL ***
+
+***** This file should be named 22284-8.txt or 22284-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/2/2/2/8/22284/
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/22284-8.zip b/22284-8.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..598e0e4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-8.zip
diff --git a/22284-h.zip b/22284-h.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8008389
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-h.zip
diff --git a/22284-h/22284-h.htm b/22284-h/22284-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3adc4e6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-h/22284-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,12938 @@
+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+    "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Forbidden Trail, by Honor&#233; Willsie.
+    </title>
+  <style type="text/css">
+    /*<![CDATA[  XML blockout */
+    <!--
+    p                 {margin-top: 0.5em; text-align: justify; margin-bottom: 0.5em;}
+    body              {margin-left: 11%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    table             {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; clear: both;}
+    h2                {text-align: center; margin-top: 3em; margin-bottom: 2em; clear: both;}
+    h3                {text-align: center; margin-top: 2em; font-weight: normal; clear: both;}
+    a                 {text-decoration: none;}
+    .smcap            {font-variant: small-caps;}
+    table p           {text-align: center; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0;}
+    h2.toc            {margin-top: 1em;}
+    .caption          {font-size: 70%;}
+    .figcenter        {margin: auto; text-align: center;}
+    .pagenum          {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: x-small;
+                      font-weight: normal; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal;
+                      text-indent: 0; color: silver; background-color: inherit;}
+    a.pagenum:after   {border: 1px solid silver; padding: 1px 3px; content: attr(title);}
+    hr.major          {width: 65%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;}
+    hr.dashed         {width: 100%; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em; border:none; border-bottom:1px dashed;}
+    .tight            {margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0;}
+    .right            {text-align: right}
+    .center           {text-align:center;}
+    // -->
+    /* XML end  ]]>*/
+  </style>
+  </head>
+<body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Forbidden Trail, by Honoré Willsie
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Forbidden Trail
+
+Author: Honoré Willsie
+
+Release Date: August 9, 2007 [EBook #22284]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FORBIDDEN TRAIL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style='width:325px'>
+<a name="illus-000" id="illus-000"></a>
+<img src="images/illus-fpc.jpg" alt="&#34;THE TRAIL LIFTED ZIG-ZAG OVER THE COYOTE RANGE&#34; Page 283" title="" width="325" /><br />
+<p class="caption tight center">&#34;THE TRAIL LIFTED ZIG-ZAG OVER THE COYOTE RANGE&#34;</p>
+<p class="caption tight right">&mdash;Page 283</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class='dashed' />
+
+<table style="margin: auto; border: black 1px solid; width:25em" summary=""><tr><td>
+<p style=" font-size:2.2em; margin-top:1em;">THE</p>
+<p style=" font-size:2.2em; margin-bottom:0.5em;">FORBIDDEN TRAIL</p>
+<p style=" font-size:1.8em; margin-bottom:2em;">By HONOR&Eacute; WILLSIE</p>
+<p style=" font-size:0.8em;">Author of</p>
+<p style=" font-size:0.8em; font-style:italic;">"The Heart of the Desert,"</p>
+<p style=" font-size:0.8em; margin-bottom:3em; font-style:italic;">"Still Jim," "Lydia of the Pines," etc.</p>
+<div class='center'>
+    <img src='images/illus-emb.png' alt="" />
+</div>
+<p style=" font-size:1.2em; margin-top:2em;">A. L. BURT COMPANY</p>
+<p style=" font-size:1.2em;">Publishers<span style='letter-spacing:3em'>&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>New York</p>
+<p style=" font-size:0.7em; margin-bottom:3em;">Published by arrangement with Frederick A. Stokes Company</p>
+</td></tr></table>
+
+<hr class='dashed' />
+
+<p class='center' style='margin:2em'><i>Copyright, 1919, by</i><br />
+<span class="smcap">Frederick A. Stokes Company</span><br />
+<i>All rights reserved, including that of translation<br />
+into foreign languages</i><br /><br />
+<i>Printed in the United States of America</i>
+</p>
+
+<hr class='dashed' />
+
+<h2 class="toc"><a name="Contents" id="Contents"></a>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<table border="0" width="500" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; font-variant:small-caps;">
+<col style="width:15%;" />
+<col style="width:5%;"  />
+<col style="width:70%;" />
+<col style="width:10%;" />
+<tr>
+    <td align='right'><span style='font-size:x-small'>CHAPTER</span></td>
+    <td></td>
+    <td></td>
+    <td align='right'><span style='font-size:x-small'>PAGE</span></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align="right">I.</td>
+  <td></td>
+  <td align="left">The Dreamer</td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#THE_DREAMER_73">1</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align="right">II.</td>
+  <td></td>
+  <td align="left">Hopes Deferred</td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#HOPES_DEFERRED_1081">32</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align="right">III.</td>
+  <td></td>
+  <td align="left">The New Day</td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#THE_NEW_DAY_1737">52</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align="right">IV.</td>
+  <td></td>
+  <td align="left">Charley</td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#CHARLEY_2721">81</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align="right">V.</td>
+  <td></td>
+  <td align="left">Von Minden</td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#VON_MINDEN_3536">105</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align="right">VI.</td>
+  <td></td>
+  <td align="left">The Letter from Washington</td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#THE_LETTER_FROM_WASHINGTON_4367">130</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align="right">VII.</td>
+  <td></td>
+  <td align="left">The Runaway</td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#THE_RUNAWAY_5055">151</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align="right">VIII.</td>
+  <td></td>
+  <td align="left">The Lonely Hunter</td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#THE_LONELY_HUNTER_5892">176</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align="right">IX.</td>
+  <td></td>
+  <td align="left">Gustav</td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#GUSTAV_6213">186</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align="right">X.</td>
+  <td></td>
+  <td align="left">Death in the Desert</td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#DEATH_IN_THE_DESERT_6830">206</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align="right">XI.</td>
+  <td></td>
+  <td align="left">Dick's Sickness</td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#DICKS_SICKNESS_7531">228</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align="right">XII.</td>
+  <td></td>
+  <td align="left">Dicky's Last Bout</td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#DICKYS_LAST_BOUT_8234">249</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align="right">XIII.</td>
+  <td></td>
+  <td align="left">The Great Divide</td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#THE_GREAT_DIVIDE_8756">265</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align="right">XIV.</td>
+  <td></td>
+  <td align="left">Washington</td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#WASHINGTON_9068">275</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align="right">XV.</td>
+  <td></td>
+  <td align="left">Rabbit Tail's Gang</td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#RABBIT_TAILS_GANG_9751">295</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align="right">XVI.</td>
+  <td></td>
+  <td align="left">The River Range</td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#THE_RIVER_RANGE_10359">314</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align="right">XVII.</td>
+  <td></td>
+  <td align="left">The Black Box</td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#THE_BLACK_BOX_11341">345</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td align="right">XVIII.</td>
+  <td></td>
+  <td align="left">Papa Wolf</td>
+  <td align="right"><a href="#PAPA_WOLF_11753">358</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="THE_FORBIDDEN_TRAIL" id="THE_FORBIDDEN_TRAIL"></a><b>THE FORBIDDEN TRAIL</b></h2>
+
+<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em">
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_1" id="page_1" title="1"></a>
+<a name="THE_DREAMER_73" id="THE_DREAMER_73"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
+<h3>THE DREAMER</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>Roger was only seven. He was tall for his age and very thin. He had a
+thick crop of black hair and his eyes were large and precisely the color
+of the summer sky that lifted above the Moores' back yard. These were
+the little boy's only claims to beauty, for even at this time Roger's
+face was too much of the intellectual type to be handsome. Beauty is
+seldom intelligent. Roger's long, thin jaw, his thin, thoughtful mouth,
+his high forehead, were distinctly of the thinking, dreaming type.</p>
+
+<p>It was midsummer and Roger's tanned legs and feet were bare and
+scratched and mosquito bitten. He wore a little blue gingham sailor
+suit, which was much rumpled and soiled.</p>
+
+<p>Charlotte was five. She was tall for her age too. In fact at five she
+was nearly as tall as Roger. But she was not as thin as he. She had
+large brown eyes of astounding depth and softness and bronze brown hair
+that was short and curly. There were lovely curves in her scarlet,
+drooping lips and a fine arch to her head above the ears. There was a
+dimple in her<a class="pagenum" name="page_2" id="page_2" title="2"></a> round chin. She sat in front of Roger who was astride one
+end of a great plank that was up-ended on a barrel.</p>
+
+<p>"You go over and get Ernie and Elschen, Charley," commanded Roger in a
+deep, boyish voice.</p>
+
+<p>"I won't!" returned Charley, succinctly, crowding closer to Roger, as
+she spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"Well now, do you think I'm going to play alone all the afternoon with a
+baby?" roared Roger. "You're too little to work this teeter-tauter with
+me. I'm not going to stand it, I'm not. You get off!"</p>
+
+<p>"I won't," repeated Charley, none the less firmly that the red lips
+trembled. "I runned away from our house to play with you and I'm going
+to play, I am."</p>
+
+<p>"You ain't going to play alone and Mamma says I gotta take you home in
+half an hour if nobody doesn't come for you."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't go home." Charley ended this time with a sob.</p>
+
+<p>"Now don't bawl!" exclaimed Roger, in alarm, twisting the little girl's
+head around so that he could peer into her face. He kissed her in a
+paternal manner. "Don't bawl! I'll take care of you."</p>
+
+<p>Charley wiped the kiss off on the sleeve of her checked gingham dress
+and smiled. Roger left the see-saw and climbed to the top of the board
+fence.</p>
+
+<p>"Ernie!" he shouted in a tone that sounded through the quiet village
+like a siren horn. "Ernie! You and Elschen come on over!"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Wolf appeared at the back door of the house next door.</p>
+
+<p>"Ernie and Elschen are doing the dishes. When they finish they will be
+over."<a class="pagenum" name="page_3" id="page_3" title="3"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Will it take 'em long?" asked Roger. "I got all my chores done."</p>
+
+<p>"They're nearly done. Here's Elschen ready to go now."</p>
+
+<p>"It was my turn to wipe, so I got through quick. Ernie's awful mad,"
+cried a small girl, scrambling hastily over the fence.</p>
+
+<p>Elsa was six. She was short and plump, an almost perfect miniature of
+her pretty mother, who stood smiling in the doorway. Her hair was true
+gold. While it was not curly it was full of a vitality that gave it the
+look of finely spun wire as it stood out over her head in a bushy mass.
+She was red of cheek and blue of eye, a jolly, plucky little girl, much
+more enterprising and pugnacious than Ernie, who followed her shortly
+over the fence.</p>
+
+<p>Ernest was Roger's age and he looked so much like Elsa that a stranger
+might have thought them to be twins.</p>
+
+<p>He landed with a thud. "Where'd you get the teeter-tauter, Roger?" he
+cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you see, you old ninny? I heaved up the plank Papa put down for
+the walk to the clothes-reel, and the barrel, I sort-of&mdash;now I kind of
+borrowed that out of the Sauters' barn. I guess they wouldn't care. I
+left a penny on the barn floor to pay for it. It's the strongest barrel
+I most ever saw. You go on the other end and Charley and I'll stay here.
+Elschen, you can be candlestick."</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't going to be candlestick very long, I ain't. Not for you old
+boys," said Elsa, climbing, however, to the place assigned her, where
+the board balanced on the barrel.<a class="pagenum" name="page_4" id="page_4" title="4"></a></p>
+
+<p>The children see-sawed amicably for perhaps five minutes when Roger
+roared&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Hey! All of you get off! I got to fix this better."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not agoing to move," replied Elsa.</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't agoing to move," agreed Charley.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on, you girls, get off," cried Ernie. "What you going to do,
+Roger?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll show you! If you girls don't get off, I'll dump you," suiting
+action to words, as he tilted the plank sidewise. Elsa got a real bump,
+from the barrel to the ground. Charley's end of the see-saw was on the
+ground so she scrambled up laughing. Not so Elschen. She was red with
+anger. She flew at Roger and slapped him in the face.</p>
+
+<p>Roger turned white, and struck back, the blow catching Elsa in the
+stomach. She doubled up and roared. Roger's voice rose above hers.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll kill you next time! I'll kill you, you low down old German pig,
+you."</p>
+
+<p>Slow moving little Ernie ran to put his arm round Elsa.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you hit my sister again, Rog Moore!"</p>
+
+<p>Roger jumped up and down and kicked the barrel. "You get out of my yard!
+I hate you all!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not me, Roger?" cried Charley, anxiously, running up to take his hand.</p>
+
+<p>Curiously enough even in his blind passion, the boy clung to the
+childish fingers, the while he continued to kick the barrel and to roar,</p>
+
+<p>"I'll kill you, Elsa!"</p>
+
+<p>The screen door clicked and Mrs. Moore hurried down the back steps. She
+was very tall and slender,<a class="pagenum" name="page_5" id="page_5" title="5"></a> with Roger's blue eyes and a mass of red
+hair piled high on her head. She carried one of Roger's stockings with a
+darning ball in the toe in her left hand and the thimble gleamed on the
+middle finger of her right hand as she put it on Roger's shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Roger! Roger! You're rousing the whole neighborhood!"</p>
+
+<p>Roger struck the slender hand from his shoulder. "I hate you too. Let me
+alone!"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Moore turned to the others. "Children, take Charley over in your
+yard for a little while. Roger is being a very bad boy and I must punish
+him."</p>
+
+<p>Roger hung back, still roaring, but his mother dragged him into the
+kitchen. Here she sat down in a rocker and attempted to pull him into
+her lap, but he would have none of her. He threw himself sobbing on the
+floor and Mrs. Moore sat looking at him sadly.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what we're going to do about your temper, Roger. This is
+the third spell you've had this week. I don't see why the children play
+with you. Some day you <i>will</i> murder some one, I'm afraid. I used to
+have a temper when I was a child but I'm certain it was nothing like
+yours. One thing I'm sure of, I never struck my dear mother. Thank
+heaven, I haven't that regret."</p>
+
+<p>Roger wept on.</p>
+
+<p>"I've tried whipping and I've tried scolding. Perhaps I'm the wrong
+mother for you&mdash;" A long pause, during which Roger's slender body did
+not cease to writhe in sobs. Then his mother continued: "Poor little
+Elschen, that was an awful knock you gave her! I shall have to apologize
+to Mrs. Wolf again. She's always sweet about your badness."<a class="pagenum" name="page_6" id="page_6" title="6"></a></p>
+
+<p>She began work on the stocking once more. Roger's sobs lessened and his
+mother rose to wet a towel-end and bathe his face. But when she returned
+from the sink, the child was asleep, his head pillowed on his arm. It
+was thus that his temper storms always ended. Mrs. Moore had observed
+that when she had whipped him for one of his explosions, he always slept
+much longer than when she merely allowed him to sob himself quiet. So
+though his father still advocated whipping, she had concluded that
+whipping led only to further nerve exhaustion and she had stopped that
+form of punishment.</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour later Roger rolled over on his back and stared for a moment
+wide eyed, at the ceiling. Then he got up quickly and running over to
+his mother, he threw his arms about her neck and kissed her
+passionately.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Mother! Mother! I love you so! I'm so sorry I slapped your hand. I
+will be good! Oh, I will be good!"</p>
+
+<p>He took the hand which he had struck in both his own and kissed it.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor hand," he half sobbed, "poor hand!"</p>
+
+<p>"All right, dear," said his mother, freeing her hand gently. "Now, go
+make up with the other children."</p>
+
+<p>Roger darted out the door and his mother heard him shouting to his
+playmates.</p>
+
+<p>It was an hour later that she went to the back door, to send Roger home
+with Charley. What she saw there sent her flying once more to interfere
+with the children's play. Fastened by bits of rope and twine to the
+plank were her three choicest sofa cushions, of white silk which she
+herself had embroidered. A child<a class="pagenum" name="page_7" id="page_7" title="7"></a> lay on its stomach on each of these,
+wildly gesticulating with legs and arms while Roger played the garden
+hose on them.</p>
+
+<p>The four culprits in a sodden row before her, Mrs. Moore sought counsel
+from Mrs. Wolf, who had come hurrying at her neighbor's call.</p>
+
+<p>"What shall I do with him? It was his idea, he says."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure it was," exclaimed Roger stoutly. "We were shipwrecked sailors.
+The tempest had raged for three days like in 'Swiss Family Robinson.'"</p>
+
+<p>"But why did you get the sofa cushions?" asked Mrs. Wolf.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that was my invention to make the teeter-tauter more comfortable.
+Then they made nice waves for us to rest our stomachs on when we swam."</p>
+
+<p>"You knew how I prize those cushions. That one with the roses took me
+all last winter to do," said Roger's mother sternly.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I&mdash;yes, I kind of knew, but I forgot. I always forget when I'm
+inventing. Don't I, Ern?"</p>
+
+<p>Ern nodded and put his arm over Roger's shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"I must try to help you to remember, little son." Mrs. Moore sighed.
+"For three days you cannot play with Ernie and Elschen."</p>
+
+<p>Instantly a howl rose from the two little Wolfs. "We can't play without
+Roger! It was our fault too!"</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, that's too hard on all of them, Mrs. Moore. We'll have bedlam
+for three days," protested Mrs. Wolf.</p>
+
+<p>"But he's always losing his temper and hurting your children," exclaimed
+Mrs. Moore.<a class="pagenum" name="page_8" id="page_8" title="8"></a></p>
+
+<p>"But he keeps them interested, anyhow," replied the little German
+mother. "They never ask to go away when Roger is with them. There's
+something so lovable about him in spite of his temper."</p>
+
+<p>"He hit me in my poor little belly&mdash;" began Elschen.</p>
+
+<p>"Elschen!" shrieked her mother.</p>
+
+<p>"Stomach," Elschen substituted hastily. "My poor little stomach. But I
+don't care, I love him anyhow."</p>
+
+<p>"But how about my sofa pillows?" asked Mrs. Moore.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll give you the money out of our banks," said Ernie.</p>
+
+<p>Elsa jumped up and down. "So we will! And you too, Roger!"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure I will. And I'll iron the roses out for you."</p>
+
+<p>The two mothers looked at each other with a glimmer of a smile in light
+and dark blue eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"You can each put a quarter in the Sunday School contribution box next
+Sunday and we'll call it square. Do you agree, Mrs. Wolf?" Then as her
+little neighbor nodded, Roger's mother went on. "Go change your wet
+suit, Roger, and take Charley home. Lend me some of Elschen's little
+things for her, Mrs. Wolf. The child is soaked."</p>
+
+<p>"Mamma! That's a <i>mile</i> out to Prebles'," roared Roger.</p>
+
+<p>His mother looked at him, completely out of patience. "Well, <i>Roger</i>!
+after this afternoon's various performances!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'll go!" cried Roger hastily. "I was just talking, that was all!"
+and he fled to the house.</p>
+
+<p>Roger and Charley, hand in hand, trailed up the<a class="pagenum" name="page_9" id="page_9" title="9"></a> street in the haphazard
+manner of childhood. The Prebles lived on a farm half a mile beyond the
+limits of the town of Eagle's Wing. The board walk ended not far beyond
+the Moores' house and the children automatically chose the center of the
+road where the dust was deepest. By scuffling their bare feet
+continuously they managed to travel most of the distance to the farm in
+a cloud of dust which Roger explained was a deep sea fog.</p>
+
+<p>Dick Preble met them at the door of the farm house. Dick was a stocky
+boy of ten with a freckled face surmounted by a thatch of sandy hair.</p>
+
+<p>"Charley! Where have you been? We thought you were asleep upstairs.
+Mamma was just getting scared. And whose clothes have you got on?"</p>
+
+<p>Charley rushed headlong past her brother, shrieking for her mother,
+while Roger struggled with his explanation of certain of the afternoon's
+complications.</p>
+
+<p>"Gee!" was Dick's comment, "I'll bet Charley gets the paddle whacks for
+running away."</p>
+
+<p>"You weren't thinking of driving into town, were you?" asked Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"Naw, lazy bones! You can just foot it, after half drowning my sister."</p>
+
+<p>"You better keep your old sister home then," replied Roger, starting for
+the gate.</p>
+
+<p>It was a long walk for seven-year legs. Roger was considerably less
+active on the return trip than he had been plowing through the sea fog
+on his way out. But his mind was hard at work.</p>
+
+<p>"It would be nice to have a railroad all the way out to Prebles'. One
+that just us children could use&mdash;under the road. And I'd have little
+doors that would<a class="pagenum" name="page_10" id="page_10" title="10"></a> open up in the road and we'd peek out. And if we saw
+any grown ups coming we'd close the door quick. I'd be the engineer and
+Ernie the fireman. And we wouldn't have that old Dick at all. He's too
+big and cross. The girls could ride if they'd behave and run errands for
+us. Let's see. We'd have to dig it out first. Then we'd want ties and
+rails and a little engine. I wonder how much it would cost. But it would
+be very useful. 'Specially if we let Mr. Preble send his corn to town on
+it. He wouldn't have so much trouble with his hired men if they could
+ride on my engine, I bet."</p>
+
+<p>This delectable dream, with infinite variations, carried Roger home.
+Supper was on the table and Mr. Moore was already in his place. A thin
+man, Roger's father, with a deeply lined face and good gray eyes, under
+a thatch of iron gray hair. He was a master mechanic, now owner of a
+little factory which turned out plowshares. Moore had devised machinery
+which enabled him to turn out plowshares of a superior quality, in
+greater quantity and at a cheaper rate than any of his larger
+competitors in neighboring states. His was only a small concern,
+employing twenty-five or thirty men, but even this made Moore the chief
+manufacturer of the town of Eagle's Wing, whose only other glory was
+that it housed the state university. The members of the college faculty
+did not recognize many of the town people socially. But Dean Erskine,
+the young new dean of the School of Engineering, had visited the plow
+factory and had been so enthusiastic over Moore and his work that he had
+come a number of times to the house, bringing Mrs. Erskine with him.
+Factory management was a new theme in these days<a class="pagenum" name="page_11" id="page_11" title="11"></a> and Dean Erskine found
+Roger's father open minded to his theories.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, old son, have you been a good boy to-day?" asked Mr. Moore as
+Roger slid into his place at the table.</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir. I've been pretty bad. Say, Papa, how much would it cost to
+build a railroad, under the ground, from our house to Prebles'?"</p>
+
+<p>"A good deal of money. What way were you bad, Rog?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, about every way, temper and all. Papa, I guess I'll build that
+railroad. I got a big piece of pipe and a gauge that might work. Guess I
+might begin to make a engine. Aren't I a pretty good inventor, Papa?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know, Son. Nothing you've ever said or done makes me think
+you're one yet. In the first place an inventor is the most patient
+animal in the world. An inventor just can't lose his temper. Why don't
+you begin by inventing a way to control your temper, Son?"</p>
+
+<p>Roger subsided into his bowl of bread and milk.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Moore was smoking on the front porch when Mrs. Moore joined him
+after putting Roger to bed. She sat down on the steps beside him while
+she told him of Roger's day.</p>
+
+<p>"He's so contrite and so sweet, after one of his passions!" she said.
+"And yet, well, maybe it's his age, but he's so sort of casual about his
+temper. To-night, for instance, after he'd said the Lord's Prayer, he
+added, 'And please God, help me to find some pipe to make that engine
+and some rails too. And bless Charley, she's so little. And bless Mamma
+and Papa.<a class="pagenum" name="page_12" id="page_12" title="12"></a> And Lord, you might do something about my temper if you have
+time. Amen.'"</p>
+
+<p>The father and mother laughed together, then Mr. Moore said, "I do hope
+the boy will keep up his interest in mechanics. It's the coming game for
+real he-men. The world's going to turn into a big machine. The way
+things are going now with me, I'll have a real place for the boy when he
+finishes school. Dean Erskine's about persuaded me to let him go to
+college. I've been dead set against a college engineer until I met
+Erskine. He's made me feel as I'd have had less of an uphill pull if I'd
+gone to engineering school, and he says I've made him feel as if he
+never had enough shop practice."</p>
+
+<p>Moore stopped to chuckle. Then he went on, after refilling his pipe,
+"Yes, machinery is the greatest thing in the world. I took on five more
+men to-day, Mamma. All union men. I've decided to give in on that point
+and have a strictly union shop."</p>
+
+<p>"I think you're right," said Mrs. Moore. "After all the union is the
+working man's only protection."</p>
+
+<p>Moore grunted. "I don't care so much about the right of it as I do the
+expediency. And I haven't time to buck the union."</p>
+
+<p>"You've changed a lot since you left off working with your hands,"
+commented his wife, noncommittally.</p>
+
+<p>"A man has to change his point of view when he becomes an employer
+instead of an employee. Old girl, we're on our way up the ladder and
+nothing but old Grim, himself, can stop us. And when I came in from the
+old farm, when I was twelve years old, I had only my two hands and the
+clothes I stood in."<a class="pagenum" name="page_13" id="page_13" title="13"></a></p>
+
+<p>"You've been wonderful!" murmured Mrs. Moore. "Do you know, Mr. Wolf has
+done well too. His wife said he couldn't speak a word of English when he
+came to this country&mdash;at just twelve, too, and now he's manager of the
+Grand Dry Goods Company."</p>
+
+<p>"He's a nice fellow with a mighty pretty wife."</p>
+
+<p>It was Mrs. Moore's turn to grunt, which she did, in the manner of a
+wifely sniff. And the two sat in silence, hands clasped in the lovely
+summer night.</p>
+
+<p>After all, Roger did not get beyond a first attempt at the railroad
+building. He began the tunnel the next day, he and the two little Wolfs
+digging vigorously until a hole as large as a bath tub was completed.
+While resting from this toil, Roger conceived the idea of making a
+wading pool, with the aid of the hose. Some vague lesson won from
+previous experience made him ask permission of his mother and this
+given, the three children spent an ecstatic, though muddy, day in the
+improvised pond.</p>
+
+<p>Roger's father suggested that evening that the pool be gradually
+enlarged to make a swimming pool. He enlisted Mr. Wolf's aid for the
+summer evenings and in a couple of weeks a very creditable pool, brick
+and concrete lined, made a summer heaven of the back yard for the little
+friends.</p>
+
+<p>It was the pool that made this summer perhaps the most memorable one of
+Roger's childhood. It was the one, anyway, to which in after years his
+mind harked back with the most pleasure and with the greatest frequency.</p>
+
+<p>Even little Charley learned to swim. Roger never was to forget her
+slender beauty, as she stood ready<a class="pagenum" name="page_14" id="page_14" title="14"></a> for her dive on the pool edge. This
+was his last memory of the little girl, for the Prebles gave up farming
+that fall and moved away. Somebody said that Mr. Preble drank up his
+farm, which at the time seemed mere nonsense to Roger.</p>
+
+<p>Roger's tenth summer was memorable too. But he ceased to think of
+himself as a child then, because that was the summer his mother had
+typhoid fever and all summer long he was practically his own man. His
+father could give him no time, for there was a strike in the factory
+that lasted during the six weeks that Mrs. Moore was the sickest. The
+night that his mother was passing through her crisis, men threw stones
+in the kitchen windows.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Moore believed that she was going to die. One day when her mind was
+clear, despite her deathly weakness, she made them leave the little boy
+alone with her while she told him of her consuming anxiety over his
+temper. And she talked to him too about a motherless young manhood and
+how he must try to keep clean and straight. She made him promise that if
+any of the facts of life puzzled him, he would go to his father and not
+let naughty minded little boys tell him bad stories. Then while Roger
+sobbed, she fell asleep and when she woke she was definitely better. But
+Roger never felt like a child again. He felt that he knew all that men
+knew about life, and death as well.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Moore never was really strong again. Their keeping a servant dated
+from that summer and so did a little electric car, the first one in
+Eagle's Wing. Yes, perhaps this was as memorable a summer as Roger's
+seventh. Yet it lacked the magic and the beauty that<a class="pagenum" name="page_15" id="page_15" title="15"></a> made imperishable
+the joy of the swimming pool summer.</p>
+
+<p>And then came his fourteenth summer.</p>
+
+<p>Roger was a strapping big lad at fourteen. He was as tall as his father,
+who was five feet ten, and was still growing rapidly. He was thin but
+hard-muscled, with good shoulders that were not as awkward as they
+looked. After a year of pleading, his father agreed to let him spend his
+vacation in the plow factory; and Roger in overalls, his dinner pail in
+hand, was his father's pride and his mother's despair. She did like to
+see her only child well dressed.</p>
+
+<p>Ernest's father wanted Ernie to come into the store that summer. But
+after his years under Roger's tutelage, Ernie was all for mechanics, so
+he too acquired overalls and a dinner pail and went into the plow
+factory. Elschen was broken hearted because there was no way in which
+she also could become a wage earner.</p>
+
+<p>The university lay at the south end of the little town. The plow
+factory, now employing two hundred men, lay at the north end. Jim Hale,
+the chief engineer, blew the whistle every morning at seven o'clock and
+again at five o'clock. There was an hour off for dinner pails at twelve.
+A nine hour day, a few years ago, was not considered a long day, that
+is, not by employers of labor. That the employees were beginning to feel
+differently, Roger was to learn that summer in a manner that was to
+shape his whole life.</p>
+
+<p>The workmen were of a type little known now in our big industrial
+centers. Without exception they were North Europeans: Germans,
+Norwegians, Swedes and Danes. About fifty per cent. of them were foreign
+born. The rest of them were American born. A<a class="pagenum" name="page_16" id="page_16" title="16"></a> good many of the German
+born had not taken out first citizenship papers, but the Norwegians and
+Swedes had done so, so had the Danes. Enough of them had a certain
+amount of pride in their work to make the factory an interesting and
+profitable place for a boy to serve his first apprenticeship in.
+Practically all married men in the factory wanted to settle permanently
+in Eagle's Wing and send their children through the town's splendid
+schools. A majority of them planned to send their sons through the State
+University.</p>
+
+<p>John Moore had a good eye for men. He had built up an apparently solid
+and permanent organization. Yet for all his keen eye, the more
+successful he became, and the larger his business, the more incapable he
+grew of winning his men's liking. He had worked unbelievably hard from
+his boyhood up. He had given himself to his work without stint. He had
+no sympathy with any of his employees who would do less. His wage, as a
+mechanic, had never exceeded two seventy-five a day. He bitterly
+resented any man's wanting more.</p>
+
+<p>Moore was the entire brains of his factory. He was his own manager, his
+own superintendent, his own purchasing and sales agent&mdash;a man of
+splendid mind, hidebound by the egotism and prejudices of the self-made
+man. At fifty, he was going at his highest speed, every nerve taut,
+ready to break at the least disturbance of the load.</p>
+
+<p>Roger admired his father with a blind idolatry that was quite foreign to
+his ordinary mental attitude. He was naturally critical of men and
+things. To be a forge boy in his father's factory was to Roger to be
+touching the skirts of real greatness.<a class="pagenum" name="page_17" id="page_17" title="17"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Father," he said one night at supper, "I had a row with Ole Oleson
+to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"Which Ole Oleson?" asked his father. "There are nine of them in the
+factory."</p>
+
+<p>"The second forge foreman. His girl Olga is in my grade at school."</p>
+
+<p>His father nodded. "What was the row about? As I warned you, Rog, if I
+catch you with the lid off that temper of yours, I'll treat you exactly
+as I would any other employee."</p>
+
+<p>"But you didn't catch me, this time!" Roger grinned. He had fine white
+teeth and his eyes were still the wonderful sky blue of his childhood.
+"Ole said you were as hard as one of the plowshares and that some day
+the men would soften you like they take temper out of steel and that
+then you'd never be any good again."</p>
+
+<p>John Moore snorted. "And you let the fool get a rise out of you, of
+course!"</p>
+
+<p>"I knocked him down."</p>
+
+<p>"And what did he do?"</p>
+
+<p>"He knocked me down."</p>
+
+<p>"Then what?" asked Moore.</p>
+
+<p>"We shook hands and went to work again." Roger grinned at his mother's
+horrified face.</p>
+
+<p>"I'd have fired you both if I'd seen it," said his father. "You were
+late again this morning, Son. Remember you're docked for that."</p>
+
+<p>"Anyhow," Roger went on without noting apparently his father's warning,
+"he got confidential, while we were eating dinner, and told me that if
+you didn't give them an increase they were going on a strike that would
+make you sit up and take notice. He says you<a class="pagenum" name="page_18" id="page_18" title="18"></a> won't give the increase so
+the strike's due about the middle of July."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, the fools!" exclaimed John Moore. "I can't have a strike now with
+that big Russian order to fill. That order makes or mars me."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you'll give 'em the raise! That's good!" Roger gave a sigh of
+relief.</p>
+
+<p>"Raise nothing! Why, I can't raise them! Roger, you're old enough to
+begin to understand these things. The only way I'm able to compete with
+the trust is by working on such a narrow margin of profit that it makes
+their overhead look like Standard Oil profits. So far they've let my
+patents alone, chiefly, I suppose, because my machinery is efficient
+only for the comparatively small output. I never have been able to
+accumulate much working capital. A protracted strike would put me out of
+business. On the other hand a material increase in wage would kill that
+Russian contract and I've already borrowed money on it."</p>
+
+<p>"Roger, you shouldn't have told your father that when he was tired,"
+said Mrs. Moore, handing her husband his third cup of tea.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be a goose, Alice," returned Roger's father. "What are they going
+to ask for, Son?"</p>
+
+<p>"A minimum of three dollars a day and eight hours."</p>
+
+<p>"Then I'm finished!" exclaimed Moore, setting his lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you tell them when they come to you just what you've told
+me?" asked Roger. "They'll understand."</p>
+
+<p>"They won't believe a word of it. Nobody knows so much about a business
+as one of the workmen. And<a class="pagenum" name="page_19" id="page_19" title="19"></a> the poorer the workman the more he knows. I
+think I'll go up to see the Dean."</p>
+
+<p>Roger and his mother sat late on the porch, while Mr. Moore conferred
+with his friend. Mrs. Moore summed up her own feelings on the matter of
+the strike when she said just as Roger started for bed:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, as far as I'm concerned, I've never been so happy as I was when
+your father was just a plain mechanic, earning his two and a half or so
+a day and with no responsibility except to do his work well. Ever since
+he's been his own boss, he's been changing. I don't feel as if he were
+the same man I married. And what does he get out of it? Worry, worry,
+fuss, fuss. I tell you, Roger, my dear, I've come to the conclusion that
+the more complicated life gets, the less happiness there is in it."</p>
+
+<p>Roger bent and kissed his mother. "Maybe I'll feel like that when I'm
+older," he said, "but I don't now. And I guess Father likes the worry.
+It's like playing a game. I'm going to get into it, you bet, just as
+soon as I get through school."</p>
+
+<p>His mother made no reply.</p>
+
+<p>On the morning of July fifteenth, a delegation of three workmen waited
+on John Moore in his office. They made exactly the demands that Roger
+had reported and they received the same reply that Roger had received,
+with just about the same amount of detail as to the running of the
+business. The strike was scheduled to begin on the first day of August.</p>
+
+<p>Roger and Ernest, plugging away at the forge, heard the men's side
+constantly. At night Roger heard his father's. At first, naturally
+enough, both boys' sympathies were all with Roger's father. Then,
+because<a class="pagenum" name="page_20" id="page_20" title="20"></a> he was now a working man himself, Roger began to notice that
+his father had brutal ways with the men. Three or four times a day Moore
+always went through the factory. A careless mechanic would receive a
+cursing that, it suddenly occurred to Roger, no real man ought to
+endure. The least infringement of the factory rules was punished to the
+limit by a system of fines. Moore drove the men as relentlessly as he
+drove himself. This aspect of his father Roger naturally never discussed
+with his chum, but he spoke of it to his father on the morning of the
+first of August as they made their way to the factory.</p>
+
+<p>"They think you feel to them just like you do to a machine and it makes
+them sore, all the time," said the boy.</p>
+
+<p>"Heavens! what do they want? Must I kiss them good morning?" exclaimed
+Moore.</p>
+
+<p>Roger laughed. "No, but I know what they mean. I've seen you when you
+talked as though you owned them&mdash;and not that either. It's sort of like
+if you could recollect their names, you'd hate 'em."</p>
+
+<p>"Shucks, Rog! You're getting beyond your depth!" said his father.</p>
+
+<p>The seven o'clock whistle did not blow that hot August morning. All the
+neighborhood of the factory was full of lounging men with clean faces
+and hands. It was like Sunday. Ernest went to work in his father's
+store. Roger spent the morning in the office with his father. In the
+afternoon he circulated among the men. At first many of them resented
+this. Naturally enough they looked on the boy as his father's spy.</p>
+
+<p>But Moore had nothing to conceal nor had the men. Roger was intelligent
+and thoughtful far beyond his<a class="pagenum" name="page_21" id="page_21" title="21"></a> years, and little by little the men got
+in the habit of debating with him the merits of the case.</p>
+
+<p>Roger forgot that summer that he was a boy. Even at Saturday afternoon
+baseball, his mind was struggling with a problem whose ramifications
+staggered his immature mind.</p>
+
+<p>Ole Oleson, the forge boss, talked more intelligibly, Roger thought,
+than any of the others. There was a bench outside the picket fence that
+surrounded Ole's house, and Ole's house was not a stone's throw from the
+forge shed. Here nearly every afternoon Ole, with some of the strike
+leaders, would gather, and when not throwing quoits in front of the
+shed, they would talk of the strike.</p>
+
+<p>Roger, his heavy black hair tossed back from his face, his blue eyes
+thoughtful, his boyish lips compressed in the effort to understand,
+seldom missed a session. The strike had lasted nearly a month when he
+said to Ole.</p>
+
+<p>"My father says that if the strike isn't over in two weeks, he's
+ruined."</p>
+
+<p>"That's a dirty lie!" exclaimed a German named Emil.</p>
+
+<p>Before Roger's ready fist could land, Ole had pulled the boy back to the
+bench.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the good of that!" said Ole. "Emil, this kid's no liar. Don't be
+so free with your gab."</p>
+
+<p>There was silence for a few moments. The group of men on the bench
+stared obstinately at the boy Roger and Roger stared at the group of
+factory buildings. Unpretentious buildings they were, of wood or brick,
+one-story and rambling. John Moore had bought in marsh land and as he
+slowly reclaimed it by filling with<a class="pagenum" name="page_22" id="page_22" title="22"></a> ashes from his furnaces, he as
+slowly added to the floor space of his factory. Roger could remember the
+erection of every addition, excepting the first, which was made when he
+was only a baby. He knew what the factory meant to John Moore and with
+sudden bitterness he cried,</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see what good it will do you to ruin my father!"</p>
+
+<p>"'Twon't do us no good," returned Ole. "He ain't going to be ruined.
+Look here already, Rog. I got a girl, your age. She goes in your class.
+What kind of girl is she?"</p>
+
+<p>"She's a smart girl. Smart as lightning," answered Roger.</p>
+
+<p>Ole nodded. "Sure she is. Now Emil, he's got two boys and three girls.
+Canute, over there, you've got three little girls, ain't you? Yes&mdash;and
+Oscar, you got one boy, and John Moore, he's got one boy. Now, listen
+once, Rog. I tell you about myself and that tells you about all of us
+here.</p>
+
+<p>"I am born in Norway, the youngest of nine, and when I am ten years my
+folks come to America. They come to give their children a chance to live
+comfortable and not have to work like dogs all the time, just to keep
+alive. All right. They come here to this town. My father gets a job and
+my big brothers get a job and we all do fine. They put me into school
+and my father says I can go clean through the University. Then he dies
+and my brothers all marry and when I have just one year in the High
+School I have to quit and go to work.</p>
+
+<p>"All right! I get a job in a machine shop where a fellow named John
+Moore has a machine next to mine.<a class="pagenum" name="page_23" id="page_23" title="23"></a> He's a good smart fellow. We're good
+friends, many years. But he has a good education."</p>
+
+<p>"He has not!" interrupted Roger, flatly. "He's never been in school
+since he was twelve and he's supported himself ever since he was
+twelve."</p>
+
+<p>"He's educated all the same," insisted Ole.</p>
+
+<p>"He taught himself everything he knows," Roger cried.</p>
+
+<p>"All right! All right! Anyhow, he makes a new kind of a machine and
+takes his savings and starts to make plowshares, ten a day, over in that
+little brick house, there. And he works like the very devil. Why? Why,
+so that little Roger Moore that's come along can have it easier than he
+had. Same as I'm working for my little Olga and same as Canute and Emil
+and Oscar is working."</p>
+
+<p>"That's only part of it, with father, anyhow," Roger exclaimed. "Of
+course, he's ambitious for me, but, you see, he has these ideas inside
+of him that have to come out. He'd have done it if I'd never been born."</p>
+
+<p>"He does it so's his children gets ahead. Every married man's that way.
+Otherwise, why work?" This was Emil's contribution.</p>
+
+<p>"All right," Ole pushed on. "Anyhow first thing I know I'm working for
+John Moore and he's getting ahead while I'm staying in the same old
+place, same old pay. And now listen. Already, when he gets ahead he
+changes. He gets bossy and ugly. Seems like a man can't be a boss
+without changing, without getting so he curses the fellow he bosses. And
+Emil and Oscar and Canute and I and all of us say, 'Here's Moore getting
+ahead. His boy goes through the university on what Moore makes us earn
+him. He has a<a class="pagenum" name="page_24" id="page_24" title="24"></a> hired girl for his wife. Now our children can't go to the
+university on what Moore pays us. And our wives can't keep a hired girl.
+Moore couldn't earn a cent without us. He's got to give us enough of
+what we earn him so's we can live easy as he does.'"</p>
+
+<p>"He don't live easy," retorted Roger. "You ought to see him. He works
+harder than any of you, day and night, he never stops. My mother's
+always complaining that she's lost him. And if he's your age, Ole, he
+looks ten years older. I tell you carrying that factory is an awful
+load. None of you folks could run it. You haven't got the brains. Father
+ought to be the big earner. He's got the big brains."</p>
+
+<p>"He can be the big earner," said Canute, a thin, slow speaking Dane, "if
+he gives us a chance to save and enough time to enjoy a little every day
+the sunshine and make gardens or bowl or play with our children. That's
+what we came to America to get and, by God, we're going to get it."</p>
+
+<p>"He doesn't get it." Roger spoke with an unboyish sadness in his voice.
+"That factory has him body and soul. I don't see what's the use."</p>
+
+<p>Again there was silence. Then Ole said, "I guess the thing that makes me
+hate him is how he's changed already. Look, Rog, I'm an American
+citizen. I can't have any man curse me like I was a slave. No money can
+pay for it. And one reason this strike's going to hang on till your
+father gives in is because he don't know how to boss men. And they all
+hate him."</p>
+
+<p>"And envy him!" cried Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure," agreed Emil. "Envy him, we do. That's why we're striking."<a class="pagenum" name="page_25" id="page_25" title="25"></a></p>
+
+<p>"And supposing the factory goes out of business?" Roger asked. "You'll
+all have to move away or take any old job. This is the only factory in
+this town."</p>
+
+<p>Ole laughed. "Your father's got you bluffed too, Rog."</p>
+
+<p>"You'll see!" returned Roger, through his white teeth. "You'll see." And
+he started abruptly for home.</p>
+
+<p>The first week of September slipped into the second. The night of the
+fourteenth, John Moore said at the supper table, "I bought the old
+Preble place, to-day. Traded in this place for it, so we'll have that
+free and clear out of the wreck."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?" faltered Mrs. Moore.</p>
+
+<p>"What I say," he snapped. "The Russian contract has been canceled. Money
+never was so tight in thirty years as it is now. Wolf says he thinks
+there's a panic coming, and so does the bank. I can't borrow a cent
+more. I'm through with my fling, Alice, and I'm going back to a farm."</p>
+
+<p>Roger choked a little on his tea. His mother said, unsteadily, "John
+dear, if going back to the farm brings you back to me, I shall thank God
+for the strike."</p>
+
+<p>Roger's father scowled at his wife for a moment, then suddenly
+something, perhaps the gentleness of her voice and the sweetness of her
+eyes, caused him to push his chair back and going around to her side to
+kneel with his head against her shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>Roger slipped out of the room, blowing his nose. He went into the back
+yard and sat scowling at the swimming pool until he heard the front door
+click on his father, then he went to bed.<a class="pagenum" name="page_26" id="page_26" title="26"></a></p>
+
+<p>The following day when Roger went into the office, his father's coat was
+hanging on the accustomed hook, but his father was not there. Vaguely
+alarmed, Roger started a search through the factory. His alarm proved
+unfounded, for he discovered his father in the little building that had
+been the original factory. He looked up when Roger came in.</p>
+
+<p>"Look, Rog," he said. "I'd like to take this old machine up to the farm
+with us. We could store it somewhere. It's the first machine&mdash;the one I
+started business with."</p>
+
+<p>Roger nodded but could not speak. Moore looked around the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I've had a good run for my hard work," he said, bitterly. "An old
+man at fifty and a worn out farm to spend my old age on."</p>
+
+<p>"You've got Mother and me. And why don't you start again, Father? I'd
+help."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm too old, Roger. I've lost my vim. We'll close the shop, to-day. A
+man's coming up from Chicago to buy in the machinery."</p>
+
+<p>A half hour later, Moore posted a great sign on the office door. "This
+factory goes out of business to-day." Then with the various keys of the
+buildings in his pocket, he went home. Roger hung about to see how the
+men took the news.</p>
+
+<p>By noon, the two hundred employees of the factory with many of their
+wives and children were gathered in the factory yard. At first they
+seemed cynically amused by what they called Moore's bluff. By
+mid-afternoon, however, after repeated assurances from Roger that his
+father was going to be a farmer, the crowd became surly. A strange man
+got up and made<a class="pagenum" name="page_27" id="page_27" title="27"></a> a speech. He said that capitalists like Moore should be
+destroyed, that men such as he were a menace to America. Roger, standing
+by Ole's side, saw suddenly in his inner mind his father's gray head on
+his mother's shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"You lie, you dirty anarchist!" he roared, and heaved a brick at the
+speaker's head.</p>
+
+<p>There was an uproar. Some one helped the speaker wipe the blood out of
+his eyes and tied his head up, while Ole pinned both Roger's arms behind
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"They say that's Moore's boy threw that brick," cried the speaker. "Come
+up here, you hell cat, and show yourself to these downtrodden workmen."</p>
+
+<p>"Let me go, Ole," said Roger, with sudden calm. "I want to say
+something."</p>
+
+<p>Ole looked into Roger's blue eyes. "All right," he said, after a moment,
+"only if you get mad again, I can't answer for this crowd. They're
+sore."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm all right," muttered Roger, and he pushed his way to the office
+steps where the speaker stood. "Here I am," he cried; "what about it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Here he is," roared the stranger, pulling Roger round to face the
+crowd. "If he tries murder now, what'll he do when he has a factory of
+his own?"</p>
+
+<p>Roger thrust his trembling hands into his trousers pockets. "Don't you
+think it!" he shouted. "What do I want of a factory? To let a crowd of
+ignoramuses like you ruin me&mdash;just out of ignorance and envy? Not on
+your life! My father's going onto a farm and I'm going with him. I hope
+you're all satisfied."</p>
+
+<p>"Farm!" sneered the stranger. "Why, he'll have a bunch of scabs up here
+to-morrow. I know Moore!"<a class="pagenum" name="page_28" id="page_28" title="28"></a></p>
+
+<p>What Roger might have said, one cannot know, for at that moment a man
+drove up in an automobile and shouldered his way up to the office door.
+He pulled a bunch of keys from his pocket as he mounted the steps.</p>
+
+<p>"Who are you?" asked Roger. "I'm Mr. Moore's son!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm Mr. Wrench of Chicago. Trouble serious?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," replied the boy. "Just a lot of hot air."</p>
+
+<p>"One moment please," said the strange speaker. "There'll be serious
+trouble here if some questions aren't answered. What is your business
+here?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm to see to the dismantling of the factory," answered Mr. Wrench,
+indifferently.</p>
+
+<p>A long breath seemed to rise from the listening crowd. Automatically it
+broke up into little groups and the best efforts of the strike leaders
+could not pull it together again. Roger felt that the excitement was all
+over and he made his way slowly home.</p>
+
+<p>At midnight that night a terrific explosion shook the little town of
+Eagle's Wing. Roger had not finished pulling on his clothes when the
+fire bells began to ring. He caught his father rushing out of the front
+door. Ernie and his father joined them and they followed other hurrying
+groups toward the factory.</p>
+
+<p>It was all ablaze, as well as several of the workmen's houses, which
+with the main factory building had been demolished by the explosion.
+Everybody asked questions at once and a hundred pairs of hands tried to
+help unreel the hose and bring it to bear on the main blaze.</p>
+
+<p>"Turn on the water!" shouted a fireman.</p>
+
+<p>"No! No!" roared a voice, and a man in his undershirt rushed up and
+tried to tear the hose away from those that directed it. It was Oscar.<a class="pagenum" name="page_29" id="page_29" title="29"></a></p>
+
+<p>"No! Let her burn! Let her burn! We'll show that infernal hound of a
+Moore if he can take our chances away from us!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, then 'twas you!" cried Moore, and he leaped for Oscar.</p>
+
+<p>A dozen men sprang to pull them apart, but Roger was there first. He
+hung onto his father in desperate silence, while others pulled Oscar
+away. Mr. Wolf and Ernest followed the Moores as Roger led the way to a
+seat on a heap of d&eacute;bris.</p>
+
+<p>"There, old friend, there!" said Wolf. "Don't take it so hard! I know! I
+know! If it was my store it would break the heart of me. But we cannot
+break. We cannot."</p>
+
+<p>Roger kept his hand on his father's shoulder. Moore rested his head on
+his hand and said nothing.</p>
+
+<p>"It's all right, Daddy! You walloped him a good one," said Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"His old snoot was all over his face," added Ernest in a cheerful voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Hush, boys, come away for a little bit," said Mr. Wolf. And he led the
+two back toward the hose. But Roger would not go far. He loitered behind
+lest some one should molest that silent figure on the heap of d&eacute;bris.
+All the vicinity was brilliant with firelight. And standing waiting thus
+he saw a sight that he never was to forget. It was his father, bowing
+his head on a piece of the twisted, wrecked machinery&mdash;the machinery
+into which he had put the passionate hopes and dreams of his manhood.
+And moving nearer lest some one else should see, Roger saw that his
+father was sobbing as if indeed his heart was broken.</p>
+
+<p>That picture was to direct the entire course of<a class="pagenum" name="page_30" id="page_30" title="30"></a> Roger's life. For it
+never left him. And at first it filled his boyish mind with such
+bitterness that he could not hear of labor and its strivings and
+troubles without seeing red.</p>
+
+<p>But as the years on the farm slipped by and the atmosphere of
+competition and of feverish ambition gave place to the sweet silences,
+the quiet plodding, the placid sureness of farm living, the bitterness
+gave way to a dream.</p>
+
+<p>Gradually Roger ceased to blame the factory workmen who had destroyed
+his father, or to blame his father for the egotism and selfishness that
+had driven his employees into reckless stubbornness. He saw behind both
+the urge of the inevitable, unquenchable desire of human beings for
+happiness; for the happiness that comes only when men have sufficient
+leisure in which to expand their minds and souls.</p>
+
+<p>And as he grew older and read deeper it seemed to him that the solution
+lay only indirectly in any system of government. It seemed to him that
+until man had learned how to use directly and freely the power sources
+of nature, inequalities of wealth would always persist. And he had
+learned in one bitter lesson that unhappiness and economic inequality go
+hand in hand.</p>
+
+<p>And so Roger dreamed his dream. For many years it was such a mad seeming
+dream that he was ashamed to speak of it, even to Ernest. And yet it was
+simple enough in its first outlines.</p>
+
+<p>This was, Roger told himself, a machine age. The more perfect became
+man's use of machinery, the more leisure could he have and the more
+wealth. Ultimately man's efforts must concentrate on the effort to find
+power with which to drive the world's machinery.<a class="pagenum" name="page_31" id="page_31" title="31"></a> Coal was disappearing,
+water power was coming into its own. Was there not, however, some
+universal source of power that could be harnessed and given to the use
+of man? Some power that capital could not control nor labor misuse and
+destroy?</p>
+
+<p>It was thus that Roger came to study the possibilities of Solar Heat
+utilization. It was thus that he became the world's first and greatest
+pioneer in a new field of engineering&mdash;a field so mighty that it was to
+become the dean of all other fields of power engineering.</p>
+
+<p>He dreamed a dream of solving the problem of labor versus capital. He
+was to learn through years of heart breaking endeavor that neither
+capital nor labor has use for a dreamer of dreams no matter how
+practical the dreams may be, unless the dreamer is selfish enough, is
+grasping and ruthless enough to trample over other men to the top.</p>
+
+<p>Roger was to learn, before he achieved success, that a man's genius can
+go no higher than his character permits it to go. He was to learn that
+only out of a man's will to conquer himself can come the finest
+accomplishment of his work. And he was to learn that for most of us fate
+works with curious indirection. So that the story of Roger's dream deals
+not with a struggle between capital and labor, but with a man's struggle
+with solitudes; it deals not so much with machinery as with nature; and
+not so much with scientific facts as with human passions.</p>
+
+<p>Thus for most of us, if we could but see it so, life is not a matter of
+colorless and naked straight lines but is a rich mosaic made up of a
+thousand seemingly unimportant items.</p>
+
+<hr class="major" />
+<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em">
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_32" id="page_32" title="32"></a>
+<a name="HOPES_DEFERRED_1081" id="HOPES_DEFERRED_1081"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER II</h2>
+<h3>HOPES DEFERRED</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>Although John Moore never became reconciled to the failure of his
+factory, still he was not really unhappy on the farm. There is something
+too normal, something too entirely natural about a return to the soil
+after middle age, to permit a man broken and worn, as was Roger's
+father, really to be discontented when working in his own fields.</p>
+
+<p>The farm never paid very well. After the first year or so they were
+obliged to mortgage it, and sometimes the interest was hard to meet. But
+after the stormy factory years, these anxieties seemed innocuous enough
+and Roger and his mother, anyway, were deeply happy.</p>
+
+<p>Roger made an old corn crib over into a laboratory. During his High
+School period, with his faithful henchman, Ernest, he spent all his free
+moments on various and mysterious experiments in the patched-up little
+shack. Many were the vile smells and the outrageous noises that floated
+out over the farm, but nobody complained, except Roger's mother, and she
+only mildly. No startling results were forthcoming from these
+experiments, but John Moore encouraged the boys in their attempts.</p>
+
+<p>"Chemistry was my weak point," he would say. "Get all you can of it,
+Rog. Perhaps you'll succeed where I failed."<a class="pagenum" name="page_33" id="page_33" title="33"></a></p>
+
+<p>"All the chemistry in the world couldn't have run Ole Oleson for you,"
+Roger would reply.</p>
+
+<p>"No, but it would have made a real engineer of me," his father would say
+thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>When Roger was a freshman and sophomore in college, he suffered a
+complete relapse from his interest in experimental work, and his father
+was very much depressed, but both his mother and Dean Erskine laughed at
+Mr. Moore's fuming.</p>
+
+<p>"Let the poor child have his play time," said Alice Moore. "Between the
+farm work and that nasty laboratory the boy hasn't known anything but
+work since we came out here. If you'd had more chance to play, John
+dear, your nerves would be in better shape now. I'm glad he's learned to
+dance, bless him."</p>
+
+<p>"Give him his fling, Moore," said the Dean. "He was getting one sided,
+and he's way ahead of his class now, as a result of all his corn crib
+grinding. Football and girls won't hurt him at all for a year or so.
+I'll see to it that he doesn't neglect his work. If I'm any judge of men
+at all, that boy of yours is going far. You've no cause to worry."</p>
+
+<p>So Roger was not nagged at home. Somehow his father raised the money to
+pay a hired man so that except in the long summer vacations Roger was
+relieved from farm work. Until well into his junior year, he merely
+carried the required work in college and devoted all his excess energy
+to football and girls. He was notably successful in both fields. He was
+six feet tall, lean and muscular and a splendid half back. He was eager
+and chivalrous and had a charming smile and was a famous schemer of
+things to do, and places to go. The University was co-educational and<a class="pagenum" name="page_34" id="page_34" title="34"></a>
+Roger had no rival with the girls except perhaps Ernest. Ernest was
+whimsical and sweet and very musical, and he took the girls seriously,
+which Roger refused to do.</p>
+
+<p>But all the playing came to an end in Roger's junior winter. A venomous
+epidemic of La Grippe swept over the world that year and Roger's mother
+succumbed to it. A month after her death, John Moore gave in to
+pneumonia and early in February Roger found himself alone in the world.</p>
+
+<p>Roger escaped with only a mild attack of the disease, but the shock of
+his loss left him for a time, it seemed, spiritually and physically
+bankrupt. There was nothing left. The worn out farm was eaten up by
+mortgages. The stock and implements would only just pay food bills, the
+doctor, the funeral expenses.</p>
+
+<p>One cold gray afternoon Roger closed the gate for the last time and,
+suitcase in hand, started down the road to town. He had not covered half
+the distance when he met Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>"Hey, Rog, old man, I was just coming up. Where are you going?"</p>
+
+<p>"To Mrs. Winkler's. Got my room there for taking care of the furnace,
+walks, and any old thing."</p>
+
+<p>"Forget it!" exclaimed Ernest. "You're coming home with me until you get
+braced up. Mother and Dad said so."</p>
+
+<p>"That'll make it harder when I do get back. Besides, old lady Winkler
+might not hold the place for me." Roger spoke firmly. Nevertheless he
+allowed Ernest to help him with the suitcase and made no objection when
+his chum turned off Main Street toward the Wolf home.<a class="pagenum" name="page_35" id="page_35" title="35"></a></p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Wolf kissed him and put him to bed, while Elsa brought a hot water
+bottle and a cup of hot milk. He hung about the house for several days,
+dreading the return to college and Mrs. Winkler. But Mrs. Wolf knew
+Roger almost as well as his own mother had known him. She left him alone
+until one snowy afternoon, after a prolonged absence in his room, he
+came into the kitchen with traces of tears about the eyes. Mother Wolf
+was paring apples for mince meat. Papa Wolf would eat no food not
+prepared by hers or Elsa's hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Help me with these nut meats, Roger, there's a good boy," she said.</p>
+
+<p>Roger sat down by the table with a long sigh and began to pick at the
+hickory nuts.</p>
+
+<p>"Elsa's gone to Choral Union practice," volunteered Mother Wolf. "Ernie
+is doing some laboratory work he said he was behind in. You must be
+getting somewhat behind, too, Roger."</p>
+
+<p>"I guess so," agreed Roger, indifferently.</p>
+
+<p>"Papa met Dean Erskine in the Post Office yesterday. The Dean said you
+were the most promising man in your class."</p>
+
+<p>"What good does that do," asked Roger, "when they're gone and can't
+know?"</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know they can't know?" asked the little woman sharply.
+"Older and wiser people than you believe otherwise. One thing is sure,
+that the only real thing you can do for your parents now is to carry on
+what they began. Life is short and there's no time to waste, Roger dear,
+no time to waste."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you getting tired of me here?" asked Roger quickly.<a class="pagenum" name="page_36" id="page_36" title="36"></a></p>
+
+<p>Mother Wolf's pretty blue eyes filled with tears. "Do you have to be
+unkind, Roger?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Forgive me!" he exclaimed. "I know you'd let me live here if you
+thought it would be good for me."</p>
+
+<p>There was silence. The coal range glowed and the snow without sifted
+endlessly past the window. Suddenly Roger rose and putting on his
+overcoat and cap went out into the storm.</p>
+
+<p>Dean Erskine was in the little office off the junior laboratory. Roger
+had not seen him since the day of his father's funeral, but he kept his
+voice and manner casual.</p>
+
+<p>"Good afternoon, Dean Erskine. How many hours am I behind in lab work?"</p>
+
+<p>The Dean too was off hand. "I've lost count, Roger."</p>
+
+<p>"It's sort of sniveling baby work, anyhow," said Roger. "I did it all
+once; up in the corn crib."</p>
+
+<p>"I know that," said Erskine. "That's why I've let you neglect it so
+outrageously. I had hopes too that you'd wake up and ask to do other
+things. But it seemed that you preferred experimenting with Welsh
+rarebits at Hepburn Hall and marshmallow sundaes at Allen's."</p>
+
+<p>Roger had the grace to blush. He grinned sheepishly, then said soberly:
+"I'm through with all that now."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it has its place in a normal man's life! Only you seem to have
+crowded several years of it into two. If you're not in training I don't
+mind if you smoke. Only close that door into the classroom."</p>
+
+<p>The Dean pulled out an outrageous old pipe. Roger closed the door, then
+lighted a cigarette. The two<a class="pagenum" name="page_37" id="page_37" title="37"></a> smoked in the silence of old friendship
+for a while, then Roger said,</p>
+
+<p>"Dean, what do you know about solar heat?"</p>
+
+<p>The Dean looked at him suspiciously. "The usual things. Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not trying to trip you," exclaimed Roger. "I've read all I can find
+on it, and that's darned little. You know those arrangements of mirrors
+in an umbrella-like frame, focussing the sun's rays on a point at the
+center, where the steam boiler is located?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said the Dean.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I don't believe the fellows that are working along that idea are
+right. The mechanism is hopelessly complicated, unwieldy and expensive."</p>
+
+<p>Erskine nodded, his gaze on Roger's dreaming eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Ever since I was a kid," said the boy, slowly, "in fact ever since the
+factory went to pieces, I've had a pipe dream. It's sort of nutty, you
+know, and I suppose you'll think it's childish, but&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Let's have it. I accept your apologies," said the Dean, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>And so Roger was launched for the first time on the telling of his
+dream. He was a little halting and incoherent at times, but his old
+friend listened attentively. When Roger had finished, he said,</p>
+
+<p>"It's a good dream, Roger, and sound in its general premises. Have you
+ever got down to brass tacks with it and tried to design a solar
+engine?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I've only a lot of notes and sketches. It always seemed to cost so
+much that I never had courage to go any farther."</p>
+
+<p>Erskine refilled his pipe. "I have a dream too. Only mine is in pretty
+good working shape. My<a class="pagenum" name="page_38" id="page_38" title="38"></a> dream has been to turn out of this school men
+who were practical engineers but who also had ideas. Men who were never
+satisfied with a bridge, a motor, a gas engine after they had finished
+it, but would be forever trying to improve it. Such men, of course, are
+rare, but in the fifteen years I've been here, I've sent out five or six
+lads who have given American engineering a real lift. I haven't come
+across a fellow before though who had any concrete vision of the world's
+labor problems in relation to the inventing game."</p>
+
+<p>He fell to brooding and Roger waited patiently. Erskine finally looked
+up. "It's a big dream, boy. Too big for you or any other man to put over
+in a single generation. But we'll do what we can toward giving it a
+start. You cut out junior laboratory and get to work on your designs.
+When you finally get one that seems workable, we'll have the shops make
+a model." He paused, then rose and Roger rose too while the Dean put a
+hand on his broad young shoulder. "You've launched on the finest, most
+thankless, most compelling, most discouraging, most heart thrilling game
+in the world, Roger. You'll probably be poverty stricken all your life,
+but Lord! Lord! what riches of the mind will be yours!"</p>
+
+<p>Roger flushed and lifted his head in a gesture that was infinitely
+young.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm used to poverty, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"I know you are and so am I. Good night, Roger!"</p>
+
+<p>"Good night, Dean! Thank you!" and Roger, in spite of his grief,
+returned to the Wolfs' with his face set triumphantly toward the
+future.<a class="pagenum" name="page_39" id="page_39" title="39"></a></p>
+
+<p>The next morning he deposited his suitcase in old lady Winkler's most
+meager and coldest bedroom and after he had stoked the furnace and
+shoveled the walks he bolted for the college drafting room.</p>
+
+<p>It was not until the fall of his senior year that Roger completed a
+design of a solar engine which Dean Erskine was willing to turn over to
+the University shops, that a model might be made. Roger had taken Ernest
+into his confidence and that faithful friend undertook to make all
+drawings for him. Ernest had no originality of mind, but he was an
+excellent workman and a first class mathematician and laboratory man.
+Early in January, the model was completed, and on a cold Saturday
+afternoon, the test was made. Roger and Ernest came home to the Wolfs'
+for supper deeply discouraged.</p>
+
+<p>"But why wouldn't it work?" asked Elsa, as the boys wiped the supper
+dishes for her.</p>
+
+<p>"If I knew that, I wouldn't be blue, would I?" grunted Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I understood the stuff you talk," Elsa went on. "I don't see how
+on a cold day like this you'd expect to run an engine with heat from the
+sun."</p>
+
+<p>"We didn't try to," said Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't try to!" echoed Elsa. Then she banged the tea kettle angrily
+back on the stove. "I do think you boys are disgusting! Here I'm so
+interested in your work and you treat me as if I were a baby! And I'd
+like to know who does more for you two great hulks than I do. You simply
+disgust&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Hold on, Elsa," roared Roger. "For the love of Mike! I'll confide the
+inmost secrets of my being to<a class="pagenum" name="page_40" id="page_40" title="40"></a> you if you'll stop jawing. Now listen!
+You can see that we can't get as high temperatures out of the sun's rays
+as we can out of burning coal or gasolene?"</p>
+
+<p>Elsa, much mollified, leaned against the sink and fastened her violet
+eyes on Roger's face.</p>
+
+<p>"I understand that," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Wonderful!" murmured Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>Elsa made a face at her brother and Roger went on with a grin. "So I'm
+trying first of all to develop a practical, efficient engine that will
+run with the temperatures I'm able to get from Sun Heat."</p>
+
+<p>"And won't the model work at all? Not a bit?" asked Elsa.</p>
+
+<p>"She just sits and looks at me without moving a muscle," replied Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't the Dean tell you what's the matter?" Elsa ventured.</p>
+
+<p>"The Dean!" snorted Ernest. "Isn't that just like a girl? Why, Roger
+knows more about low pressure engines in a minute than the Dean'll know
+in his whole life. Come on, Rog, if you've finished your kindergarten.
+Let's go up to see Florence King and her bunch at the Beta house. It
+will rest our brains."</p>
+
+<p>"Not for me," replied Roger. "I've done enough girling to last me a
+spell. I'll stay here and educate Elsa till she goes to choir practice,
+then I'm going home and bone on that design."</p>
+
+<p>"Sorry for you," sniffed Ernest, and was off.</p>
+
+<p>Roger deposited Elsa at the church door, then returned to Mrs.
+Winkler's. The light burned in his cold little room nearly all night.
+But when he went to bed, sketches for the complete redesigning of the
+engine lay on his table. And it was this changed design<a class="pagenum" name="page_41" id="page_41" title="41"></a> which he kept
+through all the vicissitudes of struggling to market his dream.</p>
+
+<p>During his senior year, Roger, with Ernest and other promising men of
+the graduating class, had several jobs offered him by different
+manufacturing and engineering concerns. In the earlier days of the
+University, a young graduate of the School of Engineering had been
+looked on with contempt by the business men of the state. He was a
+"book" engineer to them, just as a graduate of the School of Agriculture
+was a "book" farmer to the farmers of the state.</p>
+
+<p>But, as the years had gone on, it was observed that the minor jobs,
+obtained with difficulty by the men whom Dean Erskine had trained and
+recommended, nearly always became jobs of fundamental importance. The
+observation bore fruit. Little by little "Dean Erskine men" were
+scattered across the continent until even as early as Roger's graduating
+year, it was the custom of engineering concerns and manufacturers to
+watch the Dean's laboratories closely and to bespeak the services long
+before commencement of every promising lad in the class.</p>
+
+<p>By the Dean's advice, however, Roger did not accept any of these
+positions. He decided to take an instructorship in the University and
+keep on with his experiments in solar engineering. Both he and Erskine
+felt that in a couple of years, at most, Roger would have something
+practical to offer the world. Ernest also took an instructorship,
+working toward his doctor's degree. His father was delighted. He was
+immensely proud of Ernest's work in college, and a full professorship
+for Ernest would have meant as much to Papa Wolf as the national
+presidency for his boy.<a class="pagenum" name="page_42" id="page_42" title="42"></a></p>
+
+<p>The two years flew rapidly. The summer that he was twenty-five, Roger,
+armed with letters of introduction from the Dean, and a roll of
+drawings, went to Chicago. He was about to market his dream and he
+proposed to give the two summer months to the job. After that&mdash;well, the
+possibilities staggered even Roger's imagination, which was an active
+one.</p>
+
+<p>Haskell and Company, makers of Gas-Engines! The sign was as
+inconspicuous as the firm was famous in the middle West. Roger, after
+two days of waiting, was staring at the faded gilt letters until the
+moment of his interview with Mr. Haskell arrived. He was a little
+uncertain about the knees, but very sanguine for all that. Mr. Haskell,
+a small man with a grizzled beard, sat behind a desk in a room that was
+small and dingy. The desk seemed to Roger an unnecessarily long way from
+the door, as he advanced under Mr. Haskell's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Sir, so you're one of Erskine's men. Ought to be good. Solar
+engine, though, doesn't sound cheerful. What's the idea?"</p>
+
+<p>Roger unrolled his drawings and began his explanations. Haskell listened
+with keen interest, asking questions now and again. When Roger, flushed
+of cheek, had finished, Haskell lighted his cigar, which had gone out.</p>
+
+<p>"Very clever! Very clever! A nice little experiment. What do you want to
+do with it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I want you to manufacture and sell these solar heat plants," replied
+Roger boldly.</p>
+
+<p>"I see. But are you sure such a plant is practicable?"</p>
+
+<p>"Absolutely!"<a class="pagenum" name="page_43" id="page_43" title="43"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Where have you had one working?"</p>
+
+<p>"At the University."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean in the laboratory."</p>
+
+<p>Roger nodded. Haskell cleared his throat and looked over Roger's black
+head for a minute, then he said:</p>
+
+<p>"My dear fellow, I am a business man, not a philanthropist. When you can
+come to me and say, 'I've got a plant in Texas and one in Mississippi
+and one in Egypt and they've worked for, say two years, and the folks
+want more,' why, then you'll interest me. But I don't see putting a
+hundred thousand dollars into a laboratory experiment, however clever."</p>
+
+<p>Roger's clear blue eyes, still unsophisticated despite his twenty-five
+years, did not flinch. There was a perceptible pause, however, before he
+said:</p>
+
+<p>"But, Mr. Haskell, how am I going to get a dozen plants into use unless
+some one manufactures and installs them for me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Some one will have to do just that. But you'll have to pay for it."</p>
+
+<p>"But I thought great concerns like yours," persisted Roger, "were
+constantly looking for new developments."</p>
+
+<p>"We are. But frankly, Mr. Moore, your whole idea is too visionary. Some
+day, undoubtedly, we shall have solar engineering. But that day is
+several generations away. We have coal and all its by-products and water
+power is just beginning to come into its own."</p>
+
+<p>"Coal would have to retail at a dollar a ton to compete with my solar
+device in a hot climate," interrupted Roger.<a class="pagenum" name="page_44" id="page_44" title="44"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Very interesting if true! But you've erected no plant in a hot climate.
+I'll tell you what I will do though, Mr. Moore. I could very well use
+your unusual knowledge of heat transmission in my concern. I'll give you
+three thousand a year to begin with."</p>
+
+<p>Roger got slowly to his feet, rolling up his drawings. "Thank you, Mr.
+Haskell. But I think I'll stick to my solar engine."</p>
+
+<p>Haskell rose too. "An inventor's life is hell, my boy. Better come in
+out of the rain."</p>
+
+<p>"But why should it be hell?" asked Roger. "The inventor is the very
+backbone of the industrial life of the world."</p>
+
+<p>"I know it. But for every good invention offered there are a thousand
+poor ones. We who pay the piper have to be careful."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm much obliged to you for giving me so much time," said Roger,
+picking up his hat.</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all. And remember that my offer to you is a permanent one."</p>
+
+<p>Roger grinned, and left the office.</p>
+
+<p>Outside the building he drew a long breath, stared abstractedly at the
+passing crowd, then drew out his second letter of introduction. James
+Howe and Sons Company, Marine Engines. Roger decided to walk to his
+second meeting. It would give him time to collect his thoughts. The walk
+was a long one and by the time he had covered the distance his hopes had
+soared again.</p>
+
+<p>James Howe and Sons Company did not seem overjoyed by the letter of
+introduction and for some time it seemed as if Roger could not pass the
+young woman who guarded the main office door. He was finally<a class="pagenum" name="page_45" id="page_45" title="45"></a> admitted,
+however, to the office of Mr. Hearn, the general manager. Hearn was a
+man of forty, full faced and ruddy.</p>
+
+<p>"I get the idea! I get the idea!" he said impatiently when Roger was
+about half way through his explanations.</p>
+
+<p>Roger flushed. "You can't possibly, Mr. Hearn. I haven't reached the
+main idea yet."</p>
+
+<p>"I've got enough to convince me that you're hopelessly impractical. Give
+it up, young man! Give it up and get into something that'll pay the bill
+at the corner grocery. Solar power is about as practical as wave power.
+Fit merely for the dreams of poets. Sorry not to be able to give you
+more time. Good day! Miss Morris, call in the foundry boss."</p>
+
+<p>Roger found himself in the street before he had finished rolling up his
+drawings. "Well, I'll be hanged!" he muttered. Then he suddenly smiled.
+"I think I came down here with an idea that we'd be turning out machines
+in a couple of months! Gee, if I'm landed by Christmas, I'll be lucky."
+He pulled out the third letter of introduction, and his head lifted
+defiantly, started off to present it.</p>
+
+<p>The Dean had been generous with his letters, but by the end of the first
+week in Chicago, Roger had presented them all. Curiously enough, in all
+this week of meeting with manufacturers Roger told but one of them his
+ultimate dream. John McGinnis, maker of kerosene engines, was elderly
+and Irish and immensely interested in Roger and his idea.</p>
+
+<p>He slapped Roger on the back. "It's a grand idea, me boy! If I wasn't
+just about to retire, hanged if I wouldn't help you to build one plant.
+How come<a class="pagenum" name="page_46" id="page_46" title="46"></a> you ever to take up solar heat though, with the world all
+howling for a real kerosene engine?"</p>
+
+<p>They were sitting in McGinnis' pleasant office, the windows of which
+overlooked Lake Michigan. The old man had cocked his feet up on his
+mahogany desk and had about him an air of leisurely interest. He gave
+Roger the mate to the long brown cigar he himself was smoking and after
+a few minutes Roger said, hesitatingly:</p>
+
+<p>"When I was a kid of fourteen, labor difficulties ruined my father. He
+owned a little plow factory, employing a couple of hundred men. I got a
+good deal of the men's side for I worked as a forge boy that summer, but
+after the crash, for a long time, I was all for father's side of the
+matter. Gradually though, I began to think differently.</p>
+
+<p>"I began to be sorry for the men as well as for my father. They were
+hardworking, ambitious chaps who wanted to get ahead, just as my father
+did. They took the only way they saw for getting ahead. They didn't
+believe that just because father was the brain of the concern, he should
+be well-to-do and they poor.</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't find any system of government that I was convinced would
+remove the economic inequalities that were the root of the trouble. So I
+began to think about sources of wealth. You can see how my mind fastened
+first on machinery, then on power, then on quantity and accessibility of
+power; then solar heat."</p>
+
+<p>McGinnis nodded, then smiled. "You're a damn queer inventor. What do you
+expect to get out of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"All any man can get on the physical side out of anything is a living,"
+replied Roger. "What I am<a class="pagenum" name="page_47" id="page_47" title="47"></a> getting and expect to have more of, is some
+great adventures."</p>
+
+<p>McGinnis smoked for a while and said, "If I were twenty-five instead of
+seventy, I'd look at it as you do. Being seventy I have to say to you,
+me boy, that though some day you may work out a practical plant for hot
+countries, you'll never solve the labor problem. As long as human nature
+exists we'll have social inequalities. But, after all, as long as you
+contribute something real to the world in the way of a power idea, devil
+a bit does it matter what motive put you at the job."</p>
+
+<p>Roger smoked in silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Had any encouragement in Chicago?" asked the older man.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bit," replied Roger, cheerfully. "But the trip has done me good.
+I've learned that I can't sell an idea. I've got to sell a working
+plant."</p>
+
+<p>"Right you are! And with the patent situation fully covered. Those
+drawings of yours are full of interesting suggestions for makers of any
+kind of engines. Philanthropic of you to show them about Chicago."</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove!" exclaimed Roger, with a startled air. "I guess I'd better
+beat it back to Eagle's Wing until I get out of swaddling clothes. I
+supposed the firm that would take this up would take care of the
+patents. I don't know anything about patents myself."</p>
+
+<p>"Better learn," said McGinnis. "Many of your ideas are clever and need
+protection."</p>
+
+<p>Roger laughed ruefully. "I thought," he confessed, "that I'd have the
+thing marketed in a couple of months."<a class="pagenum" name="page_48" id="page_48" title="48"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Listen," said the old man. "On the average the man who has an invention
+that is of fundamental significance gives his life to perfecting and
+marketing it, then dies hungry. Do you get me?"</p>
+
+<p>"But there are exceptions, aren't there?" insisted Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but no such pipe dream as you have there," pointing to the
+drawings, "could be an exception."</p>
+
+<p>"Would you advise me to give it up?" Roger asked curiously.</p>
+
+<p>"I would not. That's your job. Civilization owes its existence to chaps
+like you."</p>
+
+<p>Roger, face flushed, black hair rumpled, blue eyes glowing, rose to go.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't exactly thank you," he mumbled. "Only," his voice
+strengthening, "if I hadn't met you, I'd have gone back home discouraged
+and almost as ignorant as I left. As it is, I feel in bully fighting
+trim."</p>
+
+<p>Old John McGinnis got to his feet. "God bless you, my lad. When I'm
+twanging a harp, up above, I'll be having an interested eye on you."</p>
+
+<p>Roger started back to Eagle's Wing that evening. Ernest and Dean Erskine
+were both deeply interested in Roger's report, which he gave in the
+Dean's library the night he reached home.</p>
+
+<p>"Pshaw! I should have told you a lot of things that would have helped
+you," exclaimed the Dean when Roger had finished. "But one forgets up
+here in the classroom how the war rages out in the industrial world."</p>
+
+<p>"Will patents cost a lot?" inquired Ernest. "You know I don't use all my
+salary. Draw at will, old man."<a class="pagenum" name="page_49" id="page_49" title="49"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Thanks, old top," replied Roger. "Since I cut out girls and golf, I've
+been saving a bit myself."</p>
+
+<p>"The patents won't cost a great deal, if you do the work yourself,
+Roger," said the Dean. "But it's going to take time to learn the patent
+game."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Roger, with a sigh, "if I've got to become a patent
+attorney in order to patent my ideas, I suppose I can. But gee, I am
+glad I don't want to get married. You were wise in not letting me give
+up that instructorship, Dean, as I wanted to."</p>
+
+<p>Dean Erskine smiled ruefully. "Seems to have been about the only sane
+advice I've given you."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you think it, sir!" exclaimed Roger. "If I ever do get away with
+this, yours will be the credit."</p>
+
+<p>"And Ernest's," added the Dean.</p>
+
+<p>"You bet, Ernest! And now, I'm going out to the University library and
+read up on patents," said Roger, with the familiar squaring of the
+shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>He had need to square his shoulders: a greater need than either he or
+his two devoted friends could dream. For as the months slipped into
+years, it seemed more and more obvious that either Roger's ideas were
+utterly impractical or else that he was actually several generations
+ahead of his time. In his brilliant, yet thoroughgoing way, Roger
+studied patent law and registered two years after his trip to Chicago
+<i>as</i> a patent attorney in Washington. He worked constantly on the
+development of his plant, improving here, discarding there, until he had
+reached the point, he felt, where he could do no more until he had funds
+for a practical plant, in a hot climate.</p>
+
+<p>He and the Dean and Ernest estimated that not less than fifty thousand
+dollars would be essential for such<a class="pagenum" name="page_50" id="page_50" title="50"></a> an initial plant. The sum might
+have been fifty million for all its accessibility to Roger. Most of the
+wealthy men whom Roger was able to reach admitted the cleverness and the
+interest of his ideas. None of them could be persuaded that the idea
+would be a good investment. Once in desperation Roger went to Chicago to
+a firm whose letter heads read "Bankers, Stocks and Bonds, Promoters,
+Investments." Roger was turned over to a young man who wore a garnet
+ring and who was at the head of the Engineering Investments Department.
+The two had several long sessions. Then the man of the garnet ring
+proposed that a company be organized for half a million dollars and that
+his company undertake to sell the stock. Roger was much encouraged.</p>
+
+<p>"That's fine," he said. "How long would it take to raise fifty thousand
+dollars?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not long," replied the young promoter, whose name was Eaton. "Of
+course, you understand that the first money will have to go for office
+expenses and salaries."</p>
+
+<p>"Whose salaries?" asked Roger. "I don't want any and I need only a few
+day laborers."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't get me." Eaton was patient. "I'm speaking of the Solar
+Company's Chicago office."</p>
+
+<p>"Shucks! We don't want an office in Chicago. What we want is a plant in
+Arizona."</p>
+
+<p>"If you think we can sell stock in a nutty scheme like this without
+plenty of mahogany furniture and high sounding titles on glass doors,
+you're even greener than I thought you were," said Eaton.</p>
+
+<p>Roger looked at him thoughtfully. "Oh, I see!"<a class="pagenum" name="page_51" id="page_51" title="51"></a> he said after a moment.
+"When would you want to begin on this work?"</p>
+
+<p>"As soon as you can raise a little preliminary expense money for us, say
+$1500."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," said Roger again. "Of course, you realize that the only thing that
+will give that stock any value is building plants with the money we get
+from selling it."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, certainly! But we must make a right start. An office in your
+bedroom may go in Eagle's Wing but not in Chicago."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" said Roger for a third and last time. And the conference adjourned
+sine die.</p>
+
+<p>Something about this interview depressed Roger profoundly.</p>
+
+<p>He went home, locked up his drawings and threw an old canvas over the
+model of the solar engine that had stood for so many years in a corner
+of the graduate laboratory. It was six months before he could induce
+himself to touch his work again. And it dawned on him that his twenties
+were slipping by and that he was becoming unsociable and grave. But
+there seemed no remedy for the matter. His dream had become the most
+vital part of his life, and would not let him lead a normal existence.
+Such is the price that a dreamer pays for his vision.</p>
+
+<hr class="major" />
+<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em">
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_52" id="page_52" title="52"></a>
+<a name="THE_NEW_DAY_1737" id="THE_NEW_DAY_1737"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER III</h2>
+<h3>THE NEW DAY</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>Roger, climbing the steps to the Science Building on the day that he was
+thirty years old, wondered if his working life was to end as it had
+begun within its ugly walls.</p>
+
+<p>The building stood at the western edge of the campus. It was a Gothic,
+Jacobean, Victorian composite, four stories high, built of yellow
+sandstone, marble and brick. It boasted a round dome, rising from a
+Gothic main roof and a little pagoda-like tower on each of the mansard
+roofs that crowned the two wings. There had been a time when to Roger
+the Science Building had been beautiful. But he saw its ugliness now and
+laughed about it with Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>On this December afternoon, Roger stayed late in the laboratory with
+twenty seniors who for some weeks had been carrying on strength tests of
+varying mixtures of concrete. The sun was low in the west and the
+corners of the huge old room were dark. But a red glow from the west
+window filled its center, turning the concrete briquettes piled on the
+table in the middle of the room to gold.</p>
+
+<p>Roger stood by the table, examining the students' reports on the
+fractured briquettes. His black hair, with the sunset full upon it, was
+like molten bronze. Roger's face had changed in the years since his
+undergraduate<a class="pagenum" name="page_53" id="page_53" title="53"></a> days. His figure was the same, six feet of lean muscle;
+his eyes were as blue and his face as thin and intellectual as when as a
+small boy he had dreamed of an underground railway. But there had grown
+subtly into his face a look of grimness and unhappiness that robbed it
+of the youth it still should have retained.</p>
+
+<p>A shock headed student came to the table with a briquette.</p>
+
+<p>"How does the thesis go, Hallock?" asked Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"Slow, just now, Mr. Moore."</p>
+
+<p>"What's the trouble?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, the best of the information is in German and I'm rotten at
+scientific German."</p>
+
+<p>"You've taken the required work in German, haven't you, Hallock?"</p>
+
+<p>"Squeezed through by a hair's breadth," the boy answered with a grin.</p>
+
+<p>Roger grunted. "Neglected it, of course, when you've been told time and
+time again that a reading knowledge of scientific German is essential to
+research success. I wonder why an undergraduate has to be a fool?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not a fool," contradicted Hallock flatly.</p>
+
+<p>"Any man's a fool who's working his way through college and fails to get
+the most he can out of every course offered him. I know, because I
+worked my way through my last two years, neglected my German and had to
+make it up after I graduated. That thesis will make or mar you as far as
+your first job goes. Who'd you have your second year German with? If I
+were you, I'd take a semester of it over again."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd rather never get a diploma than go back to old Rosenthal."<a class="pagenum" name="page_54" id="page_54" title="54"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Rosenthal," corrected Roger sharply. "Speak respectfully of an
+instructor."</p>
+
+<p>"Aw," exclaimed Hallock, now evidently angry, "why should I speak
+respectfully of a beer-guzzling Dutchman who sneers at the girls in the
+class every time they recite?"</p>
+
+<p>There was sudden silence in the room. Hallock was evidently relieving an
+accumulation of irritation. "If I had been Miss Anderson this morning
+I'd have slapped his fat face for him."</p>
+
+<p>"Be careful, Hallock! I can't permit you to talk this way to me about a
+member of the faculty."</p>
+
+<p>"Then you're no better than he!" shouted Hallock. "The damned Dutch run
+this college and I'm sick of it."</p>
+
+<p>There was a sudden murmur of agreement from the highly edified audience
+now grouped behind Hallock. This was an old sore that had existed in
+Roger's own days under Rosenthal.</p>
+
+<p>"Pshaw, I know all about Mr. Rosenthal's peccadillos, Hallock," he said.
+"But he's a teacher and scholar of the first water. Girls always take
+general remarks personally. Miss Anderson had better forget it, whatever
+it was. Girl hysteria, probably."</p>
+
+<p>Hallock suddenly began to cry with rage. "Hysteria, damn you, don't you
+insult her too!" Then, as an angry sneer appeared on Roger's face, he
+unexpectedly leaned over the table and punched Roger on the nose.</p>
+
+<p>Roger vaulted over the table and with a rapid clip laid Hallock flat.
+The boy was on his feet in a moment, crying, but game. The edified
+audience held the two apart.<a class="pagenum" name="page_55" id="page_55" title="55"></a></p>
+
+<p>"You don't know what the Dutch slob said! You don't know," sobbed
+Hallock.</p>
+
+<p>Roger did not speak. In fact he could not. He stood white and trembling
+for some time, a scarlet trickle of blood running from one nostril. His
+struggle for control was so obvious that even Hallock perceived it and
+was silent. With the other lads he stood in embarrassment while the
+laboratory clock ticked and the end of the winter sunset filled the
+room.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed to Roger that the fight was as difficult now as it had been
+years before, when he had struck his mother's soothing hand from his
+shoulder and later had kissed that same hand and had wept his heart out
+with his cheek upon it. In the brief moment as he stood with clenched
+fists and bowed head, waiting for the red mist to give way to his normal
+vision it seemed as if all his life passed in review before him tinged
+with the hot glare of his mental and spiritual tempests. Then, as many,
+many times before, he seemed to feel the gentle hand, that he had
+struck, laid softly on his forehead. He heaved a great sigh and looked
+up.</p>
+
+<p>"The class is dismissed," he said. "Hallock, hold a snowball to your
+chin as you go home."</p>
+
+<p>When the class had left the room, Roger washed his face at the sink in
+the corner, wiping his hands on a towel that was gray with age. Then, he
+dropped the towel and stood leaning against the table, head bowed, arms
+folded.</p>
+
+<p>The gloaming increased. A cheerful whistle sounded in the hall and
+Ernest came in.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, old top? Ready to go home?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ern, do you know a girl named Anderson?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, very pretty. Engaged to young Hallock,<a class="pagenum" name="page_56" id="page_56" title="56"></a> they say. What about her?
+Don't tell me you've begun to be interested again in petticoats."</p>
+
+<p>"I had the deuce of a row with Hallock, just now," said Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"Change your clothes as you tell me about it," suggested Ernest. "It's
+late."</p>
+
+<p>Roger obediently started for the closet, talking from the door as he
+dressed. Ernest lighted his pipe and listened thoughtfully under the
+electric light he had turned on. He was a shorter man than Roger and
+stockily built. He was still very fair, with soft yellow hair already
+receding from a broad forehead. His eyes were beautiful, a deep violet,
+soft dreaming eyes that men as well as women trusted instinctively.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure you've seen Miss Anderson," he said when Roger had finished.
+"She's a funny foolish little thing. Just the kind to attract an
+unsocialized grind like Hallock. I guess there was a good deal of a row
+in Rosenthal's class this morning. One of the seniors told me. Rosenthal
+said to Miss Anderson&mdash;say, Rog, you're not listening."</p>
+
+<p>Roger picked up his hat. "I don't care what Rosenthal said. He always
+was a boor. The point with me is that I've lost my temper in the
+classroom for the last time. Come on, Ern."</p>
+
+<p>They were crossing the snowy campus before Ernest spoke. Then he laid
+his hand on his friend's arm.</p>
+
+<p>"The fool kid brought it on himself. I can see how he got worked up. You
+can be exasperating and he gave you what he'd like to have given
+Rosenthal. Nevertheless, no man can take a crack on the chin with a
+thank you, Roger."</p>
+
+<p>Roger did not reply. They turned into River Street<a class="pagenum" name="page_57" id="page_57" title="57"></a> where the street
+lights flashed through the bare branches of the elms. An occasional
+sleigh jingled by. Lights glowed from pleasant windows where children
+were silhouetted against the curtains. Ernest stopped before the big,
+comfortable Wolf house.</p>
+
+<p>"Come in to supper, Roger."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll not be good company, Ern," but Roger's voice was wistful.</p>
+
+<p>"Come along! Mother doesn't mind your grouches, and I guess the rest of
+us can endure one more."</p>
+
+<p>Roger turned up the brick path that led to the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, boys!" Elsa called, as the front door slammed. "You're late!"</p>
+
+<p>Elschen at twenty-nine was still very pretty in an unobtrusive way. Her
+yellow hair was thick and curly. Her eyes were like Ernest's and her
+skin was fair, with a velvety flush in her delicately rounded cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>"Supper's ready," she went on. "Papa just came in. Don't keep him
+waiting, children."</p>
+
+<p>Roger and Ernest went quickly into the dining room where Papa Wolf was
+just sitting down. He nodded to them over his spectacles, then helped
+himself to a slice of meat.</p>
+
+<p>"Where's Mamma?" asked Ernest, passing the bread to Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, liebchen!" Mamma Wolf came in, carrying a steaming coffee pot.
+She set it down, then hurried round the table to kiss first Ernest, then
+Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"You know Rog can't eat without you, M&uuml;tterchen," laughed Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>"He doesn't get his manners from the Germans," snapped Elsa.<a class="pagenum" name="page_58" id="page_58" title="58"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Never mind! I've gotten the only home life I've known in eight years
+from them," returned Roger. He and Mamma Wolf exchanged an affectionate
+glance.</p>
+
+<p>"Pass the biscuits, Elsa," said Papa Wolf.</p>
+
+<p>"Going anywhere to-night, Elsa?" asked Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, we have choir practice every night from now to Christmas."</p>
+
+<p>"The carols are beautiful!" exclaimed Mamma Wolf. "I heard them last
+night when I stopped by the church for Elsa. Ernest, pass your papa the
+preserves and put the cake where he can reach it. It's fresh, Papa,
+never fear. I only finished frosting it as you came in." Mamma Wolf
+looked at her husband a little anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"That Smithsonian man telephoned you again this afternoon, Ernest," said
+Elsa. "He wanted to call this evening and I told him to come along."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder what he wants," mused Roger. "He's been hanging round for a
+long time."</p>
+
+<p>"Pass the biscuits, Ernest," from Papa Wolf. "The cake is very bad,
+Mamma."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Papa, is it? And I took such trouble!" The distress in the gentle
+voice made Roger scowl.</p>
+
+<p>"In America, Papa," Elsa's voice was mocking, "where you have lived for
+some forty years, it is not considered courteous to criticize the food
+at the table."</p>
+
+<p>"Hush, Elschen! Papa can say what he wishes, always, to me. Is it not
+so, Karl?"</p>
+
+<p>Papa Wolf pushed away his plate, wiped his mustache and leaned back in
+his chair with a smile and a sigh of repletion.</p>
+
+<p>"You spoil us all, Mamma!" he exclaimed. "Elsa, Uncle Hugo comes
+to-night and we will have a little music. You will give up choir
+practice, just for once."<a class="pagenum" name="page_59" id="page_59" title="59"></a></p>
+
+<p>Ernest glanced at his sister apprehensively. She flushed resentfully.
+"But I must go, Papa!" she cried. "I take the salary the church pays me.
+I must sing well."</p>
+
+<p>"Laughing and flirting with the new bass is not practice," returned
+Papa. "You stay at home to-night, Elschen."</p>
+
+<p>Elsa glanced at Ernest, who shrugged his shoulders. Then she gave a long
+look at her father with eyes that were black with anger.</p>
+
+<p>"Papa, I'm going to choir practice," she insisted.</p>
+
+<p>Her father brought his fist down on the table. "Am I or am I not master
+in my own house?" he shouted. "Elsa, what you have needed was a German
+upbringing. You will stay at home to-night and make music with Hugo and
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"Papa," said Elsa slowly, "I am twenty-nine years old and I can't endure
+this sort of thing much longer. Mother and I are just unpaid servants
+for&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Elsa! Bitte! Bitte sehr!" exclaimed Mother Wolf.</p>
+
+<p>Elsa's dark look went to her mother, then to Roger, who was still
+scowling. Her lips trembled. She shrugged her shoulders and rising began
+to clear the table.</p>
+
+<p>The three men went into the library and lighted their pipes. Papa Wolf,
+having with much difficulty persuaded his meerschaum to draw, parted his
+coat-tails and settled himself on the piano stool. Then he threw his
+head back while he touched a few quiet chords. He had a beautiful,
+massive head. Roger, ensconced in a deep Morris chair, thought, as he
+had thought many times before, that it was a head that<a class="pagenum" name="page_60" id="page_60" title="60"></a> should have
+belonged to an artist rather than to a dry goods merchant. The chords
+merged into a quiet melody. Ernest buried his head in the evening paper.
+Roger let his pipe go out and his face settled into lines that added ten
+years to his age.</p>
+
+<p>The subdued clatter of dishes from the kitchen finally ceased and Elsa
+came through the room. Her father stopped her as she passed and put his
+arm about her waist.</p>
+
+<p>"Sweetheart, don't be cross with me," he said. "It's just that Papa so
+loves to have his little girl with him."</p>
+
+<p>Elsa put her hand on his gray head and looked down into his face but
+said nothing.</p>
+
+<p>"Come now," he went on, "sing a little song of forgiveness with me."</p>
+
+<p>Still with his arm about her he played with one hand and sang as he
+played:</p>
+
+<p>
+"Du, du! liegst mir im Herzen!<br />
+Du, du! liegst mir im Sinn!<br />
+Du! du! machst mir viel Schmerzen<br />
+Weiss nicht wie gut ich dir bin."<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>There was a sudden ring at the doorbell and with a little laugh that was
+half a sob, Elsa hurried to let Uncle Hugo in. He was tall, thin and
+blonde, yet his resemblance to Mamma Wolf, his sister, was unmistakable.</p>
+
+<p>"So! We make a little music to-night," he boomed in a rich bass, "and
+the audience is set," bowing ironically to Roger, still in the clouds,
+and Ernest, his head still in the paper. "Where is the M&uuml;tterchen?"<a class="pagenum" name="page_61" id="page_61" title="61"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Coming in a minute," called Mamma, from the dining room. "I can hear.
+Go ahead."</p>
+
+<p>Elsa sat down at the piano. Papa Wolf opened his 'cello case. Uncle Hugo
+put his silver flute to his lips and played a tentative sweet note. In a
+moment the strains of Schubert's Serenade, exquisitely rendered, filled
+the quiet house. Roger relighted his pipe and let it go out. Whenever
+over her shoulder, Elsa cast a quick glance at him, his gaze was
+fastened intently on the ceiling.</p>
+
+<p>For an hour the music continued without interruption. Then the doorbell
+rang again and Ernest went to answer it.</p>
+
+<p>"Come into the den so we won't disturb the concert," Roger heard him
+say. "Rog, come in here, will you?"</p>
+
+<p>Roger obediently made his way into a little room off the dining room,
+devoted to the men of the household. A short smooth-shaven, sandy-haired
+man was standing by the reading table. Roger and he shook hands.</p>
+
+<p>"I've been talking to Dr. Austin a good deal about your solar heat
+apparatus, Rog," said Ernest, "and he's got a proposition to make. Let's
+sit down and talk it out."</p>
+
+<p>He pushed a jar of tobacco toward Austin and the three men, eyeing one
+another with frank interest, settled themselves in the easy chairs which
+Ernest indicated with a nod.</p>
+
+<p>"I think Ernest said that you represent the Smithsonian Institute,"
+Roger said. "What do you want to do? Put my engine in your museum?" This
+with a short laugh.</p>
+
+<p>Austin shook his head. "I see you are about as<a class="pagenum" name="page_62" id="page_62" title="62"></a> ignorant as the rest of
+the world as to the real nature of our work. Confess now!"</p>
+
+<p>Ernest smiled. "I suppose I've been reading papers and reports from the
+Smithsonian for ten years, but until I met you, Mr. Austin, I was
+certainly vague about who or what the work represented. Go ahead and
+give Moore the explanation you gave me, will you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," began Austin, "an Englishman named Smithson left his estate to
+his nephew named Hungerford with the stipulation that if Hungerford died
+without heirs, the state was to go to found the Smithsonian Institution
+in America. Hungerford obligingly died without issue. It was in 1835, I
+think, and after a great deal of red tape, about half a million dollars
+was turned over to the American Congress to go to work with.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, Congress did considerable false stepping but finally the
+Institution was organized with the avowed purpose of increasing and
+diffusing knowledge. Rather a large program, eh! It was proposed to
+carry this program out by stimulating talented men to make original
+researches by offering prizes, by appropriating every year a sum of
+money for particular researches and by every year publishing reports on
+the progress of difficult branches of knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>"The original bequest has been increased until now the Institution has
+use of the income on a million dollars. You'll be surprised to know how
+much real work has been done by this very little advertised branch of
+our government. For example, out of the system of weather observation
+developed by the Institution grew the United States Weather Bureau. The
+United<a class="pagenum" name="page_63" id="page_63" title="63"></a> States Ethnological Research is all done by us&mdash;as witness the
+monumental studies of our American Indians. Powell's great explorations
+were fathered by the Smithsonian and so were Langley's experiments in
+flying machines as well as his studies of solar heat."</p>
+
+<p>"My word!" exclaimed Roger, "so they were!"</p>
+
+<p>"When I was in the northern part of the state, last summer, studying
+certain Indian mounds, I ran across one of your fellow instructors who
+mentioned your work in heat engineering. I've always been much
+interested in that line of research, so when I came West again I tried
+to get in touch with you."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not hard to reach, surely," said Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, you are," returned Austin.</p>
+
+<p>"It was this way, Rog," Ernest's lazy, gentle voice interrupted. "I kept
+Dr. Austin away from you until I felt that there was some hope. I didn't
+want you to have another disappointment."</p>
+
+<p>"As I got your idea from Mr. Wolf, it seems to me that the Smithsonian
+might be glad to back you in further experiments," said Austin.</p>
+
+<p>Roger's thin face flushed as it was apt to do when his work was under
+discussion. "This is mighty kind of you, Dr. Austin, but my work has
+gone beyond the experimental stage. I'm ready to erect Solar Power
+Plants if I can find the money."</p>
+
+<p>"Rog, you're not ready!" cried Ernest, with unusual vehemence. "You've
+no idea of the troubles you'll be up against when you try actually to
+erect a working plant, in a hot country."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not afraid," returned Roger shortly. "One thing is certain, I'm not
+going on experimenting any longer."<a class="pagenum" name="page_64" id="page_64" title="64"></a></p>
+
+<p>"My understanding of your device is, that it is practical only in
+tropical or semi-tropical climates," said Austin.</p>
+
+<p>"This first device is, yes," answered Roger shortly. "If I can ever get
+this one launched, I shall take up other climates."</p>
+
+<p>Austin eyed Roger keenly for a moment, then he said suddenly,</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you let me see your plans? We might possibly have something
+to say that would interest you."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, of course! I wish I had some of them here. And it's too late to go
+up to the laboratory to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a moment, Roger! Wait a moment," exclaimed Ernest. "Praying that
+we'd get to this point to-night, I brought down a set of drawings." He
+unlocked a drawer of the table and pulled out a roll of paper.</p>
+
+<p>Roger spread some of the sheets on the table and the black, the yellow
+and the sandy heads bent over them.</p>
+
+<p>"This," began Roger, "is the general ground plan of a plant designed to
+produce about 50 horse power. This detail here, which looks like a
+design for a glassed-in hot bed for early cabbage, is the heat absorber.
+It consists of a trough lined with some insulating material, covered
+with two layers of ordinary window glass. Under this window glass I flow
+crude oil, which absorbs the sun's heat as it comes through the glass. I
+get some remarkable temperatures, right here in Eagle's Wing. Here is a
+month's thermometer readings during July."</p>
+
+<p>Austin studied the table thoughtfully. "The heated<a class="pagenum" name="page_65" id="page_65" title="65"></a> oil is the fuel for
+a low pressure engine. What engine do you use?"</p>
+
+<p>"One of my own design. Here are the drawings."</p>
+
+<p>Austin bent over these with absorbed interest and for an hour Roger
+answered his questions. At the end of this time, Austin lighted his
+pipe, which had gone out, and took a turn or two up and down the room.
+Then he paused suddenly in front of Roger and said, "Why don't you go
+down into Arizona and put up a small pumping plant as an experiment for
+the Smithsonian? I know this is not the large way, the commercial way,
+but I am convinced that this is the careful, practical way. Your friend
+Wolf tells me that the most popular reason given by the business houses
+you've visited for turning you down has been that you've never actually
+erected a working plant. Why not try it for us? Then you'll be in a
+position to talk business."</p>
+
+<p>Roger, his face a still deeper red, looked from Austin to Ernest and
+back again. He relighted his pipe with fingers that shook.</p>
+
+<p>"How big a plant?" he asked huskily.</p>
+
+<p>"Big enough to irrigate about twenty-five acres of desert for alfalfa.
+I'm convinced that when you actually undertake to put such a plant in
+operation, you'll realize that there are details to be remade that you
+never dreamed of, on paper."</p>
+
+<p>Roger did not speak for a moment. Five years ago he would have refused
+such an offer as this, without hesitation. It was very different, this,
+from turning out say a thousand units in six months. Yet, so long had
+hope been deferred that Roger hesitated, not for lack of enthusiasm for
+Austin's offer, but because the<a class="pagenum" name="page_66" id="page_66" title="66"></a> sudden joy that rose within him made it
+difficult to speak. Finally he turned to Ernest, who was watching him
+with a look of inexpressible satisfaction in his beautiful eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you go with me, Ern?"</p>
+
+<p>"The family will kick, but I'm going," answered Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>"What are the terms, Dr. Austin?" asked Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll buy all machinery and apparatus and pay for labor and living up
+to ten thousand dollars."</p>
+
+<p>Roger could not believe that his sterile years of endeavor and
+disappointment were to bring forth even this small fruit. He laid his
+pipe down, picked it up, then said, "I can't tell you what this
+opportunity means to me. It's&mdash;it's my work, you see, and&mdash;and&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right," Austin spoke hastily. "When can you start? I know
+exactly the spot in Arizona that we would wish you to go to&mdash;Archer's
+Springs. Have you a map of Arizona?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, some of the Geological Survey maps," said Ernest, opening up a
+chart case.</p>
+
+<p>"Here's the spot." Austin put his pencil on the map. "It's about twenty
+miles north of the railroad, a mining country, but we've always believed
+that the valleys here could blossom if we could get water to them. The
+Reclamation Service never expects to get in there."</p>
+
+<p>"I know that," said Roger eagerly, "and yet a cheap power would make an
+inland empire of that section."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you ever seen it?" asked Austin.</p>
+
+<p>"No, Chicago has been my uttermost limit of travel so far. But I've
+studied hot countries and their resources for ten years."<a class="pagenum" name="page_67" id="page_67" title="67"></a></p>
+
+<p>"My idea is," said Austin, "that we buy all our supplies at St. Louis.
+I'll go that far with you. You can buy the essentials for making camp at
+Archer's Springs and by the time you are ready for it, freight will have
+brought the rest. I believe there is an excellent trading store at
+Archer's Springs where you can buy a camp outfit. I'll wire down and
+find out."</p>
+
+<p>"Jove, Rog, doesn't that sound great!" exclaimed Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>"When shall we plan to start?" asked Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not at once, so as to get the plant running by Spring, when the
+real heat comes on?" Austin looked from one eager face to the other.</p>
+
+<p>"We both are teaching, you know," said Ernest. "I thought next June&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Next June!" shouted Roger. "This is the first of December, Dr. Austin.
+We'll have found substitutes and be ready to travel immediately after
+the Christmas recess."</p>
+
+<p>Ernest winced. "That's crowding things! But&mdash;well, you're the boss of
+the expedition, Rog. I'll be with you."</p>
+
+<p>"Fine!" Austin rubbed his hands together. "We'll start our purchase list
+now, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>The concert, which had proceeded during the evening without
+interruption, now stopped abruptly, just as the clock struck ten.</p>
+
+<p>"How about deferring that until to-morrow?" asked Roger. "I've a number
+of lists in my desk at the Science Building that will help us."</p>
+
+<p>"That's a good idea," Austin rose as he spoke. "Will you both take
+dinner with me at the hotel to-morrow evening and we can give the
+evening to this?"<a class="pagenum" name="page_68" id="page_68" title="68"></a></p>
+
+<p>"We'll be there," replied Roger, following Austin to the door. When he
+returned, Ernest was locking up the drawings. "Well, Ern, old boy, it's
+not big business, but thanks to you, it's a real start in that
+direction, anyhow. How can I thank you?"</p>
+
+<p>"By helping me to break the news to the family. It's most deucedly short
+notice. We'll have some trouble in finding substitutes for our classroom
+work."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure Benson and Ames will be only too glad of the chance," Roger
+spoke decidedly. "I thought of them this afternoon. I swear I was in
+earnest in saying I was through with teaching. And now this! It's like a
+double answer to prayer."</p>
+
+<p>"Boys!" called Elsa, "the beer is waiting."</p>
+
+<p>Ernest was well into his second stein and his third cheese sandwich
+before, in response to repeated kicks from Roger, he made his
+announcement. There was a moment's silence, broken by Elsa.</p>
+
+<p>"Lucky dogs! Take me along!"</p>
+
+<p>"But, Ernest, you cannot go," protested Papa Wolf. "Let Roger go if he
+wishes. I have nothing to say to that. But, my son, with the chance for
+a full professorship in a great university&mdash;no!"</p>
+
+<p>Roger sighed. He was sorry for Ernest, but he never could understand his
+docile relationship to his father. Ernest came back, pluckily enough.</p>
+
+<p>"I think I ought to go, Papa. It will be a fine experience and I will
+come back to teaching with a new interest."</p>
+
+<p>"But why waste time? Why waste time?" cried his father. "You are nearly
+thirty. Instead of playing in the desert for a year, you should be
+marrying and starting a home."<a class="pagenum" name="page_69" id="page_69" title="69"></a></p>
+
+<p>"It won't be play, Mr. Wolf," said Roger. "It'll be bitter hard work,
+but it will add considerably to Ernest's reputation."</p>
+
+<p>"Pah! Pah! <i>Was ist's!</i>" snorted the older man. "You are a good boy,
+Roger, but you are full of foolishness. You are bad for Ernest."</p>
+
+<p>"Pshaw, Papa, don't talk like a goose," protested Elsa, her cheeks
+crimson. "All the initiative Ernest's got, Roger gave him. Why not let
+Ernest see a little of life before he settles down forever? Let him have
+just one adventure, for goodness sake."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you be still, Elsa?" asked her father sternly.</p>
+
+<p>"Hush, Elschen," whispered Mamma Wolf.</p>
+
+<p>"Roger should be settling down and finding a wife for himself," Papa
+Wolf went on. "He'd soon get over his absentminded ways."</p>
+
+<p>Ernest suddenly laughed. "Why, Papa, Roger looks on women about the way
+you look on inventors."</p>
+
+<p>"Dry up, Ern," said Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"What sort of a thing is it, this desert machine?" asked Uncle Hugo.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a method of utilizing solar heat for power," replied Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, yes, the big umbrella-like things. I've seen them in the pictures."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all," corrected Roger crossly.</p>
+
+<p>Ernest spoke suddenly, very firmly but without raising his gentle voice.
+"I'm sorry to go against your wishes, Papa, but I'm going, just the
+same."</p>
+
+<p>His father's mouth opened in astonishment. There was silence for a
+moment, broken by a sob from Mamma Wolf. Then Papa Wolf roared: "So
+that's it! You are of age. But disobedience I will<a class="pagenum" name="page_70" id="page_70" title="70"></a> not countenance. If
+you go, never again can you live in my house."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Karl!" cried Mamma Wolf.</p>
+
+<p>Elsa sniffed audibly. "What a tempest over a little thing! Uncle Hugo,
+have some more beer?"</p>
+
+<p>"I must be going," said Hugo, taking the beer nevertheless.</p>
+
+<p>"So must I," exclaimed Roger, rising hastily. "Then it's settled,
+Ernest?"</p>
+
+<p>Ernest leaned over to take another sandwich. "It's settled. Don't cry,
+M&uuml;tterchen. I'll bring you home a horned toad and you can make me a bed
+and serve my meals in the garage."</p>
+
+<p>Roger took Mamma Wolf's hand and kissed her cheek. "Good night, dear,"
+he whispered.</p>
+
+<p>Mamma Wolf smiled bravely and clung to his fingers for a moment. "You
+have made me sad, Roger, but I can't help loving you!"</p>
+
+<p>Roger kissed her again. "I'm not going to let you be sad long. I'll
+bring Ernie back to you safe and sound. Well, I'm off to bed! Good
+night, Elsa!" and he was gone with a bang of the front door.</p>
+
+<p>The days to Christmas flew by with unbelievable speed. Papa Wolf washed
+his hands of the whole adventure, as Elsa continued to call it, and
+refused to allow any mention of it in his hearing. This was Ernest's
+first insurrection, and his father seemed to have no tool but silence
+with which to combat it. Christmas eve and Christmas day were celebrated
+with all the usual beautiful German customs. It seemed to Roger that he
+enjoyed them more each year, and this year, with the novel sense of
+achievement in his heart, the joy of the day was unalloyed.<a class="pagenum" name="page_71" id="page_71" title="71"></a></p>
+
+<p>Although Papa Wolf was obdurate about the adventure, his big heart could
+not permit him to allow him to let Austin spend Christmas day in a
+hotel. When he learned that Austin had a wife and child in Washington,
+nothing would do but that the Smithsonian man should share in a home
+Christmas. Papa Wolf provided another guest also, a stranger named
+Adolph Werner. He was a German banker, traveling across America on
+business, and the Wolf family was instructed to treat him with great
+deference. Stout and bespectacled, he proved a delightful guest and Dr.
+Austin displayed a gift for comic songs that brought the house down.</p>
+
+<p>The two guests discovered that they both had studied for several years
+in Munich and a great meeting of spirits followed, materially assisted
+by Papa Wolf, Uncle Hugo and a bowl of Gl&uuml;h Wein. And when it was still
+further discovered that Werner's next stopping place was St. Louis, he
+was invited at once to join the Sun Planters, as Elsa had dubbed them.
+He accepted at once and on New Year's Day, with Elsa and her mother
+weeping and Papa Wolf blinking back tears but sternly refusing to say
+good-by, the party pulled out of the little Eagle's Wing station. Herr
+Werner proved to be a delightful traveling companion and he became so
+much interested in the details of the experiment that he insisted that
+he be invited to visit the plant; an invitation that was given most
+cordially by Roger.</p>
+
+<p>Thanks to Dr. Austin's experienced presence, the purchases in St. Louis
+were made in record time and at the end of the second week in January,
+Roger and Ernest set forth alone for the desert country.<a class="pagenum" name="page_72" id="page_72" title="72"></a></p>
+
+<p>It was their first trip west of the Mississippi and both men were
+absorbed in watching the changes of scenery as the train whirled from
+one state to the next. Albuquerque was an hour behind when Ernest came
+into the smoking compartment where Roger was engaged in drawing on the
+back of an old envelope.</p>
+
+<p>"Say, Rog, I know you aren't interested in the sex, but there's the most
+unusual little girl on the train. She's seven years old and traveling
+all alone. Her name is Felicia. She got in at Kansas City. They checked
+her through like a pup. She's going out to join her brother and sister
+on a mining claim near Archer's Springs."</p>
+
+<p>Roger did not stop his pencil. "Seems as if we'd have neighbors," he
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope this is a sample of Archer's Springs girls!" said Ernest.
+"Honestly, Roger, she's a lovely kid. Come on back and see her. I'm
+going to take her out on the observation platform with me."</p>
+
+<p>Roger grunted, and Ernest, with a grin, left him in peace. It was an
+hour later when Roger, having forgotten about the child, but wanting to
+ask Ernest a question, made his way to the observation platform. It was
+so exceedingly dusty that Ernest and his little friend had it to
+themselves.</p>
+
+<p>"Here she is, little Felicia!" cried Ernest. "And here he is, big
+Roger!"</p>
+
+<p>The little girl looked up at Roger. He returned the look with a
+surprised interest. He did not know much about little girls, but it
+seemed to him that she must be rather unusual. She had large brown eyes
+of astounding depth and softness. She was tall for her seven years, tall
+and graceful, in a short soiled blue<a class="pagenum" name="page_73" id="page_73" title="73"></a> gingham dress, and socks wrinkling
+down on stubby Oxford ties. Her hair was brown, curly and short. There
+were lovely curves in her scarlet drooping lips, and a fine arch in her
+head, above the ears.</p>
+
+<p>She made a little curtsey and shook hands in the limp manner of
+childhood. Roger smiled at her, and sat down.</p>
+
+<p>"Ernest, what was the size of the glass you and Dr. Austin were finally
+able to get?"</p>
+
+<p>"Eight by twelve. Felicia, tell Mr. Moore where you're going."</p>
+
+<p>"Out to live with Charley and Dick," said the child obediently.</p>
+
+<p>"Have they been there long?" asked Roger, lighting his pipe.</p>
+
+<p>"Ever since Mother died. They left me with Aunt May. But now I'm going
+out to be with Charley. Dear, dearest Charley, that's what Aunt May
+says."</p>
+
+<p>"Charley must be your favorite brother," commented Roger, a trifle
+absentmindedly as he tried to define the disconcerting attraction
+Felicia had for him.</p>
+
+<p>"Ho! How silly you are!" laughed the little girl. "Charley's my big only
+sister. Her whole name is Charlotte Emerson Preble and she looks just
+like me. Aunt May says so."</p>
+
+<p>"Preble!" exclaimed both the men.</p>
+
+<p>"Charley Preble!" Roger went on. "Ern, don't you remember the pretty
+little girl who used to play with us?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I do. That's why Felicia has been puzzling us so. We were
+just kids, but seems to me Charley looked exactly as she does."<a class="pagenum" name="page_74" id="page_74" title="74"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Did sister Charley ever talk to you about Eagle's Wing?" asked Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't recollect Charley. She went out to take care of Dick when I was
+so little. Charley's awful good. She'll take such care of me as never
+was on sea or land. Aunt May says so. And I'll love her more than I do
+God."</p>
+
+<p>"Was Dick sick? I remember him as a big, husky boy, don't you, Ern?"</p>
+
+<p>Ernest shook his head. "I don't remember him. You were the one who used
+to go out to Prebles' to play."</p>
+
+<p>"Dicky was sick," Felicia piped on. "Dicky's like Dad. He'll never
+amount to much, Aunt May says."</p>
+
+<p>"Look at the queer kind of cactus we're beginning to pass, Felicia,"
+interrupted Roger, hastily.</p>
+
+<p>Felicia leaned against his knee. No little girl ever had done so before
+and Roger looked at her curiously.</p>
+
+<p>"The desert's awful homely, isn't it?" she said.</p>
+
+<p>"It certainly is," agreed Ernest, lighting a fresh cigar.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment the three stared at the unending wastes of brown and
+gray-green, belled over by a cloudless sapphire sky.</p>
+
+<p>"Homely and hot, but I don't care as long as I'm where Charley is. I
+don't remember her, but I know how I'm going to feel about her." Here
+she took a long look into Roger's gray eyes. "I guess I'd like to sit in
+your lap," she suggested.</p>
+
+<p>Roger lifted her to his knees and she settled back comfortably in the
+hollow of his arm. A flooding sense of tenderness surprised him into
+silence.</p>
+
+<p>"You are deserting me," protested Ernest.<a class="pagenum" name="page_75" id="page_75" title="75"></a></p>
+
+<p>"No, I'm not," returned little Felicia Preble. "I like you very much but
+I feel as if I'd like to sit in Roger's lap."</p>
+
+<p>And in Roger's lap she sat, while the racing purple shadows on the
+yellow desert gradually grew black, until the yellow turned to lavender,
+and both gradually merged into a twilight that was silvered by star-glow
+before the last crimson disappeared in the west. She sat there long
+after Ernest went inside to read, in the same quiet that enwrapped
+Roger. It was a strange quiet for Roger; a quiet of sweetness and
+content that he had not known since his mother's death. With that warm,
+supple little body pressed against him, his mind for once left his work
+and paused to ponder on the loneliness of the past sixteen years and on
+the thrilling promise of the desert star-glow. No human being can be
+completely sane who does not pause at intervals to express the
+tenderness that marks humans from animals. But Roger did not know this.</p>
+
+<p>It was six o'clock in the morning when the train pulled in to Archer's
+Springs and Ernest, Roger and Felicia alighted. They stood for a moment
+in silence after the train pulled out. They were apparently the only
+persons awake in the world.</p>
+
+<p>"Where's Charley?" asked Felicia suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>The station door opened and the baggage man, in blue overalls and
+jumper, appeared. He was frankly interested in the new arrivals and
+answered Ernest's question promptly.</p>
+
+<p>"Preble? Sure! Dick Preble was here the first of the week. Told me he'd
+be in next week to meet the little girl. How'd you come a week early,
+sissy?"</p>
+
+<p>Felicia's lip was quivering. "I don't know! Aunt<a class="pagenum" name="page_76" id="page_76" title="76"></a> Mary put me on the
+train and said Charley would meet me."</p>
+
+<p>"Can we telephone them?" asked Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>The baggage man grinned. "Telephone? Boys, come here a minute."</p>
+
+<p>He led them to the other side of the concrete station where the view was
+unobstructed by the train shed, and pointed northeast.</p>
+
+<p>"Take a look," he suggested.</p>
+
+<p>The station platform ended in yellow sand. Across an open space were
+some one-story buildings; beyond these an indefinite level of sand that
+melted, at what distance one could not say, into a line of mountains
+that were black and crimson and at last snow-capped against the
+translucent blue of the morning sky.</p>
+
+<p>"This road," said the baggage man, "goes along pretty good for eight or
+ten miles north, then it's nothing but a wagon track trail. If you
+follow it for twenty-five miles you reach Preble's mine. He says he's
+trying dry farming this spring. There ain't a living human being, except
+a few Injuns, between there and here. Sabez? And they ain't a brute
+thing but coyotes, and lizards and maybe wild burros, and so they ain't
+no call for a telephone."</p>
+
+<p>Roger looked at the group of buildings across the way. "Is this all
+there is to Archer's Springs?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, and it's a pretty good little old town, don't forget it. All the
+miners in the range south of here trade here. You'd better go across the
+street to the Chinaman's and get some breakfast."</p>
+
+<p>Preble's claim lay twenty-five miles northeast. So did the government
+land where the Solar plant was to be built. Roger and Ernest discussed
+the matter at<a class="pagenum" name="page_77" id="page_77" title="77"></a> breakfast and decided to carry Felicia along with them on
+the morrow when they started for their own camp.</p>
+
+<p>"And think how surprised Charley will be when you drop in on her,
+Felicia," suggested Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>Felicia blinked back the tears and began to nibble her breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a darn big desert and a darn small town," said Roger. "I wonder if
+Austin was right in telling us we could outfit here. Let's ask the
+baggage man."</p>
+
+<p>The obliging baggage man pointed out the largest of the sheet-iron,
+adobe buildings across the way. "Best trading in a hundred miles," he
+said.</p>
+
+<p>With Felicia dancing between them, the two made their way to Hackett's
+Supply House. The exterior was not promising, but within was everything
+the desert dwellers could need. Working from Austin's list they were
+soon supplied with tents, working outfit and tent boards. Hackett, a
+stout, slow-speaking man, was not staggered even when Roger asked him to
+deliver the goods.</p>
+
+<p>"Expect a lot of freight in a couple of weeks, you say? All right, I'll
+send you up with a team and when your freight comes in you can drive it
+back again. You can board the horses at Preble's."</p>
+
+<p>Their purchases were complete by noon, but Hackett would not let them
+start until morning. "No use," he said, "for tenderfeet to try camping
+on a short trip and it would be hard on the little girl. Get a dawn
+start and make the trip in one shift."</p>
+
+<p>So they whiled away the afternoon by a tramp over the desert, and after
+supper turned Felicia over to the landlady at Delmonico's, the adobe
+hotel, which was clean if it was meager. They were sitting in the
+office,<a class="pagenum" name="page_78" id="page_78" title="78"></a> which boasted a rusty sheet-iron stove, a desk, and a hanging
+lamp, when a thin, middle-aged man came slowly in the door and walked
+hesitatingly up to Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>"My name is Schmidt," he said. "I saw you at supper. Mr. Werner, he
+wrote me you vas coming and asked me to do vat I could for you."</p>
+
+<p>Ernest and Roger shook hands delightedly.</p>
+
+<p>"I come here for my health," Schmidt went on, "and maybe I help you. I
+vork for my board."</p>
+
+<p>"We'll see how things are after we get settled," said Roger, carefully.
+"Have a cigar and tell me how you came to know Mr. Werner."</p>
+
+<p>"I clerked by a bank he vas interested in," replied Schmidt, settling
+himself with the cigar. Roger and Ernest liked him at once, from his
+stiff brown pompadour and kindly blue eyes behind his spectacles to his
+strong, capable looking hands. Before they parted for the night it was
+agreed that Schmidt would come back with them when they came in for the
+freight. Austin had warned them that help was almost impossible to get
+in the desert and this seemed a wise thing to do.</p>
+
+<p>The sun had not risen the next morning when the three climbed aboard the
+heavily laden wagon and started along the trail Hackett had carefully
+described for them.</p>
+
+<p>It was not a smooth trail. Even the first eight or ten miles, mentioned
+with pride by the baggage man, were cut with draws and strewed with
+heavy rocks. But the air was like a northern May. The cactus was full of
+singing northern birds preparing for their spring migration. The horses
+plodded steadily without urging. The mountains lifted in colors ever
+more<a class="pagenum" name="page_79" id="page_79" title="79"></a> marvelous and the Adventure seemed to Roger satisfactory beyond
+expression.</p>
+
+<p>"I think it's beautiful, Ern," he said at last.</p>
+
+<p>"Gad, I don't," replied Ernest, wiping sand out of his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I do!" cried Felicia, jouncing up and down on the wagon seat between
+the men. She was powdered white with sand. "Charley will c'lapse when
+she sees me."</p>
+
+<p>The horses were used to desert going. The tenderfoot drivers let them
+have their own way. Hackett had tried to describe certain landmarks
+along the route so that they could gauge the distance covered, but with
+small effect on Ernest and Roger. All points of the desert looked alike
+to them. They only knew that if they followed the trail north long
+enough, they would strike Prebles' late that night.</p>
+
+<p>Just at sundown, however, Roger pulled in the horses. "That trail's
+getting awfully faint," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Sand's drifted like snow across it," agreed Ernest. "In fact, there
+hasn't been any trail for the last mile. But we can't miss our way. That
+white peak with three points is at right angles anyhow to us, as it
+ought to be."</p>
+
+<p>Roger started the horses on, but after a short time stopped again.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not going on till we locate the trail," he announced.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you going to do? Not stay here all night," protested Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>"You bet I am. Ernest, we're off the track right now. We won't be able
+to find the trail until daylight."<a class="pagenum" name="page_80" id="page_80" title="80"></a></p>
+
+<p>Ernest's obstinate chin set. "I'm for going on."</p>
+
+<p>Roger flushed in the fading light. "I'm the leader of this expedition
+and I say stop."</p>
+
+<p>"Pshaw! I didn't think you were so timid, Roger," exclaimed Ernest.
+"I'll go on foot and find the trail."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be a fool, Ernest," cried Roger.</p>
+
+<p>But if a quick temper was Roger's besetting sin, pig-headedness was
+Ernest's. He jumped down from the wagon and disappeared into the dusk.</p>
+
+<p>Felicia and Roger waited for a time patiently. Then Roger shouted, half
+a dozen times, "Ernest!" There was no answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Darn chump!" muttered Roger. "Come on, Felicia, let's make a fire of
+grease wood so he can find us."</p>
+
+<p>They built the fire and an hour passed, then two, but Ernest did not
+appear.</p>
+
+<hr class="major" />
+<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em">
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_81" id="page_81" title="81"></a>
+<a name="CHARLEY_2721" id="CHARLEY_2721"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+<h3>CHARLEY</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>Felicia soon grew weary of the game of fire building and begged off.
+Roger, with the aid of the ax, gathered a huge pile of grease wood, then
+with Felicia beside him, wrapped in a blanket, he sat down before the
+fire to wait.</p>
+
+<p>The child, her deep eyes glowing like black rubies in the flickering
+light, the lovely curves of her mouth drooping, leaned against Roger's
+shoulder, for a little while, then she turned and looked up into his
+face for a long minute. Roger returned the look, a little wonderingly.
+Felicia's attractiveness still puzzled him.</p>
+
+<p>"I love you very much," she said, "more than I do Ernest."</p>
+
+<p>Roger smiled down at her. "But you must love our old Ernest too, even if
+he has deserted us."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I do love him, but it's you I think about, last thing at night!"</p>
+
+<p>Felicia gazed up at Roger with a look of such mysterious depth that he
+caught his breath. Felicia suddenly shivered.</p>
+
+<p>"The desert's awful big! Oh, why do you suppose Charley didn't meet me?
+I want Charley," with a sob.</p>
+
+<p>Roger jumped to his feet and brought another blanket from the wagon. He
+spread it before the fire and urged Felicia to lie down on it. This she
+was persuaded to do only after Roger loaned his lap for a<a class="pagenum" name="page_82" id="page_82" title="82"></a> pillow and
+she finally fell asleep, her head on his knee, his hand clasped against
+her cheek.</p>
+
+<p>Another hour slipped by. Cramped and cold, Roger tossed an occasional
+branch in the fire with his free hand and speculated with uneasiness for
+Ernest, as to the nature of the faint sounds that came from the
+eastward. He decided that coyotes must be in the vicinity and he drew
+the blanket close over Felicia's shoulders. He was strangely unlonely.
+The desert silence and space about him, the low-lying stars, the faint
+cloud of mountain range were not alien to him. They all were the setting
+for the work toward which his whole life had moved. He knew too little
+of the desert really to be fearful for Ernest, whose return he expected
+any moment.</p>
+
+<p>He dozed a little. A sudden sound of hoof-beats roused him. A man jumped
+from his horse on the opposite side of the fire. He was a stocky fellow,
+wearing blue overalls and a red sweater. Before he had given Roger more
+than a quick "Hello!" another horse came up and a woman alighted. Roger
+laid Felicia's head on the blanket and clambered stiffly to his feet.
+The young woman gave Roger a quick glance, then ran toward the sleeping
+child.</p>
+
+<p>"Felicia! Baby Felicia!" she cried. "Did you think Charley had deserted
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>Felicia sat up with a jerk. "Charley!" she screamed. "Charley! I knew
+you'd come!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, Roger Moore!" exclaimed the stocky young man. "Are you the same
+young plutocrat who used to own a swimming pool?"</p>
+
+<p>Roger laughed. "The same, except that I'm no longer a plutocrat. How did
+you recognize me?"<a class="pagenum" name="page_83" id="page_83" title="83"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, we met Ernest Wolf meandering about the desert. Hello, baby, do you
+remember brother?" kissing Felicia, who was in Charley's arms.</p>
+
+<p>Charley was tall, nearly as tall as Roger, and he noticed as he turned
+to shake hands with her that she held the child easily, as if she were
+very strong. Then he was looking into eyes that suddenly seemed deeply
+familiar.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't remember much except the pool," said Charley. "How are we going
+to thank you for taking care of Felicia?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know how we are going to thank Felicia," Roger replied. "Where
+is Ernest?"</p>
+
+<p>Preble laughed. "He was pegging for all he was worth in the wrong
+direction. We had some trouble to persuade him that he was wrong."</p>
+
+<p>"That's Ernest, sure enough!" exclaimed Roger.</p>
+
+<p>Preble went on more soberly. "It really isn't a laughing matter though,
+a tenderfoot astray in this country. I tried to impress that upon him.
+It just happened that Charley and I were out looking for our pet cow and
+we ran on Wolf about five miles north of here, heading west and going
+strong. He had picked up a wagon trail I made last week going for
+adobe."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is he now?" asked Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, we left him herding the cow. We'll pick him up on the way back.
+Let's get started. Lord, but you've grown, Felicia! Come here and let me
+look at you."</p>
+
+<p>Big brother and little sister looked at each other attentively in the
+firelight. Dick Preble was still red headed and freckled, with only a
+vague resemblance to his sisters.<a class="pagenum" name="page_84" id="page_84" title="84"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Four years since we left you, little Felicia. Charley, she looks just
+as you did at her age, only not so tall. I don't see how Aunt Mary could
+have been such a fool as to have sent her a week ahead of time."</p>
+
+<p>"Aunt Mary never managed anything correctly in her life, bless her
+heart," replied the older sister. "Help hitch up, Dicky. We're only five
+miles from home, Mr. Moore."</p>
+
+<p>They were ready for the trail in a few minutes. Felicia delayed the
+start by refusing to be separated from Charley and finally Charley's
+horse was hitched to the tailboard of the wagon and Charley mounted the
+high wagon seat. Felicia, established between Roger and her sister, was
+in a state of great excitement and at first monopolized the
+conversation. But after a time, she quieted down and by the time they
+overtook Ernest, she was asleep, her head against Roger's arm, her hand
+clasping one of Charley's. Nor did the greetings waken her.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Ern, old chap, how's the North Pole?" called Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"You go to thunder!" replied Ernest with a laugh. He tied the cow in the
+place of Charley's pony and mounting the pony rode ahead with Preble.</p>
+
+<p>Roger wanted a number of questions answered. Where had the Prebles gone
+after leaving Eagle's Wing and what had they done in the interim, were
+his opening queries.</p>
+
+<p>"We went to a little town, near St. Louis," answered Charley, "and
+Father did well. Dick and I both went to college. What in the world are
+you doing out here, Mr. Moore?"</p>
+
+<p>"For heaven's sake don't 'mister' me, old friends<a class="pagenum" name="page_85" id="page_85" title="85"></a> and neighbors as we
+are. Why, we lived on your old farm till Father and Mother died!"</p>
+
+<p>"Did you indeed? And what brought you out here? Mining?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, some experimenting in irrigating for the government."</p>
+
+<p>"Heaven send that you're successful!" exclaimed the girl. "Dick is going
+to get some alfalfa in this winter, and I know that our well won't take
+care of it. But he <i>will</i> go ahead."</p>
+
+<p>"Felicia is startlingly like you, as a child. I have just one picture of
+you in my mind&mdash;standing on the edge of the pool, ready to dive, but
+looking around at me and laughing. Felicia laughs just that way."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor baby, coming all this way alone! But there seemed nothing else to
+be done. We couldn't afford to go back for her nor could Aunt Mary come
+on with her."</p>
+
+<p>"She got along famously and made friends with every one," said Roger.
+"Jove, isn't it wonderful, running on you people out here!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's going to be wonderful for us, I know," returned Charley.</p>
+
+<p>The wagon rumbled and bumped, and then Charley asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Where is your camp to be?"</p>
+
+<p>"We don't know, except we're to take up some government land adjacent to
+yours. But your name isn't on our survey map."</p>
+
+<p>"No, we have the old Ames claim," replied Charlotte. "You must plan to
+stay with us until your camp is set up."</p>
+
+<p>"You're very kind," said Roger.<a class="pagenum" name="page_86" id="page_86" title="86"></a></p>
+
+<p>"It's a God-send to have neighbors coming to us," the girl went on.</p>
+
+<p>Roger made no reply and the road becoming unbelievably rough, Charley
+gave her attention to holding Felicia on the seat and nothing more was
+said until Preble called back,</p>
+
+<p>"Careful through this gate, Moore! Wait till I get a light."</p>
+
+<p>"We're home," said Charley. "Wake up, Felicia dear."</p>
+
+<p>Dick appeared in a moment with a lighted candle stuck within and on the
+side of an empty can. It threw a long finger of light on the gate posts
+of a corral.</p>
+
+<p>"We call those candle-lanterns, 'lightning bugs,' down here," explained
+Charley. "'Bugs,' for short."</p>
+
+<p>"I want one for myself," exclaimed Felicia, suddenly. "Only very small,
+so's my doll can use it."</p>
+
+<p>"You shall have a dozen if you want them, baby!" cried Dick, lifting her
+down carefully over the wagon wheel.</p>
+
+<p>The men unhitched and attended to the horses, then followed a short,
+winding trail up to the lighted doorway. They entered a long, low room,
+with adobe walls a muddy yellowish color. The floor was of rough plank
+with a single Navajo blanket of gray and black before a little adobe
+fireplace. There were half a dozen camp chairs in the room, a couch in a
+corner, covered with a blue Indian rug, a homemade table in the middle,
+several pelts and shelves of books in the walls and more books and an
+alarm clock on the mantel shelf. It was a crude room, but one felt its
+harmony of tone and homelike quality at once.<a class="pagenum" name="page_87" id="page_87" title="87"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Put your suit cases in here," said Dick, leading the way through an
+open door into a candle-lighted room. It was a barren little place, but
+there was a comfortable cot on either side of the room and a packing box
+between that was half washstand, half bureau. Charley appeared in the
+door:</p>
+
+<p>"Supper'll be ready as soon as the kettle boils," she announced. "Little
+Felicia is in bed and fast asleep. Dick, you'd better go milk that poor
+cow."</p>
+
+<p>Dick started off obediently and Ernest sat down on his cot.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll wait till the kettle boils. Gee, I walked a thousand miles. Roger,
+go out and help with the supper, you lazy brute."</p>
+
+<p>Charley laughed. "There's nothing to do unless you want to start a fire
+in the fireplace."</p>
+
+<p>Roger followed her to the kitchen, where she pointed to a brimming
+wood-box. He looked with interest at the immaculate kitchen. The walls
+were whitewashed, the floor scoured to a silvery purity, the stove was
+shining.</p>
+
+<p>"What a bully camp you have!" he exclaimed, pausing with his arm full of
+kindling to look at Charley. For the first time, as she stood watching
+the teakettle with the lamplight full upon her, he got a clear view of
+his hostess.</p>
+
+<p>She was slender but not thin. Her shoulders were broad and square and
+her chest was deep and she was slim-hipped like an athletic boy. She
+gave Roger a curious impression of strength, very unusual to connect
+with a girl. Yet for all her height and vigor, she was very lovely. Her
+hair was darker than Felicia's, a wiry, burnished bronze, in a braided
+mass about her<a class="pagenum" name="page_88" id="page_88" title="88"></a> head. Her face was long, with a well-cut short nose and
+an oval chin. There were lovely curves in her scarlet, drooping lips.
+Her eyes were large, a melting brown that was almost black. It was the
+child Felicia's face, but with a depth of sweetness, a patience and
+pride in lips and eyes, acquired by what difficulties of living, Roger
+could not have told, even had he had sufficient understanding of women
+to have noted the existence of those qualities. He did, however, see her
+wonderful resemblance to Felicia.</p>
+
+<p>"You are like Felicia, grown up, all of a sudden," he said. "It's hard
+to rid myself of that illusion. Ernest and I have had a bully time with
+that small girl."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm so glad to have her here that&mdash;well, when you have been in the
+desert longer, you'll realize what human beings can mean to each other,"
+said Charley. "There! The kettle's boiling. Fly with your wood."</p>
+
+<p>Roger flew. Dick came in with the milk and the four sat down to a supper
+of baked beans, tea and canned apples. It was a pleasant meal, but Roger
+and Ernest, weary beyond words, were delighted when it was finished and
+they could tumble into bed.</p>
+
+<p>Roger was wakened the next morning by the alarm clock in the dining
+room. Ernest jumped up at once and Roger lighted the candle.</p>
+
+<p>"Six o'clock," he said. "Well, our new job has begun, Ern."</p>
+
+<p>There was a great rattling of the stove lids in the kitchen, above
+Dick's whistle, then through the windows a light dawning toward the
+corral. By the time that Roger and Ernest had shaved and were hurrying
+down the little trail, the red glow in the east had made the "Bug"
+unnecessary. All the horses were munching<a class="pagenum" name="page_89" id="page_89" title="89"></a> alfalfa and Dick was
+whistling in the cow-shed.</p>
+
+<p>The two men stood a moment at the corral gate and looked about them.</p>
+
+<p>The house faced the west. It had been carefully placed on a broad ledge
+of the mountain, a few feet above the desert level, yet the few feet
+were enough to give a complete view of the valley that swept forty miles
+to the west into the range that held the Colorado within bounds. The
+sandy levels of the desert swept to the very foot of the mountain, and
+Dick had fenced in about twenty-five acres. It was not yet under
+cultivation, but a scraper half-filled with sand near the corral fence
+testified to Dick's intentions. There were practically no farm
+buildings: just the cow-shed, with a sheet-iron roof and a canvas
+covered shelter in a corner of the corral. Shed and corral were on the
+desert level and a good two hundred feet from the house. As they stood
+in silence, Dick came up with his pail of milk.</p>
+
+<p>"Great view, isn't it? I'm going to have twenty-five acres of alfalfa
+here by June."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you were mining," said Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>"I came to the desert to dry-farm but I got sidetracked with turquoise
+mining up the mountain yonder. Nothing in that, but alfalfa is thirty
+dollars a ton and we get five crops a year."</p>
+
+<p>"Which way does the government land lie?" asked Roger.</p>
+
+<p>Dick grinned. "Look in any direction! You'll have no trouble locating
+yourselves. Let's go in to breakfast."</p>
+
+<p>Charley and Felicia were sitting at the breakfast table and the meal was
+quickly eaten.<a class="pagenum" name="page_90" id="page_90" title="90"></a></p>
+
+<p>"What do you two do first?" asked Charley as Ernest finished his second
+cup of coffee.</p>
+
+<p>"Locate the camp site and set up housekeeping, so as not to intrude on
+you any longer," replied Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>"Shucks! You wouldn't talk that way if you'd lived here a few years,"
+exclaimed Dick.</p>
+
+<p>"You're the first human beings," remarked Charley, "except Dick and a
+few Indians and old Von Minden that I've seen in six months."</p>
+
+<p>"But don't you ever go to town?" asked Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"Not often. It's a hard trip and some one has to stay with the stock."</p>
+
+<p>Dick looked at Charley with quick reproach. "You know it's always
+something urgent that takes me in, Charley. And you nearly always refuse
+to go."</p>
+
+<p>"Nearly always, yes, Dick," replied Charley.</p>
+
+<p>Dick shrugged his shoulders and there was a moment's silence which
+Ernest broke.</p>
+
+<p>"When are you coming to see us, Felicia?"</p>
+
+<p>"Every day, Ernest," replied the child.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Ernest," corrected Charley.</p>
+
+<p>"No! No! We're old friends," protested Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>"And Roger's a friend too," added Felicia. "A dearest friend."</p>
+
+<p>Ernest grinned. "Felicia! How can you forsake me so! Here's Roger, a
+notorious woman-hater, and you wasting your young affections on him,
+when you might have me with a turn of your finger."</p>
+
+<p>"You shut up, Ernest!" exclaimed Roger. "Don't pay any attention to him,
+Felicia."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't," replied the child. "But I'll keep right on liking him, next
+to you."</p>
+
+<p>"I see some work ahead for me!" ejaculated Dick.<a class="pagenum" name="page_91" id="page_91" title="91"></a></p>
+
+<p>Charley refilled Dick's coffee cup and smiled at him.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll bet on you, Dicky," she said. "We'll have supper at six, Roger.
+I've put up a lunch for you two men."</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove," said Ernest, "we'll have to supply water to this ranch for
+nothing, Rog."</p>
+
+<p>"Right!" answered Roger, rising. "Come ahead, old man."</p>
+
+<p>It was not yet eight when they drove out of the corral, along the line
+of fence that edged Dick's prospective alfalfa field. There was a
+monument, Dick said, at the southwest corner of the field that would
+start them on their way. Neither man spoke for some time, then Ernest
+remarked in his gentle voice:</p>
+
+<p>"Extraordinarily lovely girl!"</p>
+
+<p>Roger grunted.</p>
+
+<p>Ernest flushed. "Honestly, Roger, you are the limit! She's too fine a
+woman to be turned off with a grunt."</p>
+
+<p>"Who's turning her off?" demanded Roger. "I don't see why you're always
+accusing me of hating women. I don't hate 'em. I'm keen about them and
+you know how I ran after them until I had to cut them out and attend to
+business. But now, my scheme of life can't include them. You waste
+enough time and thought every year on petticoats to have made you
+president of the university. Now, I'm trying to concentrate on one
+thing, solar heat. It's a full job for any man, that's all. If you want
+to get up a case on Charlotte Preble, go to it. She's too big for my
+taste, even if I had time to think about her."</p>
+
+<p>Ernest groaned and once more silence fell until he<a class="pagenum" name="page_92" id="page_92" title="92"></a> roused himself to
+ask: "Would that be a monument yonder?"</p>
+
+<p>They pulled up before a heap of stones, the marker of a mining claim, so
+familiar to the desert dweller, and spread the government map on their
+knees.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's see," said Roger. "Here's Preble's claim, and next him, west, is
+the Mellish claim, and beyond that, still west, is government land.
+Simple enough if the sand hasn't drifted on their monuments."</p>
+
+<p>It was not difficult. They passed the Mellish workings, a great hole in
+the ground, with a deserted shack beside the windlass. A short distance
+on, they located his monument and quickly found themselves on government
+land.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," sighed Ernest, "it certainly is God-forsaken!"</p>
+
+<p>They looked about them. Far to the west lay a jagged line of blue
+mountains, against a blue sky. To the east, the barren tortured peaks of
+Coyote Range, brown and black in the blazing morning sun, so near that
+they could see the smoke rising from Charley's kitchen chimney, so far
+that the adobe looked like a doll house against the range. Between them
+and Coyote Range lay the desert valley, a rich yellow, thick dotted with
+fantastic growths of cactus and cat's claw.</p>
+
+<p>"Lord, I think it's great!" Roger drew a deep breath. "Let's unload, old
+man."</p>
+
+<p>They worked without stopping except for lunch, until five o'clock. With
+ax and shovel they cleared away cactus and drifts of sand for a level
+space on which to set up their living tent. Austin had given them plans
+for this. They laid a rough floor and raised around this a four foot
+wainscoating. They<a class="pagenum" name="page_93" id="page_93" title="93"></a> used no tent pole, but stretched their canvas on a
+frame of two by fours, above the wainscoating. The result was a pleasant
+airy compartment with headroom even for Roger. They had not finished
+their tent when suppertime arrived. But they took Dick's word that tools
+and supplies would be unmolested.</p>
+
+<p>"We may have trouble locating water," said Ernest as they started the
+team homeward. "Austin thought we'd strike it most anywhere in the
+valley, you remember, but Dick says Mellish never reached it."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll bet we find water if we go deep enough." Roger lighted his pipe
+with the sense of comfort of a man whose back is aching from honest
+toil. "Dick's information is only hearsay. He's got a good spring there
+at the corral and he told me there was considerable water in the lower
+workings of the old mine up in the range. We'll dig till we reach water
+if we have to tap Hades. And the Lord send that we don't have to waste
+much time on a detail like that!"</p>
+
+<p>"Right-O! Those must be buzzards circling toward the mountains. Rog,
+what do you suppose the folks at home are doing about now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thinking about us. It's pretty early to be homesick, old boy."</p>
+
+<p>Ernest smiled in his gentle way. His eyes looked bluer than ever in his
+parboiled face. "Don't worry about me, old man. I'm not getting cold
+feet, only your folks were pioneers and mine were not. We Germans are
+gregarious."</p>
+
+<p>"Shucks!" replied Roger. "Some of the best pioneers in this country were
+Germans. And you aren't German, anyhow. You're an American. Buck up,
+Ernest!"<a class="pagenum" name="page_94" id="page_94" title="94"></a></p>
+
+<p>"I will! See what's coming!" Ernest pointed with a laugh to a tiny
+figure flying toward them along the trail.</p>
+
+<p>"I came further than I dared to come!" screamed Felicia, "but you were
+so slow. And Charley's got a great big supper for you. Dicky shot some
+quail. And oh, I've missed you both so!" This last as she climbed up on
+the wheel and Ernest lifted her to the seat.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, everything's all right," said Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>Eight o'clock the next morning found Roger and Ernest finishing the
+living tent. By noon the kitchen tent, which really was a fly resting on
+four poles, was up, and the gasoline stove installed. It required the
+remainder of the day to knock together a rough table, two long benches
+and to prepare supper. And at eight o'clock that night both men were
+glad to go to bed.</p>
+
+<p>The next day they began work on the well. The ultimate success of the
+plant rested on the premise that not too far below the surface of the
+valley there was water. Dick was pessimistic on the subject. He came
+down one evening to view progress when, after three days of toil, the
+boys had dug to the depth of about ten feet. The three men lighted their
+pipes and squatted in the sand by the well hole.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see why you don't establish your plant up in the range and use
+your power for mining," said Dick. "You'll never strike water here."</p>
+
+<p>"Unless we can develop irrigation plants, the idea would be just a toy
+here," replied Roger. "There's bound to be water here, if we go deep
+enough. You tell me the lower levels of the mines up in the ranges on
+both sides are wet."<a class="pagenum" name="page_95" id="page_95" title="95"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Yes, they are," agreed Dick. "Why don't you fellows get an Indian to
+help you on this kind of work?"</p>
+
+<p>"Where would we get one?" asked Ernest doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, one is liable to mooch along the desert any time."</p>
+
+<p>"Are they good workmen?" Roger's voice was absentminded as he scowled at
+the well.</p>
+
+<p>"Some of them are wonders, but they are no good, unless you get a bunch
+of them under a chief. Then they're O. K."</p>
+
+<p>Roger groaned. Ernest laughed. "Remember, Rog," he said, "what Austin
+told us about the unexpected problems in the building of a desert
+plant."</p>
+
+<p>"You'll get plenty of those," agreed Dick. "Well, I'll be going back. If
+I see an Indian, I'll send him to you. In the meantime, remember that
+I'm your first purchaser of water, though my well's a regular gusher and
+will take care of more than the twenty-five acres I can get in this
+winter."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be so sure," Roger chuckled. "You may come and apologize to our
+well and ask for a drink yet."</p>
+
+<p>Dick joined in the laugh at this suggestion and started homeward and the
+two Sun Planters went to bed.</p>
+
+<p>As if the desert were determined to show them early in the game a fair
+sample of its lesser annoyances, when Ernest entered the cook tent the
+next morning he found it fairly wrecked. All the canned goods had been
+rolled off the shelves and the labels had disappeared. Flour, sugar,
+crackers were knocked about in<a class="pagenum" name="page_96" id="page_96" title="96"></a> the sand. Ernest roared for Roger, who
+came on a run.</p>
+
+<p>"Looks as if a burro had been here from the tracks," exclaimed Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"Two or three burros, I should judge," said Ernest. "Why, Rog, the
+beggars have eaten all the can labels! We'll never know whether we're
+opening tomatoes or beans. That flour's useless, and so's the sugar.
+Look at the coffee! I told you not to leave it in a sack. Oh, hang it
+all! What a country!"</p>
+
+<p>"Let's see where the little devils went." Roger started out of the tent.
+The small hoof tracks were not difficult to find. Beyond the confines of
+the camp, the sand lay like untracked snow. When they picked up the
+trail, it led directly to the Coyote Range.</p>
+
+<p>Ernest suddenly spoke cheerfully. "We'll have to go up and ask Charley
+for some breakfast. It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good!"</p>
+
+<p>"We'll have to shave if we're going up there and that takes time,"
+protested Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you going to eat? No sugar, no flour, no coffee!"</p>
+
+<p>"Let's be quick about it, then," said Roger, hurrying into the living
+tent.</p>
+
+<p>The Prebles laughed, but they were very sympathetic and blamed
+themselves for not warning the boys that stray burros and coyotes were a
+menace to any stores left unprotected.</p>
+
+<p>"String some wire about six inches apart around your four poles and
+weave yucca stalks in and out. It makes a bully cool wall and keeps the
+varmints out," said Dick.<a class="pagenum" name="page_97" id="page_97" title="97"></a></p>
+
+<p>"My heavens, man! I haven't time to do raffia work," cried Roger, half
+laughing, half serious.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll do it for you," said Felicia. "I can weave like I did in school.
+And if I do that, Charley won't make me have lessons with her every
+day."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, won't I!" returned Charley. "Roger, you get the wires up. That
+won't take but a few minutes and when old Fanny Squaw comes along in a
+week or so to sell ollas I'll send her down to cut and weave yucca for
+you. It can't cost you more than four bits. In the meantime, I can let
+you have some supplies to tide you over till some one goes to town."</p>
+
+<p>"You see what it means to have brains in the family," said Dick.</p>
+
+<p>"It's lucky some one in this bunch possesses them," laughed Roger. "By
+the way, how do there come to be stray burros in the mountains?"</p>
+
+<p>"Miners die or desert them and they go wild," replied Dick. "I must try
+to catch and tame one for Felicia, after the alfalfa is in. Which
+reminds me that I must get on the job. I've got your barrel of water
+ready in the wagon, so come along."</p>
+
+<p>The start was late that day and they had not gone down a foot when they
+struck rock. Another trip had to be made to the Prebles to procure some
+sticks of dynamite from Dick's little store at the neglected turquoise
+mine. And still no sign of water.</p>
+
+<p>The evenings were lonely. At first the two went frequently to the ranch
+house, as Dick, sweating in his barren alfalfa fields, insisted that the
+house be called. But everybody was too tired for social effort. Dick was
+grading and plowing all day long and Charley,<a class="pagenum" name="page_98" id="page_98" title="98"></a> after her housework was
+finished, often drove for him in the field. The mid-day heat and the
+unwonted labor made Ernest and Roger glad to go to bed early. After they
+had eaten supper and cleared up the dishes, they would build a little
+fire in the sand outside the living tent and for an hour sit before it.
+Even on chilly evenings the fire had to be small, for the firewood was
+bought from Dick's none too great supply. He in turn bought from an
+Indian who cut mesquite far up in the ranges and toted it by burro pack
+to the corral.</p>
+
+<p>Ernest, sitting thus, would pluck at his banjo and sing to the stars,
+finding ease thus for his homesick heart. Roger sat in silent
+contemplation, now of the fire, now of the stars. In spite of his
+impatience over petty details, he was happier than he had been since his
+undergraduate days. The marvelous low-lying stars, the little glow of
+fire on Ernest's pleasant face, the sweet tenor voice and the mellow
+plunking of the banjo were a wonderful background for his happy dreams.
+Roger still believed that a man's work could fill every desire of his
+mind and soul.</p>
+
+<p>
+"I have so loved thee,"<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>(sang Ernest one evening),</p>
+
+<p>
+"But cannot, cannot hold thee.<br />
+Fading like a dream the shadows fold thee,<br />
+Slowly thy perfect beauty fades away,<br />
+Good-by, sweet day! Good-by, sweet day!"<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>There was the soft thud of a footstep in the sand and an Indian appeared
+in the soft glow of the fire. Ernest broke off his song, abruptly. The
+newcomer was of indeterminate age, with black hair falling nearly to<a class="pagenum" name="page_99" id="page_99" title="99"></a>
+his waist over a bright red flannel shirt. He wore black trousers
+girdled at the waist by a broad twist of blue silk. His feet were bare.</p>
+
+<p>"How!" he said, nodding and smiling. "I hear music way out. Come see
+maybe white medicine man."</p>
+
+<p>"Good evening," returned Ernest. "Sit down by the fire."</p>
+
+<p>"How'd you like a job?" asked Roger. "Did Mr. Preble send you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No job!" The Indian shook his head. "Sick!"</p>
+
+<p>"Is that so?" Roger's voice was sympathetic. "My friend's a good
+medicine man. Where are you sick?"</p>
+
+<p>"In my tooth!" The visitor opened a capacious mouth, displaying a badly
+ulcerated gum.</p>
+
+<p>"That's easy! Get the peroxide bottle and a teaspoon, Ern. We'll fix him
+up, poor duck. What's your name, old man?"</p>
+
+<p>"Qui-tha," replied the Indian.</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Qui-tha. Now you take a teaspoonful of this and hold it in
+the front of your mouth, see!"</p>
+
+<p>Qui-tha looked closely into the faces of the two men, then with touching
+docility he did as Roger bade him. In a moment he was blowing foam
+violently into the fire. The two men looked at each other a little
+aghast.</p>
+
+<p>"You should have held it in your mouth, Qui-tha!" cried Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>The Indian reached for the teaspoon and poured himself another dose.
+This he held in his mouth for a moment, gazing at his physicians
+solemnly the while. Then he again blew foam into the fire.</p>
+
+<p>"Heap strong medicine," he said. "Fine, strong<a class="pagenum" name="page_100" id="page_100" title="100"></a> medicine. Never saw such
+strong medicine. You good medicine men. Qui-tha stay work for you. You
+let keep bottle."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure," replied Ernest, "only be very careful of it. Don't use it up too
+fast."</p>
+
+<p>Qui-tha nodded. "You give blanket. Qui-tha sleep here by fire."</p>
+
+<p>And sleep he did, rolled up even as to his head, his feet to the dying
+embers, while his hosts, undressing by candle light, grinned at each
+other in silent amusement. When Dick came down with the triweekly
+barrel of water he was astonished to see Qui-tha slowly weaving yucca
+stalks into the wire that now bound the poles of the cook tent.</p>
+
+<p>"For heaven's sake, Qui-tha, you old bum, you've always refused to work
+for me!" he shouted.</p>
+
+<p>The Indian grinned, then explained very seriously. "These white men heap
+smart. Make strong medicine. Qui-tha work one week, pay white medicine
+men."</p>
+
+<p>Ernest called Dick into the living tent and made him an explanation
+while Qui-tha looked inquiringly at Roger at the sound of Dick's
+laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"Do, for the love of all of us, keep feeding him peroxide until he's
+cajoled into giving me a hand in the field. Won't Charley be amused by
+this?"</p>
+
+<p>But Qui-tha was not to be cajoled. He prolonged his promised week to
+two, but would serve only his two medicine men. He was a most erratic
+workman, but what he did, he did exceedingly well. The cook tent with
+its woven sides of faded green was a structure of real beauty. Qui-tha
+consumed a week in the doing of this job, and ate all of three dozen
+cans of<a class="pagenum" name="page_101" id="page_101" title="101"></a> tomatoes, for which he displayed what Ernest called an
+abandoned passion. After he had finished with the cook tent, he sat for
+a day at the edge of the well, watching the two white men at their back
+breaking toil, then he silently undertook to man the bucket hoist for
+them. At frequent intervals he would refuse to hoist for a time and
+would urge Roger and Ernest to rest with him.</p>
+
+<p>"Why work all time, uh? Wind no blow all time. Sun no shine all time.
+You no dig all time, uh? Sit with Qui-tha and smoke and think."</p>
+
+<p>"He's got a lot of horse sense, Roger, after all, hasn't he?" said
+Ernest one day after the Indian had laughed at them for their mad
+driving at the waterless well.</p>
+
+<p>Roger straightened his tired back. "Fine, for an Indian! I like to hear
+him laugh. On things that don't demand our white sophistication, do you
+notice what a good sense of humor he has?"</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove, I wish he'd go up and help the Prebles. I think it's a fright
+for Charley to be working in the fields," exclaimed Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>Roger nodded. "Guess I'll try him on that angle." He clambered out of
+the well and squatted by Qui-tha on the ever-increasing pile of sand and
+stone by the well edge.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you see that white girl up there in the field, driving the horse?"
+pointing over the lifting desert to the distant figure, difficult to see
+now as the sun sank.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied the Indian.</p>
+
+<p>"Won't you go up and help so the girl can go back to the house and do a
+woman's work?"<a class="pagenum" name="page_102" id="page_102" title="102"></a></p>
+
+<p>The Indian puffed thoughtfully at his cigarette. "Why?" he asked,
+finally.</p>
+
+<p>"Because they need help. They'll pay you."</p>
+
+<p>"Would you go help Indian squaw so she no have do hard work?" queried
+the Indian.</p>
+
+<p>Roger scratched his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Charley Preble, she heap strong, like a man. Work no hurt her. No hurt
+Injun squaw. Let 'em work."</p>
+
+<p>Roger had nothing more to say. But the fact that Charley worked so hard
+bothered both men, though Ernest, with his unconsciously German attitude
+toward women, was much less troubled about the matter than Roger. Roger,
+for all his neglect of the gentler sex for the past few years, had that
+attitude toward women, half of tenderness, half of good fellowship, that
+is characteristic of the best American men. And although he laughed at
+Ernest's sentimental mooning about Charley, he really was more concerned
+over the girl's hard life than was his friend.</p>
+
+<p>She was still to him Felicia, grown up, and Felicia was still the little
+Charley Preble of the swimming pool. It was a confusion of personalities
+that might easily have grown into romance had not Roger been too
+completely and honestly preoccupied with his work.</p>
+
+<p>The next afternoon the hoist broke and leaving Ernest and Qui-tha to
+patch it up, Roger plodded up to the alfalfa field.</p>
+
+<p>The valley sloped very gradually from the mountains. Dick was working
+with a scraper, carefully throwing line after line of the shallowest
+possible terraces at right angles to the valley's slope. The irrigating<a class="pagenum" name="page_103" id="page_103" title="103"></a>
+ditch which was to carry the water that was to flow gently over the
+terraces was already finished.</p>
+
+<p>Charley, who had been driving the horses while Dick handled the scraper,
+sat on a heap of stones beside the fence. She was very brown, yet in
+spite of her rough work she looked well. Her khaki blouse, her short
+skirt and high laced boots were smart and her broad soft hat, though
+covered with dust, was picturesque and becoming. Roger dropped on the
+rocks beside her, with a sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"Tired?" asked Charley. "Aren't you off duty early?"</p>
+
+<p>"I came up to labor with you," replied Roger, his blue eyes very clear
+in his tanned face. "You're working too hard."</p>
+
+<p>"What would you have me do? Sit on the front porch and watch Dicky work?
+That's not my idea of a pioneer's mate."</p>
+
+<p>"But can you stand it?" asked Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"It's no harder than golf and tennis and a swim all in one day. I've
+done that many a time. And I'm as eager as Dick is to reclaim this
+desert. I'm almost if not quite as interested in this as you are in your
+work."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't mean to intrude or criticize," began Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"You didn't do either. I appreciate your interest, and I'm just trying
+to make you see that the pioneer women aren't all dead yet. Some day
+there'll be pepper trees and peach trees along that ditch, and for miles
+and miles round here, the green of alfalfa."</p>
+
+<p>"If you get enough water," murmured Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"If we get enough water," agreed Charley.</p>
+
+<p>They both paused and looked from Dick, sweating<a class="pagenum" name="page_104" id="page_104" title="104"></a> behind the horses, to
+the unending yellow of the desert against which Dick and the horses
+looked like pygmies. Finally Charley said with a sudden chuckle,</p>
+
+<p>"Roger, one thing I do remember is your spitfire rages&mdash;very vaguely,
+but they must have been rather devastating to have made an impression on
+my baby mind."</p>
+
+<p>Roger's smile was a little twisted. "Nice thing to remember of me. Where
+is your tact, woman!"</p>
+
+<p>"Mercy! You aren't sensitive about it after all these years? I thought
+it funny that your baby temper and the pool were all I could rake up out
+of our past."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is Felicia?" asked Roger, abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>"She went up to the spring to fill my little canteen with water."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank heaven," said Roger, "that she can't rake up my past. I'm going
+to stroll up to meet her." And he doffed his hat and was off, feeling
+that somehow he had not made great headway.</p>
+
+<hr class="major" />
+<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em">
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_105" id="page_105" title="105"></a>
+<a name="VON_MINDEN_3536" id="VON_MINDEN_3536"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER V</h2>
+<h3>VON MINDEN</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>That evening, after the little fire had burned to a bed of coals, Ernest
+said: "About time for the stuff to have come from St. Louis."</p>
+
+<p>"I've been thinking of that," returned Roger. "And we've nearly run
+through the Prebles' extra supplies. Why don't you go in to Archer's
+Springs and bring a load out. Dick is planning to go day after
+to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"Wouldn't you rather go?" asked Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>"Not if I can help it."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank heaven!" exclaimed Ernest. "I was afraid you'd want the job, and
+even Archer's Springs would look good to me!"</p>
+
+<p>Roger laughed and slapped Ernest on the shoulder. "You homesick
+Dutchman! Crazy for the mail, aren't you? There must be something there
+from Austin. I'm glad you want to go, for I'd hate the trip. Let's turn
+in!"</p>
+
+<p>Wednesday morning, just at dawn, Dick and Ernest, each driving a team,
+pulled up before the cook tent where Roger and Qui-tha were finishing
+breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>"Charley says you're to come up there for supper to-night," called Dick.
+"Felicia has permission to come down to fetch you at five o'clock."<a class="pagenum" name="page_106" id="page_106" title="106"></a></p>
+
+<p>"All right," returned Roger. "When do you expect to be back, Dick?"</p>
+
+<p>"All depends on luck. Perhaps not before Friday noon."</p>
+
+<p>"Take care of Ernest," called Roger as the two teams started on. "He's
+flighty!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't get drowned in that fine well of yours, Rog!" shouted Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>Roger lighted his pipe and helped Qui-tha clean the plates and cups with
+sand and old newspaper.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't know how we'll do dishes when the newspapers give out, Qui-tha,"
+he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Keep burro. He clean 'em," suggested Qui-tha, with a mischievous grin.</p>
+
+<p>"Wah! Go way! We're not Hualapais like you," retorted Roger.</p>
+
+<p>Qui-tha laughed, and followed Roger to the well. The chill of the early
+March morning was beginning to lift.</p>
+
+<p>Roger pulled off his coat, preparatory to dropping down into the well,
+then paused. The sun was just lifting over the peaks. The ranch house
+was in black shadow. No man with Roger's capacity for work could be
+lonely with that work at hand. No man with Roger's fine imagination
+could have failed to have felt his pulses quicken at the sudden
+conception of the desert's wonders that flashed before his mind as his
+outward eye took in the sunrise. He saw in flashing panorama the
+desert's magnificent distances, its unbelievable richness of coloring,
+its burning desert noons, its still windswept nights, and a vague waking
+of passions he never had known stirred within his self and work-centered
+soul.<a class="pagenum" name="page_107" id="page_107" title="107"></a></p>
+
+<p>The air was full of bird song. What Ernest called the dawn's enchantment
+was just ending. Blackbird and robin, oriole and mocking bird, piped
+full-throated from every cactus. To Ernest this was the one redeeming
+touch to the desert's austerity. To Roger it was the crowning of an
+almost unbearable charm. The sun wheeled in full glory over the peaks.
+The adobe flashed out from the shadow and Roger slid down into the well.</p>
+
+<p>He loaded the bucket with broken rock and called to Qui-tha to hoist
+away. To his surprise, there was no response. Roger climbed hurriedly
+out, calling to the Indian. He looked in the cook tent and the living
+tent and then his eye caught Qui-tha's tall figure already diminished by
+distance, moving rapidly westward toward the River Range.</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove," he exclaimed, "that's cool! I wonder if he took anything with
+him but the peroxide bottle?"</p>
+
+<p>A quick inventory showed nothing missing, and with a sigh Roger returned
+to the well.</p>
+
+<p>It was slow work, filling the bucket, clambering out to hoist it, then
+down again. But at noon, when the sun shone full into the well, Roger
+noticed a sudden darkening of the brown rock at the bottom. He seized a
+pick and worked rapidly. Water! Not a gushing spring, but a steady
+increase of moisture that, as he dug on, became a trickle, then a slowly
+rising pool about his ankles.</p>
+
+<p>No discoverer of a noble river ever felt prouder than Roger as, after he
+had hoisted out the bucket and tools, he stood at the well's edge gazing
+far down at the dirty pool.</p>
+
+<p>He was standing so, a tall figure, his face streaked<a class="pagenum" name="page_108" id="page_108" title="108"></a> with dirt and
+sweat but with satisfaction radiating from every line of his thin tanned
+face, when, "Hello!" called a man's voice behind him.</p>
+
+<p>Roger turned with a jerk. A little gray-headed man and a little gray
+burro were standing by the work tent.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps I could get something to eat here," said the stranger.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly," returned Roger, not too enthusiastically. He did not know
+desert hospitality, excepting what he had met at the Preble ranch. The
+man turned promptly to the burro.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll take off your pack, Peter, if you see to it that you don't stray."</p>
+
+<p>The burro looked at his master with the gaze of a wise old dog and,
+relieved of his pack, moved slowly to the shade of the living tent.
+Roger, looking his guest over, from faded overalls and blue flannel
+shirt to battered sombrero, led the way into the cook tent.</p>
+
+<p>"Whew!" said the stranger. "Sun's getting higher. Noons are hot. When
+did you reach these parts?"</p>
+
+<p>"A couple of weeks ago. My name's Moore,&mdash;Roger Moore."</p>
+
+<p>The man nodded. "Mine's Otto von Minden. I'm an engineer. Been in the
+desert country ten years."</p>
+
+<p>Roger was moving about, making coffee and slicing bacon. "What are you
+doing, prospecting?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Von Minden jerked a quick look at Roger from a pair of small brown eyes.
+"Yes, I'm prospecting. What are you doing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Experimenting with solar heat. This is the place<a class="pagenum" name="page_109" id="page_109" title="109"></a> to get it if this
+noon is a promise of more to come."</p>
+
+<p>"Heat!" cried the stranger with sudden excitement. "Heat! God! What I
+have known of heat. Blistering, burning, blinding! Nights when the very
+star rays scorch and the moon's a caldron of white lava. Ten years of
+it, Moore, ten years!"</p>
+
+<p>Roger looked at his guest with interest. "You aren't an American?
+There's just a little accent in your speech."</p>
+
+<p>"Me? No. I'm German born and bred. What are you going to do with your
+solar heat?"</p>
+
+<p>"Harness it," replied Roger, "and see if I can make it work for me."</p>
+
+<p>"There's a fool born every minute," said Von Minden.</p>
+
+<p>"You're quite right," returned Roger, cheerfully.</p>
+
+<p>There was no further conversation until Roger had put the coffee, bacon
+and cold biscuits with a can of pie-fruit on the table. Von Minden fell
+to voraciously. His table manners were very bad, his hands were dirty
+but there was something about him that interested Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"I've had great trouble getting water," he said. "Just struck it, this
+noon. 'Twill be enough for drinking and my condenser, I guess, but
+nothing for irrigation."</p>
+
+<p>"Can't do anything with a dug well, here," grunted the guest. "Better
+drive one."</p>
+
+<p>"Is the sand really fertile in this region?" asked Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"Fertile? Friend, there's an empire waiting to be born, right here, if
+only they can get water and fuel."</p>
+
+<p>"If we can get the fuel we can pump the water,"<a class="pagenum" name="page_110" id="page_110" title="110"></a> said Roger. "You're
+right! There is an empire here. Mineral resources beyond the dreams of
+avarice, four or five crops a year of food-stuffs. Why, man, millions of
+people could come in here and be self-sustaining."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean by 'in here'?" Von Minden spoke sharply.</p>
+
+<p>Roger hesitated. "I mean really something pretty big. A cheap fuel would
+open up Arizona, New Mexico, Southern California and Northern old Mexico
+as no one can conceive who's not studied the subject. If I can put over
+my experiment, I shall add to the potential wealth of this country as no
+single individual has ever done. I'm going to get some one's ear at
+Washington, some day, if it's not till I'm a doddering old man. We ought
+to have Mexico, you know, because when the inland empire begins to grow,
+we'll overflow into Mexico. But we never can have her, of course. We can
+only hope that she'll grow into a real nation we can neighbor with, like
+Canada."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah hah! And how're you going to bring about this millennium?" asked Von
+Minden.</p>
+
+<p>But Roger, whose outburst to a stranger had been unprecedented, had
+nothing more to say on the subject.</p>
+
+<p>"Will your burro eat table scraps?" he inquired.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, especially bacon rinds. Oh, Peter, come here, liebchen!" he
+called.</p>
+
+<p>There was a sound of little light footfalls in the sand and Peter's wise
+gray face appeared in the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>"Come here, sweetheart." The little burro crowded carefully around the
+table end until his head rested on Von Minden's shoulder. One by one,
+the old prospector handed up the bacon rinds and biscuits<a class="pagenum" name="page_111" id="page_111" title="111"></a> to him and
+Peter chewed sedately, flopping his ears back and forth.</p>
+
+<p>"You are a good little boy. Now run along out," as the last rind
+disappeared and the burro trotted sedately out to browse industriously
+among the roots of the cactus.</p>
+
+<p>"He really seems to understand," exclaimed Roger delightedly.</p>
+
+<p>"He <i>knows</i>!" cried Von Minden. "And now, tell me about this solar heat.
+How are you going to harness it?"</p>
+
+<p>Roger shook his head. "That I won't tell you now. But if you'll come
+back in three months' time, I'll show you the plant."</p>
+
+<p>"You're afraid of me, eh? Well, perhaps that's a good idea. Afraid of
+me! Afraid of poor old Von Minden! There was a time when&mdash;ach!
+Well&mdash;perhaps you'll let me have a nap here on a bench. Then Peter and
+I'll go on up into the ranges."</p>
+
+<p>"Make yourself at home," replied Roger.</p>
+
+<p>Von Minden stretched his short length on the bench and closed his eyes.
+Before Roger had finished the dishes he was snoring. The little burro
+was standing in the shade of the living tent when Roger came out of the
+cook shelter. He looked pathetically small and thin and Roger, who had
+taken a great fancy to him, brought him a pail of water, and scratched
+his head and talked to him before going on into the tent. Here he was
+shortly absorbed in sorting his blue prints. He was studying the ground
+plan of the absorber, when an uncanny sense of being watched made him
+look over his shoulder. Von Minden, a sawed-off shot-gun aimed at
+Roger's back, was standing in the doorway.<a class="pagenum" name="page_112" id="page_112" title="112"></a></p>
+
+<p>"You will come down here and open up the world's best empire, will
+you&mdash;for America, eh? Not yet, my friend!" Von Minden's voice was husky
+and unsteady.</p>
+
+<p>Roger did not move. In fact, he was incapable of moving.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here," he began. Then as in a mist he saw Peter's gray head appear
+at his master's elbow and Peter himself, with his pack on his back,
+thrust his way past his master into the tent, just as Von Minden pulled
+the trigger. The shot seemed to hit everything in the tent but Roger.
+The mist before Roger's eyes turned to red and he made a spring for his
+guest. But Von Minden turned and fled, Peter after him, straight
+eastward across the desert toward the Coyote Range. They ran with
+surprising speed. Roger delayed long enough to get Ernest's rifle out of
+his trunk. By the time he had loaded it, after searching frantically
+several minutes for the box of cartridges, Von Minden and his little
+burro were far beyond rifle shot.</p>
+
+<p>Roger started after them, hot foot, swearing viciously as he ran. As he
+saw the little German turn into the ranch trail a sudden fear for the
+two girls mingled with his anger. But Von Minden did not stop at the
+ranch house. As Roger reached the alfalfa field, burro and man veered to
+the right, around the adobe and rapidly on up the mountain trail, where
+they were quickly lost to view.</p>
+
+<p>Roger saw Charley come hastily out of the house, followed by Felicia and
+when, panting and shaken with rage, he reached the house, they were
+still looking curiously toward the mountain trail.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the trouble, Roger?" called Charley.<a class="pagenum" name="page_113" id="page_113" title="113"></a></p>
+
+<p>"He shot at me, the damned hound! Tried to kill me!"</p>
+
+<p>He would have passed on up the mountain trail, but Charley had hurried
+down the trail and interrupted him quietly, with a steady hand on his
+arm.</p>
+
+<p>"It's only Crazy Dutch!" she said. "You mustn't mind him!"</p>
+
+<p>"Mind him!" shouted Roger. "I tell you he tried to kill me."</p>
+
+<p>"You should have kept his gun for him until he was ready to go. That's
+what we always do. And as for his taking a pot shot at you, why, that's
+all in the day's work in this part of the country."</p>
+
+<p>She smiled as she spoke, looking levelly into his eyes from her splendid
+height. Felicia caught his sleeve.</p>
+
+<p>"We were coming down to call on you, Roger, and now you've spoiled it,"
+she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down on the steps and cool off a little," suggested Charley. "You
+know you can always kill Crazy Dutch if you want to. He's always around.
+He's really a dear old man when you come to know him. He's helped me out
+here many a time when Dick's been sick or away." She was smiling still
+more broadly as she led Roger to the steps. He felt as if he were being
+hypnotized.</p>
+
+<p>"But he tried to kill me," he repeated feebly, as Charley stood his
+rifle in a corner of the porch and sent Felicia for a cup of water.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor child! Did he try to kill you?" Charley patted his arm as if he
+were a small boy. "Sit down in the shade here. I know you think we're
+all crazy down here and I guess we are. But you'll get fond of<a class="pagenum" name="page_114" id="page_114" title="114"></a> poor
+Crazy Dutch yourself. Dick loves him and he tried to shoot Dicky, when
+they first knew each other."</p>
+
+<p>The red mist cleared suddenly from Roger's vision. He drank deeply of
+the water Felicia brought him and looked at Charley curiously. She was
+the first person since his mother had died who had been able to ease his
+outbursts of temper. Felicia was still aggrieved. She looked at Roger
+reproachfully.</p>
+
+<p>"We were coming down to call on you and now you've spoiled it."</p>
+
+<p>Roger jumped to his feet with a laugh. "I'll go home at once. Come
+along."</p>
+
+<p>"No, we've got to dress up. It's going to be a regular call," said the
+child.</p>
+
+<p>"We were coming down about half past four to bring you back to supper
+with us," said Charley.</p>
+
+<p>Roger was suddenly conscious of the fact that he had a day's beard on
+his face. He started down the trail, hastily, after retrieving his gun.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll be glad to see you ladies whenever you call," he said, "but I'm
+not going to promise not to shoot Crazy Dutch if he comes round again."</p>
+
+<p>The call, which was made with due ceremony at the hour mentioned, was a
+great success. Roger, fresh shaved, and quite recovered from the shock
+of Von Minden's visit, played host with just enough formality to delight
+Felicia. Charley was deeply interested in the plans for the Sun Plant.
+It was the first time Roger had explained his general scheme of solar
+heating to her and he was surprised by her eager intelligence.</p>
+
+<p>The sun was setting when they started back to the ranch house, with
+Felicia chatting like a magpie.<a class="pagenum" name="page_115" id="page_115" title="115"></a> Roger did the milking and the other
+chores, by the light of a "bug."</p>
+
+<p>Charley gave them a simple supper, but the beans and bacon, hot biscuit
+and canned blackberries seemed extraordinarily delicious to Roger. He
+and Felicia washed the supper dishes while Charley put a batch of bread
+to rise.</p>
+
+<p>The evening tasks finished, they established themselves before the
+living-room fire. Roger lighted his pipe.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't I sit up till quarter after eight to-night, Charley?" asked
+Felicia.</p>
+
+<p>"You wanted to do that last night," replied Charley.</p>
+
+<p>"And you wouldn't let me. Won't you to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, dear."</p>
+
+<p>"Then," great eyes on the implacable face of the alarm clock, "I've only
+five minutes to sit up. Charley, I can't bear it."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, you can," said Roger. "Think how awful it would be if you had
+to go to bed at half-past seven. That's what happened to me when I was
+your age."</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't your mother love you? I don't see how she could help it. You
+must have been a cunning boy."</p>
+
+<p>"I was a long-legged, awkward, freckle-faced brat, but she loved me.
+Mothers are like that."</p>
+
+<p>Felicia nodded understandingly but did not take her eyes from the clock.
+"There it goes, that nasty little minute hand! I'm sorry I ever learned
+to tell time."</p>
+
+<p>"Say good night to Roger, Felicia, and run off to bed. There's a dear."</p>
+
+<p>Felicia rose obediently, put her arms around Roger's<a class="pagenum" name="page_116" id="page_116" title="116"></a> neck and kissed
+him. "I don't like a man's kiss, when it tastes of tobacco," she said,
+"but I suppose I might as well get used to it for when we're married,
+Roger."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry," said Roger, meekly. "I'll give up smoking if you really
+want me to."</p>
+
+<p>Felicia giggled, picked up her doll, then turned to look at the clock.
+It pointed to one minute after eight. She put out her tongue at her
+enemy, then dragged slowly into the bedroom which she shared with
+Charley, and shut the door.</p>
+
+<p>Roger and Charley smiled at each other. "Were you a chatterbox, too, at
+her age?" he asked. "I can't remember that you were."</p>
+
+<p>"Dick says I was."</p>
+
+<p>"But you're very silent for a girl. What has changed you?"</p>
+
+<p>Charley laughed, then answered soberly: "The desert."</p>
+
+<p>They both sat looking at the fire after this. The silence had lasted
+some time when Charley said thoughtfully: "And so a big dream will
+materialize in our valley after all. I can't tell you how glad I am."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" asked Roger, with interest. "Did Dick come out here with a big
+dream?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, we were going to make the desert blossom like the rose. We were
+going to have the biggest alfalfa ranch in the southwest."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you've got a good start, haven't you?"</p>
+
+<p>Charley shook her head and lapsed into silence again. Roger refilled his
+pipe and replenished the fire. The flames leaped up and turned the gray
+Navajo to rose color. The night wind which Roger had learned to expect
+about nine o'clock swooped down the chimney.<a class="pagenum" name="page_117" id="page_117" title="117"></a> The faint bark and long
+drawn howl of a coyote pack sounded from the valley and from behind the
+adobe rose a whimper that increased to a scream that was almost human.
+Roger sat forward in his chair.</p>
+
+<p>"Wild cats!" said Charley. "Dick and I both have shot several but we
+can't get rid of them."</p>
+
+<p>"Look here," exclaimed Roger. "I'm going to stay here all night."</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter? Afraid to go home?"</p>
+
+<p>Roger grinned. "Yes, but I'm more afraid to leave you two girls here
+alone."</p>
+
+<p>"My good man, I've been staying here alone about every two months for
+four years. I'm not a bit afraid."</p>
+
+<p>Roger looked at her keenly, but her deep eyes did not waver. "You may
+have got used to it," he said obstinately, "but I'll wager anything that
+when you first came you were just paralyzed with fear."</p>
+
+<p>"I was indeed!" Charley shook her head as if in wonder at that early
+fear. "I used to barricade myself in the bedroom and slept with the
+little .22 at the head of the bed."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see how your brother&mdash;" began Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"He <i>had</i> to go," interrupted Charley. "Don't you try to prove that Dick
+isn't devoted to me, for he is. He had to see the doctor because he came
+out here with bad lungs. He's all cured of that now. No one could be
+more of a dear than Dick, when he's&mdash;well."</p>
+
+<p>She spoke with such vehemence, leaning forward in her chair with such a
+depth of protest in her wide eyes that Roger was surprised.</p>
+
+<p>"Good Lord, I wasn't criticizing Dick. I think he's a fine chap. Only I
+don't think a girl ought to be<a class="pagenum" name="page_118" id="page_118" title="118"></a> sleeping alone, twenty-five miles from
+the nearest neighbor."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm safer here alone than I would be in St. Louis or Chicago,"
+exclaimed Charley, leaning back in her chair with a little laugh. "Now
+tell me what you are going to do after your Sun Plant begins to pump
+water?"</p>
+
+<p>"Try to get money interested in developing this and other waste
+countries. There are untold mineral riches in these ranges, if only
+there were a cheap way to get them out. Now don't get excited as Crazy
+Dutch did and shoot me up! By the way, he told me his name was Otto von
+Minden."</p>
+
+<p>Charley nodded. "I believe he comes of good family. He speaks the finest
+kind of Berliner German. Poor old thing!"</p>
+
+<p>Roger snorted. "I'll <i>poor</i> him when I catch him! I'll have him
+committed to an asylum."</p>
+
+<p>Charley laughed. "You'd have hard work getting that done. Asylums are
+rare here and every one is fond of the little German. I wish I knew as
+much as he does about German literature. Some day I'm going to Germany.
+It must be a wonderful country."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you learn German in college?"</p>
+
+<p>"In High School and the University both. I'd like to have had some
+French too, but there were no native French teachers and I didn't fancy
+learning French with somebody's accent plus my own. On the other hand
+the German teachers and the courses they offered were fine. I feel as if
+I knew more about Germany than any other country outside the United
+States."</p>
+
+<p>"So do I," replied Roger, thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"I think that instead of getting Crazy Dutch committed<a class="pagenum" name="page_119" id="page_119" title="119"></a> you'd better get
+to know him," Charley went on. "He's so well connected in Germany, in
+spite of his forlorn appearance, he might prove a valuable acquaintance
+for you."</p>
+
+<p>Roger, whose wrath against Von Minden had disappeared much to his own
+astonishment, nodded his head, and once more silence fell between them.</p>
+
+<p>It was ten o'clock when Roger next observed the inexorable hand of the
+alarm clock.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I'd never learned to tell time," he said as he rose reluctantly,
+"and I wish you'd tell me as much about yourself as I've told you about
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"There's so little to tell," protested Charley.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, there's a great deal to tell," contradicted Roger. "The chief thing
+being why the desert has changed you from a chatterbox to a Sphinx."</p>
+
+<p>"That you'll never know! Run along home now before the coyotes or Von
+Minden get you."</p>
+
+<p>Roger grinned and said good night.</p>
+
+<p>He was up with the birds the next morning, prepared to give a long day's
+work to cleaning the well and covering it. It was not yet noon when he
+saw a curious procession moving toward the camp along the Archer's
+Springs trail. It appeared to consist of a small string of burros, led
+by a bright red or pink umbrella.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought somebody said the desert was lonesome," said Roger to
+himself. "Me&mdash;I run a regular wayside inn." He lighted his pipe and sat
+down on the well curb to wait. Gradually he discerned that the pink
+parasol, undulating now against the sapphire of the sky, now against the
+dancing yellow of a sand drift, was upheld by a woman who sat astride a
+tiny burro.<a class="pagenum" name="page_120" id="page_120" title="120"></a> It was ten minutes after he discovered this that the lady
+rode majestically into the camp and dismounted, with magnificent
+gesture, throwing one leg over the burro's drooping head. The three
+burros who were strung behind her stopped in their tracks as though half
+dead.</p>
+
+<p>Roger rose and doffed his hat. This was the largest woman he ever had
+seen. She was easily three inches taller than Roger and splendidly
+proportioned, huge of shoulder, broad of hip, but without an ounce of
+fat upon her. Her face was gaunt and brown: thin lips, long thin nose,
+gray eyes set deep, iron gray hair straggling over her forehead from
+under a dusty pink sunbonnet. She wore a linen duster buttoned close to
+her chin.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you do, sir," she said in a pleasantly modulated voice. "My name
+is Clarissa Foster von Minden."</p>
+
+<p>"Mine is Roger Moore. Won't you come into the cook tent and let me get
+you some lunch?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, thank you," looking about her with keen interest. "This is the
+place."</p>
+
+<p>Roger, lighting the gasoline stove, looked at his caller inquiringly.
+She smiled at him as she pulled off her sunbonnet and dust coat,
+revealing a robe of pink calico not unlike an old fashioned "mother
+hubbard."</p>
+
+<p>"I am a disciple of the Yogis, Mr. Moore. I dreamed that my husband was
+to be found in such a camp as this and here I am."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you're referring to Otto von Minden. Yes, he was here
+yesterday. He's a genial soul. He tried to shoot me."<a class="pagenum" name="page_121" id="page_121" title="121"></a></p>
+
+<p>Mrs. von Minden nodded. "That's Otto. He had those ways. I've not seen
+him for five years. No bacon, Mr. Moore. I never touch animal fats. Just
+some tea, fruit and crackers. Later, I'll unpack some olive oil which
+you may use when cooking for me."</p>
+
+<p>Roger nearly dropped the tea kettle. His mouth fell open as he stared at
+his caller.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be startled, my friend," she cried. "Great things are to come to
+you if you obey the Voices. And I've brought my own tent and supplies."</p>
+
+<p>"But your husband isn't here, madam," protested Roger. "To tell you the
+truth, I wouldn't have him about the place. He's just plain crazy."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, he's not crazy. He's had a touch of the sun, undoubtedly. But
+he's not crazy. He's a brilliant man. I can make him very useful to
+you."</p>
+
+<p>Roger scratched his head and grinned. "You haven't by any chance had a
+touch of the sun yourself, Mrs. von Minden?"</p>
+
+<p>The lady laughed. "I must seem so to an outsider. You are still on the
+first plane while I am on the seventh."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll water the burros while the kettle boils," said Roger hastily. He
+provided plentifully for the poor brutes, at the same time gazing
+desperately toward the ranch house. He felt badly in need of advice.</p>
+
+<p>As if in answer to his need he saw a tiny figure come down the trail
+from the corral. It was Felicia, evidently coming to the Sun Plant.
+Roger slipped into the living tent and wrote a hasty note to Charley,
+apprizing her of events and begging her to come to his aid. By the time
+he had established Mrs. von Minden at her luncheon, Felicia reached the
+camp. But before<a class="pagenum" name="page_122" id="page_122" title="122"></a> his visitor caught sight of her, he had sent the child
+back with the note. He felt immeasurably relieved when this was
+accomplished.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, madam," he said, "perhaps you would not mind resting here in the
+cook tent while I finish covering in the well. It is dangerous to leave
+it open with all the people that run about the desert in this
+neighborhood."</p>
+
+<p>Madam graciously gave her assent and Roger fell to work briskly,
+laughing now and again to himself in a half vexed way. Sooner than he
+had dared hope, Charley and Felicia appeared. Leaving Felicia to watch
+the burros, Roger led Charley into the living tent and gave the details
+of his predicament. Charley laughed quietly but immoderately and Roger
+joined her.</p>
+
+<p>"How many crazy people have you in the desert?" he asked, finally.</p>
+
+<p>"Uncle Otto is the only one I've known in my four years here. You're
+having wonderful luck. And the old boy has always pretended he's a
+bachelor."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps he'll shoot her on sight," said Roger in a hopeful voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, what an awful thing to say!" protested Charley.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait till you see the dame," returned Roger. "Charley, I can't have her
+staying the night here and I don't dare to send her up to your place.
+She might run amuck."</p>
+
+<p>"Pshaw, no, she won't! I'll take care of her. Show me the lady."</p>
+
+<p>Roger led the way to the cook tent. Mrs. von Minden sat on a bench, her
+back against a tent pole, her<a class="pagenum" name="page_123" id="page_123" title="123"></a> eyes closed. She opened them, however,
+when Roger spoke her name and acknowledged the introduction to Charley
+and Felicia with considerable air. She refused Charley's offer of
+hospitality, with utter finality.</p>
+
+<p>"Here my Yogis directed me, and here I must stay until my husband comes.
+I will be no burden, after my tent is set up, if the young man will cook
+for me. And my gray hairs are sufficient chaperone."</p>
+
+<p>"But I will not cook for you," said Roger very firmly. "My partner and I
+find it hard enough work cooking for ourselves. We are under great
+nervous and physical strain, Mrs. von Minden, and I must tell you
+frankly, it will be extremely inconvenient to have you here. This rough
+camp is no place for a woman."</p>
+
+<p>"No place for a woman, eh?" repeated Mrs. von Minden. "Why it's paradise
+compared to some of the places Otto von Minden has kept me in." She rose
+suddenly and began to pace the sandy floor, a majestic figure in spite
+of her grotesqueness. "What was I when he found me, an unsophisticated
+girl of twenty, living in my quiet New Hampshire home. He promised me
+everything&mdash;travel, court life, the emperor's favor. What does he give
+me but desert camps? Camps where he and I were the only human beings
+within a thousand miles. Camps where I worked like any squaw&mdash;where a
+bit of tent and a blanket made our entire equipment. Five years ago he
+left me. I've taught school long enough to save money for an outfit and
+now I shall not leave till I have found him and given him the message of
+the Yogis."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Mr. von Minden comes to see me every once in a while. You'll be
+much more apt to find him at the ranch than here."<a class="pagenum" name="page_124" id="page_124" title="124"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Here I must stay," reiterated the unwelcome guest, with a sudden quaver
+in her voice that made Roger say hastily:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, very well! Mrs. von Minden. If you'll show me which is your tent
+pack, I'll try to make you comfortable."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll stay and help," said Charley.</p>
+
+<p>"So will I," cried Felicia. "I'd love to unpack the burros. All the
+bundles are so knobby. Are there any doll dishes there, Mrs. von
+Minden?"</p>
+
+<p>As if she saw the child for the first time, Mrs. von Minden gazed at her
+in astonishment. "Why, my dear, how much you look like your sister! No,
+there are no doll dishes there, I'm sorry to say. Come, children!" and
+her pink robe blowing she led the way to the patient burros.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't this fun?" whispered Charley to Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe! But how'll I explain to Ernest?"</p>
+
+<p>The mere thought of this sent Charley off into a gale of laughter that
+caused Mrs. von Minden to ask sharply:</p>
+
+<p>"What is so funny?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm just laughing at what Mr. Moore's partner and my brother will say
+when they get in some time to-night and find a lady established here,"
+answered Charley frankly.</p>
+
+<p>The visitor smiled grimly and set about her unpacking. The particularly
+knobby bundle which had fascinated Felicia proved to be a rocking chair,
+enwrapped by the canvas tent. There was a compact little cooking outfit,
+several large books on Occultism, an air mattress, two pink quilts, a
+pink pillow and a suitcase of clothing. One burro was loaded with
+provisions, consisting<a class="pagenum" name="page_125" id="page_125" title="125"></a> of olive oil, sugar, coffee, flour and canned
+cheese.</p>
+
+<p>Roger knocked together a crude tent frame and stretched the tent over
+it, Mrs. von Minden directing while Charley and Felicia tugged with him.
+The guest refused to allow Roger to make a bunk for her. The Yogis, it
+seemed, had told her to sleep on the ground. When the mattress and
+rocking chair and a box for a table had been established in the tent
+Madam expressed herself as satisfied.</p>
+
+<p>"You may rest now, children," she said, "while I concentrate."</p>
+
+<p>"By the way," suggested Roger. "How about the burros? With all the good
+will in the world, I can't feed them, for I have no fodder."</p>
+
+<p>"You have a ranch, Miss Preble," said Mrs. von Minden. "I will pay you
+for boarding them. What is the charge?"</p>
+
+<p>"My brother will take care of that on his return," answered Charley.
+"We'll lead them up when we go home."</p>
+
+<p>"You're not going yet, Charley," exclaimed Roger, in alarm. "You must
+stay to supper."</p>
+
+<p>"I never was so popular in my life," laughed Charley. "Of course I'll
+stay. Let me have a look at the new well, Roger. Do you think it's going
+to meet your demands?"</p>
+
+<p>She crossed the camp to admire the new pump, Roger following.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think it will do more than supply engine and camp needs,"
+replied Roger. "I don't know whether to go ahead, prospecting for water,
+or to erect the plant first."<a class="pagenum" name="page_126" id="page_126" title="126"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you erect your plant, then if you don't find enough water
+after drilling for it, with your engine, move up to the ranch and use
+our spring. I'm not trying to graft something free. We'll be glad to pay
+for it. But our old gasoline engine is an awful lemon and it's going to
+be an awful job to keep up the supply of gasoline."</p>
+
+<p>"Jove! My first customer? Charley, you're a peach!" exclaimed Roger. "I
+suppose I might put my plant up on your place to begin with. But no,
+this is the spot the Smithsonian picked, it's government land, and to
+move now might make endless complications. But you'll have your pumping
+plant, Charley, before any one else does. And we'll make the alfalfa
+crops pay for it."</p>
+
+<p>Charley nodded, then gasped, "Look, Roger! Oh, if Ernest and Dick could
+only steal in now!"</p>
+
+<p>The guest had pulled her rocker out before the tent flap and was seated
+in it, eyes closed, hands clasped over her stomach, immovable except for
+a light swaying of her chair.</p>
+
+<p>"Concentrating, I suppose," muttered Roger. "Charley, I'll bet the old
+bird will never leave me. I have the feeling."</p>
+
+<p>"What on earth does she mean by concentrating?" gasped Charley, through
+her laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it's some of that occult rot, I don't doubt," groaned Roger.
+"Charley, stay till the fellows come. I'm frightened."</p>
+
+<p>"On the contrary," laughed Charley, "I'm going to get us all an early
+supper and put those burros to bed before dark."</p>
+
+<p>She was as good as her word. The afterglow had<a class="pagenum" name="page_127" id="page_127" title="127"></a> not faded from the sky
+when Roger returned to the camp, after helping Charley with her chores.
+His guest had retired to her tent and Roger withdrew to his and threw
+himself down on his cot to await the return of Dick and Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>It was midnight when the teams rattled into camp. Roger hastened out at
+once.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll unhitch and leave both wagons here to unload in the morning,"
+said Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>Dick already was silently unchecking his horses, returning only a grunt
+to Roger's greeting.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll go with you, Dick, and take our team to the corral," said Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be a fool!" growled Dick. "I'll take them without any help. If
+I've got to board 'em, I'll do the work for 'em. Don't you butt in!" He
+mounted one of his own horses and stringing the others behind, he rode
+off under the starlight.</p>
+
+<p>"For the Lord's sake!" exclaimed Roger, following Ernest into the tent,
+"what's the matter with Dick?"</p>
+
+<p>Ernest tossed a pile of mail onto the trunk beside the candle. "I
+haven't the remotest idea. He was as jolly as usual when we had our
+supper at sunset. About an hour ago I spoke to him and he took my head
+off. I haven't tried him since. Sweet for poor Charley."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't know he was subject to grouches," mused Roger. "Say, Ern,
+before I read the mail, I've got some news for you."</p>
+
+<p>"Qui-tha done some real work?" asked Ernest with a yawn.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Qui-tha! I'd forgotten him. He departed that morning without a
+farewell. We have, however,<a class="pagenum" name="page_128" id="page_128" title="128"></a> another guest, who is at this moment asleep
+in her own tent, near the cook house."</p>
+
+<p>"Get out, Roger! It's too late for joking. Let me get to bed."</p>
+
+<p>"A regular lady, Ern, six feet two or three in height and as near as I
+can make out she's here for keeps. She's Von Minden's wife."</p>
+
+<p>Ernest stopped yawning. "Who the deuce is Von Minden?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I forgot to mention him. He's the man who tried to shoot me
+yesterday."</p>
+
+<p>Ernest stared at Roger incredulously. "Rog, what's the matter with you?
+You're positively maudlin."</p>
+
+<p>Roger chuckled. "Next time you want excitement, Ernie, don't go to
+Archer's Springs. Stay right at home here in the God-forsakenest spot on
+earth. Now I'll make my story as short as I can, but you've got to hear
+it to-night. I can't sleep with it on my chest and she's liable to break
+loose with something any time."</p>
+
+<p>He finished his story as rapidly as possible, Ernest's consternation
+growing as he proceeded.</p>
+
+<p>"But, my Lord, Rog, she can't stay here!" he cried.</p>
+
+<p>"So I told her. So Charley told her. But she's here. In her tent. On her
+air mattress. Her rocking chair beside her. Her books on occultism at
+her head."</p>
+
+<p>"I was going to ask you to read that letter from Washington to-night,"
+said Ernest, feebly, "but I feel that I need immediate rest. I'll go up
+in the morning to see Dick and if he still has his grouch with him, I'll
+bring him back to tackle the lady."</p>
+
+<p>Roger yawned. "Guess I will leave the mail until<a class="pagenum" name="page_129" id="page_129" title="129"></a> morning. That woman
+has exhausted me more than any job we've tackled yet."</p>
+
+<p>He blew out the candle and in a few moments the little camp was silent
+in the star glow.</p>
+
+<hr class="major" />
+<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em">
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_130" id="page_130" title="130"></a>
+<a name="THE_LETTER_FROM_WASHINGTON_4367" id="THE_LETTER_FROM_WASHINGTON_4367"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+<h3>THE LETTER FROM WASHINGTON</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>In spite of his weariness, Roger could not sleep. He scarcely had closed
+his eyes when the memory of Dick's curious ugliness made him open them
+and stare into the darkness. What in the world could induce a seemingly
+pleasant fellow like Dick to go off apparently without cause into a deep
+seated grouch?</p>
+
+<p>Roger shook himself. What a fool he was to lie awake over a thing as
+trivial as this. All men were moody. Roger told himself that, excepting
+Ernest, every man he knew had unaccountable grouches. Then he closed his
+eyes and opened them again. Would Dick row Charley? It was unthinkable
+that a man should row a woman of her type. Roger had discovered that he
+admired his old time playmate very much. She was so calm, so clear
+headed and keen thinking. With all the dignity of her splendid boyish
+physique added to her splendid intelligence, it was very unpleasant to
+think of her having to submit to bullying.</p>
+
+<p>Roger turned over with a sigh. After a time of tossing, moved by an
+unaccountable impulse, he crept out of bed and peered from the tent flap
+toward the ranch house. A faint speck of light flecked the darkness. He
+scratched a match and looked at his watch. It was half past two. He went
+back to bed, where he<a class="pagenum" name="page_131" id="page_131" title="131"></a> lay for a half hour, wondering what was going on
+at the ranch house.</p>
+
+<p>This was an unusual proceeding for Roger. Like most only children Roger
+had grown up self-centered and more or less selfish. His work had tended
+to increase these characteristics. Not since his mother's death, with
+the single exception of his thoughtful affection for Mamma Wolf, had
+Roger spent so much of himself on another's problem as he now was
+spending on Charley's.</p>
+
+<p>He rose again. The light still shone from the adobe. He slipped into his
+clothes and noiselessly left the tent. It was nipping cold and he walked
+as fast as the heavy sand permitted. As he neared the ranch, a second
+light appeared and moved down to the corral. A few minutes later Roger
+had reached the bars.</p>
+
+<p>"Dick," he cried softly to the dark figure that was pulling the harness
+off one of the horses. "It's Roger! Anything the matter? I saw the
+light." The figure dropped the harness and ran over to the bar. As the
+"bug" light caught her face, Roger saw that it was Charley.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Roger!" she exclaimed. "I'm so glad, so glad to see you!"</p>
+
+<p>He vaulted over the bar.</p>
+
+<p>"Hush," she said, "Dick's sick and I've just gotten him to sleep."</p>
+
+<p>"Sick! That accounts for his grouch then! Why couldn't he say so! Shall
+I go for the doctor, Charley?"</p>
+
+<p>"No! No! He's subject to these attacks. Did&mdash;did Ernest mind his being
+cross?" In the candlelight Charley looked anxiously into Roger's face.<a class="pagenum" name="page_132" id="page_132" title="132"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Not a bit. He just wondered about it because the change came on so
+suddenly. What is it? His stomach?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, his stomach," replied Charley.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure you don't want me to go for the doctor?"</p>
+
+<p>Charley's voice trembled a little. "Very sure! But you can hang up the
+harness for me while I hold the light." Then, as Roger obeyed with
+alacrity, she asked: "What made you come up this hour of the night?"</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't sleep. Then I began to think about your brother's grouch. I
+got up and took a look in this direction and saw the light. I don't know
+just why I came. Restless, I guess!"</p>
+
+<p>He tossed the lines over a peg and came back to take the lantern from
+Charley. As the light flashed on her face he saw that she looked very
+tired and that her lip was quivering. A wordless surprise swept over
+Roger. The feeling he had had that Charley was like an interesting boy
+whom he would wish to keep for a friend was rudely shocked by that
+quivering lip. Only a girl's lip could tremble so.</p>
+
+<p>"Something <i>is</i> wrong," he said, anxiously. "Let me help you."</p>
+
+<p>"You have helped me, more than you can know. Go home to bed now or you
+won't be fit for work to-morrow. And that work is just about the most
+important thing in this valley."</p>
+
+<p>Roger could think of no adequate reply. He lowered the bars for Charley
+and put them up again. The two stood in silent contemplation of the
+desert night. The night wind was dying as dawn approached. Above and
+below was one perfect blending of dusky<a class="pagenum" name="page_133" id="page_133" title="133"></a> blue, with only the faint fleck
+of star silver to mark the sky from the earth. Roger's nerves quickened
+to the wonder of the night. He turned to Charley.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't feel as if I'd ever lived before," he half whispered.</p>
+
+<p>"I know," replied the girl. "I don't believe a person could be a real
+agnostic in the desert, do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Roger, simply.</p>
+
+<p>"You must go to bed," repeated Charley. "And you mustn't worry any more
+about me." She turned to run quickly up the trail to the adobe.</p>
+
+<p>Roger started campward.</p>
+
+<p>He was wakened later in the morning by the sound of conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry, madam, but I'm no cook, and I dislike olive oil, anyhow. If
+you'll eat the pancakes as I fry 'em, in bacon fat, you're more than
+welcome to all you wish. But if you want olive oil used, you must fry
+them yourself."</p>
+
+<p>"Where's the other young man?" asked Mrs. von Minden.</p>
+
+<p>"Hey! Rog!" roared Ernest. "You're wanted."</p>
+
+<p>Roger sat up on the edge of his cot with a yawn. As he did so, his eye
+fell on the unopened letters on the trunk.</p>
+
+<p>Without waiting to dress he opened the one postmarked Washington. He
+read it through twice, then very deliberately rose and pulled on his
+clothing. His face was pale beneath the tan as he stepped out into the
+morning sun.</p>
+
+<p>"Ernest, here's some bad news!" he called. "Come over to the tent a
+moment."</p>
+
+<p>As Ernest hurried up, Roger said slowly, "Austin<a class="pagenum" name="page_134" id="page_134" title="134"></a> is dead and the
+Smithsonian Institute says it doesn't know anything about the deal with
+me."</p>
+
+<p>Ernest dropped the pancake turner he was holding. "Good God!" He read
+the letter, then looked up into Roger's somber face. "Dropped dead in
+New York three weeks ago. Poor chap!"</p>
+
+<p>Roger nodded. "But what was he up to? The writer of that letter says
+that although the Smithsonian was interested in a general way in our
+work, Austin had no authority to go ahead. Now, where did he get the
+money?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose he was afraid some one else would get in on it while the
+Smithsonian was hesitating, so he funded up himself. I suppose they'd
+have paid him back. You remember his cursing out the delays and the red
+tape that hampered everything connected with the government. I thought
+he was hipped on the subject, but now&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"What makes you think all that?" asked Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, don't you remember in St. Louis, when he was ordering stuff from
+the Condit Iron Works he said he'd pay the bill himself, to get the
+stuff started?"</p>
+
+<p>Roger shook his head. "I don't remember. But I guess you're right. Lord,
+what a good scout he was to have so much faith in me! I wonder how much
+he spent on us, and whether his wife is provided for?"</p>
+
+<p>"That won't be hard to find out. What we've got to worry about now is
+the situation with the Smithsonian. They can't realize how far we've
+gone."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, they do," replied Roger. "That letter from, what does he sign
+himself&mdash;Hampton?&mdash;is in reply to the report I sent Austin from Archer's
+Springs, two weeks ago. Why, they've got to go on with it!"<a class="pagenum" name="page_135" id="page_135" title="135"></a></p>
+
+<p>"If they won't, we are up against it," groaned Ernest. "I don't want to
+ask father for money, and you and the Dean have tried every one in the
+world."</p>
+
+<p>"And who the devil wants you to ask your father for money for me?" Roger
+shouted. "Haven't we got practically all the material we need, bought
+and paid for? We don't need anything except food. We'll do the work
+ourselves."</p>
+
+<p>Ernest's gentle voice interrupted. "But, Rog&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't <i>but</i> me," roared Roger. "I tell you nothing shall stop me now!
+If it takes twenty years, I'll go through with this. I'd rather cut my
+throat than not go on with it. I've waited for five years for this
+chance. The death of one man won't stop me, nor the indifference of some
+fool government clerk. This plant is going to be built."</p>
+
+<p>"What I started to say," said Ernest quietly, "when you began your
+brain-storm, was that if you'd sell your laboratory equipment up home it
+would guarantee us food for six months. The Dean would attend to it for
+you."</p>
+
+<p>Roger sat down on his cot, rather suddenly. "That's a good idea, Ern,"
+he said, meekly.</p>
+
+<p>Ernest picked up the pancake turner. "I'm with you to a finish in this,
+Roger. You don't have to jaw me, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Sorry, old man," muttered Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"It's all right," replied Ernest. "I'll finish getting breakfast. We've
+got all day to talk this over. One idea occurs to me. Perhaps this man
+Hampton who signs this letter would be less cold to the project if he
+had details. Why don't you give him the whole story, both of the plant
+and of our relationship to Austin?"<a class="pagenum" name="page_136" id="page_136" title="136"></a></p>
+
+<p>"That's a good hunch," exclaimed Roger, immensely cheered up by the
+suggestion. "Well," with a sigh, "I might have known I was having too
+much luck."</p>
+
+<p>"It's the old lady. She's a bird of ill omen. I knew it the minute I saw
+her, this morning. Come out as soon as you can, Rog. I don't dare to be
+alone with her."</p>
+
+<p>Roger grinned, but did not hasten his shaving. Ernest could be
+facetious. After all, the building of the plant was not Ernest's dream.
+Roger was shocked by the news of Austin's death, but the shock was not
+due to grief. Austin simply represented opportunity to the young
+inventor. A sudden fear was clutching at his heart lest now the plant
+would never be completed. Roger had learned much since his arrival in
+the desert. He had begun to realize that the desert fights ferociously
+any attempt to subdue her. He knew now that it was going to take much
+longer than the outside margin he had allowed to build the plant. If a
+driven well failed, he must try out the Prebles'. Perhaps Dick's
+knowledge of irrigation would prove to be sketchy and that water supply
+too would prove inadequate. He believed still that his plans for the
+plant itself would not have to be changed.</p>
+
+<p>"I heard every word you two said," Mrs. von Minden's voice rose
+suddenly. "You needn't worry at all. I'll concentrate for you
+immediately after breakfast."</p>
+
+<p>"In that case, we are ruined," Roger muttered, smiling in spite of
+himself, as he dropped the tent flap behind him.</p>
+
+<p>The lady visitor was sitting on a bench beside the<a class="pagenum" name="page_137" id="page_137" title="137"></a> table in the cook
+tent, contemplating a cup of coffee and a plate of crackers.</p>
+
+<p>"Was it your idea, madam," said Ernest, attacking a pile of pancakes
+some ten inches high, "that your husband would find you in this camp?"</p>
+
+<p>"So the Yogis say," replied Mrs. von Minden.</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you fry yourself some cakes, Mrs. von Minden?" asked Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"Part of my creed is never to prepare food for myself if it is possible
+to get some one else to do it. A complete inertia is a vital step toward
+Nirvana."</p>
+
+<p>Roger grunted. "Then you'll never find Nirvana in this camp, I can tell
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"Good morning!" cried Felicia, appearing suddenly in the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>"Dicky is sick," she announced, "and Charley sent me down here for the
+day. She said please for you not to come up because Dicky is so cross,
+she doesn't want any one around."</p>
+
+<p>Ernest and Roger looked at each other.</p>
+
+<p>"I think I'd better go up," said Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'll go," insisted Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>"Charley doesn't want you," cried Felicia. "She says so and she always
+means what she says."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you've found that out, have you?" asked Ernest. "Well, have a
+flapjack; my cook is an artist."</p>
+
+<p>"I've had breakfast, thank you," replied the little girl. "I'm going out
+and look at the things in the wagon."</p>
+
+<p>"Go to it!" exclaimed Ernest. Then to Roger, "I see you've struck water
+at last. That news evidently impressed you less than other events, last
+night."<a class="pagenum" name="page_138" id="page_138" title="138"></a></p>
+
+<p>Roger nodded. "There's not much of it and it's vile to taste. But it'll
+take care of our camp wants and the engine. Charley suggested that if we
+didn't strike an adequate supply when we drove the well farther, we'd
+better set the plant up at their place. They'd be our first customers."</p>
+
+<p>"Better not take her up till you've done a lot of experimenting down
+here," said Ernest, quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't expect to do much experimenting," replied Roger. "But I've
+started here and I'll keep on here, especially since this unexpected mix
+up."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. von Minden, who seemed to have been lost in thought ever since
+Felicia's appearance, now spoke suddenly, but with closed eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"No, don't leave this spot. You are destined to great good luck here."</p>
+
+<p>The two men looked at each other. Ernest shrugged his shoulders and
+Roger sighed and asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Did the pump come?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and the hose and the pipe for the condenser. We brought that and
+the glass, the cement, more lumber, and the drum of sulphur dioxide.
+There are two more big loads down there."</p>
+
+<p>Roger nodded. "I'll take my turn at it to-morrow. Did you see Schmidt?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and he suggested that if we'd tie Preble's team to our wagon, he'd
+drive a load back for us, so only you would need to come in."</p>
+
+<p>"We can't afford to have Schmidt come out here now," sighed Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"Let him come!" murmured the visitor, still with closed eyes. "He will
+be provided for. It's a great work and must go on."<a class="pagenum" name="page_139" id="page_139" title="139"></a></p>
+
+<p>Roger jerked himself to his feet. "Let's go outside, Ern," he exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>Madam opened her eyes for a moment to say, "Send the child in to wash
+the dishes!"</p>
+
+<p>Ernest turned a chuckle into a hiccough and followed Roger over to the
+well. "Roger, it won't cost much to keep him for a week and that
+provides for getting Hackett's team back and stopping that expense."</p>
+
+<p>Roger nodded. "Let's leave those dishes on the table till she does 'em
+or we have to get lunch."</p>
+
+<p>"O. K.! There she goes into her tent. Rog, she's plain crazy. Well, what
+do we tackle to-day?"</p>
+
+<p>"We'd better get the pump ready and then start to build the engine
+house. I want it big enough to include the laboratory."</p>
+
+<p>"Right-o! Dick suggested we save lumber by making the engine house of
+adobe. He says the sand storms that'll blow next month will ruin our
+apparatus if we don't cover it well."</p>
+
+<p>"Where'll we get the adobe?" asked Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"He said that that layer of clay we struck about four feet down in the
+well is extra fine adobe and that he'll show us how to handle it. I
+wonder how long he'll be sick, poor chap! Was Dick ever sick this way
+before, Felicia?" he called.</p>
+
+<p>"Lots of times!" the child called back. "Oh, Ernest, here's a little,
+little bundle that's so soft it can't be a machine. Can't I open it? It
+might be for me."</p>
+
+<p>"Go ahead!" replied Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>"If the adobe won't take too long, I like the idea," said Roger. "But
+with our new financial problem, we're working against time."<a class="pagenum" name="page_140" id="page_140" title="140"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, isn't it awful. Nothing but dish cloths for Charley!" shrieked
+Felicia.</p>
+
+<p>"She'll have all the small items in those wagons in a hard knot,"
+exclaimed Roger. "Felicia! Come and help unpack the pump, there's a good
+girl!"</p>
+
+<p>When the wagon had been unloaded, the two men began the installation of
+the pump. By noon they had not finished the job. Roger had infinite
+patience with machinery. Ernest practically none.</p>
+
+<p>"You'd have kicked the face off any human being that acted as mulish as
+this pump, Rog," growled Ernest. "Hang the thing! Let's throw it away
+and get a good one."</p>
+
+<p>Roger laughed. "And you'd have no end of patience with a pupil as onery
+as this pump, Ern. It's all right. We'll have it going in a moment."</p>
+
+<p>And go she did, to the excited admiration of Felicia, who had been an
+attentive audience during the entire performance. Mrs. von Minden did
+not leave the confines of her tent until mid-afternoon, when she spent
+some time preparing herself a meal. After lunch, Ernest would have gone
+to offer his services at the adobe, had not Felicia protested to the
+point of tears, that Charley would be angry. Somewhat to their own
+amusement the two men gave in to the vehement small girl, and the ground
+work for the absorber being complete, they began to clear space for the
+engine house and consumer. Felicia with a kitchen knife and the pancake
+turner, toiled away after the two men all the afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>About five o'clock Ernest took her home. He was gone some time and Roger
+had supper ready on his return. Ernest had fed the horses and milked
+for<a class="pagenum" name="page_141" id="page_141" title="141"></a> Charley, who said that Dick would be around on the morrow.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I'll write my letter to-night and start in with the two teams at
+daylight," said Roger. "You finish grubbing off for the condenser,
+Ernest, and make a carpenter's bench. And try not to kill our visitor."
+But the visitor was invisible all the evening, nor had she appeared
+before Roger left the next morning. He was well on his way toward
+Archer's Springs by daylight. The wagons were empty and the horses
+fresh, so that he reached the railroad station by mid-afternoon and had
+the wagons loaded by dark ready for the return trip.</p>
+
+<p>At the Chinese restaurant where he went for his supper he saw Schmidt.</p>
+
+<p>"Well!" exclaimed the German. "You vas here at last, nicht wahr!"</p>
+
+<p>Roger nodded. "I hear you are coming up for a visit."</p>
+
+<p>"Visit? No! No! To stay. Ya! To stay!"</p>
+
+<p>Roger shook his head. "Can't feed you, old man!" and then, before he
+knew it, he was telling the sympathetic German of the Smithsonian's
+dereliction.</p>
+
+<p>"These American governments!" groaned Schmidt. "Vat a stupidness! In
+Germany such a foolishness is impossible. Vell, I come for a veek and
+bring my own grub. I haf a leetle money, enough to feed me. Vat I lack
+is vork&mdash;vork to keep me from going crazy with the heim-weh in this
+ocean of sand, and some one mit brain to talk to. The baggage-man&mdash;the
+storekeeper&mdash;the Chinaman&mdash;Gott! I know their every mind like a primer,
+so long have I talked to them."<a class="pagenum" name="page_142" id="page_142" title="142"></a></p>
+
+<p>There was to Roger something irresistibly likeable about Schmidt's
+sentimental, jovial face.</p>
+
+<p>"Come ahead, then!" he said. "You'll have to bunk in the cook-tent, and
+bring your own bed with you, but we'll be delighted to have you with
+us."</p>
+
+<p>Schmidt rubbed his stubby hands together. "I go at vonce and pack up,"
+he exclaimed. "Ve vill drive by my place in the morning and pick me up,"
+and he started for the door.</p>
+
+<p>At five o'clock the next morning the two heavily laden wagons crawled
+out on the desert trail, campwards. It was slow going, particularly
+after they struck the deep sand which began ten miles out of the town.
+Gustav Schmidt was rather silent when they stopped at noon, to water and
+feed their horses and to eat the lunch the Chinaman had put up for them.
+He was heavily coated with dust and his face had burned badly.</p>
+
+<p>Half way through the second sandwich he said: "Ve'll get even with that
+sun, eh? Ve harness him and make him pump vater on us and on this damn
+sand, eh? Gott, vat a country!"</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter with this country?" asked Roger, blowing the sand off
+a ripe olive. "It's exactly the kind of country I want to make solar
+power with and it's exactly the kind of country you want to cure your
+bad lungs. If you don't like it&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Vait! Vait!" interrupted Schmidt. "I know vat you vill say. If I don't
+like it, go back to Germany. Some day I do go back, but not yet. Ven I
+go, I try to take you and young Wolf mit me. This is the land of
+nature's opportunity. In the Fatherland,<a class="pagenum" name="page_143" id="page_143" title="143"></a> the government gif the
+opportunity. This is the land for the adventure, for the exploitation,
+nicht wahr? Germany the land for the thinker, like you? Nicht wahr?"</p>
+
+<p>Roger shook his head. Nevertheless, his eyes were wistful. Many times
+during the afternoon he thought of Schmidt's remark. Roger's education
+and reading had long ago persuaded him that Germany was the land for the
+thinker, that there a man would not have to struggle for ten years to
+give birth to an idea such as his. He wondered why he never had cut
+loose and gone to the Fatherland. Some subconscious sense of obligation
+to his own country, he supposed. And yet, he thought bitterly what a
+fool he had been! Surely there could be no passion, not even the love
+for women, as deep-rooted, as overwhelming and as racially right as a
+man's desire to express his dreams. And that expression was denied him
+in his own country unless he put up a fight that depleted his creative
+force, surely by half.</p>
+
+<p>He sighed heavily and yet his thoughts returned to the little new power
+plant with a vague heart warming as though already it spelled home to
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Toward sundown, a curiously picturesque group passed them on the trail.
+Half a dozen squaws, with bare black heads and capes of red bandannas
+sewed together, were plodding toward town laden with ollas. Roger pulled
+up his team and called to them. Dick had told him to buy one of the
+great Indian water jars at his first opportunity.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you sell me one?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>The oldest squaw nodded and held up a fine two<a class="pagenum" name="page_144" id="page_144" title="144"></a> gallon jar. It was just
+the color of the desert sand and was ornamented with swastikas and
+triangles in lines of vivid black.</p>
+
+<p>"How much?" asked Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"Eight bits," she said.</p>
+
+<p>Roger dropped a dollar into her slender brown palm. The squaw flashed
+white teeth at him and a younger woman pressed forward holding up an
+olla no bigger than a teacup, a duplicate in design of the one he had
+just bought.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll take that for Felicia," he murmured. "How much?"</p>
+
+<p>"Two bits."</p>
+
+<p>He tossed her the quarter. "You make 'em camp up there?" asked the old
+squaw.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied Roger. "Come and call on us, ladies."</p>
+
+<p>"We bring 'em baskets, maybe," replied the squaw.</p>
+
+<p>Roger nodded and started the horses on, looking back from time to time
+for pure pleasure in the beauty of those scarlet fluttering capes.</p>
+
+<p>They reached the camp about ten o'clock and were vociferously welcomed
+by Ernest, who, before taking the horses up to the corral, insisted on
+showing them his day's work.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing doing on the carpenter's bench," he said, flashing the
+"lightning bug" toward the site of the engine house. "Look here. Dick
+came over right after breakfast and we were hard at this all day."</p>
+
+<p>All the lumber in the camp had been requisitioned to make adobe molds.
+"We mixed the adobe with that clutter of broken hay that the glass came
+in," explained Ernest. "Dick says the Mexicans use stable scrapings,<a class="pagenum" name="page_145" id="page_145" title="145"></a>
+but I couldn't stomach that. You see you just peg the boards up in the
+sand, a foot apart and pack them full of the adobe. That'll be the
+thickness of the house. Then when the strips are dried, we'll cut them
+the length we want. Two days more work will give us all we need."</p>
+
+<p>"Vat a country!" exclaimed Gustav.</p>
+
+<p>Ernest and Roger laughed. "I take it Dick is O. K. again," said Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"Quite himself. Said Charley was used up, but she came down late this
+afternoon with Felicia and she said she was feeling fine. Felicia made
+those little bricks yonder. Charley has put her into overalls. She's
+simply ravishing in them."</p>
+
+<p>"And how is your guest?" asked Roger. "I've been telling Schmidt about
+her. He's heard of Von Minden at Archer's. And it seems she outfitted
+there. Claimed to have come up from Ph&oelig;nix and said she had an
+engagement with us."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, she was invisible, practically until noon to-day. Then she
+brought her rocking chair here where Dick and I were at work and
+concentrated on us all the afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>"Concentrated? Vat iss concentrated?" asked Gustav.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, she rocks in the chair, holding the pink umbrella till Dick
+lashed it to the chair back for her. She keeps her eyes closed and
+doesn't speak, though she did explain that she was talking to her
+mother, who is on the seventh plane, concerning the successful erection
+of the engine house. Dick seems quite smitten by her. He gazes on her
+and gazes as if fascinated, then he goes off behind the living tent and
+laughs."<a class="pagenum" name="page_146" id="page_146" title="146"></a></p>
+
+<p>"My God, what a country!" groaned Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"I've got a bed fixed up for you in the cook tent, Schmidt," said
+Ernest. "You'll be safe if none of Mrs. von Minden's spirit friends
+bother you. She told me that she heard them playing the accordion in the
+cook tent last night."</p>
+
+<p>"I love music," was Schmidt's response, and the three men went laughing
+to bed. Roger wakened in the night but once. Through the open tent flap
+he beheld Mrs. von Minden rocking silently in the starlight before her
+tent.</p>
+
+<p>"She's going to get on my nerves," he murmured and fell asleep again.</p>
+
+<p>Dawn was just breaking over the mountains the next morning when Roger
+entered the cook tent. He was greeted by Gustav, who was purple with the
+cold but grinning cheerfully, and the smell of coffee.</p>
+
+<p>"It vas not so soft, sleeping on Frau Nature's heart in the desert,
+nicht wahr!" he exclaimed. "Coyotes vere eating the garbage last night
+mit gulps and snortings and I slept not. It vas not the music I had been
+promised. So I make the breakfast early."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't sleep well myself the first night or two," said Roger. "Desert
+silence makes a lot of noise to a town-bred man. Hey!"&mdash;going to the
+door&mdash;"Ern! You lazy Dutchman! The new cook'll leave if you don't get up
+for your breakfast."</p>
+
+<p>Gustav and Roger were half through the meal when Ernest appeared.
+"Mud-pie making is hard work," he groaned, sliding stiffly onto the
+bench beside Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly hate to make adobe brick when every day counts so," said
+Roger. "Let's use sheet iron."</p>
+
+<p>"It'll be better to take Dick's advice," insisted Ernest.<a class="pagenum" name="page_147" id="page_147" title="147"></a> "He says the
+dust storms are frightful here and the heat worse. The adobe shelter
+will be grateful on many counts."</p>
+
+<p>"Ve'll all vork hard," said Gustav, "and the 'dobe vill be up strong,
+before ve know it. Ven it is done, it is done good, and that is right. I
+vash the damn dishes. You go make the mud mixing. Then I come."</p>
+
+<p>"We're going to hate to let that chap go when his visit's up," said
+Roger, as he and Ernest began work on the adobe.</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe we won't have to let him go," replied Ernest. "You stir the mess
+up, Rog, and I'll put it into the molds. Dick is going on with his
+grading, but he'll be over in a day or so and show us how to begin the
+house building."</p>
+
+<p>"The trouble with you is, Ern, that you're flighty-minded. You're tired
+of making a Sun Plant and all excitement over building a mud house."</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't have a single track mind like yours for a million dollars,"
+returned Ernest cheerfully.</p>
+
+<p>Roger grinned and presently began to whistle as he worked. Mrs. von
+Minden proved to be an exceedingly unexacting guest. After it was
+evident to her that her hosts had not the slightest intention of doing
+special cooking for her she did her own. She ate only two meals a day,
+preparing one at mid-morning and one at sundown. The remainder of the
+day she spent within her tent, reading or rocking in her chair,
+concentrating on the camp work. She seldom talked and then only on the
+matter of what she called Yogi-ism.</p>
+
+<p>Gustav took a violent dislike to her and refused to work if she looked
+at him. Roger declared that on<a class="pagenum" name="page_148" id="page_148" title="148"></a> the next trip to town he was going to
+telegraph Ph&oelig;nix and see if she had not escaped from an insane
+asylum. But Ernest only laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor old soul! She's not crazy except on her religion. Let her alone.
+She's no expense and no trouble!"</p>
+
+<p>"She gives me the willies," insisted Roger. "I never knew before that I
+had a temperament."</p>
+
+<p>"Gosh, I could have broken that to you twenty-five years ago," said
+Ernest. "Only I supposed obvious facts were as plain to you as to other
+people. Here she comes for her afternoon's work, bless her, pink
+umbrella, pink nighty and all. What a lucky dog Von Minden is."</p>
+
+<p>Roger chuckled and joined Gustav, who moved hastily to continue his
+brick making back of the lady's chair.</p>
+
+<p>Working so, he was facing the ranch and presently he saw Charley cross
+the alfalfa field to join Dick. A moment later, the two figures were
+following the team across the field. Next Felicia flashed down the
+trail, a tiny dot of blue, and shortly he saw Dick lift her to one of
+the horse's backs. Roger's mind harked back to old days. He recalled
+Charley's father giving her and him just such a ride over the fertile
+corn fields of home. And he pondered for a moment on the thing called
+fate.</p>
+
+<p>There was a little hand that clung to his as he and Charley scuffled up
+the dusty road to the farm. There was Dick's ruddy boyish face, sternly
+disapproving. There was a childish treble, "I shall love Charley. She'll
+take such care of me as never was on sea nor land. Aunt May says so."
+And finally there was the<a class="pagenum" name="page_149" id="page_149" title="149"></a> woman's voice. "Go home to bed now, or you
+won't be fit for work to-morrow. And that work is about the most
+important thing in this valley now."</p>
+
+<p>And now, Charley drove a team over a desert field, while he&mdash;what was he
+doing after all? Roger rose abruptly and lighting his pipe began to
+stroll aimlessly around the camp. Was this dream that had worked itself
+into the very fiber of his nature worth while? The desert, shimmering in
+endless silence about him, seemed very far from that world of machinery
+that he had worshiped so long. Supposing that Charley did bring the
+desert to bearing. Supposing that he did harness the sun and start an
+empire to building in these barren wastes. To what avail?</p>
+
+<p>Though his dream were the very foundation of their existence, men would
+fight here for the supremacy of riches, just as of old. And why not?
+Through the welter of cut-throat striving man had won his intelligence.
+Who was he to endeavor to lessen that competition?</p>
+
+<p>How restless, how discontented he had been for nearly ten years! Was he
+not missing the best of life and was not happiness the real goal of
+living? And did not men get the only real joy from wife and child? Did
+any work that did not focus round these two bring real content?</p>
+
+<p>A sudden swelling of his heart, a sudden rush of blood through his
+brain, a sudden thrill of his lean strong body that seemed to extend to
+the very heart of the desert, brought Roger to pause in his walking. He
+gazed for a long moment at the little blue figure astride the horse, and
+at the tall figure in khaki beside Dick.</p>
+
+<p>The March afternoon was hot but with a clear tang<a class="pagenum" name="page_150" id="page_150" title="150"></a> that was as
+exhilarating as winter frost. The range back of the ranch house was
+brown where the sky line shone clear. But the gashed and eroded sides of
+the mountains were filled with drifts of purple clouds that melted now
+in soft blue billows into the sky, now in ragged streams of crimson into
+canyons black in the distance. The little sounds of the camp were as
+nothing. The pygmy figures in the alfalfa field were infinitesimal. A
+new sense of the immensity of the universe poured into Roger's soul with
+devastating force and for the first time in his life Roger realized his
+own lack of importance.</p>
+
+<p>A moment of this and then the instinct that has lifted man above the
+brutes spoke in him again. He would not belong to life only through
+children. He would make himself immortal through his work, work by which
+men should live and think and have their being for ages to come.</p>
+
+<p>With a long sigh, Roger tossed his black hair back from his face and
+returned to his brick making.</p>
+
+<hr class="major" />
+<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em">
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_151" id="page_151" title="151"></a>
+<a name="THE_RUNAWAY_5055" id="THE_RUNAWAY_5055"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+<h3>THE RUNAWAY</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>The three men toiled arduously for two days on the brick making. At the
+end of that time the desert all about the camp was paved with adobe
+brick, baking in the sun until Dick should come to start them on their
+house building. On the evening of the second day, Roger tramped up to
+the ranch house and proposed to Dick that they exchange work for half a
+day; Roger to finish Dick's grading, while Dick instructed Gustav and
+Ernest in the gentle art of adobe laying.</p>
+
+<p>But Dick would not strike the bargain. "I've only an hour's work before
+I'm ready to start the seeding," he said, "and I won't trust any one to
+attend to that but myself. I'll just ride over to the Sun Plant in the
+morning and it won't take half an hour to teach you fellows all I know
+about putting up the house."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going too," said Felicia. She was sitting, cuddling her doll before
+the fire, for the nights were still cool.</p>
+
+<p>"Almost your bedtime, Felicia," warned Charley.</p>
+
+<p>The child gave Roger an agonized look.</p>
+
+<p>"I brought you a present, Felicia," he said, and pulled the tiny olla
+out of his pocket.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, a water jar! Just like yours, Charley!" shrieked Felicia, taking
+the little bowl carefully in her slender childish fingers. "Where did
+you get it, Roger?"<a class="pagenum" name="page_152" id="page_152" title="152"></a></p>
+
+<p>Roger described his meeting with the squaws, and Dick added, "The whole
+outfit is camping on a canyon the other side of the range. Old Rabbit
+Tail told me this morning when he brought down the wood. It's there they
+find the rock they make these ollas of. It's a kind of decomposed
+granite. They pulverize it with their metates, add boiling water and get
+a very fair clay. Qui-tha is up there with them and his strong medicine
+has made a hit."</p>
+
+<p>"Do they make dishes cheap, Dicky?" asked Felicia, crowding close to her
+brother's knee. "Would they make me some doll dishes cheap, do you
+think?"</p>
+
+<p>Dick lifted the little girl to his knee and kissed her. "Why cheap,
+little old chick-a-biddy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because I heard you tell Charley funds were getting awful low now you'd
+sold the last of the turquoise. But this doll will starve, Dicky, if she
+doesn't have dishes to eat off of."</p>
+
+<p>"She looks fairly well fed," suggested Charley, shaking her head a
+little helplessly over the frank statement of the family finances.</p>
+
+<p>"She mustn't get run down, though," said Dick. "When I see one of the
+squaws, I'll order some dishes, money or no money."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see why Aunt May didn't send along more of her toys," sighed
+Charley. "It was so stupid of her! There is nothing at Archer's
+Springs."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you worry, Charley!" cried Felicia. "The squaws will make me
+some. I'll ask 'em."</p>
+
+<p>"That's a good sport," said Dick, hugging the child against his broad
+chest. He was Felicia's devoted slave, and Charley had no help from him
+in maintaining discipline. It was she who said now:<a class="pagenum" name="page_153" id="page_153" title="153"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Look at the clock, Felicia, dear."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd rather not," answered Felicia. Nevertheless, she slid off Dick's
+lap and with the doll and the olla in her arms, kissed each of the
+grown-ups in turn, and went off to bed.</p>
+
+<p>"She's the best kid I ever saw," said Dick, after her bedroom door had
+closed.</p>
+
+<p>"And the prettiest," added Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"You men spoil her," protested Charley, "and it's too bad because she
+really is unusual."</p>
+
+<p>"Pshaw! You were just like her," grunted Dick, "and we all petted you.
+And heaven knows, you aren't spoiled. Of course, you're much too strict
+with Felicia&mdash;and me."</p>
+
+<p>Charley flushed. "You don't really think so, do you, Dick?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>Roger joined Dick in a chuckle at this. Charley's adoration of her
+brother was obvious to the most casual observer. She laughed a little
+herself and it occurred to Roger that her laugh was much like Felicia's,
+just as innocent and spontaneous.</p>
+
+<p>"I can always get a rise that way, eh, old girl," cried Dick. "And I
+know why you're blushing. You hate on top of this, to remind me that I
+haven't bedded the horses. Well, I'll attend to it instantly and relieve
+your embarrassment. I'll be back in a moment, Roger."</p>
+
+<p>"Dick is in good trim again," said Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I do so hope he'll stay well!" exclaimed Charley with a sudden
+fervor that surprised Roger. "He's such a dear and he's been so
+handicapped! I think it's going to make a big difference to him, having
+Felicia and you people here. He's been so lonely."<a class="pagenum" name="page_154" id="page_154" title="154"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Haven't you been lonely?" asked Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied Charley. Then after a pause, "How does your work go?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very slowly! I get half crazy with impatience. Even after all the
+warnings I received, I had no idea of the difficulties in the desert. I
+realize now that I'm only about half equipped, for desert building."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean mentally or financially?" asked Charley with a quick look.</p>
+
+<p>"Financially, of course&mdash;or&mdash;what made you ask me that?" Roger's voice
+was a little indignant.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you see," answered Charley, "I've been in the desert longer than
+you and I know that impatience leads to madness. And you're an impatient
+sort of person."</p>
+
+<p>"Impatient!" Roger burst out. "Impatient! When for ten years I've clung
+to one idea, hoping against hope, believing that the impossible would
+happen."</p>
+
+<p>"You poor boy! Don't you suppose I know? But now that you're down here
+at work, you've got to be even more patient. The desert is cussed mean.
+You and Dick have both got to contend with the old vixen for a long time
+before you put your dreams through."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you worry about my impatience," replied Roger. "My middle name is
+patience. You'll see!"</p>
+
+<p>Dick's cheerful whistle came up the trail. Charley looked at Roger as he
+thoughtfully relighted his pipe. His bronze black hair was ruddy in the
+firelight, Charley liked his hair and she liked his square jaw and deep
+gray eyes, though they seemed to her a little cold and selfish as were
+his lips. Charley had been educated with boys in the big middle western
+town whither<a class="pagenum" name="page_155" id="page_155" title="155"></a> the Prebles had moved. From the time that she had entered
+kindergarten at four until she graduated from college at twenty-two she
+had buffeted through life shoulder to shoulder with boys. Charley knew
+men and she had read Roger as clearly as though his mind were an open
+book. She knew that the desert would either make or ruin a man of
+Roger's temperament.</p>
+
+<p>Dick swung open the kitchen door. Roger rose, slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"You folks had better have supper with us, to-morrow night," he
+suggested.</p>
+
+<p>The Prebles accepted with alacrity and Roger wandered slowly home across
+the desert. He liked the Prebles, better than he had ever liked any
+family but Ernest's. Patience! He'd show that tall, dark-eyed girl that
+his fund was limitless.</p>
+
+<p>Schmidt was worth two ordinary men, in spite of the fact that he was not
+in full health, and that he was deliberate in all his movements. His
+deliberation meant that he used his head to guide his hands. What with
+his steady persistent following of Roger's rapid, feverish energy and of
+Ernest's cheerful conscientious poddering, by mid-afternoon the engine
+house walls were half finished. When Charley, carrying a great basket,
+reached them about sundown, the door frames were almost covered in.</p>
+
+<p>Ernest introduced Schmidt, who laughingly showed his muddy hands.</p>
+
+<p>"I never saw three people who more evidently needed baths," Charley
+laughed in turn. "I suppose Felicia is the worst of the lot. Where is
+the child?"</p>
+
+<p>"Felicia!" ejaculated Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"She hasn't been here to-day," exclaimed Ernest.<a class="pagenum" name="page_156" id="page_156" title="156"></a></p>
+
+<p>Charley set the basket slowly down on the sand while her face whitened.
+"She started down here at nine o'clock with her doll and her olla."</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment's silence, then Roger cried cheerfully, "Well, don't
+be frightened! Nothing could have happened to her. She must have gone on
+an investigating trip of her own."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll go after Preble," said Ernest, "and we'll take the horses and
+round her up in a jiffy."</p>
+
+<p>He and Gustav started immediately up the trail. Roger stopped long
+enough to carry the heavy basket to the cook tent. "Look out for Miss
+Preble, will you, Mrs. von Minden?" he said to that lady who was
+finishing her second meal.</p>
+
+<p>"I must go home," faltered Charley. "She may&mdash;Roger, look in the old
+Mellish shaft." She gave a little sob and Mrs. von Minden suddenly put
+her arm about her.</p>
+
+<p>Roger started on a run after the others.</p>
+
+<p>They overtook Dick, just as he was turning out of the lower end of the
+alfalfa field into the trail. At their shout he pulled up the horses and
+waited. He began to unharness before the first sentence was finished. He
+and Roger both mounted, leaving Gustav and Ernest to go up to the corral
+after the other two horses. Just at this moment there came through the
+afterglow a familiar treble shriek.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Oh! Dickeee!"</p>
+
+<p>The four men were motionless. Coming down the trail from the mountains
+was a little figure in blue overalls, curly head glorious in the last of
+the sunset gleam.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait for me, Roger, wait!" shrieked Felicia, trying<a class="pagenum" name="page_157" id="page_157" title="157"></a> to quicken a very
+tired gait, and much impeded by a basket, which she clasped with both
+arms. Ernest suddenly broke into a run and picked the child up, basket
+and all. Dick dropped from his horse and followed to lift her away from
+Ernest's clinging arms.</p>
+
+<p>"She's my sister, let me take her," he said hoarsely.</p>
+
+<p>"Vere vas you, liebchen?" asked Schmidt.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Felicia, looking a little bewildered&mdash;"Oh, Roger dear,
+look&mdash;the squaw gave me a basket and some eenty dishes, just like the
+olla."</p>
+
+<p>"Felicia, where have you been?" begged Roger; "tell us, honey."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I just went over the mountain to find the place Dick told about
+where the Indians make dishes. And I got lost, and a squaw found me and
+I had a funny dinner with her and I bought these dishes and I told her
+Dick would pay for them and I brought you each a present and I'm awful
+tired." She stopped for lack of breath.</p>
+
+<p>Dick looked helplessly at the other men. "It's five mountain miles to
+that Indian camp," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I got tired," Felicia nodded her head, "but Qui-tha brought me home. He
+wanted some more peroxide. So I gave him the bottle in your room, Dicky.
+He was so good to bring me home. He went right back with it."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I'd had a quart for the good old fool," said Dick.</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you all going? Where's Charley?" asked Felicia.</p>
+
+<p>"She's nearly frantic about you," exclaimed Roger. "We were all going to
+look for you."<a class="pagenum" name="page_158" id="page_158" title="158"></a></p>
+
+<p>Felicia's liquid eyes widened with sudden understanding. "Put me down,
+Dick, I want to go to Charley."</p>
+
+<p>"Here she comes now," said Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>Charley was breathless with running. Felicia set her basket in the sand
+and rushed into her sister's arms. The men all started explaining at
+once. Charley, still clasping Felicia, listened, then looked down on the
+curly head resting against her heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Felicia, how could you be so naughty," she asked gently.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, don't you scold her, Charley," protested Dick.</p>
+
+<p>"Do I ever scold any one, Dick? Only Felicia must realize that she did a
+very dangerous thing that she must never, never do again."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you mean, dangerous?" asked Felicia. "Did I make you feel badly,
+Charley?"</p>
+
+<p>"You made me sick at heart with fear, Felicia," replied Charley.</p>
+
+<p>Felicia gave a great sob. "Oh, I wouldn't do that for anything!"</p>
+
+<p>"I move," said Roger, "that we go on over to the Sun Plant and that the
+two ladies talk this over after supper. And I'll carry Felicia
+pig-a-back."</p>
+
+<p>The motion was unanimously carried. Ernest went up to help Dick with the
+chores and Roger and Gustav prepared supper while Charley sat on the
+bench with Felicia in her lap, and directed operations. The pot of beans
+and the biscuit she had brought in the basket made the meal-getting a
+simple matter. Mrs. von Minden was almost human, that evening. She sat
+with the young people during their meal and for an<a class="pagenum" name="page_159" id="page_159" title="159"></a> hour afterward, once
+rising, unexpectedly, to kiss Charley.</p>
+
+<p>Felicia went to sleep when half way through supper, just after she had
+given Roger his present.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a little clock," she said, holding out a small steam gauge, rusty
+and battered. "I found it in one of the sheds up on the mountain, where
+I stopped to rest."</p>
+
+<p>Roger looked at it curiously. "That was an expensive gauge in its day,"
+he said. "How do you suppose she happened to find it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Harder not to find it," replied Dick. "The ranges are full of deserted
+mines. They took out all the free gold, then tried to work out the rest,
+found it too expensive, went broke and walked out. There's enough fine
+machinery up in the mountains to make you believe what folks say around
+here, that more money goes into the ground than ever comes out of it."</p>
+
+<p>Roger looked at Dick thoughtfully. "I'm glad to know that," he said.
+"Felicia's given me a sure-enough present, haven't you, little girl?"</p>
+
+<p>But Felicia, her head burrowed against Dick's willing shoulder was fast
+asleep.</p>
+
+<p>"When do you expect to cut your first crop, Dick?" asked Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>"If the alfalfa gets a toe hold before the first of May I'll get a crop
+this summer. The dust storms don't begin till May. They all blow down
+from the north or west and I'm sure that that draw between here and the
+field will protect me. I shall start cottonwoods and arrow-weed wind
+breaks as soon as I turn the water in. Hackett is getting some young
+trees for me."<a class="pagenum" name="page_160" id="page_160" title="160"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Isn't farming a terrible thing&mdash;terrible," said Mrs. von Minden
+suddenly. Then she closed her eyes and began to speak rapidly. "When we
+first came out here Otto wanted me to run a ranch for him while he did
+his other work. I was so innocent and so ignorant that I let him start
+me at it.</p>
+
+<p>"In the Colorado river bottoms it was, below Fort Mohave. A group of
+fools like me thought to grow alfalfa in the bottom land, and dike the
+fields to keep the Colorado out at flood. Covered with arrow-weed, six
+and eight feet tall, the land was, when we got there. But the dikes were
+finished and some of the folks were beginning to clear the land.</p>
+
+<p>"Otto cut enough arrow weed to put the tent up and then he found that he
+must put our bed high on a platform, the rattlesnakes were so thick.
+This done, he left me some money and told me to get an Indian to help me
+and off he went on one of his prospecting trips. I used to lie at night
+staring at the sky and crying with fear, fear of Otto and fear of the
+snakes that rattled and whirred all night.</p>
+
+<p>"I found an Indian and he and I cleared about five acres of land and got
+the seed in. But the water used to run out of my mouth every minute with
+the snake fear. Then one night a rattler got one of our horses and my
+fear of what Otto would say if the other was bitten was greater than my
+fear of the snakes, and one night, while I watched beside the remaining
+horse, I killed a rattler. I waited for him to coil, then as I had seen
+the others do, I brought the butt end of an arrow-weed down on the coils
+and my fear of snakes was gone.</p>
+
+<p>"Food was hard to get. There were only eight of<a class="pagenum" name="page_161" id="page_161" title="161"></a> us there. And as it got
+hot, some of them left. By the time we were expecting the river to rise
+in spring flood, there were only three fools in the colony. And I seldom
+saw the other two. There was a hundred acres of arrow-weed between them
+and me. My Indian left, after the crop came up. So I was all alone when
+the flood came. The first day my dikes began to leak. For eighteen hours
+I toted adobe to mend them with. When my strength gave out the water was
+two feet deep over my little field. My baby came that night, much too
+soon. I'd have died just as it did, if my Indian with a squaw hadn't
+happened back to beg for food. They took me over to the California side
+in their flat boat, and I never went back to the ranch again, though
+Otto tried to make me."</p>
+
+<p>There was silence for a time. Mrs. von Minden, eyes still closed, seemed
+to be concentrating. Suddenly Charley leaned forward to say a little
+huskily,</p>
+
+<p>"But why are you going back to him, Mrs. von Minden?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have a message for him from the Yogis."</p>
+
+<p>"I know him pretty well," Charley went on, carefully, "and he's been
+very kind to me. But he's never mentioned you. He's quick and queer,
+he's been alone so much, and very quick with his gun."</p>
+
+<p>"He won't touch me," answered Mrs. von Minden. "He's afraid of me, the
+German bully."</p>
+
+<p>"Tut, madam, tut!" exclaimed Gustav. "Germans no more mistreat their
+vomen than other peoples."</p>
+
+<p>Madam opened her eyes. "Tell that to some one who hasn't been married to
+one."</p>
+
+<p>"There are brutes in all nations," said Ernest.<a class="pagenum" name="page_162" id="page_162" title="162"></a> "You certainly have had
+more than your share of trouble."</p>
+
+<p>"Hah!" the gaunt face in the rocking chair was scornful, "I merely told
+you my ranching experience. I've mined with Otto, too, and prospected
+and herded sheep and cattle and run a boarding house."</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. von Minden, you can't be very comfortable in this rough camp,"
+pleaded Charley. "Do come up to my comfortable house. I'd love to have a
+woman visitor."</p>
+
+<p>"You're very kind, my child, but I must stay here. I've been so
+ordered."</p>
+
+<p>"We'd better be starting back, Charley," suggested Dick. "Felicia is
+getting sounder asleep every minute."</p>
+
+<p>And so the party ended.</p>
+
+<p>The erection of the engine house went on briskly. Before even Roger's
+impatience could have demanded it, the sheet iron roof was on and
+Schmidt began to putter with the doors and windows. The completed
+building was not unpicturesque. The dull yellow-gray walls were topped
+by a roof of red corrugated iron, with deeply projecting eaves.</p>
+
+<p>Roger had bought the sheet iron from Dick, who had used considerable of
+this material in the buildings round his turquoise mine. Ernest and
+Gustav toiled up to the mine one morning and at night returned with a
+good supply of the sheet iron. Roger made a concrete base for the
+engine, at one end of the building. Gustav made two doors, one for
+either end, by nailing the corrugated iron onto a wooden frame. A work
+bench and shelves erected by Ernest completed the<a class="pagenum" name="page_163" id="page_163" title="163"></a> work on the engine
+house except for the hanging of the doors.</p>
+
+<p>The three workmen were pleased with their job and sat contemplating it
+in great contentment, one evening after supper.</p>
+
+<p>"The engine should be here next month," said Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"That is to be of your design?" asked Gustav.</p>
+
+<p>Roger nodded. "The Dean of our old college is getting it made for us. He
+began work on it as soon as we closed the deal with Austin. If he
+doesn't hustle we'll be ready for it before he is. We'll begin work on
+the absorber, to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"I must uphang my door to-morrow," said Gustav. "Vat place did you put
+the hinges?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hinges! By Jove, we haven't a hinge to our names!" exclaimed Ernest.
+"Dick will have to help us out again."</p>
+
+<p>But for once Dick failed them. "It's too bad," he told Ernest the next
+day, "but I've been meaning to get hinges every time I've gone to town.
+But I forgot. You'll have to use some stout leather, the way I do."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, let me have some leather, then," begged Ernest</p>
+
+<p>"Sorry, old chap, but there's not a scrap of leather an inch long around
+this place. You see I sole Charley's and my shoes, and I've robbed all
+the mines around here of belting to do it with and that doesn't mean
+that I've had much belting either. Lots of other people have had the
+same idea I've had. But take a day off and go up to the Sun's Luck, five
+miles up that trail yonder and I think you'll find a few pieces."</p>
+
+<p>Ernest groaned, then laughed. "Dick, poor old<a class="pagenum" name="page_164" id="page_164" title="164"></a> Roger will faint at the
+idea of more delay, and for hinges! We'd better let the doors go till
+some of us go into Archer's."</p>
+
+<p>Dick shook his head. "Ern, you get those doors up, and up right. I'm
+betting on there not being a real sand storm for six weeks yet, but if
+one should come, and you have any delicate apparatus in the engine
+house, you'll regret not having sand proof doors and windows. And to
+tell the truth, Charley and Felicia are both nearly bare foot."</p>
+
+<p>"So am I," said Ernest, "and Rog is too."</p>
+
+<p>"What's a day in the desert?" laughed Dick. "Go on and bring down some
+leather for the crowd, Ern."</p>
+
+<p>And go he did, although Roger protested until Ernest mentioned the
+matter of Charley's and Felicia's shoes. Then he gave a ready consent.
+Ernest returned by mid-afternoon with perhaps a yard of belting, the
+half of which he gave to Dick, much to that hard worked gentleman's
+delight.</p>
+
+<p>The days passed swiftly. Ernest was less homesick after Schmidt's
+arrival and the intelligent German's industry and interest in the work
+completely won Roger's heart. When the week of his visit was up, Roger
+resolved that he would find a way to feed three instead of two if he had
+to start the camp to eating desert mice. He wrote now to the Dean,
+asking him to sell his laboratory equipment. Dick took the letter to
+town.</p>
+
+<p>The absorber was not as ambitious a structure as the engine house.
+Nevertheless, it took twice as long to build as Roger had thought it
+would. The foundations consisted of a shallow trough raised from the
+ground on four by four supports. It covered several<a class="pagenum" name="page_165" id="page_165" title="165"></a> hundred square feet
+and sloped very gently to carry the flow of oil. It was covered with
+double layers of window sash. The task of laying this was considerable
+and in spite of the men's best efforts, the breakage was large enough to
+use up practically all the reserve glass. But the most trying task of
+all was that of making the great trough leak proof with asphaltum. Even
+after the rest of the job was done and the huge cold frame lay gleaming
+mightily in the desert sun, the men still puttered with leaks in the
+trough, which they tested by pouring water over in lieu of the oil which
+would ultimately form the flow.</p>
+
+<p>Roger and Ernest were at work on this task one morning when Gustav
+returned with a barrel of water from the ranch. Before driving back with
+the team he came excitedly round the corner of the engine house.</p>
+
+<p>"The alfalfa vas up already!" he shouted. "A little shadow of green on
+yellow sand. Lieber Gott! vat a country! And the kleine Felicia almost
+eating it like a little rabbit. And Dick talks like it vas golt. And he
+vas vorried. He says a sand storm vas coming to-day. Look!"</p>
+
+<p>Gustav pointed down the valley to the south. A gray blue haze, not
+unlike a sea fog, was slowly advancing.</p>
+
+<p>"Fasten up the tents. I go back mit the horses," said Gustav,
+disappearing as abruptly as he had arrived.</p>
+
+<p>"If any one thinks a little thing like a sand storm can stop work on the
+plant, he's mistaken," grunted Roger. "Anyhow Dick said one wasn't due
+for six weeks."</p>
+
+<p>Ernest looked from the approaching gray cloud to<a class="pagenum" name="page_166" id="page_166" title="166"></a> Roger's obstinate
+mouth, shrugged his shoulders and daubed another brush full of hot
+asphaltum over a crack.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a hot blast of air took their hats off. The tent gave a boom.
+The window-sash resting against the engine house wall fell with a
+tinkling crack. Without a word the two men ran to close the tent. When
+they had finished, the whole world was a swirling dust cloud through
+which they could not perceive each other when ten feet apart.</p>
+
+<p>"Make for the engine house!" roared Ernest. "I'll fetch the old lady."</p>
+
+<p>He was better than his word for he brought not only the madam, but her
+rocking chair and a book. Certainly no one could have accused their
+visitor of being a trial. She took the storm with the utmost philosophy
+and spoke scarcely a hundred words until the storm was over.</p>
+
+<p>When he had stowed Mrs. von Minden and her rocker inside Ernest slammed
+the door shut and turned the button. "If Gustav tries to get back
+through this, he'll lose his way, without fail," said Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"How long do you suppose it'll last?" asked Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>"The Lord knows! Have you got any tobacco with you?" Roger sat down on a
+box of window glass and took out his pipe. For half an hour they sat
+listening to the howl of the wind while Madam read.</p>
+
+<p>"Evidently it doesn't intend to quit for a while," said Roger finally.
+"Guess I'll make up my diary and write some letters. I understand now
+why Dick was so insistent on this adobe. You take a look at the cook
+tent and I'll see if the house tent is still standing while I get some
+paper."<a class="pagenum" name="page_167" id="page_167" title="167"></a></p>
+
+<p>The wind increased in violence until long past noon. They retrieved some
+canned stuff from the kitchen tent and ate it with their mouths full of
+the sand that sifted through the cracks of the doors and windows. Madam
+satisfied herself with crackers. It was very hot, even in the adobe.
+About three o'clock Roger wiped the sweat out of his eyes and
+paused&mdash;pipe poised:</p>
+
+<p>"It's letting up, Ern," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Ernest paused to listen. There was a perceptible lull in the uproar, and
+the lull increased until at five o'clock they emerged from their
+shelter. The air had miraculously cleared. The sky was a deep, rich
+violet and the desert, lighted by the westering sun, was a beaten gold
+and remodeled to unfamiliar lines. Well known cat's-claw and cactus
+clumps had disappeared. A sand drift a foot in length covered the well
+curb. A drift that touched the thatch lay against the east side of the
+cook tent and had spilled within, half burying the tables and benches.
+Within the living tent, sand lay thick on trunks and cots. But the tents
+had withstood the day's siege, stolidly.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's look at the absorber," said Roger, gloomily.</p>
+
+<p>They plowed through a great billow of sand at the end of the engine
+house. Ernest groaned. Two of the four by fours at the end of the great
+trough had been undermined and had collapsed, carrying a great part of
+the trough with it. The exposed part of the trough was filled with an
+indiscriminate mixture of sand and asphaltum.</p>
+
+<p>"My God! What a country!" cried Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>"My God! What a pair of fools," returned Roger. "After all Dick's
+warnings, why didn't we build for<a class="pagenum" name="page_168" id="page_168" title="168"></a> sand storms! Lend me a hand here,
+Ern, with this four by four. My word! Where's Dick going? Hey, Dick!
+What's your hurry?"</p>
+
+<p>He might as well have hailed the setting sun. Dick driving his own team,
+Hackett's hitched to his wagon tail, whirled by at a gallop.</p>
+
+<p>Roger and Ernest stood gaping, first at the receding puff of dust on the
+Archer's Springs trail, then at each other.</p>
+
+<p>"Something's wrong at the ranch!" exclaimed Roger finally.</p>
+
+<p>Ernest nodded and they both turned to stare toward the ranch house. As
+they stood scowling into the blinding desert light, a little gray burro
+rounded the corner of the cook tent, and a moment later Crazy Dutch
+appeared.</p>
+
+<p>"We need a traffic policeman in this desert," said Ernest solemnly.
+"There's too much passing at this corner."</p>
+
+<p>"Get your gun, quick, Ern. It's Von Minden," cried Roger.</p>
+
+<p>Ernest obeyed hurriedly. But the visitor shot his arms even more
+hurriedly into the air.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't shoot!" he cried. "My gun's strapped on Peter. I came to make
+apologies. Search Peter and me."</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly will," said Roger, starting to suit action to word, as
+Ernest came running back with his shot gun. But he was interrupted. Mrs.
+von Minden came slowly forth from her tent, the broom in her hand with
+which she had been sweeping the sand drifts from her bed and floor.</p>
+
+<p>"Gott im Himmel!" roared Crazy Dutch.<a class="pagenum" name="page_169" id="page_169" title="169"></a></p>
+
+<p>"He cannot hear such as you." Madam's tone was grim, as she advanced
+majestically.</p>
+
+<p>She was a good foot taller than her husband, but he did not flinch, even
+at sight of the broom.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you doing here?" he took a threatening step toward her.</p>
+
+<p>"I was waiting for you, Otto."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I don't want you. I finished with you a good many years ago.
+There are just two things in my life now and they are my work and my
+emperor."</p>
+
+<p>"Fudge!" exclaimed Mrs. von Minden, unexpectedly. "There's just two
+things in your life, just as there's always been, your work and your
+German cussedness. Otto, I want that strong box of yours. Give it to me
+and I'll go back to Ph&oelig;nix."</p>
+
+<p>Crazy Dutch gave an ugly laugh. "I'm likely to do that! What do you want
+of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you won't let me take it, let me go through it. There is something
+in it I want."</p>
+
+<p>"And what is that?" queried her husband.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," replied Madam, very simply.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't know?" roared Crazy Dutch.</p>
+
+<p>"No, Otto, I don't know. The Yogis told me to come up and they told me
+that when I went through the papers I would recognize some that I
+wanted."</p>
+
+<p>Von Minden turned appealingly to Roger and Ernest. "Have you any idea
+what she's talking about?"</p>
+
+<p>Ernest shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Wouldn't you like to go into the engine house to talk this over?"
+suggested Roger. "You'd have privacy there."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't leave me alone with him," exclaimed Mrs. von Minden. "He's not
+safe."<a class="pagenum" name="page_170" id="page_170" title="170"></a></p>
+
+<p>"All right," said Roger. "I've searched him and now I'm going through
+his pack, and I shall confiscate any weapon I find."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you dare to give her my strong box," shouted Crazy Dutch.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll put the box back where I find it," replied Roger. "Come on, Ern,
+begin."</p>
+
+<p>It was a pitifully mean little pack, quite poverty stricken compared
+with Mrs. von Minden's. A woolen quilt and a Navajo, a coffee pot,
+frying pan and a small sack of sugar, a canteen, a flannel shirt and a
+pair of ragged socks, a gun, a small strong box, with a geological
+hammer, a barometer and a compass, comprised Peter's load.</p>
+
+<p>Roger took the gun into the living tent and Ernest remade the pack.
+During the search, Mrs. von Minden had not spoken, though she eyed the
+work with keenest interest.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said Roger, "I will tell you both frankly that I don't care to
+have a family row carried on in this camp."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not trying to row, certainly," exclaimed von Minden. "It's all this
+woman."</p>
+
+<p>"The woman is your wife, isn't she?" asked Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>"In name only. I tell you I finished with women, years ago."</p>
+
+<p>"But I haven't finished with you yet," commented his wife.</p>
+
+<p>"What can you do to me?" sneered Crazy Dutch.</p>
+
+<p>"I can do what They tell me. And They tell me to hang on to you like
+grim death until They bid me stop. I shall follow you and that strong
+box to the end of the earth, Otto!"<a class="pagenum" name="page_171" id="page_171" title="171"></a></p>
+
+<p>"But why! But why! You've always been glad enough to be rid of me
+before."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. von Minden, her pink sunbonnet pushed back to her shoulders, her
+eyes gleaming, took a menacing step toward her husband, and her voice
+rose hysterically.</p>
+
+<p>"I know you! I know you! With your sneaking ways and your secret
+letters. I know that you're a dirty German spy. I know what that box
+holds. But what I want out of it is my marriage certificate and whatever
+else They tell me. I can't read German and They can. I can't throw fear
+into your black heart but They can. And if I told you the way They have
+interpreted some of your acts to me, you would crawl on your hands and
+knees to me."</p>
+
+<p>Von Minden watched the woman with a stolid face. "Who are They?" he
+growled.</p>
+
+<p>"They are the spirits of the dead. The great ones of the Universe are
+talking to me now, Otto von Minden! They directed me here. The hand of
+Fate is in it. Listen! You have not long to live, Otto. And all that you
+have lived for will be dust and ashes. All the work that you have done
+will be cast to the four winds of Heaven, while this man," pointing to
+Roger, "will found your empire for you. You have planted in intrigue and
+you will die in shame. Otto, let me go through the strong box."</p>
+
+<p>"Clarissa," exclaimed Von Minden, with for the first time a note of pity
+in his voice, "you've gone crazy."</p>
+
+<p>His wife smiled sardonically. "I'm going to see what is in the strong
+box, if I follow you to China," and with this she turned on her heel and
+disappeared into her tent. Nor did she come out again that night.<a class="pagenum" name="page_172" id="page_172" title="172"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Now, Mr. von Minden," said Roger sternly. "I tell you quite frankly,
+that you're not welcome here. If Miss Preble hadn't interceded for you,
+I'd hand you over to the authorities."</p>
+
+<p>Crazy Dutch nodded affably. "You're quite right. I deserve it. But I've
+had a touch of the sun and for a moment I was out of my head. In this
+lonely country we must bear with each other."</p>
+
+<p>"The way you bear with your wife, I suppose," suggested Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>Von Minden looked half apprehensively over his shoulder at his wife's
+tent, then he said in a confidential whisper, "Now <i>she</i> is crazy and
+has been for years. Only she's crazy all the time so the only thing to
+do is to keep away from her. She was a very good, hard working woman,
+once."</p>
+
+<p>"So I should judge from what she tells us," Roger's voice was grim. "It
+strikes us that you treated her as if she were a horse and not a woman.
+But that's not our business. Why did you come back here, Von Minden?"</p>
+
+<p>"I came to apologize."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I accept the apology. Now you had better go on about your
+business and I'll get your wife back to Ph&oelig;nix, some way."</p>
+
+<p>Von Minden drew himself up. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Moore, I'm not in
+the habit of being spoken to in this manner. Apologize at once!"</p>
+
+<p>Roger turned red. "Why you infernal little shrimp&mdash;" he began.</p>
+
+<p>But Ernest interrupted. "Keep your temper, Rog. All this isn't worth
+seeing red for."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course it isn't," said the little German briskly.<a class="pagenum" name="page_173" id="page_173" title="173"></a> "Now I'm planning
+to spend the evening with the Prebles and then I'll go on into the
+range. Peter, my dear, I'll give you a drink now. We were out in all
+this storm, gentlemen, but we don't mind them, Peter and I. There is a
+beauty about them, these passions of the desert. How are the Prebles?"</p>
+
+<p>The two men started. "We were going up there," said Ernest. "Dick just
+went driving by at a gallop, without a word, toward Archer's Springs."</p>
+
+<p>Von Minden scowled, started to speak, was silent, then said: "What do
+you think was the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Let's go find out," urged Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>The three men, Peter trailing at the rear, started hurriedly along the
+half obliterated trail toward the ranch.</p>
+
+<p>The stillness after the day of warfare was heavenly. The violet of the
+sky had changed to the blue of larkspur, that now was shot with lacey
+streamers, rose pink from the setting sun. An oriole, balancing itself
+on Dick's line fence, poured forth a melody of transporting sweetness.</p>
+
+<p>"O, by Jove!" exclaimed Roger suddenly, "look at Dick's alfalfa!"</p>
+
+<p>The oriole fluttered away as they approached the fence. The field had
+not drifted badly. The draw to the north had prevented that. But the
+bright green shadow on the yellow sand of which Gustav had told them in
+the morning, was no more. A huge blight lay on the field with every
+tender plant blackened and dead.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor old Dick!" groaned Ernest. Then he added plaintively, "But he's no
+tenderfoot. He knows desert storms. Why did he attempt it?"<a class="pagenum" name="page_174" id="page_174" title="174"></a></p>
+
+<p>"A storm like this, this time of year, is unheard of," said Von Minden.
+"Close to the mountain like this, Dick was choosing a good spot. See
+there are few drifts. Poor fellow!"</p>
+
+<p>There were actual tears in Ernest's blue eyes as he looked at the
+blackened field. "Let's get to the girls," he urged.</p>
+
+<p>At the corral gate they met Gustav.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the trouble, Gustav?" cried Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"Dick he vent to the field down to see how the alfalfa vas, then he came
+running like a mad man. He scolded Fr&auml;ulein Charley like it vas her
+fault, then he ran to the corral, hitched up and vent."</p>
+
+<p>"But didn't you try to stop him?" demanded Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"Not Fr&auml;ulein Charley. She just sat on the step and little Felicia on
+her lap and say nothing. But I vent to the corral to talk to Dick and he
+told me to go to hell. He vas a mad man, I tell you. Now I go milk."</p>
+
+<p>Charley, at the sound of voices, came out to the steps. "Hello, Uncle
+Otto," she called. The men looked up at her. Her tanned cheeks were
+flushed, her fine square shoulders were tense. But her voice was gay:</p>
+
+<p>"Have you and Mr. Moore had your duel?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's postponed," replied Crazy Dutch.</p>
+
+<p>Felicia scrambled past her sister and ran down to Roger: "Dick went away
+mad," she exclaimed. "He scolded Charley and me awful and made me cry. I
+hate to cry. It hurts my insides so."</p>
+
+<p>Charley had joined them now. "Poor Dick!" she said. "That alfalfa field
+was dearer to him than any of you know. He'll cool down by the time he
+reaches<a class="pagenum" name="page_175" id="page_175" title="175"></a> Archer's and brings back more seed. Why can't you all stay to
+supper here?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's too much trouble for you," protested Ernest, weakly.</p>
+
+<p>"You can all help," said Charley. "Please all stay." Something in the
+eagerness of her low voice touched Roger as it did the other men.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, we're delighted to stay," he exclaimed, tossing Felicia to
+his shoulder. "Come along, chicken, we'll split some wood for sister."</p>
+
+<p>"And me, I must wash myself," said Crazy Dutch, "and give Peter some
+hay."</p>
+
+<p>"And me, I'll help get the supper," said Ernest.</p>
+
+<hr class="major" />
+<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em">
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_176" id="page_176" title="176"></a>
+<a name="THE_LONELY_HUNTER_5892" id="THE_LONELY_HUNTER_5892"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+<h3>THE LONELY HUNTER</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>As soon as Ernest and she were alone in the kitchen, Charley whispered:
+"How about Mrs. von Minden?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, they had a fine row. She wants his strong box. She said at first
+that she didn't know what she wanted but later confessed that it was her
+marriage certificate plus something the Yogis were to put her wise to."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor old soul!" exclaimed Charley softly. "What tragedy do you suppose
+is back of all this?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. But none of us urged the poor old girl to come up here
+with us. He says he's going to spend the night with you, but if Dick
+isn't here&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right," said Charley. "He stays here often when Dick is
+gone. He and I are great friends. I shall say nothing at all about his
+wife, unless he does."</p>
+
+<p>"That's the best cue, I think," agreed Ernest; "I'm so darned sorry
+about the alfalfa, Charley."</p>
+
+<p>"Pioneer luck," replied the girl shaking her dark head. "I feel rather
+heartsick about it myself. If only Dick wouldn't go to pieces so! That's
+what worries me, because we may have many failures before the alfalfa
+catches and he is going to have such a hard time."<a class="pagenum" name="page_177" id="page_177" title="177"></a></p>
+
+<p>"I can't see why you chose such a difficult part of the world to farm
+in," mused Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>"That's where the sport comes in," returned Charley with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever discomfort Dick's surly and erratic moods may have cost her
+Charley gave no sign that evening of having any thought save the comfort
+and entertainment of her guests. Before Felicia had been sent to bed and
+after the men, all smoking, had listened to Von Minden's dissertation on
+sand storms, Charley suggested that Peter be invited in and put through
+his paces.</p>
+
+<p>To the surprise and delight of the others, when Crazy Dutch went to the
+door and whistled, there was the sound of little hoof-beats on the
+porch, then Peter's gray head appeared enquiringly in the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>"Wipe your feet and come in, Peter," said Crazy Dutch, returning to his
+seat by the fire.</p>
+
+<p>The little donkey rubbed one hoof after the other on the straw mat
+before the sill, then advanced into the room. Felicia, who was in
+Roger's lap, trembled with excitement and pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Peter dear, here is your pipe," pulling a corncob from his pocket;
+"sit down and smoke it like a gentleman."</p>
+
+<p>Peter took his pipe somewhat gingerly between his teeth and then with
+considerable difficulty backed his haunches down onto the box that Von
+Minden kicked over to him. There he sat gravely holding the empty pipe,
+his long ears moving slowly back and forth.</p>
+
+<p>"All right, sweetheart, there's a bit of sugar for you. Shake hands with
+the ladies and gentlemen."</p>
+
+<p>Like a great gray dog, Peter went from one to another,<a class="pagenum" name="page_178" id="page_178" title="178"></a> lifting his tiny
+hoof to be shaken. Felicia was afraid at first but ended by shaking the
+little unsteadily proffered hoof and kissing the little fellow's dusty
+forehead with a squeal of delight.</p>
+
+<p>"Now you give us each a good night kiss, liebchen," ordered Von Minden,
+and as he indicated each person in turn, Peter followed and touched each
+one on the back of the neck, with his velvet nose.</p>
+
+<p>"Now say good night," was the last order and Peter lifted his voice in a
+bray that shook the very rafters, after which he trotted out the door.</p>
+
+<p>Certainly Peter and his master had never played to a more enthusiastic
+audience. Felicia wanted to go out and ride him then and there and
+Charley had to use considerable persuasion to get the excited little
+girl off to bed. But after this was accomplished Roger asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Where did you get Peter? Will you sell him?"</p>
+
+<p>Crazy Dutch darted an ugly look at Roger.</p>
+
+<p>Charley cut in quickly. "Tell us where you found him, Uncle Otto. Mr.
+Moore was merely showing how much he admired Peter."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought he'd be so fine for Felicia," exclaimed Roger.</p>
+
+<p>Von Minden grunted. Then he lighted his pipe. "I have not always been as
+you see me now," he said. "I was a geologist of reputation and when my
+health demanded a hot climate, it was natural I should come here to look
+for mines for a great German company. I am lucky and I have brains and I
+have the greatest training in the world, German training, so I find
+several mines and then jealousies, jealousies&mdash;jealousies&mdash;" he fell to
+mumbling to himself.<a class="pagenum" name="page_179" id="page_179" title="179"></a></p>
+
+<p>Charley prompted him. "So you decided to strike out for yourself, about
+five years ago."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I do so. By then, you see, I had gotten to understand the desert
+loneliness. I loved it and I sold myself to the desert, body and soul.
+All I asked was to wander about on her magnificent barren bosom. It
+seemed to me I was entirely happy. But one day I found a little young
+burro stuck in a crevice in a blind canyon. Evidently he had been
+abandoned by an Indian. Me, I climb down in the crevice and I tie his
+heels so he can't kick and with my geologist's pick and hammer I work so
+carefully all day till I get him out. Why such toil? Because I find when
+I look into Peter's deep eyes that I am lonely&mdash;lonely beyond the power
+of thought or word to describe. And Peter, from that day to this, has
+never left me, day or night."</p>
+
+<p>"You are in excellent health again, Mr. von Minden," said Ernest. "Don't
+you plan ever to return to the Vaterland?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes! Yes!" cried Crazy Dutch, "but only when I can return with an
+empire in my hand for my Kaiser."</p>
+
+<p>"Hoch!" said Gustav softly, "Hoch!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hoch!" Roger and Ernest took up the exclamation with a laugh and a wave
+of their pipes, and Charley joined them, smiling. Von Minden looked
+deeply pleased.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes! Yes!" he cried. "You all are good children, properly educated,
+ready to understand Germany as the citizens of no other country. You all
+speak German? Yes! And you all know German literature and music to be
+the best. Yes, ah, these great universities and high schools, they are
+doing their work wonderfully."<a class="pagenum" name="page_180" id="page_180" title="180"></a></p>
+
+<p>"If I fall down all together in getting my plant funded in this country,
+I'm going to Germany with it," said Roger abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>"No, you aren't!" cried Charley, quickly; "I love Germany too, but
+America comes first."</p>
+
+<p>Ernest rose with a sigh. "That may be, but with me, bed comes first."</p>
+
+<p>"You will not be cross the next time we meet, eh?" asked Crazy Dutch as
+the men made their adieux.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll try not to be!" replied Roger, not too enthusiastically.</p>
+
+<p>When they had crawled into their cots, an hour later, Roger said: "Ern,
+do you realize that we haven't a drop of crude oil for the absorber
+flow?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure, I do," replied Ernest. "I've been wondering for days what we
+would do about it, but until I had a suggestion, I didn't want to bring
+the matter up."</p>
+
+<p>"How much money do you think the Dean can get for the laboratory
+equipment?" asked Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I hope at least two hundred dollars. But you know how those
+things go."</p>
+
+<p>"We'll have to save every cent of that for grub," mused Roger. "Dick
+told me that over on Snake Peak there is a mine that closed down four
+years ago and that their engine was an oil burner. He says there hasn't
+been a watchman there for a year. There's a chance that they have left
+some oil."</p>
+
+<p>"How'll you pay for it?" asked Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>"Pay for it!" grunted Roger. "Wait till I find it, will you? You and
+Gustav clean up after the storm to-morrow and go on with the absorber.
+I'll take a tramp up to Snake Peak."<a class="pagenum" name="page_181" id="page_181" title="181"></a></p>
+
+<p>He was on his way before sun-up, the next morning, a canteen of water
+over his shoulder and a lunch in his pocket. He moved as rapidly as the
+heavy walking permitted, driven by a sense of impatience to which he
+gave no name. But subconsciously he realized that forever behind that
+beauty of the desert to which, like Von Minden, he felt he might gladly
+sell himself, loomed the menace of the desert's brutality which he was
+not equipped to fight and which he could overcome only by the
+extraordinary precision and swiftness of his work.</p>
+
+<p>The sun was not half an hour high when Roger reached the top of the
+mountain behind the ranch. Here he gazed eastward across the low ranges
+to a peak which dominated all the crests around it, a jagged, black and
+brown monster, its top crimson now in the morning glow.</p>
+
+<p>Roger stood breathing deeply, hat in hand, the sun turning his bronze
+hair red, his thin strong body erect against the morning sky. He could
+see no trail, so he determined to reach Snake Peak by a direct cross
+line. The peak would be lost to view when he reached the valley below so
+he sighted a lonely cedar on the crest of the opposite range and began
+to climb downward. It was stiff going. The prickly pear cactus and the
+ollas grew thick and the ground was covered with broken rock that made
+short work of his already well-worn shoes.</p>
+
+<p>When Roger reached the lonely cedar the sun was two hours high. He had
+thought to make it in twenty minutes. He dropped, trembling with
+weariness in the shadow of a little tree, drank deeply of the canteen
+and gave himself ten minutes of rest, lying flat on his<a class="pagenum" name="page_182" id="page_182" title="182"></a> back, his eyes
+on the magnificent expanse of the heavens.</p>
+
+<p>The ten minutes up, he crossed the narrow ridge and after a moment found
+a landmark on the opposite crest, a single black rock against a lavender
+outcropping. Again he plunged into the narrow valley below him falling,
+sliding and swearing, then scrambling and clambering with knee and elbow
+and broken nail, until after another hour's interval, he cast himself
+down on the lavender outcropping.</p>
+
+<p>Snake Peak was now just across the canyon and he could see clearly the
+gray white of the tailing dump that marked the mine. It was well after
+eleven when in a fury of impatience he reached his final goal.</p>
+
+<p>The loneliness of the untouched wilderness is not so great as that of
+the deserted habitation. Roger had not felt the desert's solitude until
+he dropped on a bench outside the cook house and began to examine the
+lost endeavor about him. There were bunk houses and office buildings,
+shaft and engine houses, aerial tramways and car tracks, all the many
+and costly appurtenances of desert mining. Sand lay thick over
+everything. The silence was complete save for the flopping of the torn
+canvas that had been fastened over a hoist.</p>
+
+<p>A sense of profound depression settled upon Roger. He dropped his head
+in his hands with a groan. A dream, vastly better financed than his own,
+had come to naught in the face of the distances and the difficulties of
+the desert. Was there any greater hell, he wondered than to be hounded
+by a creative desire for which there was no outlet; to have stored
+within one's brain gifts indispensable to humanity's best development,<a class="pagenum" name="page_183" id="page_183" title="183"></a>
+of which humanity would take heed only after the creator had been
+crucified by desperate handicaps and indifference.</p>
+
+<p>As Roger brooded, his eyes fell on the engine house and a carefully
+locked shed beside it. His face brightened. He got stiffly to his feet
+and plodded up to the window of the engine house, raised it and
+clambered within. A great engine shrouded with greasy canvas lay in the
+dusky room. It was a gas-producer type, in excellent condition. Roger
+went over it as tenderly and eagerly as a horseman goes over a
+thoroughbred racer. Then he went through the open door into the shed
+adjoining. It was full of oil drums, some of them empty but with a
+sufficient number filled to more than satisfy Roger's needs.</p>
+
+<p>He suddenly began to whistle cheerfully, went over the engine again and
+was still whistling when he climbed out of the window and sat down on
+the bench to eat his lunch. When he had finished eating he lighted his
+pipe and sat smoking at ease. Life was not so bad, by Jove! One could
+make the desert his if one had resourcefulness and courage. As soon as
+Dick's horses were rested after their return from Archer's Springs, they
+must start hauling oil. Of course, though, that beastly re-seeding would
+have to be done first. Roger's shoulders twitched impatiently and he
+started abruptly homeward.</p>
+
+<p>The sun had set, when weary beyond words, he reached the Sun Plant.</p>
+
+<p>"Well! Did you run across the Von Mindens?" was Ernest's greeting.</p>
+
+<p>"No! What's happened?"</p>
+
+<p>"We don't know. The old lady was so long coming<a class="pagenum" name="page_184" id="page_184" title="184"></a> out of her tent that
+toward noon I investigated, to find that she was no longer with us. I
+went up to Prebles' and Charley reported that two of the madam's burros
+were missing this morning as well as the pack ropes. We think that she
+hit out in the night and is trailing the old boy up in the ranges. He
+started off early, serene in the thought that she was down here. Charley
+didn't mention the burros to him."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, thank heaven for small favors!" exclaimed Roger. "She certainly
+got on my nerves."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you find oil?" asked Gustav.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I unearthed a fine cache of it. I wish you folks could see the
+outfit up there on Snake Peak," and he told them what he had found.</p>
+
+<p>"But you aren't going to annex that oil until you hear from the owners?"
+exclaimed Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>"You write to the owners, when we get it here, enclosing a check for the
+oil at market rates. I may have trouble, but I doubt it."</p>
+
+<p>They were sitting as usual before their tent smoking their good night
+pipes.</p>
+
+<p>"You will get into trouble, Rog," warned Ernest. "Impatience is all
+right and good driving power, but what's the use of laying yourself open
+to difficulties?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be an old maid, Ern, with your piffling German conscientiousness.
+I haven't the slightest notion of stealing. I'll pay for every drop of
+the oil&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"How vas the road?" asked Gustav.</p>
+
+<p>"No road at all," replied Roger. "I just plunged through across
+country."</p>
+
+<p>"Then, the horses, where&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Lord, that's right!" interrupted Roger. "I<a class="pagenum" name="page_185" id="page_185" title="185"></a> noticed that there was a
+good enough road leading out of the mine to the south&mdash;toward Archer's
+Springs. But it's clear on the other side of the range and parallel to
+this trail, of course. No good to us at all. Don't tell me we've got to
+build a road to get that oil out. My lord, what a country!"</p>
+
+<p>"Vell," said Gustav, "if it is too hard to get it out, then you don't
+steal it, then you don't break the law, then you don't get arrested, so
+that is good."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you think I won't get it out, if I have to pack it out in a
+canteen," said Roger. "High treason, arson, murder are nothing to stand
+between me and that cache of oil."</p>
+
+<p>"You'd better swipe two teams of horses, Rog, on one of your predatory
+expeditions," exclaimed Ernest. "Dick may need his own horses
+occasionally this spring."</p>
+
+<p>Roger rose and knocked the ashes out of his pipe. "I'd like to swipe
+that gas producer engine up there," he replied and went to bed.</p>
+
+<hr class="major" />
+<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em">
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_186" id="page_186" title="186"></a>
+<a name="GUSTAV_6213" id="GUSTAV_6213"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+<h3>GUSTAV</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>It was late the next afternoon when Dick drove slowly along the trail.
+The three men were flat on their backs under the absorber, patching
+leaks, when they heard the squeak of the wagon and the soft tread of
+horses' hoofs in the sand. They made no attempt to greet him.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning, however, Roger plodded up to the ranch house to
+consult with Dick about the moving of the oil. Although it was close to
+eight o'clock, Dick was just finishing breakfast. He was cheerful and
+talkative.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't try to use horses," he urged. "There's old Rabbit Tail lives ten
+miles over the range. He's got a bunch of little wild burros and he does
+packing for the miners when there is any. He'll pack that oil for you."</p>
+
+<p>Roger brightened up, then shook his head. "I can't pay him. The
+Smithsonian folks aren't coming up to the scratch and I've got to finish
+this job without funds. I've about twenty-five dollars in hand and two
+hundred more in sight. I thought perhaps I could exchange work with you.
+Help you to re-seed and then to increase your irrigating capacity here."</p>
+
+<p>"Gosh, that's hard luck!" exclaimed Dick. "Did you hear that, Charley,
+about Roger's money?"<a class="pagenum" name="page_187" id="page_187" title="187"></a></p>
+
+<p>Charley, who had been busy in the kitchen, came in now with a fresh cup
+of coffee for Roger in one hand and an extra chair in the other. Had
+Roger's mind been less concentrated on the problem in hand he might have
+noted the fine ease with which she swung the chair up to the table for
+him before either he or Dick could proffer help. Charley was so slender
+that one did not easily recognize the splendid strength she sometimes
+displayed.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I heard," said Charley with a look of sympathy at the restless
+fire in Roger's deep gray eyes. "I guess we're all up against it and
+will have to cultivate patience. Perhaps Rabbit Tail will trust you,
+Roger."</p>
+
+<p>"I call him Roger dear, and he likes it. Why don't you too, Charley?"
+interrupted Felicia, coming in from the porch where she had been
+building an adobe doll house.</p>
+
+<p>The abstracted look left Roger's face for a moment. "Yes, why don't you,
+Charley?" he asked with a grin that made his face look bright.</p>
+
+<p>Charley laughed. "If it will make you look human, like that," she
+exclaimed, "I will call you anything you wish, Roger dear!"</p>
+
+<p>Roger's grin faded to an expression that was curiously tense. Dick, who
+had been giving only half attention to this exchange, now said: "Rabbit
+Tail won't trust you. He's had too many dealings with the whites, poor
+devil. We'll have to break a trail to the mine and use our team. Just
+let me get that alfalfa in again, Roger, and I'll help you out."</p>
+
+<p>"I can pay you up in days' work as far as the use of your time and team
+go," said Roger. "What I'll<a class="pagenum" name="page_188" id="page_188" title="188"></a> always be in your debt for is the advice
+and backing you give me."</p>
+
+<p>Dick grunted. "I'm glad my four years' hell down here is of value to
+some one. I'll let you know when I've finished re-seeding."</p>
+
+<p>"I want to help on that," insisted Roger. "Our international debt is
+getting too one-sided."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'll be mighty grateful to you," sighed Dick. "I'll take your
+help on the re-seeding, but I'll be still more appreciative if you'll
+take a look at my gasoline engine to-morrow morning. I've spun that fly
+wheel until my hope of salvation's gone. And I've got to wet that field
+down."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll get at it now," said Roger.</p>
+
+<p>With Felicia trailing at his heels, Roger made his way to the shed
+beside the spring. The engine and pump were both old. Roger tinkered for
+a half hour, Felicia standing by to hand him the wrench or the oil can
+on demand.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you love me, Roger?" the child asked, as Roger tugged at a rusty oil
+cup screw.</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly do. Do you love me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Do you love Charley?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'm fond of Charley. I've known her a long time, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"But you aren't fonder of her than you are of me?" insisted Felicia.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not! You're my best sweetheart. Now the oil can, Felicia."</p>
+
+<p>The little girl stared at Roger, with speculative eyes. "Charley says
+you're very interesting. What is an interesting man, Roger?"</p>
+
+<p>"One who knows how to start a gas engine,<a class="pagenum" name="page_189" id="page_189" title="189"></a> chicken," exclaimed Charley,
+coming into the shed. "Mercy, Felicia, are you always as personal as
+this?"</p>
+
+<p>"Felicia is nothing if not feminine." Roger tugged at the fly wheel and
+grinned at Charley who made a little grimace.</p>
+
+<p>"Roger likes it!" exclaimed Felicia. "He belongs to me, Charley. He
+likes me bettern you, he says so."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it is like this, Charley&mdash;" began Roger elaborately.</p>
+
+<p>Charley cut him off with a wave of her hand. "Nothing can explain away
+that blow, Roger." Then she went on, soberly. "Do you suppose the old
+lemon will pull us through our first crop?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know, Charley. One never does about a gasoline engine. There's
+always more life in an old one though than one realizes. If this does
+fail you, however, I'll be in running shape in two months' time with my
+solar engine. Don't forget that."</p>
+
+<p>"When do you expect to make your first actual test?" asked Charley.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, the engine will be here almost any time now. If the Dean has done
+a good construction job, I ought to be able to make a tentative
+connection in six weeks' time."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you mean a good job?" asked Charley.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, this is the first full size fifty horse power engine that we've
+built. You see, I've had no money and we've worked from models, though I
+did build one ten horse power engine. That worries me a little, but I'm
+sure that any defects that appear will be easily remedied. Now then,
+this old mule ought to begin to kick!"</p>
+
+<p>Roger turned the fly wheel again and an obstinate<a class="pagenum" name="page_190" id="page_190" title="190"></a> Put! Put! Put! came
+from the engine, then a long pause, during which the audience of three
+waited anxiously, then a steady Put! Put! Put! Put! Put! that promised
+to last as long as did the gasoline.</p>
+
+<p>"If the old thing could just realize all that depends on its behaving
+itself!" exclaimed Charley. "Roger, let's throw in the pump, I really
+believe it's going to run!"</p>
+
+<p>And run it did, during the entire day, with only three stops for repair.
+Roger worked until late afternoon with Dick and the next day Gustav took
+his place. The damage done by the dust storm to the absorber was now
+completely remedied and Roger and Ernest began work on a shallow
+concrete trough on which the condenser was to be erected. By the time
+this was completed, Dick's second sowing was finished and he announced
+himself ready for road building.</p>
+
+<p>At first, Roger felt violently resentful at the thought of having to
+build a road. It seemed to him that after all his years of patient
+persistency, fate at the last was playing him a scurvy trick. She had
+brought his goal within sight, only to beset it with delays and
+difficulties whose very paltriness it seemed to him he could not endure.
+And a feverish little flame of impatience began to glow within him that
+was not to be extinguished for many months. However when, pick in hand,
+he actually began with the others to break the road, a sudden elation
+swept over him. After all, primitive as this work might be, it was
+empire building of the most fundamental sort. And, in spite of his
+anxieties and impatience, Roger did his share of the road building with
+right good will.</p>
+
+<p>They began work in the range back of the ranch,<a class="pagenum" name="page_191" id="page_191" title="191"></a> taking advantage of
+draw and canyon whenever possible, even when this demanded a long
+detour. Sometimes, the canyon bottoms were astonishingly level. At other
+times boulders and crevices would block them until they had made free
+use of dynamite. They had all sorts of minor mishaps. Dick was not an
+expert either in road grading or blasting, although he was far ahead of
+the Sun Planters in his information about both.</p>
+
+<p>In running the road up the side of Snake Peak he used too heavy a charge
+and brought down a land slide which it took them a day to clear. On a
+previous day he had blasted too close to the wagon and a bowlder had
+smashed the rear axle. He took extraordinarily narrow chances with the
+steepness of grade but in spite of the Sun Planters' prophecies they did
+not lose either horses or wagon down canyon or mountain side. Ernest,
+however, slipped on top of one of the finished sections and rolled two
+hundred feet before he could stop himself.</p>
+
+<p>When, after two weeks' steady labor, Dick pronounced the road good
+enough, the others looked at him aghast. "You'll break your wagon and
+your horses' necks, to say nothing of losing the oil!" protested Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>Dick only laughed. "This is a boulevard compared with some of the desert
+routes I've taken. With just a few drums of oil lashed on at a time,
+we'll make it."</p>
+
+<p>And make it he did, though nearly another week was consumed in the
+doing, and four drums of the oil were lost in different draws and
+canyons. After the road was finished, the transporting of the oil was
+turned over to Ernest and Dick while Roger and<a class="pagenum" name="page_192" id="page_192" title="192"></a> Gustav began the
+erecting of the condenser. Ernest was now quite reconciled to the use of
+the oil for Hackett had received a telegram from the owner in San
+Francisco that the deal was more than satisfactory to him.</p>
+
+<p>Roger and Gustav worked well together. The self-controlled German,
+evidently accustomed to hard grind and overwork in an office job, was
+not in the least ruffled by Roger's impatient ways. And he distinctly
+enjoyed the vim and imagination that were characteristic of Roger's work
+even when it involved the seemingly simple task of cutting and threading
+condenser pipe. For cutting and threading condenser pipe so that it
+shall be leak proof is not a simple job at all.</p>
+
+<p>April came to the desert with a noon temperature of a hundred degrees in
+the shade. Imperceptibly the daily breeze stiffened to a noon gale.
+There were no sand storms however for six weeks and the second alfalfa
+crop caught toe hold and grew, an amazing patch of green on the thirsty
+yellow sand.</p>
+
+<p>The ranch house engine misbehaved, regularly, but Roger developed what
+Charley called actual genius for tinkering and somehow the five acres
+were watered. When the morning stillness was broken by the first uneven
+Put! Put! of the engine, the Sun Planters would pause in their work and
+listen intently. If, after due patience, the Put! Put! developed into a
+steady throb, they resumed work. But if after a spasm or two, silence
+reigned again, Roger would pull his hat over his eyes and start for the
+ranch, and eventually that day, water would be given the parching
+fields. In the meantime, Dick began to prepare a second five-acre patch
+for late sowing.<a class="pagenum" name="page_193" id="page_193" title="193"></a></p>
+
+<p>Early in the month Roger received a check from the Dean for one hundred
+and sixty dollars. He resolved to put all but a few dollars of this into
+a supply of food and with Charley's help, he made a list that Gustav
+filled at Hackett's. There was provision for over three months in this
+list and Roger felt sure that this period of time would see the
+completion of the plant.</p>
+
+<p>A curt letter had come to Roger from the Smithsonian Institution saying
+merely that his case was being investigated and that in due time a
+report and decision would reach him. With this, Roger was obliged to be
+content. He had little faith, however, that the Institution would go on
+with Austin's undertaking and he resolved to push ahead with all speed,
+taking advantage of what was left of the golden opportunity Austin had
+offered him.</p>
+
+<p>Late in April, the engine reached Archer's Springs. Hackett, who was
+properly equipped for heavy freighting, as poor willing Dick was not,
+undertook to haul the engine to the camp. He was entirely willing, he
+told Roger, to wait for his pay.</p>
+
+<p>"No great loss," he said, "if I don't get it. But I got confidence in
+you and though your idea do seem awful nutty, if anything comes of it, I
+ain't going to have it said I done something to set back our community
+here. We got a great state and a great county and I'm here to promote
+'em both."</p>
+
+<p>So the dismantled engine was landed, without too great difficulty, in
+the waiting engine house and as soon as the condenser was finished, the
+three men began to set up this child of Roger's heart and brain. But
+after the heavy work was done Roger would let no one attempt adjusting
+the parts but himself. He<a class="pagenum" name="page_194" id="page_194" title="194"></a> set Ernest and Gustav to digging the oil pit
+for the storing of the sun-heated oil and spent his days and part of his
+nights in the engine house.</p>
+
+<p>As the weeks slipped into May, many were the surmises as to what had
+become of the Von Mindens. The madam's tent stood just as she had left
+it and the burros she had left behind ranged about the desert, near the
+Preble corral, coming home each night for the good feed Dick gave them.</p>
+
+<p>Almost every day Felicia came to the plant. Her love for Roger and
+Roger's for her was an accepted thing now between the two households.
+Only Charley could draw the child away from the abstracted, hard-driven
+young engineer and Dick showed his innate generosity in that though he
+adored the little girl he did not harbor a grudge because Felicia so
+frankly declared her preference for Roger.</p>
+
+<p>After the condenser was finished Felicia took a deep interest in helping
+Roger to find leaks in the system. Roger taught her to squirt oil from
+an oil can over the different points and to interpret bubbles rising
+from the resulting oil flow as leaks. It was the quaintest sight in the
+world to see the slender little figure in blue overalls, brown head
+running over with short curls, crawling like a little lizard over the
+greasy pipes while Roger followed with pipe wrench, cold chisel and peen
+hammer. After Roger began work on the engine, Felicia became a sort of
+plumber's assistant and a clever one, at that.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes Charley came late in the afternoon to take Felicia home. She
+would perch on the edge of the work bench and talk to Roger about the
+work in a voice and with an unself-conscious manner so like her<a class="pagenum" name="page_195" id="page_195" title="195"></a> small
+sister's that Roger, his restless mind on the problems of his work,
+often confused the two girls in his thoughts and answered or directed
+them indiscriminately. And Charley would chuckle as she watched him.</p>
+
+<p>The day in May that the men began a test for oil leaks in the absorber
+dawned with a promise of ferocious heat. Felicia appeared as usual but
+admitted that she had come over Charley's protest.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll have to leave off work at eleven, and not begin again until three
+as Dick suggested, if this heat keeps up," observed Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>"Then we'll begin work at dawn," said Roger, with a sigh. "Every minute
+counts, old man."</p>
+
+<p>About nine o'clock Charley came panting down the trail.</p>
+
+<p>"Felicia must come home at once," she cried. "There's a big sand storm
+coming. Dick is getting the stock under cover as fast as he can."</p>
+
+<p>The men dropped their tools hurriedly and looked up the valley. A great
+gray cloud was approaching so rapidly that as they gazed they caught the
+sound of its increasing roar. The sky, which had been sapphire of an
+unusual translucence that morning, turned all in a moment to a sullen
+red gray. There was a dry rattle of lizards and horned toads scuttling
+into the roots of grease wood and cactus.</p>
+
+<p>"You mustn't try to go home, Charley," exclaimed Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"But I must! Dick and his alfalfa! He <i>can't</i> be alone!"</p>
+
+<p>But Dick was destined to spend the day in solitude. With a very Niagara
+of sound the sand storm struck<a class="pagenum" name="page_196" id="page_196" title="196"></a> the camp. Charley and Felicia ran for
+the living tent where the men shortly joined them. They closed the flaps
+and settled to a day of discomfort. The engine house would have been
+more comfortable than the tent but it was too cumbered with machinery
+now to be used as a sitting room. There was no work that could be done
+indoors. The heat was stifling, a hundred and six the thermometer over
+the washstand trunk reported. The tent rocked and bellied, bellied and
+flapped with reverberations like drum-beats. Felicia was frightened at
+first and hid her head in Charley's lap. Charley herself was
+white-lipped, less, Ernest thought, from fear of the storm than from
+that vague apprehension about Dick that never seemed to leave her.</p>
+
+<p>For a time Roger sat scowling with impatience, then Felicia's fear moved
+him and calling the child to him he began to tell her of the old
+swimming pool. The others listened and laughed and when Felicia begged
+for more, Gustav told a charming tale of his own Bavarian childhood. And
+he and Ernest sang together some tender folk songs which Felicia
+insisted on learning. While Gustav and Ernest undertook this pleasant
+task Charley and Roger talked.</p>
+
+<p>At Charley's request, Roger brought out his blue prints and explained
+the plant to her. He felt his impatience lifting as he talked.
+Explaining his work always seemed to increase his critical vision. New
+ideas came flooding, and he pulled out his note book, feeling that after
+all the day was not entirely wasted.</p>
+
+<p>So, in spite of the bitter taste of alkali in their mouths and its sting
+in their eyes, in spite of the breathless<a class="pagenum" name="page_197" id="page_197" title="197"></a> burning heat, the morning
+passed cheerfully. They even managed to satisfy their hunger with canned
+beef and canned brown bread. They had washed down the last of the
+unsavory lunch with the tepid, nauseously alkaline water from the olla
+when a gust of wind of tremendous proportions tore open the door flap
+and filled the room with a blinding swirl of sand. At the same moment
+there was a fearful crash from without, followed by the sound of
+breaking glass. Leaving Charley to refasten the door flap, the three men
+bolted toward the absorber.</p>
+
+<p>The sand cloud was so dense that they could distinguish little until in
+actual contact with the edge of the trough. Then the trouble was
+obvious. A part of the sheet iron roof had blown off the engine house,
+and lay in a great twisted heap on the absorber. Roger immediately
+crawled under the trough. The heavy metal had pierced the floor of the
+absorber and oil was pouring out in a thin but steady stream. He pawed
+his way out hurriedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Go shut the oil off, Ernest," he shouted, "and get pails to catch that
+oil. Why the devil did some one leave the valve open? Gustav, give me a
+hand with this mess. Why didn't we have sense enough to fasten it
+securely? If we don't move it, it may blow the length of the trough."</p>
+
+<p>Roger plunged hastily up among the panes of broken glass, Gustav
+following. After a moment of effort the guilty mass of sheet iron was
+shoved over onto the sand. Just at the last a particularly vicious blast
+of wind twisted it violently against Gustav's bare arm.<a class="pagenum" name="page_198" id="page_198" title="198"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Du lieber Gott!" he roared. "Be careful yet!"</p>
+
+<p>"Now let's cover the engine," shouted Roger, giving no heed to Gustav's
+cry.</p>
+
+<p>"Hell mit the engine! Look!" Gustav thrust his left hand in Roger's
+face. The sleeve was dripping blood. Roger seized Gustav's arm tightly
+above the elbow. "Come over to the tent, Gustav," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Stumbling blindly through the sand drifts the two men reached the tent,
+where just as they crept inside the flap, Gustav fainted. Charley ran
+forward and before Roger could protest had helped lift Gustav to his
+cot.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think it's so bad. He never can stand the sight of blood," said
+Roger.</p>
+
+<p>They stripped back the sleeve as Roger spoke. A gash several inches long
+in Gustav's upper arm had laid bare the bone. Felicia began to cry.</p>
+
+<p>"I've got a first aid kit, somewhere," said Roger, running to dig wildly
+through the trunks, emerging in a moment with a black box, from which he
+produced a tourniquet. They applied this quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, is there some alcohol here?" asked Charley. "We will wash it off
+with that until we can boil some water. Felicia, you go put all the
+things back nicely in the boys' trunks, and don't pay any attention to
+us."</p>
+
+<p>Felicia was quickly absorbed in this altogether fascinating task, while
+Charley's skillful fingers made a temporary bandage for Gustav's arm. He
+was conscious now and offered a sick protest against Charley's
+suggestion:</p>
+
+<p>"Let's cut this shirt off him, Roger. It's saturated with blood. I'll
+sew it up for him later."</p>
+
+<p>Gustav sat up and before he could do more, Roger<a class="pagenum" name="page_199" id="page_199" title="199"></a> and Charley had
+removed his shirt. To their surprise they found he was wearing two, the
+second shirt having a particularly huge pocket, full of papers that were
+blood saturated.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't touch that, don't!" cried Gustav. Then catching sight of the
+blood stains, he fainted again.</p>
+
+<p>"Who'd think old Gustav was such a perfect lady," chuckled Roger. "Here,
+let's get him cleaned up now before he comes to, again."</p>
+
+<p>They pulled off the second shirt, and put on one of Roger's fresh ones.
+Then while Charley gave Gustav some water, Roger took the papers from
+the bloody pockets of the second shirt.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll wipe these off before the blood sets," he said. Then his eye
+caught a memorandum in German "Low pressure engine&mdash;new detail. Moore."
+Roger quickly opened the paper. It was about six inches square and was a
+copy of a detail of one of Roger's patent drawings.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll be damned!" muttered Roger, his face flushing darkly.</p>
+
+<p>He ran through other sheets. There were more drawings and some carefully
+written notes on Roger's general scheme for heat utilization. He was
+reading these very deliberately when Ernest came in.</p>
+
+<p>"Whew, what a country!" began Ernest, then he stopped with a gasp.</p>
+
+<p>Gustav, who was sitting up again, groaned weakly.</p>
+
+<p>"I vas a chicken-fool, eh, Miss Charley?"</p>
+
+<p>Roger crossed to the bed with a stride. "Look here, Schmidt," he said,
+"the sooner you get your things together and get out of here, the better
+I'll like it."<a class="pagenum" name="page_200" id="page_200" title="200"></a></p>
+
+<p>Gustav stood up. His jaw dropped. Then his eye fell on the papers in
+Roger's hand.</p>
+
+<p>"I told you not to take off the shirt from me!" he cried.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter, Rog?" asked Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>"Matter? Matter? Why, this fellow is a thief. He's been stealing my
+ideas. Go on now! Get out of here!"</p>
+
+<p>Ernest took the blood-stained papers and glanced at them hurriedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Hold on! Be cool, Roger! Give Gustav a chance to explain."</p>
+
+<p>"Explain! Explain what? Just how he stole these? Tear those papers up,
+Ernest, and take this Dutchman out of my sight. Get him out, I tell
+you."</p>
+
+<p>Ernest hesitated. In all the years he had known Roger he never had seen
+him in a passion like this. Felicia flew over to Charley who stood with
+wide troubled eyes on Roger's distorted face. The child was white and
+trembling.</p>
+
+<p>"Ernest!" thundered Roger.</p>
+
+<p>With a glance at Gustav, Ernest began to tear up the papers.</p>
+
+<p>"Roger! Please! Bitte! I can explain," began Gustav.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't speak to me. I've heard vague stories of how German manufacturers
+get their ideas. This, I know: in the morning, you'll start for Archer's
+Springs, you skunk!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Rog!" protested Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>"How dare you protest, Ernest?" Roger turned on his friend furiously.
+"You know what that engine<a class="pagenum" name="page_201" id="page_201" title="201"></a> means to me. You know the difficulty of
+patent protection and now this dirty hound&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Here! That I von't take from any man," cried Gustav. "You vas acting
+like a fool, Roger."</p>
+
+<p>Roger lunged forward with his right fist swinging. But before Ernest
+could interfere, Charley had caught the clenched fist with both her
+hands, and was clinging to it with all her fine strength.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Roger!" she cried. "Oh, Roger! Roger!"</p>
+
+<p>Roger dropped his arm and stared at her for a moment. Her eyes, so like
+Felicia's, so unlike them, returned his furious gaze, unflinching.
+Suddenly, he grew pale and without a word, turned on his heel and left
+the tent.</p>
+
+<p>He made his way to the engine house. Ernest had covered the engine with
+a tent fly, but Roger did not even glance at the idol of his heart. He
+made his way back where the roof still offered some protection from the
+storm and sat down on an empty box. An hour, then another slipped by,
+the sand sifting heavily on Roger as he crouched motionless, his head in
+his hands.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of the first hour, the storm had lessened perceptibly and by
+the time the second had passed, the westering sun was flashing through
+the dusty windows. Voices outside did not rouse Roger, but when Charley
+slipped in through the sagging door, he looked up. The girl returned his
+look soberly and sat down on a pile of adobe brick near him.</p>
+
+<p>Roger looked at her curiously. No one, excepting his mother, had ever
+before checked one of his flights of fury, midway. Sometimes, as in the
+episode with<a class="pagenum" name="page_202" id="page_202" title="202"></a> young Hallock, he had been able to check himself, but this
+was not frequent.</p>
+
+<p>"Why did you do that? Why did you interfere?" he asked abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't stand by and see you make a mess of your life," replied
+Charley, "just as things seemed to be going well."</p>
+
+<p>"Going well!" repeated Roger sardonically. "Why, I've been sitting here
+for hours, bringing myself to the realization of the fact that my life
+is a hopeless mess. I can't trust any one. I can't get help. I can't do
+it all alone. I'm going to quit this game and get a job."</p>
+
+<p>"Roger," said Charley slowly, "do you want to know what's the matter
+with you, aside from your temper? You're completely work- and
+self-centered. You don't take human beings into your calculations at
+all. And you won't be a real success until you get to studying and
+liking people as well as you do machinery. If you'd given about a tenth
+of the thought to Gustav that you have, say, to stopping the leaks in
+the condenser, and then if you'd used the same patience with him to-day
+that you would to a big leak in the pipes, you'd be farther ahead on
+your job and a good deal bigger man. Roger, the more I see of you the
+more I'm convinced that your failure is a good deal less the result of
+other people's indifference than it is of your own temperamental
+peculiarities and weaknesses."</p>
+
+<p>Roger's face flushed again. "What business have you got talking this way
+to me?" he blurted out, angrily.</p>
+
+<p>"Every business in the world," returned Charley serenely. "I like you,
+and your work is very important.<a class="pagenum" name="page_203" id="page_203" title="203"></a> Anything I can do to help get it
+across, I'm going to do, regardless of your feelings. I have an idea
+that no one has really helped you since your mother died&mdash;that is, with
+your temper."</p>
+
+<p>The anger died out of Roger's eyes. Once again he seemed to feel that
+faint and heavenly touch upon his forehead. It did not seem to him
+possible that what this girl said of him was true. And yet there was in
+the depths of her steady brown eyes a sort of ageless wisdom that made
+him feel awkward and immature. An ageless wisdom, with the sweetness and
+purity of the child Felicia's gaze. Lovely drooping lips that were
+Felicia's, and yet were, because of their sad patience, not Felicia's,
+but belonged to a woman who reminded him of his mother.</p>
+
+<p>Roger continued to stare at Charley as if he never had seen her before.
+After a moment he said in a half-whisper, "By Jove, I believe you <i>are</i>
+a friend to me&mdash;with nerve enough to tell me the truth as you see it,
+which Ernest never had. And he's been my only friend. Perhaps you're
+right, perhaps part of the fault has been with myself. O Lord, Charley!
+I do need some one to tell me the truth, I certainly do."</p>
+
+<p>Charley put out her hand to lay it on Roger's shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor child!" she said, softly.</p>
+
+<p>In a moment, Roger was a little boy again, back at his mother's side. "O
+God!" he whispered, and throwing himself forward on his knees, buried
+his head in Charley's lap. She laid her hand on his head with the touch
+that had been his mother's. "Poor lonely child," she said again. And for
+the first time in nearly ten years, Roger burst into tears.<a class="pagenum" name="page_204" id="page_204" title="204"></a></p>
+
+<p>Charley, smoothing his heavy black hair, said nothing more until Roger
+sheepishly raised his head and pulled out a very dirty handkerchief.</p>
+
+<p>Then she said in a very matter-of-fact voice, "By the way, as soon as
+the storm let up a little, I had Ernest take Gustav up to the ranch. I
+can take care of him up there and I didn't want Dick to be alone any
+longer."</p>
+
+<p>"Where's Felicia?" asked Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"She's asleep in the tent, I must wake her up and take her home now. The
+storm is over."</p>
+
+<p>"Leave her with me a little while," said Roger. "I'll bring her home."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, come up for supper. Ernest and Dick will help me get it."</p>
+
+<p>Roger nodded and Charley started along the drifted trail to the ranch
+while Roger went to the tent. Felicia slept on while he shaved and put
+the tent in order. Then he stooped over the cot and raised her.</p>
+
+<p>"Suppertime, little sweetheart," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Felicia woke with a start. "Don't be cross, Roger," she exclaimed after
+blinking at him for an instant.</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't be cross with you, Felicia," Roger lifted her in his arms
+and held her against his heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Never, Roger?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never, Felicia. You must never be afraid of me, even when I scold other
+people. Because I love you very much, Felicia."</p>
+
+<p>The child threw her arms around Roger's neck and they both looked off to
+the ranch house, where the windows glowed red in the sunset. There was
+something infinitely soothing to Roger in Felicia's embrace<a class="pagenum" name="page_205" id="page_205" title="205"></a> and he held
+her until she wriggled impatiently and announced that she was hungry.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll head for supper," he said, and putting her down he took her hand
+and they started through the sand for the ranch and Charley. Gustav was
+waiting for them at the edge of the corral.</p>
+
+<p>"Felicia, you run on up to the house and tell Charley I'll be there in a
+minute," said Roger.</p>
+
+<hr class="major" />
+<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em">
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_206" id="page_206" title="206"></a>
+<a name="DEATH_IN_THE_DESERT_6830" id="DEATH_IN_THE_DESERT_6830"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER X</h2>
+<h3>DEATH IN THE DESERT</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Don't scold Gustav," cried Felicia.</p>
+
+<p>"I won't," replied Roger, grimly, and the child sped up the path to the
+porch.</p>
+
+<p>"Roger! I did not mean nodings to hurt you! Vy, you ver like my own son.
+I vas having a plan to help you. Please, Roger, listen&mdash;Bitte sehr!"</p>
+
+<p>Roger was a little pale and his lips were stiff but he had himself well
+in hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, Gustav, you know you sneaked on me, don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but it vas to help you. I vas an inventor, Roger. I haf many
+ideas."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! That was it, was it?" He looked at Gustav's sweaty face, usually so
+placid, now distorted with pain and anxiety. "Well, all right, old man!
+I guess I was a bit hasty. But I want you to give me your word of honor
+to take no more notes and under no circumstances to give any one any
+information about my work."</p>
+
+<p>Gustav's face cleared as if by magic. He shook Roger's proffered hand
+heartily. "I promise. Absolute, I promise. Thank you; thank you much,
+Roger."</p>
+
+<p>"Right-o&mdash;come on now, let's go to supper," and the two swung up the
+trail, and into the adobe, where,<a class="pagenum" name="page_207" id="page_207" title="207"></a> after a glance at their faces, their
+waiting friends greeted them hilariously.</p>
+
+<p>"The alfalfa has come through, Roger," shouted Dick. "I guess the worst
+is over for me, all right. I'll take an order right now for five tons of
+alfalfa from you, Charley."</p>
+
+<p>"Better let Felicia order," replied Charley. "I understand that Mr. von
+Minden is going to find a burro for her, the exact twin of Peter."</p>
+
+<p>"And he's going to learn to do everything Peter does," added Felicia,
+"and Ernest says I must name him Re-peater. Please let's have supper."</p>
+
+<p>Gustav made a poor fist at eating. His arm gave him a great deal of pain
+and it was finally decided that Ernest should take the patient team and
+that night drive Gustav to the doctor. They made the start immediately
+after supper and did not return until the third day following. Gustav
+was one-armed for some time but managed to make himself indispensable,
+nevertheless.</p>
+
+<p>As summer advanced, a new working schedule that precluded labor in the
+middle of the day was inaugurated. The more intense the heat grew, the
+more intense, it seemed to Roger, grew the weird beauty of the desert.
+The midnight stars seemed hardly to have blossomed before dawn turned
+the desert world to a delicate transparent yellow, deepening at the
+zenith to blue and on the desert floor to orange. As the sun rose, the
+yellow changed suddenly to scarlet and for a few moments earth and sky
+quivered in a lambent red fire. When the sun had shot clear of the
+mountains, details of landscape and contrasts of color were accented.
+Clear black of peaks, crimson of canyons,<a class="pagenum" name="page_208" id="page_208" title="208"></a> purple of rifts in the
+ranges, bright moss green of cactus dots on the yellow desert floor. And
+always to the west that far melting loveliness of blue and gold and
+black that was the River Range. And always the quivering, parching air
+that burned against the body like a furnace blast.</p>
+
+<p>Ernest felt the heat more than Roger did and lost weight. But though he
+complained a great deal he stuck to his work manfully.</p>
+
+<p>After Ernest and Gustav had returned from Archer's Springs and the
+ravages caused by the desert storm had been repaired, Roger started on a
+hunt into the ranges for more window glass. He dared spend his money for
+nothing but food.</p>
+
+<p>He outfitted for a three day trip, carrying a blanket, the two-gallon
+canteen, beans, canned pears and a batch of baking powder biscuits. Dick
+gave him minute directions as to the location of different mines and of
+springs, and Roger started off confidently.</p>
+
+<p>There was very little glass left in the Goodloe mines where Roger had
+located the oil. But Dick knew of mines some ten miles north along the
+backbone of the ranges and these Roger had as an objective when he left
+the camp in the yellow dawn.</p>
+
+<p>He reached the Goodloe district by mid-morning. There was no trail to
+the north but he jogged along all the afternoon by compass and sun,
+keeping to the top of the ridge whenever possible. During all this time
+he saw no sign of human habitation. Indeed the only living beings he
+beheld that day were two buzzards circling meditatively over a distant
+peak and a lonely coyote skulking against the sky on a neighboring
+ridge. By six o'clock he was tired beyond expression and he<a class="pagenum" name="page_209" id="page_209" title="209"></a> had lost
+all idea of the number of miles he had covered, so tortuous had been the
+seemingly direct line of the ridge.</p>
+
+<p>Roger was in no wise discomfitted or discouraged, however. He made his
+camp in a little sandy draw on the side of the ridge which was full of
+stunted cedars. He cut up one cedar for his fire and drew on the others
+for sufficient twigs to cushion his blanket bed, then in spite of the
+heat he slept the sleep that belongs to the open.</p>
+
+<p>He was on his way at daylight, whistling cheerfully into the vast
+distances that unrolled about him. Mid-morning came, and then noon. Half
+the time allotted for the trip had gone, and still there was no sign of
+deserted mines.</p>
+
+<p>Roger smoked a long pipe after his lunch, chewing impatiently on his
+pipestem and swearing under his breath from time to time. He was tempted
+violently to keep on to the north, but remembering Dick's repeated
+warnings as to the danger of running out of water he finally won his own
+consent to turning back. He determined, however, to make the return trip
+on the neighboring range, to the east.</p>
+
+<p>He hoisted his pack and started heavily down into the valley that
+separated him from the next range. It was a good two miles of tooth and
+nail climbing and the canyon was filled with afternoon shadows when
+Roger reached the foot-wall of the east range. The heat was almost
+intolerable.</p>
+
+<p>As he paused here, far above his head a donkey brayed. Roger started
+quickly upward and for an hour was led by the brayings that grew louder
+as he neared the top. As he crawled around the last brown<a class="pagenum" name="page_210" id="page_210" title="210"></a> rock heap
+that crowned the ridge, he almost stepped on a man beside whom stood a
+little gray burro.</p>
+
+<p>"Peter!" said Roger. Then, "I say, Von Minden!"</p>
+
+<p>He stooped over the quiet form at his feet. The little German was lying
+on his face, his iron-gray head resting on his arm. His blue overalls
+and faded red sweater were covered with a light sifting of dust. His
+pack lay beside him, unopened.</p>
+
+<p>Roger turned him over, and as he did so Peter backed off. Von Minden was
+dead. He had been dead a long time Roger thought, as shuddering, he
+looked down on the bearded, distorted face. Roger took off his own pack
+and went over the body carefully. There was no sign whatever of any
+violence. He made a careful survey of the immediate surroundings, but
+there was no trace of Mrs. von Minden to be found.</p>
+
+<p>Peter watched Roger's every move, moving his long ears back and forth
+enquiringly.</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing whatever in Von Minden's pockets, except a jack knife.
+There was neither food in his pack nor water in his canteen. The one
+sack contained only a few ore samples. The dispatch box was not to be
+found.</p>
+
+<p>It was impossible to dig a grave on that peak of solid rock. Moreover,
+Roger had an idea that the authorities&mdash;if there were authorities in the
+desert world&mdash;ought to find the body as he had found it. He cut down
+several of the stunted cedars and piled them over the pathetic heap,
+under the blanket. On these he heaped stones, as heavy as he could lift
+until he felt sure that neither coyote, nor yet the buzzards<a class="pagenum" name="page_211" id="page_211" title="211"></a> that
+circled meditatively above could disturb the mound.</p>
+
+<p>The sun was setting when he had finished.</p>
+
+<p>"There Peter," said he, "you did your bit, keeping the beasts away. And
+now I've done mine, so we'll move on."</p>
+
+<p>Roger stood for a moment looking from Peter to the mound, then at the
+wide sweep of the ranges about. The whole world was spread before him in
+utter silence; range beyond range, desert beyond desert into a violet
+distance so great that the fancy staggered in contemplating it. For the
+first time a feeling of utter desolation swept over Roger.</p>
+
+<p>What a death! What a burial! Moved by the impulse that is the heritage
+of the ages, Roger took off his hat and bowed his head.</p>
+
+<p>"O God!" he said softly. "Receive this man's soul and give him peace.
+Amen!"</p>
+
+<p>Then he turned south along the range. He had gone a hundred yards when
+he remembered Peter and turned back. The little fellow was standing,
+head drooping, ears flopping beside the grave. Roger whistled but Peter
+gave no heed, and finally Roger was compelled to go back, tie the lead
+rope to Peter's bridle and fairly pull him along the trail.</p>
+
+<p>Roger did not pause until he had put a peak between himself and that
+lonely grave. Then, when the moon was sailing high, he made camp by a
+great bowlder. He turned Peter loose, a little fearfully at first, but
+the wise little burro made no attempt to turn back. When Roger was
+seated cross-legged by the fire eating bacon and beans, Peter dropped
+his nose over Roger's shoulder with a sigh.<a class="pagenum" name="page_212" id="page_212" title="212"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Hungry, old Peter?" asked Roger. "I haven't got much, but by Jove, you
+can have half of that," and he scooped half of the contents of his plate
+on a nearby stone. Peter ate it gravely, after which Roger poured a cup
+of his precious water into the frying pan for the little donkey's
+benefit. Then while Peter seemed to doze with his nose dropped almost to
+the ground, Roger sat long in the hot night, smoking and wrapped in
+thought.</p>
+
+<p>Since the death of his father, Roger had had no contact with the Grim
+Reaper, and the tragic discovery of the afternoon had shaken him. Yet as
+he sat looking out over the impenetrable calm and mystery of the ranges
+that lifted their noble peaks to the sailing moon, it seemed to him that
+death in the desert was a clean and normal part of life. If his Sun
+Plant were finished, if the best of him, his dreams, were made permanent
+in concrete and steel, what more happy ending could he ask than to lie
+at last asleep on a desert peak: these peaks still unsmirched by the
+hand of man; still fresh from the hand of God.</p>
+
+<p>It was with this thought that Roger finally fell asleep while the moon
+sank behind the far horizon, the night wind rose and Peter searched for
+herbage in the rock crevices.</p>
+
+<p>The next day was a long one. Roger found no trace of a trail and by
+mid-afternoon, the last of the water was gone. When this fact was
+established, the heat seemed worse and Dick's many stories of men who
+had thirsted to death in the ranges began to haunt Roger. He noticed
+that Peter's little legs were hourly more unsteady and his heart ached
+for the little chap. He ate sparingly that evening, giving Peter the
+larger<a class="pagenum" name="page_213" id="page_213" title="213"></a> share. The food was like dry sawdust in his parched mouth. He
+slept uneasily, waking from dreams of running water to toss for an hour
+before sleep came again.</p>
+
+<p>With the first streak of dawn he was up and on. Going was slow, for now
+the real torture of desert thirst was on him and he knew that unless he
+found water that day, buzzards would be circling over him on the morrow.
+By ten o'clock his tongue was swelling and he seemed to have ceased to
+sweat, and Peter leaned panting against the rocks in the shade of which
+Roger paused to rest. After a half hour, Roger rose to his feet. The
+morning had been breathless but as he rose, a little hot gust of air
+blew up from the canyon below.</p>
+
+<p>Instantly Peter raised his head and sniffed. The gust increased to a
+breeze. With ears lapped forward the burro tottered to the canyon edge
+and began feebly to pick his way downward.</p>
+
+<p>Roger watched him for a moment. Then, "I don't know what you've
+discovered, old man," he said thickly, "but what's good enough for you,
+is good enough for me," and he followed weakly after him.</p>
+
+<p>There was considerable rolling and scrambling done by both Peter and
+Roger before they reached bottom. When Roger finally scrambled panting
+to his feet, face burning, ears ringing, he found that they were in a
+narrow valley thick grown with scrub oak. Peter had rolled the last ten
+feet, and when he brought up against a barrel cactus, he could not rise
+until Roger had pottered over and pulled weakly on his bridle. Then he
+walked shakily across the canyon, Roger close behind him. A little pool
+reflecting the sky and<a class="pagenum" name="page_214" id="page_214" title="214"></a> the fern-like leaves of the mesquite that
+bordered it lay at the base of the great brown rock.</p>
+
+<p>Roger, as he drank, had vague recollections of warnings he had read
+about the dangers of over-drinking after water famine. But he was
+developing an implicit faith in Peter's wisdom and Peter was drinking
+till his thin ribs swelled. When he had entirely slaked his thirst,
+Roger rested for a bit, then looked about him. A trail led along the
+canyon from the spring, westward. Roger filled the canteen, then he and
+Peter took the trail. It led perhaps a quarter of a mile to a deserted
+mine, a mine of vast workings and huge ramshackle sheds that were
+innocent of either windows or doors. The engine house had been nailed
+up, but Roger's strength and spirits had been much revived by the water.
+He rested for awhile, then wrenched off some boards and went in, Peter
+struggling to follow, then giving the idea up and standing at rest in
+the shade. A complete ore separator plant was installed within. At the
+fore end of the shed was a gas producer engine in perfect condition as
+far as Roger could tell, except for the sand that had sifted over it. It
+was of a type with which he was not familiar and he spent a half hour in
+thoughtfully examining it, and making notes on a scrap of paper
+concerning it. He was absorbed in a new idea when he closed up the shed
+and whistled to Peter who had found some old alfalfa hay in a manger
+under a shed and was just finishing it off.</p>
+
+<p>There was a trail still leading westward out of the camp, and Roger,
+with a blind faith that his luck had turned, followed it to the opposite
+canyon wall, and here, where it evidently once had been a fair mountain<a class="pagenum" name="page_215" id="page_215" title="215"></a>
+road, followed it on up to the top of the range. It was late afternoon
+when this was accomplished. The ridge where Roger now found himself was
+high and barren. At first it seemed to him that the trail ended here
+where the winds had swept unhampered by man so long. But Peter was
+untroubled. He crossed the ridge nimbly, picked up a range trail on the
+opposite side and started to descend.</p>
+
+<p>His new master followed with a chuckle that increased to a laugh as he
+descried far to the north on the west range, the faint outlines of
+buildings, with the trail faintly marked along valley and mountainside
+toward it. Just at dusk they reached it. It was the Goodloe mine! In
+spite of utter fatigue and hunger, Roger would not stop now. In high
+spirits he took the familiar road toward home.</p>
+
+<p>It was nine o'clock when he passed the Preble ranch house, silent and
+lightless, but with the horses munching in the corral. He stopped to
+pick up a measure of oats for Peter, then he began the last lap of his
+journey. There was a bright fire glowing at the Sun Plant. As he neared
+it, he gave a shout. There was an answering shout and Ernest and Gustav
+came rushing through the desert to meet him.</p>
+
+<p>They had been consumed with anxiety about him. Dick had said that they
+must start on the hunt for him at dawn. Ernest had lighted the fire with
+the hope that it might help him.</p>
+
+<p>Gustav took Roger's pack and Ernest threw a helping arm about him. They
+led him straight to the cook tent where they had kept the coffee pot
+warm, and seated him at the table where a place was set for him. Their
+joy and relief almost unmanned Roger.<a class="pagenum" name="page_216" id="page_216" title="216"></a></p>
+
+<p>"My dear chaps," he insisted, "I was in no such great danger!"</p>
+
+<p>"In no danger! You should have heard what Dick and Charley said," cried
+Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it's all right now," said Roger. "I've wasted a lot of time but
+I've located some rich loot, believe me."</p>
+
+<p>"Where'd you pick up the burro?" asked Ernest. "He looks just like
+Peter."</p>
+
+<p>"It is Peter," replied Roger. "Gustav, give him those oats in my coffee
+pot and let me eat, then I'll tell you all about it."</p>
+
+<p>It was scarcely dawn and Roger was still fast asleep, when Ernest met
+Dick at the corral with the news of Roger's safe return and of the
+tragedy of poor Crazy Dutch. Dick was much upset at hearing of Von
+Minden's death.</p>
+
+<p>"He was a poor old loon, but mighty good-hearted," he said, "and I swear
+I don't know what we'd have done sometimes without him&mdash;especially
+Charley. She's going to be all broken up over this. I'll tell her, then
+I'll come down and talk to Roger."</p>
+
+<p>"Roger thought we ought to notify the folks at Archer's Springs right
+away," said Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>"Shucks! That's not necessary. When some of us go in we can notify the
+sheriff. Dutch had a bum heart and had run out of food and water. Not a
+bad death, poor old chap."</p>
+
+<p>When Dick came down to the camp, and they all had talked a little sadly
+of Von Minden's lonely death, Ernest asked suddenly:</p>
+
+<p>"Did you find any window glass, Rog?"</p>
+
+<p>Roger gave him a blank look. "By Jove, no! I<a class="pagenum" name="page_217" id="page_217" title="217"></a> was so excited over Von
+Minden and that new type engine and a hunch I got, that I forgot all
+about it. Well, I'll just have to start out again."</p>
+
+<p>"By the way," Ernest went on, "I went into town while you were gone to
+get the mail. There was just one letter. It was from Elsa. She's on her
+way down here. She's due on Sunday."</p>
+
+<p>Roger looked from Dick to Ernest. "What the devil shall we do with her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, she'll have to outfit and grubstake herself. She knows that, and
+she knows we're broke. I think this is a cooked up job of hers and
+mother's just to help us out. And gee!&mdash;but I'll be glad to see old
+Elschen!"</p>
+
+<p>"So'll I, old man. But Ernest, this is no place nor circumstances for an
+Old Home week. I'm sweating to finish this plant against almost
+impossible odds."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't I know it? Have I failed you any?"</p>
+
+<p>"You have been absolutely O. K. and we'll try to give Elsa a good time."</p>
+
+<p>"It will be a perfect godsend to Charley," said Dick. "She almost cried
+when Gustav told us."</p>
+
+<p>"Then that's settled," said Ernest with a sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"Just as soon as it can be managed, we'll have to give Von Minden a
+decent burial, Roger," said Dick. "I won't be using the horses to-morrow
+and you'll be in good trim by then, won't you, Rog?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied Roger, and if he smothered a sigh for another day lost
+from his work, no one noticed it.</p>
+
+<p>Roger spent the remainder of the day in the engine house, going over his
+engine, shaking his head, muttering to himself like an old man, finally
+straightening his shoulders stubbornly and whistling through his teeth.<a class="pagenum" name="page_218" id="page_218" title="218"></a></p>
+
+<p>After an early supper, the three went up to the ranch. Felicia, who was
+wiping the dishes for Charley, hurled herself at Roger, dishcloth and
+all.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" she shrieked. "You must never leave me like this again, Roger. I
+worried so about you that my stomach ached all the time you were gone."</p>
+
+<p>Charley laughed with the rest, but quickly sobered. "I'm so glad you
+were able to take care of poor Uncle Otto," she said. "I shall miss him
+so. None of you knew him as I did." There was a pause, then Charley went
+on, "Just think of Ernest's sister coming! I remember her vaguely. She's
+like you, isn't she, Ernest?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bit," said Roger. "She's full of pep and very good looking."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what do you know about that?" asked Ernest, looking at Roger
+wonderingly.</p>
+
+<p>"She's going to stay with us, isn't she? Please say yes," cried Charley.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, don't have her here. She wouldn't like to be here all the
+time," begged Felicia. Then she blushed and retreated behind Roger's
+chair. She refused half tearfully to explain her statement when Dick
+urged her, at first jokingly, then in a commanding manner.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me, Felicia, don't you like it here?" drawing her to his side.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, let her alone, Dicky," begged Charley. "Why insist on a child's
+reason for anything?"</p>
+
+<p>"But I want to know! Tell me, Felicia, don't you like it here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Felicia, with trembling lips, "I like it<a class="pagenum" name="page_219" id="page_219" title="219"></a> here, 'cept when
+you get sick and are so awful cross with me and Charley and make Charley
+cry. I wouldn't want Elsa to see you that way."</p>
+
+<p>Dick turned purple. "Oh, well," cut in Roger, quickly, "Elsa'll have
+three men's crossness to put up with down at our camp, Felicia. Just
+think of that! And if it should happen that we'd all get cross at once,
+probably we'd blow the roof of the engine house off again."</p>
+
+<p>"That's why we want Elsa to stay with us," said Ernest. "You see when
+men are cross, the only thing that cures them is having a nice girl
+around to make them ashamed of themselves."</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes already, if it gets too much vhen I make myself mad," added
+Gustav, "maybe ve get a squaw to come by our camp to vip us bad boys for
+Fr&auml;ulein Elsa, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"If all the men in the world get cross, like you, Dicky," asked Felicia,
+wonderingly, "why do ladies marry them?"</p>
+
+<p>"They don't, chicken! No one's married me."</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe Elsa will. Unless Gustav gets her," suggested Felicia.</p>
+
+<p>"Maybe Roger, he gets her, eh?" asked Gustav.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no!" in sudden alarm, crossing over to Roger's knee to look up into
+his face with a depth of love in her brown eyes that tightened his
+throat as he lifted her into his lap. "Roger's going to marry me. Only
+Roger, if ever you're as cross to me as you were to Gustav, I shall just
+walk out of the house and never, never come back."</p>
+
+<p>It was Roger's turn to blush and he did so thoroughly,<a class="pagenum" name="page_220" id="page_220" title="220"></a> while Dick burst
+into a roar of laughter in which the other men joined. Under its cover,
+Charley hustled Felicia off to bed.</p>
+
+<p>At dawn the next day Roger and Dick started on their melancholy errand.
+The climbing was in many instances too precipitous for the horses and
+they made many detours. It was late in the afternoon, on a detour across
+a wide canyon that they came upon the end of the Von Minden drama. The
+canyon was really a part of the desert floor and was deep with sand.
+Roger it was, who first noted footprints.</p>
+
+<p>"Look, Dick!" he called. "An Indian must have been here! Look at the
+naked footprints!"</p>
+
+<p>Dick rode up beside him. "I wonder!" he said.</p>
+
+<p>Both men glanced about them. "Yonder are some clothes, let's pick up
+this trail," suggested Dick.</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove, it's Mrs. von Minden's pink wrapper!" cried Roger, "and over
+there are her shoes."</p>
+
+<p>"Rog, we've got to brace ourselves," Dick pulled up his horse. "When
+folks thirst to death in the desert, they often strip off their clothes
+and run around in a big circle."</p>
+
+<p>Roger bit his dry lips. "All right, Dick, come on," he muttered.</p>
+
+<p>The foot marks swung in a wide circle. It was a mile farther on that
+they found the madam, stark naked, her gaunt face turned to the sky. She
+too had been dead for many days.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see why the buzzards didn't get her. Her burro wasn't Peter, he
+deserted her," murmured Dick. "Look, Rog, under her head."</p>
+
+<p>It was the dispatch box, lightly sifted over with sand as was the body.<a class="pagenum" name="page_221" id="page_221" title="221"></a></p>
+
+<p>"What do you suppose happened?" asked Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"She obviously thirsted to death. But she got the box first. Do you
+suppose she killed him, to get it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps she found him dead and took it," suggested Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we'll never know. Let's gather up what we can of her clothes and
+bury her. Poor old devil. Her story's ended," said Dick.</p>
+
+<p>They dug Clarissa von Minden's grave and put her in it, then Dick pulled
+a prayer book from his pocket.</p>
+
+<p>"Charley made me bring it," he explained. "I'm glad of it, now. Somehow
+it seems worse to chuck a woman away without a minister to help, than it
+does a man. I guess she did some tall suffering, from first to last, eh
+Rog?"</p>
+
+<p>Roger nodded. Dick read the burial service reverently and they finished
+this gruesome job. Roger tied the little black metal box to his saddle
+and they started on their way. They made camp in the mountains that
+evening, not far from the peak that sheltered Von Minden. They had ample
+firewood for they camped near a clump of cedars and they went hastily
+through the contents of the dispatch box, by the light of the flames.</p>
+
+<p>There was no marriage certificate. The entire box was filled with notes
+in German in a microscopic hand. Roger read excerpts of it. Von Minden
+seemed to have made an exhaustive study of the resources of this section
+of the desert and of the north of Mexico.</p>
+
+<p>"He had some sort of a huge irrigation scheme in his head," Roger said.
+"He's got some letters copied in here and a lot of stuff. We ought to
+turn this over<a class="pagenum" name="page_222" id="page_222" title="222"></a> to a German consul, somewhere and let him notify the
+proper relations."</p>
+
+<p>"That a good idea," agreed Dick. "He used to tell Charley and me
+strange things when he was off his head. Once he said he was charting
+this region for the Kaiser. The poor old lunatic."</p>
+
+<p>"His ideas were not so crazy as they might be," protested Roger. "I've
+some dreams myself for this country, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"What are they, Rog?" asked Dick. "I know in only the vaguest way."</p>
+
+<p>"If I can irrigate your twenty-five acres with my little plant, don't
+you see that I have proven that I am able to tap unlimited cheap power.
+The possibilities of this country with cheap power are staggering. I
+don't blame Von Minden for calling it a kingdom. That's just what it
+might be, with the mountains of the west range and the Rockies to the
+east forming natural boundaries. It seems as if a kingdom really could
+be self-supporting in here. If only I can harness the sun to a cheap
+apparatus that any one can buy and operate! Why all these ranges would
+be studded with going mines. Every valley would be green with growing
+crops. I hardly dare let my imagination go on it. Our little old U. S.
+has got a wonderful unborn commonwealth down here."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, your dreaming is a lot more practical than his, anyhow," said
+Dick. "More power to your elbow, old man, I say."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't forget what you people have done for me!" Roger returned the
+papers to the dispatch box.</p>
+
+<p>They found the crude grave intact, the next morning. They were able with
+the aid of the pick to make<a class="pagenum" name="page_223" id="page_223" title="223"></a> a shallow trough in the rock. They built
+this up with stone and the last chapter of the Von Minden story was
+ended. They reached home at dusk.</p>
+
+<p>Ernest and Roger sat before the tent alone that night while Gustav wrote
+a letter in the cook house. The heat did not seem to have lessened much
+with the going down of the sun. The stars low-hung over the engine house
+seemed to glow with fire and the darkness was like a hot blanket over
+the sand. Ernest was unusually silent. He sat with his pipe unlighted,
+staring at the stars so long that Roger said, at last:</p>
+
+<p>"Homesick, Ern?"</p>
+
+<p>Ernest grunted. "What did you say? Eh&mdash;no&mdash;I don't think so. Say, Roger,
+old man, she's refused me."</p>
+
+<p>"She? Who? What are you talking about, Ernest?"</p>
+
+<p>"About Charley. Who else would it be?"</p>
+
+<p>Roger nearly fell off the box on which he was sitting. "Proposed to
+Charley? Why, you weren't in love with her, were you, Ernest?"</p>
+
+<p>"You great nut! Why else should I propose to her? Just because you don't
+admire her is no reason that other men are wooden headed."</p>
+
+<p>"I never said I didn't admire her," exclaimed Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"You did. You said you didn't care for big women."</p>
+
+<p>"Did I? Well, I guess I don't. But I never think of her as a woman.
+She's just like a fine young fellow that you want for a friend."</p>
+
+<p>Ernest grunted. "I wouldn't have a temperament like yours for real
+money, Roger."<a class="pagenum" name="page_224" id="page_224" title="224"></a></p>
+
+<p>"I don't see that yours is giving you much joy right now, old chap."</p>
+
+<p>"Never you mind," returned Ernest. "I'd rather suffer as I am suffering
+than never have loved her."</p>
+
+<p>Roger, who had helped his friend to recover from a good many
+heart-breaks patted him on the shoulder. "Awfully sorry, old Ern."</p>
+
+<p>"I know what you're thinking," said Ernest, "but this one is different,
+just as she's different. I'll never get over this. You realize that
+she's different, don't you, you wooden image?"</p>
+
+<p>Roger answered thoughtfully. "Yes, Charley is different. I really like
+her very much. But she's like a younger brother, so clean-cut and direct
+and&mdash;" His voice trailed away to nothing as suddenly he thought of
+Charley's hand on his head, that memorable afternoon in the engine
+house. Indeed, he wondered if the thought of that touch would ever leave
+him. He believed that it would become as much a part of his memory as
+his mother's gentle touch.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, Ernest said, "If it weren't for you and the help I can give
+you, I'd go home."</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>are</i> hard hit, old man! Maybe it'll be easier when Elsa comes."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I think it will," replied Ernest. "I thought I'd go in to-morrow
+and hang around Archer's till she gets here. You'll be tinkering on the
+engine and won't miss me. Suppose we can fix up Mrs. von Minden's tent
+for her, instead of her buying a new one."</p>
+
+<p>"Good idea! But, by Jove, the thought of going to Archer's Springs for
+mental distraction is either funny or pathetic! I don't know which. I
+hope I can have a test of the plant on Monday."<a class="pagenum" name="page_225" id="page_225" title="225"></a></p>
+
+<p>"So do I," replied Ernest. "Guess I'll go to bed. Gustav's blown out his
+bug."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm with you," agreed Roger, and was asleep long before Ernest ceased
+to toss in the hot silence of the tent.</p>
+
+<p>It was late Sunday afternoon when dust on the south trail announced the
+coming of Elsa and Ernest. Gustav and Roger had given the entire morning
+to putting the camp in order. Gustav had achieved his <i>chef-d'&oelig;uvre</i>
+in a huge "welcome" made of yucca stalks outlined over the living tent
+door. Roger had given Peter to Felicia and about two o'clock she
+appeared, riding the little burro whose face she explained she had
+washed with soap and water for the occasion. Charley and Dick followed
+not long after.</p>
+
+<p>For the first time Roger realized that Charley's isolation had meant
+more to her than she allowed any of them to suspect. She nearly wept as
+she begged that Elsa be permitted to stay with them and went over the
+living tent and the cook tent with a critical eye. When the cloud of
+dust appeared upon the horizon Roger saw her whiten under her tan.</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose she doesn't like me," she exclaimed suddenly to the three men.
+"Suppose she finds me rough and stupid after all these years of
+hardship. Oh, what would I do! The first woman after so long!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," Dick's voice was angry, "if she doesn't like you she's a fool,
+that's all."</p>
+
+<p>Tears had sprung to Gustav's eyes. "She vill love you on sight," he said
+slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"You wait!" cried Roger. "You two girls were made to be friends."</p>
+
+<p>Charley gave a nervous glance at her khaki clothing.<a class="pagenum" name="page_226" id="page_226" title="226"></a> The men did not
+know that the day before she had routed out a white frock, the remnant
+of her college days and after much debate with herself, had rejected it.
+It was of a bygone date and fashion. It had been worn by a
+happy-go-lucky college girl, who had little in common with the mature,
+sunburned, wind-blown woman who looked back at Charley from the mirror.</p>
+
+<p>The horses plodded slowly through the sand. Dick pulled up before the
+living tent.</p>
+
+<p>"She's come! Here she is!" shouted Ernest, as if the watching group in
+the burning western sun could doubt its eyes. Roger lifted Elsa down
+from the wheel.</p>
+
+<p>"Never knew I could be so glad to see you, Elsa," he said. "And you're
+prettier than ever even if your nose is peeling. Look! Here's Charley
+Preble and Felicia and Dick and Gustav."</p>
+
+<p>Elsa, freshly burned, but with her silk traveling suit smart in spite of
+the dust, shook hands all round.</p>
+
+<p>She turned back from Gustav to Charley again, and looked at her with
+frank interest. "You know, Ernest never told me what to wear, so I
+didn't bring a bit of khaki. Wasn't I foolish? It looks just right down
+here."</p>
+
+<p>"I've some extra skirts you can wear till you can send back for some,"
+said Charley. "Let's go into the living tent out of this heat while the
+boys unload."</p>
+
+<p>They went alone, for Felicia, after standing in an agony of indecision
+for a moment or two, decided in favor of the tantalizing packages in the
+wagon box. The girls were not in the tent long. When they came out, they
+had their arms about each other.</p>
+
+<p>"Elsa's going up to the house with me and get a<a class="pagenum" name="page_227" id="page_227" title="227"></a> bath and change her
+clothes. We'll be down for supper," said Charley.</p>
+
+<p>There was a flush of happiness on her face that made Dick say, "I hope
+you stay forever, Elsa! Come along! I'll take the team up and your
+trunk. What do you want done with the cot and things, Ernest?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind those," said Elsa, serenely. "I'm going to stay with
+Charley."</p>
+
+<p>The men looked at each other speechlessly. As the wagon rattled off,
+Roger said to Ernest:</p>
+
+<p>"They were in that tent less than five minutes. What do you suppose
+happened?"</p>
+
+<p>Ernest shook his head. "I've given up trying to understand women. Look
+at that cot and the lumber&mdash;a whole darned outfit, and I nearly killed
+the horses getting the mess up in one load because Elsa insisted she'd
+have to have it to-night. Women!"</p>
+
+<hr class="major" />
+<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em">
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_228" id="page_228" title="228"></a>
+<a name="DICKS_SICKNESS_7531" id="DICKS_SICKNESS_7531"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+<h3>DICK'S SICKNESS</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>All day Monday, Roger and his two helpers sweated to prepare for the
+plant's first trial. Roger would let no one touch the engine but
+himself, but Ernest and Gustav puttered with the condenser and the pump
+and at dawn started the oil circulating through the absorber. All day
+long the burning desert sun poured its heat through the glass into the
+oil which caught and imprisoned it for Roger's purpose, until the
+storage pit was full. Roger had set the time of trial as nine o'clock in
+the evening in order to prove the night as well as the day power of his
+plant. The Prebles appeared shortly before the hour.</p>
+
+<p>"Everything O. K.?" asked Dick, with a creditable effort at being
+off-hand.</p>
+
+<p>"One never knows till afterward," replied Roger. "Come into the engine
+house. No room for you, Peter, old man."</p>
+
+<p>There were three "bugs" lighted over the engine. Ernest and Gustav were
+both smoking violently. Dick was chewing gum. Elsa and Charley said
+nothing but watched every movement on the part of the men.</p>
+
+<p>"Come here, Felicia," said Roger, biting at his cold pipe. "You see this
+little valve? All right. Now, as I've told you many times, I hope that
+when you turn this, that the sun which shone to-day will turn the<a class="pagenum" name="page_229" id="page_229" title="229"></a> big
+fly wheel round. When I give the wheel a twist, you turn the valve clear
+over."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Roger," replied Felicia, her little fingers quivering as she
+grasped the valve.</p>
+
+<p>"Now!" exclaimed Roger, tugging at the fly-wheel.</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment's breathless silence. Then very slowly and sedately,
+the fly wheel began to revolve, gathered speed and shortly was chugging
+away steadily. A little cheer rose from Roger's audience. He grinned.</p>
+
+<p>"Now Ern, let's throw in the pump." A belt, connecting the engine with
+the pump outside, was quickly slipped in place. The engine slowed down.
+But a moment later the sound of water pouring over the condenser pipes
+was heard above the chugging of the engine and pump.</p>
+
+<p>Gustav and Ernest fell on each other's necks. "It works!" squealed
+Felicia. "It works and I helped make it, I did." Peter, his head as far
+in at one of the windows as a very short neck would carry it, brayed.
+Roger watched the pressure gauge and scratched his head thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>Charley and Felicia slipped outside to inspect the pump, and Charley
+called: "Does anybody smell anything?" At the same moment Felicia
+shrieked.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! oh, Roger! There's a terrible leak out here!"</p>
+
+<p>Roger shut off the engine and followed by the others, he darted to the
+condenser. The odor of sulphur dioxide filled the night.</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove, it's big enough to lose my charge!" groaned Roger. "Bring
+bugs, everybody."</p>
+
+<p>Felicia, "bug" and oil can in hand, was running over the pipes at the
+top before the others had arrived.<a class="pagenum" name="page_230" id="page_230" title="230"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Here it is, Roger! Oh, an awful one. There!"</p>
+
+<p>The leak was in a pipe joint at the top of the stack. The odor grew
+almost unbearable. For half an hour the men wrestled with it, turn
+about, and at last succeeded in stopping it. Other minor leaks occurred
+but all were located and controlled. Finally Roger announced all safe
+and lighted his pipe. In the flash of the match, his face showed tense
+and dripping with sweat, his eyes bloodshot from the gas fumes.</p>
+
+<p>"Darn the leaks!" exclaimed Elsa.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it's what we'll have to expect as long as I can't afford to buy
+bent pipe or an acetylene welding outfit," said Roger. "But after all,
+the leaks are the least of my troubles."</p>
+
+<p>"What is troubling you?" asked Charley quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"There isn't as much power there as my calculations had indicated there
+would be."</p>
+
+<p>"I told you that you were running pretty close on your absorption area,"
+exclaimed Ernest. "You see your temperature readings have been lower
+right along down here than that table we had up in the laboratory for
+this region."</p>
+
+<p>"But I don't want to increase the absorption area in order to get more
+power. It's a clumsy solution. It makes the plant too large and too high
+priced. The solution to the problem lies in making that engine more
+efficient." Roger sighed.</p>
+
+<p>"Now don't change your engine design, Roger!" cried Ernest. "That is a
+peach and has been for years."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know," replied Roger. "But there's a possibility that you and
+the Dean and I have been too complacent about that engine."<a class="pagenum" name="page_231" id="page_231" title="231"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Gee, but you're a regular pessimist, Rog!" exclaimed Dick.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'm not. No inventor is. I'm just open minded. And don't think I'm
+blue, either. If I weren't so heckled and worried by the time and money
+element I'd be having the time of my life. Wouldn't I, Felicia, honey?"</p>
+
+<p>There was no answer. Felicia, with the oil can hugged tight against her
+middy, was curled up on the work bench, fast asleep.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it seems to me I'd better take my family home," said Dick.
+"Where's the rest of my harem? Elsa! Charley! Come with papa."</p>
+
+<p>By eleven o'clock the camp was quiet. Roger prowled about the condenser
+a bit, covered the engine with canvas and then went to bed. It had been
+a hard day and none of the three men were wakened by the smell of
+sulphur dioxide that began to hang over the camp at midnight. The dawn
+wind blew most of it away, but when Gustav rose to get breakfast, he
+sniffed suspiciously and called Roger. They traced a leak in the lower
+tier. Half the charge had evaporated during the night.</p>
+
+<p>"At least two weeks before we get more and a chunk out of the precious
+grub money," groaned Ernest at breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>"Patience! Patience!" exclaimed Gustav. "I'll start to Archer's Spring
+mit the empty drums to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>Roger, who had been bolting his breakfast in silence, suddenly set down
+his coffee cup. Patience! He had told Charley that he was a patient man.
+Yet every muscle of his body at the moment was twitching with<a class="pagenum" name="page_232" id="page_232" title="232"></a>
+impatience. He acknowledged this to himself, then said aloud:</p>
+
+<p>"No use getting nervous, boys, I'm not. You get the new charge, Gustav.
+I'll leave that in your hands and think no more about it. I'm going over
+my heat tables again."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll help you check over," said Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>"If you don't mind I'd rather grind for a few days on it alone. I can
+think better that way. Then I'll go over the results with you."</p>
+
+<p>"All right," returned Ernest, with his usual good nature. "Gustav and
+I'll offer our services to Dick to-day on his new field. Do increase
+your absorbing area, Roger!"</p>
+
+<p>Roger shook his head. "That's an awkward and expensive solution. The
+answer's in the engine!"</p>
+
+<p>He began to figure on an old envelope. When this was covered, he
+continued his calculations on the margin of an old newspaper spread over
+the work house table. Long after Gustav and Ernest had gone about their
+day's business Elsa found him here, sweating in the stifling glare from
+the sun and sand, hair disheveled, shirt open at the throat. Elsa looked
+almost cool in comparison in her soft white blouse and one of Charley's
+khaki skirts.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Roger," she exclaimed, "hasn't your cook the decency to wash the
+breakfast dishes for you?"</p>
+
+<p>"It does look rotten, doesn't it?" said Roger, staring vaguely around
+the kitchen. "But the cook seems to be on a strike and I forgot to clean
+things up."</p>
+
+<p>"If you'll get out of the way, I'll do it." Elsa began to roll up her
+sleeves.<a class="pagenum" name="page_233" id="page_233" title="233"></a></p>
+
+<p>"It's too hot now. Wait until late afternoon," suggested Roger, glancing
+from his papers out to the yellow waves of heat dancing from sand to
+deep blue of sky.</p>
+
+<p>"I can stand the heat if Charley can," returned Elsa. "She's baking
+bread and cookies. The thermometer on the porch says 112&deg;. I should
+judge that it was about 190&deg; in her kitchen. Rog, do you know that she's
+a highly educated girl? Why do you suppose she's throwing her life away
+down here, cut off from everything?"</p>
+
+<p>Roger looked up from his figures with a little sigh of resignation.</p>
+
+<p>"What did you say, Elsa?"</p>
+
+<p>Elsa smiled but repeated her inquiry.</p>
+
+<p>"She's not wasting her life," replied Roger. "This is really a superb
+country and she takes to pioneering like a fine boy. This is about the
+last big adventure there is in America, this desert pioneering."</p>
+
+<p>"Like a boy!" sniffed Elsa. "Roger, you're hopeless! She's just the most
+womanly woman I ever met&mdash;and one of the saddest. She's got some trouble
+on her mind."</p>
+
+<p>"Aw shucks, Elsa! Don't try to make Charley out temperamental. She's not
+and that's why she's such a pal to us fellows. Wholesome and clean-cut
+and direct, that's Charley."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well, have it your own way, stupid! Only, go on over to the living
+tent while I clean up here." This with a curious glance at Roger's
+preoccupied eyes; those fine, steady, clear-seeing eyes, that saw so
+much and so little of life.</p>
+
+<p>"Just one thing more, Roger," she said. He paused<a class="pagenum" name="page_234" id="page_234" title="234"></a> in the doorway and
+looked at her with a smile. "Yes, ma'am."</p>
+
+<p>"Ernest told me on the way out about your money troubles. I don't want
+you to worry about the cost of keeping me. I can pay my way. I had to
+come against Papa's wishes, of course, but I had my own little chunk of
+savings and Mamma had a little. And I just made up my mind I was going
+to get away from home for a while if it was the last act of my life. And
+I know I can do lots of things to make you all comfortable."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm as glad as I can be to have you here, Elsa. And after all you folks
+have done for me, it makes me sick not to be able to do everything for
+you. But I swear I'm right up against it. Some day I'll make it all up
+to you and Ern. See if I don't. If you can keep homesick old Ern bucked
+up you'll be doing your bit. Your father need have had no fear. Ern'll
+be back in the University when this is done contented to teach the rest
+of his life."</p>
+
+<p>"I know it. And how about you, Roger?"</p>
+
+<p>"Me? Oh, I've struck my gait down here. I'm going to follow heat
+problems round the world, see if I don't."</p>
+
+<p>He looked off over the desert with a glow in his face that the girl
+never had seen there before. She gave a wistful little sigh, and began
+to unroll the kitchen apron she had brought under her arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Run along while I try to make the place fit for white people to live
+in," she said.</p>
+
+<p>It was a comfort to have a woman about the camp. The three men testified
+to this at supper time as they ate the meal she had prepared in an
+immaculate kitchen.<a class="pagenum" name="page_235" id="page_235" title="235"></a> That evening after Roger had taken Elsa back up to
+the ranch, Ernest decided he would accompany Gustav into Archer's to get
+some khaki for Elsa and to endeavor to locate some sulphur dioxide by
+telegraph. Elsa announced that although she would sleep and take
+breakfast at the ranch she would spend the day at the Plant as
+housekeeper.</p>
+
+<p>It was perhaps four o'clock the next afternoon, that Roger, at work in
+the engine house, saw Felicia half running, half plodding through the
+sand. Elsa, sewing in the living tent, saw her at the same time.</p>
+
+<p>"What can they mean by letting her come out in this awful heat?" she
+called to Roger.</p>
+
+<p>Roger made no reply but shouted to Felicia, "Don't run, child! It's too
+hot!"</p>
+
+<p>Felicia's answer was to quicken her pace. With a sudden sense of
+apprehension Roger went to meet her. Felicia was sobbing when he reached
+her. He lifted her in his arms.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, sweetheart?"</p>
+
+<p>Felicia was almost beyond words. "Dicky&mdash;he's&mdash;sick again! And&mdash;he
+yelled at me&mdash;and slapped me, and he knocked Charley over with his fist.
+And I ran away&mdash;to you&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Roger's lips stiffened. Elsa had joined them and as he set Felicia down,
+he said hurriedly, "Take her into the tent. Cool her down gradually.
+Keep her there till I come."</p>
+
+<p>And he set off as fast as he dared in the burning sun. As he neared the
+ranch house, he could hear Dick's incoherent shouts and as he ran up the
+trail, Dick appeared on the porch.</p>
+
+<p>"Get out of here, Roger!" he roared, thickly.<a class="pagenum" name="page_236" id="page_236" title="236"></a></p>
+
+<p>Roger ran up the steps. "Where's Charley?"</p>
+
+<p>Dick planted himself belligerently in the doorway, "Get out!" Roger
+moved slowly toward him. A heavy odor of cologne enveloped Dick. A quick
+surmise flashed over Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"Felicia needs Charley, Dick, I've got to fetch her."</p>
+
+<p>"Get out!" repeated Dick sullenly. He gave a lunge toward Roger and
+Roger met him with a quick undercut on the jaw that laid Dick flat. He
+dragged him down the trail to the seed and tool shack, where he turned
+the heavy button on the door. Then he ran into the house.</p>
+
+<p>Charley lay on the floor, her hair in disorder about her. Roger, with an
+oath, stooped over her, then ran for a cup of water and bathed her face.
+In a moment she opened her eyes. Roger's own eyes were black with
+excitement but he met her puzzled gaze with a twisted smile.</p>
+
+<p>"There you are, Charley! Where are you hurt?"</p>
+
+<p>She did not answer but struggled to rise and Roger putting an arm under
+her shoulder helped her to her feet where she leaned dizzily against
+him, for a moment, shoulder to shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Where's Felicia, Roger?"</p>
+
+<p>"Safe with Elsa at the Plant. Sit down here on the couch, Charley. Where
+did Dick strike you?"</p>
+
+<p>"He&mdash;he&mdash;where is he, Roger?" clinging suddenly to Roger's hand as he
+laid her back on the couch.</p>
+
+<p>"Locked in the tool house. Charley, you <i>must</i> tell me what happened so
+I can help you."</p>
+
+<p>"Why&mdash;he&mdash;he pushed me backward and I must have hit something when I
+fell. The back of my<a class="pagenum" name="page_237" id="page_237" title="237"></a> head is very sore and my head aches terribly&mdash;and
+I'm a little sick at my stomach."</p>
+
+<p>"Let me see your head," said Roger peremptorily. He parted the mass of
+bronze brown hair, wondering even in his anger and pity at its softness
+and thickness. It was not difficult to locate the great lump at the base
+of the skull.</p>
+
+<p>"He might have killed you if it hadn't been for your hair. The skin
+isn't broken. Be still, Charley, till I get a basin of water and a
+towel."</p>
+
+<p>He was back in a moment and sitting down on the edge of the couch, he
+attempted to bathe the swelling. But Charley groaned in agony at the
+first touch, so he gave that up and bathed her face and wrist awkwardly
+but very gently.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess it's my turn to say 'Poor Child,'" Roger murmured.</p>
+
+<p>The quick tears sprang to Charley's eyes. At this moment Dick gave an
+incoherent shout. Charley gripped Roger's hand.</p>
+
+<p>"It's all right," he said. "He can't get out, the whelp!"</p>
+
+<p>"Roger! Don't hurt him. Promise me you won't hurt him!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hurt him!" Roger burst forth. "How can you be so foolish! He ought to
+be beaten within an inch of his life. He's gotten drunk on cologne!"</p>
+
+<p>"Roger, he's never been this bad before. He's been growing slowly better
+all these years. He never struck me before."</p>
+
+<p>"And you've been living with a drunkard all these years who might have
+killed you. You knew this, yet<a class="pagenum" name="page_238" id="page_238" title="238"></a> you let little Felicia come to you. How
+could you do it?" Roger paced up and down the floor.</p>
+
+<p>Charley looked at him piteously, but he went on, his voice growing
+louder.</p>
+
+<p>"You must know that a periodic drunkard is the worst kind and almost
+never cured. I thought you were unafraid of truth, but you've been
+living just like a sentimental woman, after all."</p>
+
+<p>Charley raised her hands and dropped them as if in despair. "I promised
+mother I'd never leave him. And he's put up a fight. Oh, you'll never
+know what a fight! And I love him. He's a dear when he's not drinking."</p>
+
+<p>Dick roared again and Roger stared at Charley's sick white face.</p>
+
+<p>"Promise me you won't hurt him, Roger."</p>
+
+<p>"How can I promise when I know if I get another glimpse of him I'll
+break every bone in his carcass?"</p>
+
+<p>Again Charley dropped her hands with that despairing gesture. "Then how
+can I help fearing your dreadful temper as much as I do Dick's drinking?
+What difference is there?"</p>
+
+<p>Roger jumped as if she had struck him. "You can't mean that! You're sick
+and unstrung and don't know what you're saying. I'll go after Ern."</p>
+
+<p>"I have to mean it," insisted Charley wearily, "after seeing you that
+time with Gustav."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not like Dick!" shouted Roger. "I wouldn't touch a woman or a
+child!"</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know you wouldn't?" asked Charley.</p>
+
+<p>A sudden burning recollection of the little boy who had struck his
+mother's hand from his shoulder flashed through Roger's mind. He groaned
+and dropped his<a class="pagenum" name="page_239" id="page_239" title="239"></a> head. Charley did not speak and for some moments Roger
+did not move. Then he came over to the couch and said quietly:</p>
+
+<p>"I'll not hurt Dick. Where did he get the cologne, Charley?"</p>
+
+<p>"He must have found it in Elsa's room. I didn't know she had it, or I'd
+have put it away. And now, every one will know! Oh, Roger, must they all
+know?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see how it can be helped. But you can be sure none of us will
+say more than has to be said. Charley, I'm going to get Peter and take
+you down to the Plant for the night. You need absolute rest and quiet
+and you can't get it so near Dick."</p>
+
+<p>"And Dick?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dick must fend for himself in the tool shack. I'll put a canteen of
+water and a blanket in there and by morning he'll be ready for
+conversation."</p>
+
+<p>"But he won't be. Drink makes him terribly sick. His stomach is very
+bad. That's why I always say it's stomach trouble. He ought to be taken
+care of to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"He'll stay where he is and by himself," said Roger, grimly. "When I
+have a temper fit the next time, you can do the same by me. Lord, I'm
+glad Elsa is here! You lie quiet while I go milk."</p>
+
+<p>When he had put the milk away he found that Charley had braided her hair
+but was still very white and shaken. Dick's shouts and curses floated in
+at the open door. Roger tied the little bundle of night things she had
+made up to the saddle and helped her to mount. She swayed dizzily and he
+put a strong, steadying arm about her. They made their way very slowly
+and<a class="pagenum" name="page_240" id="page_240" title="240"></a> Roger heaved a sigh of relief when they were finally beyond ear
+shot of poor Dick.</p>
+
+<p>Elsa met them a short distance from the camp. "Hello, Charley," she
+said. "Felicia has just fallen asleep."</p>
+
+<p>Roger nodded and at the living-tent door, helped Charley from the
+saddle. "Get this patient to sleep too, Elsa, if you can."</p>
+
+<p>Elsa's eyes filled with tears as she looked at Charley. "You poor dear,"
+she said, "come and let me take care of you."</p>
+
+<p>One touch of a woman's sympathy, after her starved years, was too much
+for Charley. She burst into deep drawn sobs. Elsa, motioning Roger away,
+put her arm about the girl and led her into the tent.</p>
+
+<p>Roger paced up and down in the sand for a while, listening to the low
+despairing sobs from the tent. Then he unsaddled Peter and put a huge
+bottle of water to heat. He had heard somewhere that women took great
+comfort in a cup of tea.</p>
+
+<p>Roger passed rather a restless night. He had put Elsa's cot which she
+never had used, in the living tent so that Elsa could be close to her
+two patients, and himself put in the night in Gustav's shack which was
+built against the kitchen tent.</p>
+
+<p>It was early July and the summer's heat was at its height. Three times
+between midnight and dawn Roger scratched a match and looked at the
+thermometer. It never registered below 118&deg;. Even the night wind did not
+rise. The silence of the desert was complete as though torridity had
+overwhelmed every other aspect of nature. The stars were magnificent and
+for an hour or so, hoping to find the air outside cooler,<a class="pagenum" name="page_241" id="page_241" title="241"></a> Roger put a
+blanket on the work bench near the condenser and lay there, his face to
+the sky.</p>
+
+<p>He wanted to keep his mind fastened lucidly on his engine problem, but
+he found it impossible to put away the events of the day. Dick's bestial
+voice, Charley's white, proud face, little Felicia's clinging arms,
+Charley's sobs from the living tent and her bitter words concerning his
+temper. These words he pondered unwillingly for some time, following
+with his eye the constellations of the Great Bear. Finally he rolled on
+his face with a groan. Perhaps she was right. God knew though that he'd
+fought the red demon within him. After a time he rolled back. Felicia
+had not wakened for her supper. She had slept straight through. It was a
+great pity, he thought, that she should have seen Dick drunk, that she
+should have seen him knock Charley down. He wondered if there were any
+way he could make her forget it. Then with a deep flush in the starlight
+he wished to God she had not seen him lose his temper like a fool.
+Felicia! tender, high strung little Felicia!</p>
+
+<p>At last when the stars were growing dim, Roger fell asleep. He rose at
+sunrise, and went up to the ranch. Dick was lying on the adobe floor of
+the tent house, evidently very sick and very cross.</p>
+
+<p>"How'd I come in here? Send Charley to me!" he snarled.</p>
+
+<p>"I will, like thunder, you drunken bum! You did your best to beat up
+both of your sisters. I'm going to keep them at the Sun Plant until some
+new arrangement can be made. The best I can do for you is to leave this
+door open. Fend for yourself, hang you!" And Roger walked off to do the
+milking.<a class="pagenum" name="page_242" id="page_242" title="242"></a></p>
+
+<p>When he had finished milking he glanced in at the open door of the tool
+house. Dick lay where Roger had left him, staring with eyes of feverish
+agony at the roof above his head. Roger, without a word, went back to
+the plant. To his relief, Felicia appeared at the breakfast table, very
+hungry and quite herself. But Charley was not able to get up. It seemed
+as if the long years of strain had culminated in yesterday's events, and
+that Charley had no will-power left.</p>
+
+<p>The girl lay on Ernest's cot, the tent flap lifted beside her, with no
+apparent desire save to stare at the desert dancing in heat waves
+against the sky. What thoughts were passing behind those quiet brown
+eyes, no one knew.</p>
+
+<p>It was mid-morning when Roger went in to see her. He pulled a box up
+beside the cot. "Well, old dear," he said. "How is the head?"</p>
+
+<p>Charley smiled. "Sore and aching, but better than during the night. I am
+so tired and that's very unusual. I'm always so strong."</p>
+
+<p>Roger nodded. "It was a bad knock, to leave you senseless for half an
+hour. I suspect you ought to take pretty good care of yourself for
+several days. I've been talking with Elsa and she thinks you ought to
+stay here for a few days. And I do too. Don't worry about Dick. I saw
+him this morning and he'll be himself by sundown. And I've promised
+Elsa I won't see him again until after she does."</p>
+
+<p>Charley eyed Roger's long brown face as if taking in the full
+significance of all he had said. Then she gave a little sigh of relief.</p>
+
+<p>"If I could rest here in this peaceful tent, just for a day or two."<a class="pagenum" name="page_243" id="page_243" title="243"></a></p>
+
+<p>"The tent's all right at night, but I've moved Gustav's cot into the
+engine house, and I'm going to help you over there. It's ten degrees
+cooler than here. Elsa and Felicia are established there and I won't
+disturb you for I'm drawing, which act is noiseless."</p>
+
+<p>In a dim corner of the adobe engine house in Gustav's cot Charley spent
+the day. Elsa, when she was not playing housekeeper sat beside her with
+her sewing and Felicia visited between the cot and Roger's drawing
+board.</p>
+
+<p>Once when Charley seemed to be in an uneasy sleep, Felicia asked Roger,
+"Is Charley very sick?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not really sick at all, chicken. She's just tired. She's worked too
+hard for you and Dick."</p>
+
+<p>Felicia stared at him with her innocent, speculative gaze so like
+Charley's, yet so unlike.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't we live here with you, instead of up at the ranch, Roger? I know
+Charley would like it better."</p>
+
+<p>"You can stay and make us a visit, anyhow. Then we'll see."</p>
+
+<p>At sunset, after the dishes were finished and Charley had moved back to
+the living tent for the night, Elsa went up to the ranch house. She was
+gone a long time. Charley was dozing and Felicia asleep. Roger prowled
+up and down the camp closely followed by Peter until he could bear the
+suspense no longer. A sudden fear that Dick might have discovered more
+liquor somewhere started him along the ranch trail. He met Elsa just as
+the afterglow disappeared and the parching night came down like a star
+dotted curtain. She came trudging through the sand as if she were tired.</p>
+
+<p>"It does seem as if I'd wilt with the heat,"<a class="pagenum" name="page_244" id="page_244" title="244"></a> she exclaimed. "You
+needn't have worried about me, Roger. Dick came back with me till we saw
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"He did, huh! Then he's neither drunk nor dead?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rog! Don't say such awful things about the poor fellow."</p>
+
+<p>"Poor fellow! You didn't see Charley lying on the floor as I did. Well,
+what has he to say for himself?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's in an awful state of mind. He was trying to cook some supper when
+I got there. He'd succeeded in milking. When he saw me, he gasped. 'Is
+Charley sick?' and dropped the kettle of water he was lifting."</p>
+
+<p>"I told him just what you had seen and what an exhausted state Charley's
+nerves seemed to be in. He just stood and took it looking like a sick
+cat. When I had finished he asked what you had said and I told him and
+he sort of groaned, 'You women should have let Roger beat me to death.
+Why did you interfere?' Poor Dick!"</p>
+
+<p>Elsa drew a long breath and was silent for a moment before she began
+again. "He's in a most awful frame of mind. He's like a man who knows he
+has fits of insanity and feels perfectly helpless to prevent them. He
+cried and cried while he told me how he had fought drink. I never knew
+any one could suffer so. He's much more to be pitied than Charley."</p>
+
+<p>"Huh! Women!" grunted Roger. "Why, he's just the usual thing in drunks,
+you little ninny. What's he going to do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I want Charley to give him one more chance."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought so! Well, he doesn't get it."<a class="pagenum" name="page_245" id="page_245" title="245"></a></p>
+
+<p>"But, Roger, you can't prevent it. And he's not going into Archer's
+Springs again. He's going to let us do his errands. That's where the
+trouble has been."</p>
+
+<p>"Except when he drinks cologne."</p>
+
+<p>"What makes you so hard, Roger?"</p>
+
+<p>"I saw Charley lying where Dick had knocked her down. And I felt little
+Felicia almost in convulsions from fear. Let him keep out of my sight
+until I can forget that."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, all I can do is to advise, anyhow," said Elsa. "Dick is
+coming down in the morning and take his medicine. He insists on it. He's
+a fine man, Roger, in many ways."</p>
+
+<p>"You've not seen him drunk," returned Roger. "Commend me to a woman
+every time for sentimentality."</p>
+
+<p>"There are other weaknesses men have than drunkenness that their
+sentimentality helps women to endure, aren't there, Roger?" asked Elsa
+quietly. Roger dropped Elsa's arm and left her without a word.</p>
+
+<p>He was at work in the engine house, the next morning when Dick came
+slowly down the trail and was led by Elsa into the living tent. Then she
+went off to the cook tent with Felicia. Roger, working with strained
+concentration on his engine, heard on the one side the low murmur of
+Dick's and Charley's voices and on the other Felicia's occasional happy
+laugh above Elsa's little songs. After perhaps an hour, Dick came out
+and went to the cook tent and in a moment Felicia came flying into the
+engine house and threw her arms around Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"I won't stay where Dicky is," she panted. "I won't!"<a class="pagenum" name="page_246" id="page_246" title="246"></a></p>
+
+<p>The child was trembling violently. Roger sat down and held her to his
+heart.</p>
+
+<p>"Dick won't hurt you, honey, now. It's only when he's sick."</p>
+
+<p>Felicia shuddered. "He slapped me and he knocked Charley over with his
+fist and in the night I dream about it. I am going to live with you. You
+won't get mad again like you did with Gustav, will you, Roger?"</p>
+
+<p>Roger bowed his forehead on the soft bronze brown head that rested so
+confidently on his breast.</p>
+
+<p>"You do love poor old Roger, don't you, sweetheart?" he asked, brokenly.</p>
+
+<p>As if she sensed some secret pain, Felicia turned and put her arms about
+him and kissed him softly on the lips. "I love you as much as I do
+Charley. Don't send me back to Dicky, dearest Roger."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't." Roger's lips tightened grimly.</p>
+
+<p>Charley came out to lunch that noon, looking much stronger.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm so grateful to you, Roger and Elsa," she said, "and after I've
+helped with the dishes, if you'll loan me Peter, we'll go home."</p>
+
+<p>Roger dropped his knife and fork, then looked at Felicia. "Felicia, you
+know Roger's trunk? Well, if you'll run to the living tent and open the
+trunk and take all the things out of it, at the very bottom you'll find
+some Christmas cake Elsa made last year. Then put all the things back
+carefully and bring the cake here."</p>
+
+<p>Felicia gave an ecstatic "Oh, Roger!" and disappeared. Roger turned to
+Charley.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to say one more thing. Do you realize<a class="pagenum" name="page_247" id="page_247" title="247"></a> fully that in living
+with Dick you jeopardize both yours and Felicia's lives?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, Roger! He never touched us before. It was the poison in that
+cologne."</p>
+
+<p>Roger shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"How can you be so hard?" pleaded Charley. "Dick's my own flesh and
+blood. It might have been I instead of Dick with this appetite. You're
+hard, Roger."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not hard. I'm disappointed. I didn't think you were a
+sentimentalist."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder," exclaimed Elsa, "how women will ever get time to vote when
+it takes all their time to make men endurable to live with. My word! I'm
+glad I haven't one of the critters!"</p>
+
+<p>She said this with such heartfelt sincerity that Charley laughed and
+Roger joined her. By the time Felicia came running back with the
+Christmas cake, the atmosphere was considerably lighter.</p>
+
+<p>"We're going home, Felicia! Aren't you glad I'm well again?" said
+Charley. "And haven't the Sun Planters been kind?"</p>
+
+<p>Felicia whitened under her tan.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but, Charley, I'm not going. I don't have to, do I, Roger? I'm so
+afraid of Dicky. He slapped me twice, Charley, and he knocked you over
+with his fist. Oh, let me stay with Roger!"</p>
+
+<p>Charley gasped. "Oh, Felicia! Felicia! Oh, my little Felicia!"</p>
+
+<p>Roger spoke quickly. "Why not let her stay for a little visit, Charley?
+I'll finish Elsa's tent this afternoon and she can share that with Elsa,
+till her nerves become normal."<a class="pagenum" name="page_248" id="page_248" title="248"></a></p>
+
+<p>"But I'm going up to stay with Charley," said Elsa; "that's part of the
+cure."</p>
+
+<p>"Then let her stay alone. She'll be safe and happy with me," replied
+Roger. "Dick deserves punishment."</p>
+
+<p>Charley looked at Roger, then at Felicia. "I think that's a good idea,"
+she said, slowly.</p>
+
+<p>And so when Ernest and Gustav came home that night, they found Felicia
+watching the camp fire beside Roger, and after she was asleep in her
+tent, they heard the whole story. Ernest was indignant at the thought of
+Elsa's staying on at the ranch.</p>
+
+<p>"I am going to be firm with her in the morning," he said.</p>
+
+<p>But Elsa's firmness was greater than Ernest's and shortly the two
+households had settled down and Dick was gradually reinstated in every
+one's good graces but Roger's. Felicia stayed on for a week, to the joy
+of the three camp mates who spoiled her outrageously. Then one Saturday
+evening Dick came down and he and Felicia had a long talk, at the end of
+which Felicia said good-by to Roger, Ernest and Gustav, and returned to
+the ranch, quite happily.</p>
+
+<hr class="major" />
+<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em">
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_249" id="page_249" title="249"></a>
+<a name="DICKYS_LAST_BOUT_8234" id="DICKYS_LAST_BOUT_8234"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+<h3>DICKY'S LAST BOUT</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>The fact that the engine had fallen below expectations brought the Sun
+Planters' food problem into prominence again. When Elsa had begun
+housekeeping for the men she had protested over the meagerness and the
+simplicity of the food supplies. But Roger had explained their situation
+frankly and Elsa had proceeded to make good German magic over the canned
+food of which the camp had been so weary.</p>
+
+<p>"The Lord knows," exclaimed Ernest at the breakfast table one morning,
+"how long we'll be tied up in this Hades. If Roger's begun puttering on
+the engine we may be here ten years."</p>
+
+<p>"This isn't Hades, Ern!" exclaimed Elsa. "I'm having the time of my
+life."</p>
+
+<p>"I notice that Dick's down here a good deal," said Ernest, slyly, "and I
+suppose that adds to the hilarity of the nations."</p>
+
+<p>"By the way," Elsa ignored her brother except for a blush, "what are we
+going to do about the food problem, Ern? All the cotton-tails and quail
+that Gustav shoots, won't keep us much longer."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you suppose Hackett would let us run a bill with him and take a
+mortgage on the outfit here as security? Of course, I haven't any right
+to give a<a class="pagenum" name="page_250" id="page_250" title="250"></a> mortgage but I'll explain the whole situation to him."
+Roger's voice had a desperate note in it.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that is worth the try, eh?" said Gustav. "Me, I might borrow a
+little yet, from a friend in the East."</p>
+
+<p>"You'll do nothing of the kind, Gustav," exclaimed Roger. "You're far
+from home and you may need all your borrowing power for yourself&mdash;not
+but what I appreciate your offer, old man!"</p>
+
+<p>"I've got a little&mdash;my fare home and about a hundred beside," offered
+Elsa.</p>
+
+<p>"Keep it, old girl," Roger's voice was husky. "By Jove, I may be poor in
+everything else, but I'm rich in friends. Ern, what do you think of my
+suggestion?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I hate debt worse than anything in the world. But we're in this
+thing up to our necks and I'm willing to try anything that's honest. If
+Hackett knows the whole story&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"He knows it now, I guess, but I'll give him all the details. I may as
+well go in to-day and get a yes or no at once."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll go," said Ernest. "I'd like to and you'd better not lose a day."</p>
+
+<p>Roger nodded in a relieved manner.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen! There goes the Lemon!" exclaimed Elsa. "I do hope she goes
+to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"Put! Put!" came over the desert. "Put! Put! Put!"</p>
+
+<p>"I guess she's launched and I've got a clear day for work." Roger rose
+as he spoke. "Dick's having a struggle to get enough water for that
+second five acres of his. He insists that he's going ahead with the next
+five, though."<a class="pagenum" name="page_251" id="page_251" title="251"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Elsa, want to go into Archer's with me?" asked Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>"Sorry, Ern, but I'm going to help Charley can pumpkins to-day. She
+planted some for luck up by the engine house where the pump leaks, you
+remember, and the crop is wonderful."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well, if you prefer pumpkins to me and Archer's Springs, I've
+nothing to say," groaned Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll go," offered Gustav. "I haf letters and other things."</p>
+
+<p>Ernest accepted the offer with alacrity. He was beginning to recover
+some of his old spirits but he had not been himself since Charley's
+refusal. Roger had never known Ernest to take one of his affairs quite
+so hard before. He dreaded to be alone and was often moody: a rare state
+of mind for easy going Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>The two men made a quick and successful trip to Archer's, for Hackett
+agreed to sell them food to the sum of two hundred dollars. He didn't
+see how a mortgage could be given but he was willing to take Roger's
+personal note for ninety days. This Roger gave with some misgivings but
+with a sigh of relief that the day of starvation had been put off once
+more. Then he gave his whole mind to his engine problem.</p>
+
+<p>He was planning some changes in his engine that were fundamental and
+that were really the outcome of his early trip through the ranges in the
+search for window glass. He worked at his redesigning with a single
+minded passion that set him apart from the others. All of them except
+Felicia found him tense and at times irritable.</p>
+
+<p>As August came in, the beauty of the desert seemed to increase daily.
+The heat, whilst it added to one's<a class="pagenum" name="page_252" id="page_252" title="252"></a> sense of the desert's cruelty, added
+at the same time to the unreality and to the mystery of silence and of
+distances that are so large a part of the desert's fascination.</p>
+
+<p>The sand was alive with an uncanny, tiny life. Horned toads flopped
+unexpectedly across the trail. Lizards were everywhere, running over and
+under the tent floors and along the thatching of the condenser and the
+engine house. There were many rattlesnakes too, particularly dangerous
+at this time of year because, Dick said, they were shedding their skins
+and were blind, striking at any sound. There were Gila monsters now and
+again. There were many scorpions and centipedes, with once in a while a
+tarantula.</p>
+
+<p>Dick and Charley laid down certain laws of the summer desert. No one was
+to go to bed without examining the bedding for tarantulas or centipedes.
+No one was to dress without subjecting every article of apparel to the
+same scrutiny. No one was to go out at night without a "bug" for fear of
+the blind striking of a rattler. Every one must learn to kill a snake
+with a snake stick. And every one, even Felicia, must learn to treat
+snake bites.</p>
+
+<p>Elsa, clear-headed and matter of fact, was very little annoyed by all
+this gliding venomous summer life. But little Felicia's horror of it was
+difficult to control. It seemed to Roger that the child's nerves had
+been uneven ever since the "cologne affair," as Ernest called it. But he
+could not be sure of this, for Charley insisted that the little girl's
+fears of all that uncanny fraternity of the sand was exactly what hers
+had been four years before.</p>
+
+<p>August was slipping by, quietly enough when Gustav,<a class="pagenum" name="page_253" id="page_253" title="253"></a> returning one day
+from Archer's Springs, delivered to Roger a letter from Hampton of the
+Smithsonian saying that on the thirtieth day of August a representative
+of the Smithsonian would reach Archer's Springs on his way to Los
+Angeles; that he had but two days to spare but would be glad to give
+these days to the Moore experiment.</p>
+
+<p>Roger was in despair. "Two days!" he groaned. "Why, it takes two days to
+come up and back. Better stay away."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be an idiot, Rog," exclaimed Ernest. "You get him here, and he'll
+stay for a day or so. How can he get away? The thing that bothers me is
+that darned engine of yours."</p>
+
+<p>"It doesn't bother me," replied Roger, with a quick gleam in his gray
+eyes and a sudden smile. "I've got a week before he gets here and by
+Jove, the old kettle's got to be ready!" He gave a sudden long sigh and
+looked off toward the distant line of the river range. "I thought it was
+queer of the Smithsonian to treat me as it did. Ern, this puts new life
+in me."</p>
+
+<p>If new life means redoubled effort, Roger had found it indeed. He gave
+himself as little sleep as possible during the week before the expected
+visit. All day and a larger part of the night he was at work in the
+engine house, till his eyes were bigger and his face gaunter than ever.
+Felicia was his little shadow. Her taste for mechanics made her seem
+more like a small boy than ever. And although Roger's tense nerves grew
+tenser and his impatience with the others was shown oftener and oftener,
+to Felicia he showed only the gentleness for which she loved him.</p>
+
+<p>Charley and Elsa were forming a real friendship.<a class="pagenum" name="page_254" id="page_254" title="254"></a> The isolation of the
+little desert community was almost complete. Since the death of Von
+Minden no one from the outer rim of the desert or of the world had been
+near either camp or ranch. Even the Indians who had been camping in the
+remote canyon where Felicia had visited them had found good hunting in
+some still more remote section and never had appeared in the camp. This
+isolation forced the friendship between the two young women to a quick
+growth. Charley was happier, Dick said, than he had seen her since her
+college days.</p>
+
+<p>Two days before the visitor was due, Roger announced that one day's work
+would make him ready for a test, so that, and he did not believe that he
+was over-confident, when Gustav arrived with the Smithsonian
+investigator, the plant would be in full action. He made this
+announcement at breakfast. Ernest and Gustav cheered.</p>
+
+<p>"I never thought you'd make it," said Gustav.</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>had</i> to make it," replied Roger. "I have the conviction that if this
+man, whoever he is, sees the plant working, the thing will be done, and
+that if he doesn't find the wheels going round, I'm going to miss the
+chance of my life."</p>
+
+<p>"If the heat would just let up for a little while," sighed Ernest. "If
+he's a northerner, it may put him out of business."</p>
+
+<p>"Pshaw! they'll send an experienced man, never fear!" Roger poured
+himself another cup of coffee. "Hello! Here's a caller!"</p>
+
+<p>It was Qui-tha, riding a half-starved pony whose mangy sides were
+working in the early morning sun like a pair of bellows.<a class="pagenum" name="page_255" id="page_255" title="255"></a></p>
+
+<p>He dismounted and grinned affably. "How! You give Qui-tha more strong
+medicine, maybe!"</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, Qui-tha, I'll give you all the strong medicine you want, if
+you'll stay and help me for a week," cried Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>Qui-tha shook his head. "No got time to work. Must go back to Injun camp
+take care of sick Injun. Qui-tha heap big medicine man, now."</p>
+
+<p>"All right!" Ernest shrugged his shoulders. "No work, no strong
+medicine."</p>
+
+<p>Qui-tha shrugged his shoulders and remounting, he started on up the
+trail to the ranch house. Elsa reported later in the day that Dick,
+having no peroxide, had promised to get some from Archer's Springs if
+Qui-tha would do a day's work for him. Qui-tha, she said, was giving the
+matter due consideration.</p>
+
+<p>Late that evening, while Roger and Gustav were working at the little
+forge, Ernest came out of the living tent where he had been writing
+letters.</p>
+
+<p>"Did you fellows hear a gun shot a little bit ago?" he asked. "You two
+are making such an infernal racket, I can't tell what it was."</p>
+
+<p>Roger and Gustav both stopped work and listened. The desert was
+breathlessly silent.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you sure?" asked Roger. "Did you think it might have been at the
+ranch?"</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't tell. It may have been nothing at all but you folks here.
+But if I hear it again, I'm going up there."</p>
+
+<p>It was fifteen or twenty minutes later that Elsa's voice came from the
+trail.</p>
+
+<p>"Ernest! Roger! Gustav!"</p>
+
+<p>The three men started on a run to meet her. A<a class="pagenum" name="page_256" id="page_256" title="256"></a> dark figure in the
+starlight, she staggered exhausted toward them.</p>
+
+<p>"The Indian&mdash;had whiskey&mdash;he and Dick both drunk. The Indian shot
+Dick&mdash;in the leg and ran away."</p>
+
+<p>"Did he hurt you girls?" cried Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bit. But Dick's terrible. We've got him in his bedroom. But if
+his leg didn't prevent him he'd climb out of the window."</p>
+
+<p>As she spoke, she turned back toward the ranch with the men. "You go
+ahead. I'm all in and will follow slowly," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Not with that Indian around in the desert," exclaimed Ernest. "Gustav,
+you come along with Elsa and Roger and I'll run for it."</p>
+
+<p>They could hear Dick's roars as they neared the adobe. When they burst
+breathlessly into the living room, Charley was standing by the door
+holding in place a chair which hung on the knob and against the door
+jamb made an effective bolt.</p>
+
+<p>"Is he armed?" asked Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"No," replied Charley. "There's the only gun in the house," pointing to
+the one on the table. "And Qui-tha had his with him as he ran out of the
+house."</p>
+
+<p>Roger turned to Ernest. "We could just leave him in there alone to wake
+up, if there wasn't danger of his bleeding to death. Come on, Ern.
+Remember he's as strong as a bear and be ready to jump him with me. Get
+some clean rags and water, Charley, and bring them in when we call. And
+keep Gustav out. He'll faint."</p>
+
+<p>They slid quickly into Dick's room, closing the door behind them. Dick
+lay on the bed, blood oozing<a class="pagenum" name="page_257" id="page_257" title="257"></a> through his pants leg below the knee. He
+seemed too sick to move, but Roger would take no chances.</p>
+
+<p>"Ern, you hold his hands above his head while I cut off that pants leg."</p>
+
+<p>The precautions were unnecessary. Dick lay muttering and limp while
+Roger uncovered a nasty wound that had plowed to the bone down Dick's
+skin.</p>
+
+<p>"Qui-tha must have been at close quarters when that happened," said
+Ernest. "You'll need help, Roger. Hand me that towel and I'll tie his
+hands."</p>
+
+<p>Roger handed Ernest the towel, then went out for the rags and water.
+Gustav and Elsa had arrived. He had hardly answered them that Dick's
+wound was not very serious when there was a sudden uproar. Dick had gone
+amuck again and even the girls had to be called into service to help
+with the bandaging while the men held him quiet.</p>
+
+<p>By the time the blood flow was staunched and the rude bandaging
+finished, Dick had subsided into a drunken stupor, from which, in spite
+of his evident pain, there seemed little danger of his rousing for some
+hours. Leaving Gustav to watch, the others withdrew to the living room.</p>
+
+<p>"What have you done with Felicia?" asked Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"She's slept through it all, thank heaven," replied Charley. "I ran into
+her room as soon as Qui-tha had clattered away and she was sound asleep.
+So I just locked the door. I'll go in now and attend to her."</p>
+
+<p>She picked up a candle and tiptoed into the bedroom. There was a
+moment's hush, then Charley rushed back into the living room.</p>
+
+<p>"She's not there! Felicia!" Her voice rising to a scream. "Felicia!
+Where are you?"<a class="pagenum" name="page_258" id="page_258" title="258"></a></p>
+
+<p>Elsa ran wildly into the bedroom followed by the others. The little room
+was empty. Felicia's nightdress lay in a heap on the floor. The clothing
+she had taken off was gone. A quick search of the house, then of the
+outbuildings was made. To no avail. Some one gasped:</p>
+
+<p>"Qui-tha!"</p>
+
+<p>But Charley who had recovered her self control, vetoed this idea at
+once. "An Indian isn't like that! Roger, she climbed out of the window
+to run to you."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll go down there at once," replied Roger. "The rest of you keep on
+calling and searching around here."</p>
+
+<p>"Ride old Nell," Charley suggested, as Roger hurried away.</p>
+
+<p>But Felicia was not at the Sun Plant, nor did Roger's stentorian shouts
+raise any reply save faint howls from a coyote pack. With a sinking
+heart he rode back to the ranch and called in the others whose lights
+were flashing about the mountainside.</p>
+
+<p>"If she started for our camp," he said, "I don't see how she could have
+wandered away. She knows that trail so well."</p>
+
+<p>"But she has never taken it alone after dark." Elsa's voice was
+uncertain. "And she's so little! And it was so dark to-night, I kept
+wandering off the trail myself."</p>
+
+<p>"Let's not waste time surmising!" exclaimed Ernest, impatiently.</p>
+
+<p>"But we must use a little system," returned Roger. "Girls, you patrol
+the trail up and down between the Sun Plant and here. I've left a
+lighted 'bug' in the tent. You both carry 'bugs' and extra candles and<a class="pagenum" name="page_259" id="page_259" title="259"></a>
+keep calling. The moon will soon be rising, and that will help. Gustav,
+you make a big circle round the camp as far out as you can keep the tent
+light in sight. Ern, you follow the Archer's Springs trail a mile or so,
+then swing inside of Gustav's circle and cover all the arroyas and rock
+heaps you can. I'm going to take the mountain trail. Everybody get
+something for a tourniquet. At sun up, come back here. If you can find
+her, or even get her trail, fire three shots."</p>
+
+<p>Elsa gave a little sob, but Charley was tearless. As they started for
+their respective stations, she asked: "How about Dick?"</p>
+
+<p>Roger flushed a deep red. "Dick rots for all I care until we find
+Felicia."</p>
+
+<p>No one commented on this and shortly the desert was dotted with slow
+moving fingers of light. Roger, as he panted up and down the
+mountainside, knew that never would he forget the wistful melancholy of
+those thin calls that rose and fell all night, now in Gustav's, or
+Ernest's deep notes, now in the high treble tones of Elsa or Charlotte.
+"Felicia! Felicia! Felicia!" But Felicia did not answer.</p>
+
+<p>With the dawn, the wind rose, and there began that perpetual shifting
+and sifting of the sand which in a few hours more, Roger knew, would
+obliterate the little girl's trail, although it was only a summer wind
+which would die down by mid-morning.</p>
+
+<p>At sun up, a weary eyed, hoarse and hectic group gathered in the living
+room of the adobe.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said Roger, "you girls get three or four hours' sleep, then one
+of you go down to the Plant and one of you stay here. We three men will
+take a day's water and grub supply and keep to the general<a class="pagenum" name="page_260" id="page_260" title="260"></a> beats we had
+last night. I can't believe, unless Qui-tha got her, that she wandered
+very far."</p>
+
+<p>"But I saw her after Qui-tha had gone. If a rattler struck her she&mdash;"
+Charley stopped.</p>
+
+<p>"How long does a person live after a rattler bite?" asked Ernest, with
+stiff lips.</p>
+
+<p>"A Mexican who worked for us three years ago lived twelve hours but he
+was unconscious most of the time," replied Charley.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, you girls go cook a little breakfast," said Gustav, hastily, "and
+ve vill do the chores, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>They ate a hasty meal in the kitchen a little later. No one talked.
+Charley patted Elsa's shoulder in a helpless way when Elsa now and again
+burst into tears. They had finished their preparation for the renewal of
+the search when Dick called from the bedroom. Charley went to him,
+closing the door after her. What she said the others did not know but
+there was silence in the bedroom for some moments after she came out.
+Then there was a confusion of sounds and Dick dragged himself on his
+hands and knees into the kitchen. He pulled himself up into the chair by
+the table. The others stood silently looking at him.</p>
+
+<p>"O God!" he groaned. "O God in Heaven!"</p>
+
+<p>Still no one spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"Hurry!" he shouted. "What are you waiting for? She may be dead now!
+Hurry, you fools!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to stay here, Dick," said Elsa.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll not! To hell with me!" Dick paused and lifted a shaking hand to
+his eyes for a moment. "Rog, you go along the foot of the range and
+search every canyon. Watch every spot of shade. I've warned her so often
+about desert sun."<a class="pagenum" name="page_261" id="page_261" title="261"></a></p>
+
+<p>Roger nodded and started off, Peter following him with a good supply of
+water and food on his back. Ernest and Gustav were to use the two
+horses.</p>
+
+<p>The sun rose higher and higher, crossed the zenith and traveled toward
+the River Range. Roger, with dogged thoroughness, followed the trail
+suggested by Dick. He was numb with fear. Remotely he recalled that
+somehow he had been expecting this to be a decisive day in his history
+but it was only a fleeting memory. Every sense that he possessed was
+concentrated on finding Felicia. At noon, he ate and drank something,
+then lay down in the shade of a canyon to sleep for an hour or so, with
+Peter standing like a little gray bodyguard beside him. At three he was
+plodding on his way again, around cactus thicket, up and down washouts,
+over rockheaps, talking to Peter when the silence became unendurable, or
+his voice refused to rise longer with Felicia's name. He could with
+difficulty urge his body on through the burning heat. What then of a
+tender little girl? In this summer sun of the desert a man without water
+for twenty-four hours would die. What of Felicia?</p>
+
+<p>By sun down he had covered several miles on either side of the ranch. He
+was covered with dust and his lips were cracking in spite of his free
+use of the canteen. He was tired to the very bones of him. The hot sand
+had blistered his feet. The cholla had torn his hands. When the sudden
+blackness of night descended, he determined to rest once more until the
+moon rose. He did not think that he was more than a mile from the ranch,
+but as there was still plenty of food and water, and as he was within
+ear-reach of possible gun-shots, there was no point in going home for<a class="pagenum" name="page_262" id="page_262" title="262"></a>
+the few hours' rest. He removed Peter's pack, gave him some oats and a
+mouthful of water, then started a tiny fire of greasewood twigs. It was
+very hot but Roger had seen several rattlers during the day and the idea
+of lying down in utter darkness did not appeal to him.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, he did not sleep after all. He sat, wide-eyed, feeding the tiny
+blaze, trying to develop some new theory on the little girl's sudden
+disappearance. He had been pondering this for an hour when there came
+the sound of footsteps stumbling through the sand. He jumped trembling
+to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Felicia! Oh, Felicia!" he cried.</p>
+
+<p>"No! No! It's Charley!" a hoarse voice answered and in a moment Charley
+appeared within the tiny circle of firelight. She was disheveled and
+pale, and evidently very, very tired, but still outwardly composed.</p>
+
+<p>"Sit down and rest," said Roger. "Here, I've been sitting on Peter's
+pack blanket. There's room for us both, I guess."</p>
+
+<p>Charley sank down with a grateful sigh and Roger, recalling his pipe,
+took it out, filled it and essayed several puffs, then established
+himself beside Charley.</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't stay indoors," she said. "Dick made us all lie down for a
+few hours' sleep, but I couldn't sleep. I thought perhaps she might have
+gone up the trail that she took when she went to find the Indians. If
+the Indian went down toward your camp, she would try to go in the
+opposite direction. And then, I got to wondering if she stole down to
+the camp, while we were all occupied with Dick, and finding it all dark,
+she got confused and&mdash;And then I wonder&mdash;"<a class="pagenum" name="page_263" id="page_263" title="263"></a></p>
+
+<p>Roger laid a quiet hand on the interlaced fingers with which Charley was
+clasping her knee.</p>
+
+<p>"Easy now, Charley, easy. Have you had your supper?" Charley turned to
+look at him. His own eyes filled at the glimpse he got of the misery in
+her deep eyes&mdash;Felicia's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I think I did," she answered.</p>
+
+<p>"That's fine! Now is any one staying down at the camp in case she
+wanders in there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Gustav's there."</p>
+
+<p>"All right! Good old Gustav. It seems to me your idea about the Indian
+trail is a good one. How did you come clear up here, when you were
+headed into the range."</p>
+
+<p>"My 'bug' went out and I'd lost my matches, so I wandered off the trail,
+I guess, till I saw your light."</p>
+
+<p>"My heavens, Charley. But it was a horrible risk you ran! You might
+have&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't scold," said Charley drearily. "What does it matter?"</p>
+
+<p>"I won't scold," replied Roger with a gentle note in his voice that no
+one but Felicia had ever heard. "Now, I tell you what we'll do. We'll
+just rest here until the moon comes up. Then we'll try the Indian trail.
+Let's spread this blanket so you can lie down."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to lie down. I just want to sit here by you. She loved you
+so."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Charley. I'll smoke and we'll buck each other up. How's
+Dick?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't really know. He won't let any of us touch him. He must be in
+great pain."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope so," said Roger bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>Charley made no reply. The process of bucking<a class="pagenum" name="page_264" id="page_264" title="264"></a> each other up did not
+proceed with much enthusiasm. The two sat brooding over the tiny blaze.
+Now and again Peter returned from a short foraging expedition and
+thrusting a soft nose over one of their shoulders waited to have his
+forehead rubbed, then started off again.</p>
+
+<p>Roger noted that Charley's pallor had given way to flushed cheeks, and
+suddenly he was aware that he too was parched and feverish; that try as
+he would to think, clearly, he could do nothing but wonder, impatiently,
+when the moon would rise and to fight down the picture that rose
+constantly of tiny Felicia wandering in an endless desert. Measuring the
+depth of his love for the child by the immensity of his fear, he was
+astounded by its greatness.</p>
+
+<hr class="major" />
+<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em">
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_265" id="page_265" title="265"></a>
+<a name="THE_GREAT_DIVIDE_8756" id="THE_GREAT_DIVIDE_8756"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+<h3>THE GREAT DIVIDE</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>The moon appeared at last and suddenly all the desert lay before them
+like molten silver. They rose, stiffly, and Charley helped Roger to
+replace the little pack on Peter. Roger led, Peter followed and Charley
+brought up in the rear. For hours, they toiled slowly up into the range,
+flashing their "bugs" into the shadows, stopping now and again to go
+over rock heap or cactus clump carefully, then on again, neither of them
+speaking, even to Peter, except to call at irregular intervals Felicia's
+name.</p>
+
+<p>Dawn found them high in the range, in a little canyon, sweet with a tiny
+spring about which grew mesquite and bear grass. The black ashes of old
+fires were there, but nothing else. Roger broke the silence of hours:</p>
+
+<p>"We're both going to get a sleep here, then I'm going to take you home.
+We're way out of the reach of gun sound. They might have found her, you
+know."</p>
+
+<p>They stood staring about them for a moment and listening. The
+unutterable silence of the desert was about them. Roger, eyes bloodshot,
+face unshaven, lips cracked, turned to Charley whose great eyes were
+sunk in her head, her lip colorless and drawn.<a class="pagenum" name="page_266" id="page_266" title="266"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Come," he said. "I'll cook the bacon and you unpack the rest of the
+grub. We simply haven't strength to get home without rest and food."</p>
+
+<p>Charley had the remainder of the food ready for Roger when the bacon was
+cooked. They ate in silence, then Charley lay down on the pack blanket
+while Roger stretched out in a drift of sand beyond the spring. In utter
+weariness they both slept, unmindful of danger from snakes or vermin.</p>
+
+<p>It was mid-morning when Roger woke. He sat up with a start and a sudden
+clear picture in his eyes of a spot in the desert where he had not
+searched. About a mile from the ranch and perhaps an eighth of a mile
+west of the trail at the base of the range was a little stone monument.
+Roger had observed it but it was too small to shelter even Felicia's
+small frame in its shadows, so he had not troubled to make a close
+observation of the flat desert round about it. The picture which had
+awakened him was an extraordinarily vivid one of this monument. He
+resolved to examine it thoroughly on his way home.</p>
+
+<p>Roger rose stiffly. Charley was lying on her face, her head pillowed on
+her arm. He moved over and touched her on the shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Sorry, Charley," he said, "but we'd better start back."</p>
+
+<p>The girl sat up, slowly. "I wasn't asleep," she said. "I've just been
+napping off and on. I can't sleep until I know."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps we'll find her safe at home," Roger even managed a smile with
+his broken lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's not stop to eat again!" exclaimed Charley.</p>
+
+<p>Roger nodded. They reloaded Peter who was well<a class="pagenum" name="page_267" id="page_267" title="267"></a> gorged on spring water
+and the uncertain looking herbage that grew about its brim.</p>
+
+<p>The trail back was nearly all downward and they had covered it by noon.
+Roger told Charley of his strange awakening dream of which he made
+light, but when they sighted the little monument in the distance, they
+both hurried toward it.</p>
+
+<p>It was there that they found Felicia. On the west side of the monument
+the prospector had begun a hole and left it. It was not over a foot in
+depth nor over three feet square. Too small to show in the vast levels
+of the desert until one was upon it and protected from view from the
+mountain because of the monument, tiny as it was, it was not too small
+to hold her little body, huddled face downward, arms and legs cramped.</p>
+
+<p>Roger lifted her out and Charley, without a word, fainted. Roger groaned
+and covered his eyes for a moment, then he took the pack blanket and
+rolled the little body in it and left it while he turned to Charley. A
+part of the canteen of water poured gently over her face revived her. As
+soon as Roger saw that she was looking at him intelligently he said,
+sternly:</p>
+
+<p>"Charley, you've got to brace up until we can get home. You must help me
+get you and her back by keeping as much of a grip on yourself as you
+can. Remember this is desert noon and we can't temporize. You mount
+Peter. We'll leave the pack here. I'll carry Felicia."</p>
+
+<p>He took the shot gun from the pack and fired three shots into the air,
+followed by two more; the code that Ernest had suggested after the first
+night's hunt had led them to fear the worst. Then he lifted the little
+blanketed form across his breast and slowly led the way<a class="pagenum" name="page_268" id="page_268" title="268"></a> back to the
+ranch. He could not weep. He could not curse. He could only hope,
+blindly, that the volcano within him would not burst forth until his
+work was done.</p>
+
+<p>Ernest met him a short distance from the ranch house, and took the
+little body from his arms, without a word. Roger turned back to Charley.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not coming up to the house just now," he said gruffly. "I'm afraid
+to see Dick."</p>
+
+<p>Elsa, hurrying up to help her friend, tears streaming down her tired,
+pretty face, heard this:</p>
+
+<p>"Don't try to see him, Rog, but you're not fit to go down to the camp
+yet. Lie down on the cot on the porch for a little while first."</p>
+
+<p>Roger who was dizzy and staggering caught Gustav's arm. The good fellow
+had come panting up, uncertain what to say or do to show his sympathy
+and pain.</p>
+
+<p>"Just for a few minutes then," panted Roger; "I don't want to see Dick
+for I'd kill him."</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;don't vorry. I von't let you," said Gustav. "Come, lieber freund,
+take the steps mit slowness."</p>
+
+<p>Roger dropped on the couch and Elsa and Charley went into the living
+room. Suddenly Dick shouted:</p>
+
+<p>"Snake bite! On the ankle there! O God Almighty!"</p>
+
+<p>Roger jumped to his feet and ran to the living-room door. Dick on an
+improvised crutch was staring down at the little form on the cot. Roger
+lunged for him with an oath, but Gustav caught Roger round the waist,
+and Charley, who had been sitting weakly in one of the camp chairs, her
+face bowed on the table, sprang forward, her eyes blazing.<a class="pagenum" name="page_269" id="page_269" title="269"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Don't you dare bring your hellish temper into this room of death, Roger
+Moore!" she said. "Supposing Felicia had seen you in one of your temper
+frenzies, mightn't she have run away from you just as she did from
+Dick?"</p>
+
+<p>Roger stood as if paralyzed. Charley turned to Dick. "Fratricide!" she
+sobbed. "Murderer!" Then her voice rose hysterically. "Oh, why did I
+risk that little child to your weakness? Why? I killed her by it! I
+killed her!"</p>
+
+<p>Elsa ran to put her arm about Charley. "Come, dear, come into the
+bedroom and let me talk to you."</p>
+
+<p>Roger stood motionless for a moment, staring at the bedroom door which
+was closed in his face. Dick dropped into a chair with eyes closed,
+sweat pouring down his forehead and chin. Gustav gave Roger a tug and
+Roger allowed himself to be led back to the cot.</p>
+
+<p>Here he lay for a few moments glaring up at Gustav who perched himself
+watchfully on the cot edge. Then he said hoarsely: "Is that true,
+Gustav, what Charley said about me?"</p>
+
+<p>Gustav's honest face worked and his lips trembled. "Vell, you haf a bad
+temper, and she was a frightened little thing like a rabbit at a cross
+word."</p>
+
+<p>Roger groaned and closed his eyes. He lay for a long time so silent that
+Gustav was sure he was asleep. The house within was very silent. Elsa
+came out onto the porch and spoke to Gustav, softly and Roger opened his
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"It's all right, Gustav, old man," he said gently. "I won't touch Dick.
+Go on and do what Elsa wants and as soon as I've rested a bit, I'll help
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"You'll feel better if you have some food, Roger."<a class="pagenum" name="page_270" id="page_270" title="270"></a> Elsa came round to
+the side of the cot where Roger could see her. She was carrying a bowl
+of milk and a plate of bread, which she placed silently on a chair
+beside him, then she and Gustav disappeared toward the tool house where
+Ernest already had gone.</p>
+
+<p>Roger did feel better after he had cleaned the two dishes and he dozed a
+little.</p>
+
+<p>He was roused by the sound of sawing and hammering from the tool house.
+A moment after Charley flew out the door and down the trail to the door
+of the little adobe shack.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you all doing?" Roger heard her ask in a voice totally unlike
+her own, so shrill it was, and broken.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't come in, Charley," cried Elsa. "Roger, come here."</p>
+
+<p>Roger already was hurrying down the trail.</p>
+
+<p>"You must take Charley down to the Plant and keep her there for awhile,"
+Elsa said firmly, as Roger came up. "We'll tend to things here&mdash;she's
+reached her limit."</p>
+
+<p>"Wait till I get Peter," replied Roger. He was back shortly with the
+little burro and Charley's broad hat. When the trembling girl mounted he
+walked beside her with a steadying arm over her shoulders. Her
+helplessness suddenly made her seem very like Felicia to him.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll go right to the living tent," he said, quietly, "and you must try
+to rest while I get some supper."</p>
+
+<p>"No! No! Don't leave me. I'm not hungry. I can't rest! I killed her,
+Roger, I killed her!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense! Booze killed her. Come, Charley,<a class="pagenum" name="page_271" id="page_271" title="271"></a> dismount, poor girl, and
+we'll turn old Peter loose," as they reached the camp.</p>
+
+<p>Charley dismounted, then stood staring levelly into Roger's eyes. "I let
+my love for Dick kill her. I hate him now. Oh, how I hate him!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't talk about that," exclaimed Roger. "Charley, let's go into the
+living tent out of the sun."</p>
+
+<p>They sat down side by side on one of the trunks. Roger had a vague
+notion that Charley would find relief if she could weep. But he had no
+notion of how to make her do so. He took one of her feverish, trembling
+hands in his and began talking at random.</p>
+
+<p>"You are so like Felicia. You two always were getting confused in my
+mind and right now it's worse than ever. She loved me as much as I loved
+her. And now you'll have to try to be fond of me too, for her sake,
+Charley, and overlook my failings. You didn't kill her, my dear. She
+might have been bitten anywhere and at any time. Try to think of that.
+Why, you took wonderful care of her. Such care as never was on sea nor
+land, she used to say to me."</p>
+
+<p>Felicia's familiar little phrase was too much for Charley. Suddenly she
+ran over to one of the cots and dropping there burst into tears. Then
+Roger, wiping the sweat from his face, left her while he went out to
+boil the tea kettle. When he returned in about half an hour, he was able
+to persuade Charley to drink a cup of strong tea and eat a cracker. The
+sun had set by the time she had finished, and she asked him to walk with
+her up and down the sand before the door.</p>
+
+<p>How many hours he paced up and down in the hot darkness with Charley
+clinging to his arm, he could<a class="pagenum" name="page_272" id="page_272" title="272"></a> not tell. She did not cry again. Her
+agony of mind, like Roger's, was too deep for tears. She could only
+wring her hands and stumble back and forth like a hunted thing.</p>
+
+<p>It was Roger's first experience in trying to assuage the grief of any
+one else. He discovered resources within himself of which he never
+before had dreamed.</p>
+
+<p>"We were all to blame, Charley," he insisted again and again.</p>
+
+<p>"No, the fault was mine! Oh, little, lovely Felicia! Roger, you must
+know that though I wouldn't let you strike Dick, I hate him! I hate
+him!"</p>
+
+<p>"Good God, Charley! Let's not bring Dick in, to-night. We have our own
+private hell as he has his. Do you know that I'm realizing that what you
+said is right? That if Felicia had seen me again in one of my temper
+fits, it might have driven her away, just as this did. I'll never lose
+control of my temper again, Charley."</p>
+
+<p>She did not answer except to groan. After a time, Roger said, "I'm
+thinking about Dick's wound. If it isn't attended to, soon, gangrene may
+set in. You and I had better drive him into town to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"We'll not. He deserves to lose his leg!"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps he does. But <b>we</b> aren't the ones to say so. Come into the tent,
+Charley, you are staggering and so <b>am I</b>."</p>
+
+<p>Once more he led her into the tent where he lighted a "bug" and once
+more they sat down side by side on the trunk. Suddenly Roger put his arm
+about the girl and pulled her close against him, saying brokenly:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Charley! Charley! You are so like her!<a class="pagenum" name="page_273" id="page_273" title="273"></a> Lean against me, dear, as
+she would, and we'll try to weather this together." And Charley, with a
+tremulous sigh, laid her soft cheek against his rough, unshaven one.
+They sat there until the tent was filled with the lovely gray of the
+filtered moonlight. Then Roger persuaded Charley to lie down. But when
+she had done so she clung to his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Stay with me, just a little bit longer," she whispered. Roger seated
+himself on the floor, clasping her hand closely. It was not long before
+Charley, still clinging to his hand, drifted off into uneasy slumber.
+Roger then leaned his tired head against the pillow and cramped as he
+was in his sitting posture, he dropped into a profound sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Thus Gustav found them at dawn. His face was tear-stained but he smiled
+a little with a look that was full of pity and understanding. He tried
+to tiptoe out without a sound but a board creaked and Charley sat up,
+stared at him, then exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>"I must go up and dress her."</p>
+
+<p>Roger clambered to his feet. Gustav came over to the cot and took
+Charley's hand in both his own.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Elsa haf dressed her, in the leedle vite dress and sash. And den,
+Miss Charley, you know how in so few hours Gott changes the bodies ve
+love so ve can't vish to haf them longer&mdash;so ve lay the little sister up
+on the mountain side last night, ven the moon came."</p>
+
+<p>Charley sat staring at him with horror in her eyes, then when he had
+ceased speaking, she lay back and closed her eyes and the two men left
+her.</p>
+
+<p>Later in the day, it was decided that Gustav must drive Dick, who was in
+great pain, into Archer's<a class="pagenum" name="page_274" id="page_274" title="274"></a> Springs to the doctor. Charley absolutely
+refused to see Dick or to offer any suggestions.</p>
+
+<p>Just as the wagon with Dick perching on the cot at the bottom was ready
+to start for the camp Ernest called:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Gustav, be sure to find out about the Smithsonian's visitor and
+wire to Washington the reason for our failure to meet him."</p>
+
+<p>Roger, who was standing in the living tent, caught his breath. Through
+his grief for Felicia merged realization that his great opportunity had
+come and gone. For the first time in three days he turned to the engine
+house.</p>
+
+<hr class="major" />
+<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em">
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_275" id="page_275" title="275"></a>
+<a name="WASHINGTON_9068" id="WASHINGTON_9068"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+<h3>WASHINGTON</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>After the wagon was a receding dust-cloud on the trail, Charley went
+back up to the adobe, where Elsa was to stay on with her, and Ernest to
+sleep at night.</p>
+
+<p>Outwardly life assumed its old routine. Gustav returned on the third day
+and reported that Dick was established at Doc Evans' house and that the
+Doc said "he'd have Dick about again in two or three weeks if no new
+complication set in." He also brought a letter from the Smithsonian man,
+Arlington, somewhat caustically deploring the fact that Roger had not
+been sufficiently interested to meet him and closing with the remark
+that he would not be in the neighborhood again for another six months.
+Gustav brought with him, too, the refilled drums of sulphur dioxide.</p>
+
+<p>Roger handed the letter, without comment, to Ernest and went back into
+the engine house. He did not go up to the ranch for supper that evening
+as he had been doing, but the following morning which was Sunday, he
+appeared for breakfast. He was looking haggard and old but he greeted
+his friends cheerfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Got any victuals for a broken down inventor?" he asked Charley.</p>
+
+<p>She smiled faintly as she set a place for Roger at the table.</p>
+
+<p>"You certainly look the part, Rog," said Ernest.<a class="pagenum" name="page_276" id="page_276" title="276"></a> "It's a good thing
+you've got friends with business heads."</p>
+
+<p>"With what?" exclaimed Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be cynical!" cried Elsa. "We sat up half the night working out a
+wonderful scheme for you. We&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," Ernest interrupted eagerly, "we all went over the situation and
+we've made up our minds to a mode of action. You are such an impractical
+old chump, Rog! It's ridiculous for you to waste your time trying to
+make an engine out of a junk pile while the main idea of your invention,
+the real selling part, is neglected." He stopped to butter a biscuit.</p>
+
+<p>Roger sipped his coffee and waited for Ernest to continue. "Now then,
+Elsa has a little money, enough to take me to Washington and back. It's
+her idea that I take that and go to see the Smithsonian people. There's
+not the slightest sense in your going. You're no salesman and I am. You
+remember it was I who landed Austin in the first place."</p>
+
+<p>"I remember," said Roger quietly.</p>
+
+<p>There was a long silence. Roger thought of the tiny food supply and of
+the months of experimentation that must go on before the Sun Plant would
+show efficiency.</p>
+
+<p>"I hate to see Elsa putting money into this thing," he said slowly, "but
+at most I can always take a job and pay her back."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you can!" exclaimed Elsa.</p>
+
+<p>"I know I can get money from the Smithsonian," said Ernest, "and we'll
+repay her at once."</p>
+
+<p>Roger looked at Charley. "What do you advise?" he asked.<a class="pagenum" name="page_277" id="page_277" title="277"></a></p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't hesitate for an instant," she replied. "Elsa feels just as I
+would&mdash;that the work must be finished."</p>
+
+<p>"I know I can land the Smithsonian," reiterated Ernest, "and we'll repay
+Elsa at once."</p>
+
+<p>"You needn't hurry," exclaimed Elsa. "As long as I have no money, I
+can't go home!"</p>
+
+<p>Roger looked from Ernest to Elsa, then out the door across the desert to
+where the Sun Plant lay in the burning, quivering blue air.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll try it out, Ern," he said. "You know how grateful I am to you
+both."</p>
+
+<p>Ernest nodded. "Nobody's using the horses, so I'll drive in and leave
+the team at Hackett's. If Dick gets well before I come back he can drive
+himself out. Otherwise it will be waiting for me. Elsa, do you think you
+could fix up a clean collar and shirt for me?"</p>
+
+<p>"If she can't, I can," offered Charley.</p>
+
+<p>"Take anything you can find of mine," Roger's face was more cheerful
+than it had been for days. "I'll get the reports and drawings ready for
+you."</p>
+
+<p>So, by the united efforts of the two households, Ernest was made ready
+for a flying trip to civilization. He was so happy and excited over the
+trip that he really lifted some of the sadness that had hung so heavily
+over the ranch house. After his departure, Gustav slept at the ranch, in
+order to do the chores while Roger remained at the Plant.</p>
+
+<p>Ever since he had reached the desert Roger had been conducting heat
+tests and while he was able under perfectly controlled conditions to
+produce higher temperatures than those of the tables he had used for so
+many<a class="pagenum" name="page_278" id="page_278" title="278"></a> years, his average readings under the absorber glass were less
+than he had counted on. And so he was at work on a new type, low
+pressure engine, for which his average temperatures would produce ample
+heat.</p>
+
+<p>Ernest took little stock in his new idea. "It may take fifty years to
+work it out," he had said the day he left for Washington. "Increase your
+absorption area and let it go at that. Better men than you have spent
+their lives on the low pressure idea and failed."</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you," Roger had insisted, "that with a few changes of this
+present engine, I'll produce <i>the</i> low pressure engine of to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, go to it, old man! In the meantime, I'll fetch you some money so
+you can buy all the parts needed, and not have to continue your awful
+career of mountain brigand. The devilish thing about you inventors is
+that you putter so. My God, you drive me crazy! I do honestly believe
+that if it weren't for fear of starvation, you'd be puttering here for
+ten years."</p>
+
+<p>"You're getting to be nothing better than a common scold, Ern," returned
+Roger with a laugh. "I'll be glad to get you out of the camp. Run along
+now and do your little errand."</p>
+
+<p>With a routine established for caring for the two households, Roger bent
+all his splendid mind and energies on re-making the engine. Charley,
+coming to the camp one afternoon, as she or Elsa often did to cheer
+Roger's long day, watched him as he worked with infinite care to adjust
+a gauge he had taken apart.</p>
+
+<p>"One of the many things that break me up," she said, "is that you missed
+the visit from the Smithsonian man."</p>
+
+<p>"As it turns out," replied Roger, stoutly, "I didn't<a class="pagenum" name="page_279" id="page_279" title="279"></a> miss anything. I
+found when I got to work again that my safety device was inadequate and
+I've been all this time evolving a new one. If I'd run the engine as it
+was, I might have had a nasty blow-up and I've made one or two other
+changes, too, that are important."</p>
+
+<p>"The engine doesn't look so very different to me," said Charley.</p>
+
+<p>Roger chuckled. "Her whole insides have been made over really, by just a
+few changes. When Dean Erskine gets the new parts made and down here,
+I'll be O. K. I sent the design up to him when Ernest went in and some
+new parts ought to be here in a couple of weeks, now. I told Ern to have
+Hackett deliver them on arrival. It's too complicated to explain to you
+but I had another corking good idea the day that Dick went. I'm glad
+Arlington won't get here for six months."</p>
+
+<p>Charley's eyes filled with sudden tears. "You're a lamb, Roger," she
+murmured.</p>
+
+<p>"Where's Gustav?" asked Roger, quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"He's puttering with the Lemon. If you need him, I'll go up for him."</p>
+
+<p>"No, you won't. It seems to me that you need water on the alfalfa badly.
+The second field is getting pretty yellow."</p>
+
+<p>Charley sighed. "I know it! Roger, that well just isn't adequate. I've
+told Dick so fifty times. He should have begun work on a driven well,
+long ago, but he's simply hipped on the powers of this present well. I
+think that the old thing is going dry."</p>
+
+<p>"You do?" Roger's tone was startled. "Here, there's no hurry on this
+job. I'm just waiting really<a class="pagenum" name="page_280" id="page_280" title="280"></a> for the new parts. Let's go up and have a
+look at your whole water outfit."</p>
+
+<p>They set off forthwith, the Lemon starting on its uneasy way, just as
+they reached the pumping shed.</p>
+
+<p>"Something's wrong, certainly," exclaimed Roger, watching the stream of
+water that came from the pump. "There isn't half the usual stream there.
+Do you think the pump is all right, Gustav?"</p>
+
+<p>"The pump is new and goot. The vater is low. Sometime, no vater it come
+at all. Then I vait for it to fill again."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't understand it at all," said Charley. "There is plenty of water
+in this range. You see that old silver mine, up there?" pointing to an
+ancient dump on the mountainside back of the house. "Well, the lower
+level of that has a foot of water in it."</p>
+
+<p>"How does it seem, stagnant?" asked Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"I've never seen it," replied Charley. "Dick told me."</p>
+
+<p>Roger lighted his pipe and took a few meditative puffs. "Charley, are
+you and Dick entirely broke?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"We've got enough left of the turquoise money to grub stake us to the
+end of the year. Why, Roger?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I think you've got to have a decent gasoline engine here, at
+once, if you're going to save that first crop."</p>
+
+<p>"But I thought your plant&mdash;" Charley spoke carefully as if fearful of
+hurting Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"So did I," he returned, a little bitterly. "But I've thought a good
+many things in my life that haven't come true."<a class="pagenum" name="page_281" id="page_281" title="281"></a></p>
+
+<p>"I'm very certain that this new engine of yours will do everything you
+expect of it." She smiled a little. "You remember poor old Mrs. von
+Minden said you were to found an empire."</p>
+
+<p>Roger grinned. "She didn't know engineers!"</p>
+
+<p>Charley's smile faded as she stood staring at the Lemon. "No, a new
+engine is out of the question. We&mdash;we have some bad debts that keep
+Hackett from giving us credit. We're counting on this first crop to
+clear part of that up."</p>
+
+<p>"Then," said Roger decidedly, "there's just one thing to be done. We'll
+move the Sun Plant up here, now, while I'm waiting to complete the
+engine."</p>
+
+<p>"The absorber and condenser! Oh, Roger man, the whole crop would be
+burned to a crisp while you did that! And only you and Gustav to do it,
+and the team is at Archer's."</p>
+
+<p>Roger bit his pipe stem. "There must be a way," he insisted, doggedly.
+"There's got to be."</p>
+
+<p>"Vy not make the vell, first," suggested Gustav who had been a silent
+auditor to the entire conversation. "If you don't get vater, a gut
+engine is no gut."</p>
+
+<p>"Who's going to dig it?" asked Roger. "If it takes as long to get to
+water up here as it did at the Plant, you and I would be at it till
+October. No! I'm going to get help. I don't know how I'm going to get
+it, but it's going to be done. I could keep twenty men busy here for a
+month."</p>
+
+<p>Charley sighed and Gustav shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>Roger relighted his pipe and went into a brown study. Gustav waited
+patiently for several moments, then left to do the evening chores.
+Charley sat on an<a class="pagenum" name="page_282" id="page_282" title="282"></a> empty box beside the pump watching now the stream
+that flowed over the field and now Roger's half closed eyes. Finally he
+emptied his pipe and rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't Elsa call supper?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Some time ago." Charley rose too. "But I didn't want to interrupt. Have
+you solved your troubles?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. But I've thought of something I'm going to try out.
+Wasn't that camp Felicia went to a permanent one?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, in a way. The Indians come there again and again. But they won't
+work, Roger."</p>
+
+<p>"Old Rabbit Tail works. Charley, take a little trip with me to-morrow.
+Let's see if my idea works."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd like to, Roger. I haven't been away from sight of this adobe hut
+but twice in a year. Once, the night we found you, and once, the night
+you and I&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I know, poor old girl! Well, let's have a little picnic trip of our own
+to-morrow. We'll take Peter and some grub&mdash;get a dawn start and be back
+by sundown."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'd love it!" cried Charley, looking like Felicia with the sudden
+flash of joy in her eyes. "I'll put up the best lunch ever. Come along,
+Roger, do! Elsa will take our heads off."</p>
+
+<p>Roger invited Elsa to accompany them on the mysterious trip, but Elsa
+refused to go.</p>
+
+<p>"Dick will be back any day now," she said, "and I'm going to be here
+when he comes."</p>
+
+<p>Charley made no reply to this but Roger frankly shrugged his shoulders.
+"I feel as if I never wanted to see him again. I'll be here at dawn,
+Charley. You can meet me at the corral, can't you, so's not to rout the
+others out too early?"<a class="pagenum" name="page_283" id="page_283" title="283"></a></p>
+
+<p>Charley agreed and dawn was just unfolding over the desert when she tied
+the grub pack to Peter's saddle. She waited for some time, sitting on
+the rock, her back against the corral, before Roger came. He appeared at
+last, just as the first rays of the sun shot over the mountains.</p>
+
+<p>"Sorry to be late," he said, "but my gasoline's given out and I had to
+cook breakfast by hand, as it were, over some chips. Whew, it's going to
+be one hot day."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care how hot it is," replied Charley, recklessly. "I feel as I
+were being taken to the county fair, and I was almost too excited to
+sleep. Come along! I know the trail well."</p>
+
+<p>It was a well beaten trail. The Indians had used it for countless
+generations in their search for pottery clay. It lifted zig-zag over the
+Coyote Range, giving at the crest this morning a superb view of distant
+peaks and of gold melting into blue infinities. It dropped zig-zag into
+canyons that were parched and cracked with late summer heat and lifted
+again to cross a peak whose top and sides had been blasted and left
+purple and gashed by an ancient volcano. Then once more it dropped
+gradually and gracefully into the canyon where the little spring
+mirrored the blue of the Arizona sky.</p>
+
+<p>There were half a dozen Indian sun shelters near the spring, each a mere
+cat's claw and yucca thatch, supported on cedar posts. To Roger's
+surprise and gratification the Indians were at home. It was still early
+and they were at breakfast. With Peter trailing like a dog, Charley and
+Roger stopped a short distance from the camp.<a class="pagenum" name="page_284" id="page_284" title="284"></a></p>
+
+<p>Old Rabbit Tail, in his breech clout, squatted near a pot of simmering
+stew, now dipping in a long handled spoon and eating from it
+meditatively, now puffing at a yellow cigarette. Several squaws in dirty
+calico dresses, squatted near by awaiting their turn. Each shelter held
+a similar group, every one of which paused in breathless interest as the
+two whites approached.</p>
+
+<p>Roger strode directly up to the old chief. "Good morning, Rabbit Tail!"
+he said.</p>
+
+<p>Rabbit Tail grunted.</p>
+
+<p>"I came up to have a talk with you," Roger went on, pulling out his
+pipe. "Sit down, Charley, this is going to be a regular pow-wow."</p>
+
+<p>A tall Indian in the next shelter rose slowly and started quietly toward
+the back trail. "Hey! Qui-tha!" called Roger, sternly, "Come back here!
+I've something to say to you. The sheriff ought to have you. Call him,
+Rabbit Tail."</p>
+
+<p>Rabbit Tail spoke in Hualapai and Qui-tha came slowly up to the old
+chief's shelter and dropping down beside him, lighted a cigarette.
+Charley, sitting on a rock at a little distance, chin in hand, arm on
+knee, shivered slightly in the broiling sun. Roger, who had learned much
+about Indians from Qui-tha, jerked his thumb at Charley.</p>
+
+<p>"You know that white woman, Rabbit Tail?"</p>
+
+<p>"Four years!" replied the chief.</p>
+
+<p>"What kind of a woman is she&mdash;eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Good woman. My squaw have papoose one time in her 'dobe. Charley take
+care her all same she her sister. Heap good white squaw, Charley."</p>
+
+<p>The squaw in question nodded and smiled at<a class="pagenum" name="page_285" id="page_285" title="285"></a> Charley, who smiled in
+return, a little sadly. Roger turned to Qui-tha.</p>
+
+<p>"How about her brother, Dick Preble? You like him?"</p>
+
+<p>Qui-tha, his brown face expressionless, nodded. "Yes! Most whites steal
+and lie. Dick he never steal or lie to Injun. Good man, except when
+drunk."</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly," Roger clutched his pipe bowl firmly. "Did you tell 'em about
+the little girl&mdash;eh?"</p>
+
+<p>Qui-tha looked up in honest surprise. "Tell what 'bout little girl?"</p>
+
+<p>Roger turned to Rabbit Tail. "You haven't heard about what Qui-tha did
+to little girl?"</p>
+
+<p>"Me no touch little girl," exclaimed Qui-tha, indignantly. "Have fight
+with Dick', no touch little girl. Like little girl, bring her home when
+she get lost up here."</p>
+
+<p>"You know how Dick is a devil when he gets drunk?"</p>
+
+<p>Qui-tha nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"You knew that, yet you brought him a bottle of whiskey and got drunk
+with him and shot him in the leg when you fought."</p>
+
+<p>The old chief turned inquiringly toward Qui-tha. Again Qui-tha nodded
+grimly.</p>
+
+<p>"And you knew that the infernal drunken row you kicked up that night
+frightened the little girl so that she ran away into the desert where a
+rattle snake bit her and she died&mdash;died all alone at night, in the
+desert."</p>
+
+<p>A look of complete horror rose in Qui-tha's eyes. "No!" he gasped.<a class="pagenum" name="page_286" id="page_286" title="286"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Ai! Ai! Ai!" cried the squaw who had given Felicia the pottery. "Poor
+little papoose! She was sweet, like her," pointing to Charley.</p>
+
+<p>Then there was silence in the camp, all eyes turned on the old chief.
+Indians are great lovers of children. Their tenderness to them never
+fails, be they white or red or black.</p>
+
+<p>"Dick heap sick?" asked old Rabbit Tail, finally.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but he'll get well. He's at Doc Evans's house in Archer's."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you tell the sheriff?" continued the chief.</p>
+
+<p>"No," replied Roger. "Charley wouldn't let me."</p>
+
+<p>Rabbit Tail turned to Charley. "Why?" he queried, laconically</p>
+
+<p>Charley bit her lip. "The whites brought whiskey to the Indians in the
+first place," she said.</p>
+
+<p>There was another silence. Then Roger began again. "Dick has been sick a
+long time now and he can't work much when he gets back. You know his
+alfalfa field?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said the chief.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Dick has been away and his water pump is no good and the alfalfa
+is dying. If we don't get water on it it will die. If it dies, then
+Charley will have much trouble, bad trouble. They owe Hackett much money
+because of Dick's drinking. So they can't get food unless they pay that
+money. They can't pay that money unless they sell much alfalfa. See?"</p>
+
+<p>Qui-tha and Rabbit Tail both nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, I know you Indians don't believe in work. But if I can dig a big
+well for Charley and move my engine up to the adobe, I can get plenty of
+water on<a class="pagenum" name="page_287" id="page_287" title="287"></a> the alfalfa. It would take twenty Indians one week to move my
+plant. Rabbit Tail, you supply gangs sometimes for government work. Get
+Charley a gang for one week."</p>
+
+<p>"You whites," said Rabbit Tail, "work heap hard for what you get&mdash;huh?
+If you live like Injun, no worry 'bout food, go out shoot 'em. No worry
+'bout bed. Sleep in sand, huh?"</p>
+
+<p>Roger nodded. "I think many times you're right, Rabbit Tail. But it's
+too late now. Whites have lived like this too many hundreds of years.
+They can't change to your ways any more than Indians can change to white
+ways."</p>
+
+<p>Again there was a long pause before Rabbit Tail began once more.</p>
+
+<p>"You know you whites kill many Injuns. Give Injun dirty sickness&mdash;kill
+Injun babies. Me&mdash;I see white take Injun baby by feet, smash head
+against rock. See Injun squaw belly cut out by white man. You know all
+that?"</p>
+
+<p>Roger nodded. "The whites have been rotten to the Indians. I don't blame
+you for hating us. But how about Charley and the little girl?"</p>
+
+<p>One of Qui-tha's squaws spoke. She had been educated at an Indian
+school.</p>
+
+<p>"Charley showed me how to cure my baby of sore scalp and how to take
+care of him when he had croup. She lets me stay with her when he is sick
+or I am."</p>
+
+<p>"She lets me use her sewing machine whenever I want it," spoke up a
+pretty young squaw in a red gingham dress.</p>
+
+<p>"When old Chachee die," an elderly Indian woman looked from Charley to
+Rabbit Tail, "she die in<a class="pagenum" name="page_288" id="page_288" title="288"></a> Charley's house. Charley help sickness in her
+chest better'n medicine man."</p>
+
+<p>Roger looked at Charley. He knew that she liked the Indians but she
+never had mentioned her good works to them.</p>
+
+<p>The educated squaw spoke again. "I hate most white women. They treat us
+as if we were servants. But Charley treats us as if we were human beings
+like herself. And Felicia was a beautiful child."</p>
+
+<p>"It's queer some of you have never been near Charley then, in her
+trouble," said Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"The men have been working for months on the government dam at Bitter
+Peak. We were with them and just got here three days ago. Of course,
+Qui-tha didn't tell what little he knew. If the men won't help Charley,
+we women will. We could carry water to the field."</p>
+
+<p>Qui-tha rose and walked over to Charley. "Qui-tha heap sorry. You give
+Qui-tha to sheriff."</p>
+
+<p>Charley shook her head. "What good would that do?"</p>
+
+<p>"All right then, Qui-tha go help one week, fix the alfalfa."</p>
+
+<p>Old Rabbit Tail lighted another cigarette. "We come Monday, bring
+fifteen men, one week," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"You know neither Roger nor I have any money, Rabbit Tail," explained
+Charley.</p>
+
+<p>"Money no pay for blood. You good to Injuns. Now Injuns good to you."</p>
+
+<p>Roger rose. "Thank you," he said simply. But Charley was too moved for
+words and as if she understood, one of the squaws put one hand on the
+girl's shoulder while she patted her cheek.<a class="pagenum" name="page_289" id="page_289" title="289"></a></p>
+
+<p>They clambered back to the top of the trail, without a word until the
+camp was out of sight, then Roger said with a half smile,</p>
+
+<p>"You are some girl, Charley dear."</p>
+
+<p>"And you are some boy, Roger."</p>
+
+<p>"I? Why Charley, I'm just beginning to realize that I have gone through
+life with my eyes shut. The man with one idea misses most of life. I
+went up there with the intention of threatening a lot of savages. I've
+come away feeling as if I'd met a group of intelligent and kind hearted
+fellow humans."</p>
+
+<p>"It was wonderful of them, wasn't it!" exclaimed Charley. "I had no idea
+they felt under obligations, to me. I certainly didn't want them to."</p>
+
+<p>Roger nodded and looked at his watch. "It's only nine o'clock now. If it
+wasn't so frightfully hot and there were any place to go, I'd say let's
+continue our spree."</p>
+
+<p>"Just beyond that strip of desert there," Charley pointed into the
+valley to the east, "there are some wonderful Indian inscriptions on
+some rocks around a spring. I've never seen them, but I've always wanted
+to and I know the trail. Dick has shown it to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Let's try it," said Roger. "Peter, come on, you're getting fat and
+lazy. I believe it's about ten degrees hotter than usual."</p>
+
+<p>It was an hour's climb down into the valley. It lost its level look on
+near inspection. In every direction a fine, powderlike sand lay in long
+undulating ridges. Neither rock nor cactus was to be seen. A faint wind
+was stirring and tiny eddies of sand rose against the sky.<a class="pagenum" name="page_290" id="page_290" title="290"></a></p>
+
+<p>"You see that peak, due east?" asked Charley. "Well, the spring is just
+at the foot of that in a little canyon. There's never any trail here at
+all, the sand drifts so."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad we're heading for a spring," exclaimed Roger. "I know I can
+empty the gallon canteen by myself."</p>
+
+<p>They started ahead, Roger leading, Peter following behind Charley. It
+was heavy slow walking. After perhaps an hour of it, during which
+conversation languished more and more, Charley said,</p>
+
+<p>"I don't feel as eager minded as I did about Indian writings, do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," replied Roger, stopping to wipe the sand from his face and to
+grin at Charley. "I wasn't eager about the hieroglyphics to begin with.
+I haven't taken a girl for a walk for years and I thought this was my
+chance!"</p>
+
+<p>"How is your enthusiasm for that standing up?" chuckled Charley.</p>
+
+<p>Roger cleared his throat. "You see, it's like this&mdash;" he began, his eyes
+twinkling.</p>
+
+<p>Charley interrupted by catching his arm. "Look, Roger! There's a sand
+storm coming!"</p>
+
+<p>Roger looked up the desert to the north. The familiar gray veil of sand
+was plainly visible. "Lord!" he exclaimed. "We'd better start back at
+once."</p>
+
+<p>"No, we're within a mile of the spring, now," said Charley. "We'd better
+get there as fast as we can. I do hope Gustav and Elsa will be all
+right. That poor new field of alfalfa!"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps it won't be so bad in the other valley.<a class="pagenum" name="page_291" id="page_291" title="291"></a> Certainly this sand is
+going to try its best to suffocate us. Whew, there she comes!" as a
+cloud of sand enveloped them.</p>
+
+<p>They paused long enough to adjust their bandannas across their faces,
+then started hurriedly on, Roger holding Charley by the hand and
+catching Peter's lead rope firmly. In ten minutes the peak toward which
+they were heading was obscured.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall we stop or press on?" shouted Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"Let Peter lead!" cried Charley. "If he stops, we'll stop."</p>
+
+<p>Peter, shoved ahead of the little procession, did not hesitate. He
+dropped his head between his knees and moved very slowly, but none the
+less surely onward. The walking was almost incredibly difficult. The
+very desert underfoot seemed in motion. New ridges rose before their
+burning, half blinded eyes. The uproar was that of a hurricane roaring
+through a forest. Now Roger would stagger to his knees: now Charley. But
+Peter, lifting and planting his little feet gingerly and exactly, never
+stumbled. Panting, sweating, Roger after what seemed hours of this going
+halted Peter with some difficulty and putting his lips close to
+Charley's ear called, "Having a pleasant walk to the county fair, my
+dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of its kind, it's perfect!" shrieked Charley in return and not to be
+outdone.</p>
+
+<p>As if thoroughly disgusted by such persiflage, Peter brayed and started
+on without waiting to be urged. A moment later the footing became firmer
+and Peter led the way around a rock heap and buried his nose in a tiny
+pool that seemed thick with sand. Roger sighed with deep relief. He had
+seen the<a class="pagenum" name="page_292" id="page_292" title="292"></a> desert strike too often now to face her ugly moods with full
+equanimity.</p>
+
+<p>There was no real shelter from the storm here. But it was vastly better
+than the open desert. They found a hollowed rock facing the spring, just
+big enough for the two of them to crouch with their backs against it.
+Although the sand sifted in on them constantly, they were at least away
+from the fury of the wind. There was water a-plenty at hand and they
+could bide their time. Peter established himself with his forefeet in
+the water, his tail to the storm and appeared to go to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>For a time, Roger and Charley were glad to sit in silence, recovering
+their breath. But finally Roger stretched his cramped legs with a sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"Charley, I find desert life just a bit strenuous," he said.</p>
+
+<p>Charley wiped her face vigorously with her bandanna and nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"So do I. But I like it. I think I must like the constant fight and the
+awful beauty. There's nothing else here."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you anything in you but Anglo-Saxon blood?" asked Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"No," replied Charley.</p>
+
+<p>"That accounts for your loving it, I believe. The Anglo-Saxons are the
+trail makers for civilization. And by Jove, if any two people on earth
+are making trails it's you and Dick."</p>
+
+<p>"You're Anglo-Saxon yourself. What is your work but trail making?"</p>
+
+<p>"We aren't all trail makers!" Roger gave a half<a class="pagenum" name="page_293" id="page_293" title="293"></a> cynical chuckle. "You
+know I'm solving the labor question."</p>
+
+<p>"With old Rabbit Tail's gang?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hardly! Yet, by golly, Charley, I don't know but what I'm developing a
+typical labor situation down here. The Indian gang is working as a
+favor, you understand, and not from any necessity."</p>
+
+<p>Charley laughed. "If it weren't for you inventors, we all could revert
+comfortably to Rabbit Tail's philosophy."</p>
+
+<p>"It was to make that philosophy workable that started me inventing. That
+is, to give every man food and shelter with a minimum of work."</p>
+
+<p>Once fairly launched, Roger gave Charley a rapid picture of the strike
+and the burning of the factory. When he had finished the two sat long in
+silence watching the gray veil that roared before them.</p>
+
+<p>At last Charley shook her head. "It's a long trail from the old plow
+factory to the hieroglyphic spring, Roger."</p>
+
+<p>"A long way," agreed Roger, "and I have no idea whether I'm helping or
+hindering labor. I only know now that my job is to make deserts bloom.
+Let labor go hang!"</p>
+
+<p>Charley did not answer. She sat with her brown hands clasping her khaki
+knees, her hat pulled low over her eyes. Roger eyed her affectionately.
+It occurred to him that since Felicia's death, she had seemed more than
+ever like a fine intelligent boy. And yet he was honest enough to tell
+himself that there was infinitely more satisfaction in sitting in a
+hollowed rock with Charley than with any boy he<a class="pagenum" name="page_294" id="page_294" title="294"></a> had ever known.
+Suddenly Roger put his long arm across Charley's fine shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Charley, you old dear!" he said. "I am mighty fond of you! You're the
+best man I know."</p>
+
+<p>Charley said nothing for a moment. She reached up to clasp the hand that
+hung over her shoulder, then she turned to look into Roger's face and
+there was that in her eyes that held him speechless. There was in them
+Felicia's innocence and Felicia's eternal query. There was Charley's own
+sweetness and wistfulness, but back of these were burning depths of
+which Roger as yet had no understanding but they stirred him so
+profoundly that he paled beneath his tan.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad you're fond of me, Roger. I'm fond of you." Charley's voice
+was gentle.</p>
+
+<p>Roger's hand tightened on the girl's. "You are very beautiful," he said,
+a little breathlessly. "Even with your face all dust, and in khaki, you
+are beautiful."</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad," replied Charley with a smile that showed her white teeth.</p>
+
+<p>Roger did not speak again for a long time, but he did not release
+Charley's hand until she said, "Roger, the storm is going down."</p>
+
+<p>Then he rose and stood staring at her until, smiling again, she said,
+"If you'll push your friend Peter out of the spring, I'll see if I can
+get clean water for us."</p>
+
+<hr class="major" />
+<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em">
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_295" id="page_295" title="295"></a>
+<a name="RABBIT_TAILS_GANG_9751" id="RABBIT_TAILS_GANG_9751"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+<h3>RABBIT TAIL'S GANG</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>The dust storm died down almost as rapidly as it had risen. By four
+o'clock the three were on their way home across the strange sea of sand.
+They had reached the home range before Roger said to Charley,</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove, you never did show me the Indian writing! What do you mean by
+such subterfuge? Couldn't you think of any other way to entice a man for
+a stroll?"</p>
+
+<p>"There were inscriptions all around you!" exclaimed Charley. "You were
+leaning against the drawing of a horse, all the afternoon. Where were
+your eyes?"</p>
+
+<p>"That portion of them not blinded by sand was on you, my dear."</p>
+
+<p>"Tut! Tut! Don't try freshman blarney on me, Roger! I'm getting too old
+for it. Besides one man doesn't blarney another."</p>
+
+<p>Roger looked at Charley quickly. "Hum!" he said, "I'm not at all sure
+but what you're totally feminine and that I'm a fool."</p>
+
+<p>"Here's the home trail," said Charley. "I hope they haven't worried
+about us."</p>
+
+<p>Elsa was waiting supper for them and the look of<a class="pagenum" name="page_296" id="page_296" title="296"></a> relief on her face as
+they came in at the door told the story of the day's anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>"Gustav and I have been frantic!" she said. "You poor things! Where did
+the storm catch you?" Then without waiting for an answer she went on.
+"We kept the pump going off and on all day. In fact just as steadily as
+the Lemon would let us, which was not very steadily, you can be sure.
+But I'm so afraid that the second field is gone. The sand was not so bad
+this time but the heat was frightful. I don't see how anything green
+could stand up against those heat blasts. The thermometer here in the
+adobe was 118&deg; at five o'clock this afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>Charley pulled off her hat and sank into a chair. "Well," she sighed,
+"why worry! Seems to me I've had all the troubles known to women and I'm
+not going to let the mere loss of the family fortune ruin an otherwise
+perfect day."</p>
+
+<p>Elsa looked at the two sharply. But Charley went on serenely. "I've been
+drowned in sand. I've been bullied and baked and burned, I've been&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Good gracious, Els, feed her! She's delirious with hunger!" said Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, of course," exclaimed Elsa, "if the owner of that magnificent
+alfalfa crop&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She was interrupted by a cheerful call from Gustav who was in the
+corral.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello, Dick! Hello! How vas the leg?"</p>
+
+<p>Elsa set the coffee pot hastily on the table. The smile left Charley's
+face as Dick came slowly over the porch and paused just within the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," he said huskily, "the bad egg is back."</p>
+
+<p>"How's the leg?" asked Roger, stiffly.<a class="pagenum" name="page_297" id="page_297" title="297"></a></p>
+
+<p>"All right except for a little lameness. I'll sit down though, if you
+don't mind."</p>
+
+<p>Dick sank wearily into a chair and there was a moment's silence. Roger
+could not have believed it possible for a human being to have changed as
+had Dick in less than a month. His ruddy brown hair was sprinkled
+with gray. He was thin, and his usually round face was sunken of cheek
+with heavy lines showing around his eyes and at the corners of the
+mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"Supper's just ready," said Elsa. "You must be hungry, Dick." Dick
+pulled himself slowly out of his chair.</p>
+
+<p>"Charley," he said, "and all the rest of you, I've just a few things I
+want to tell you before I try to pick up the old threads. Nothing you
+folks can say or do to show how you despise me can hurt me. I'm too low
+in my own opinion&mdash;At first, that afternoon Roger brought Felicia home,
+I made up my mind to kill myself. The only thing that kept me from it
+was realizing that Charley couldn't stand much more without losing her
+mind."</p>
+
+<p>He paused to look at Charley, but she only gazed at him silently in
+return and he went on.</p>
+
+<p>"When I went into Archer's Springs, I hadn't the slightest intention of
+ever coming back here. But lying there on the flat of my back, I came to
+the conclusion that the one way to help Charley endure what's happened
+would be to have it make a man of me. Then perhaps in the years to come,
+she would grow to think of Felicia as if she were thinking of the
+ordinary death of a lovely little child and not with the hell of remorse
+she's having now. As for me,<a class="pagenum" name="page_298" id="page_298" title="298"></a> I'll always have that remorse. That's
+common justice. But there's no reason why Charley should have it.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess that's about all, except this. For two weeks I've gone over
+every afternoon to the saloon and sat there for two or three hours. And
+the sight and smell of the booze for the first time in my life made me
+want to vomit."</p>
+
+<p>Dick paused again, trembling visibly and staring at Charley.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry, Dick," she said, her lips stiff, yet quivering. "I'm going
+to try to care for you again. But I don't know whether I can or not.
+Every night when I go to bed I see first your face that night all red
+and bloated and distorted, then Felicia's, the way Roger and I found
+her. I&mdash;I've got lots to forget, Dick."</p>
+
+<p>"God knows you have, Charley. But you're going to give me one more
+trial, aren't you? Please, Charley!"</p>
+
+<p>"Try if you want to, Dick. I don't seem to care, one way or the other."</p>
+
+<p>Dick's head dropped to his chest. With a little inarticulate cry, Elsa
+ran across the room and pulling Dick's head over to rest on her soft
+breast, she kissed him on the forehead.</p>
+
+<p>"I care, Dicky!" she cried. "I care! It's my whole life whether you make
+good or not."</p>
+
+<p>Dick lifted his agonized face and stared into Elsa's tear wet eyes. A
+slow, twisted smile touched his lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Elsa! Oh, Elsa!" he breathed. "I think you've saved my soul alive!"
+He turned his face<a class="pagenum" name="page_299" id="page_299" title="299"></a> against her and Elsa, clasping the gray-touched head
+to her, looked at the others fiercely.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, who hurts Dick, hurts me!"</p>
+
+<p>Roger dropped his hand on Charley's shoulder. "Then look to it that he
+never hurts Charley again," he said sternly.</p>
+
+<p>There was a silence, broken by Gustav, who came into the kitchen with
+the milk pail.</p>
+
+<p>"Elsa, make me the pans ready!" he called.</p>
+
+<p>"Coming, Gustav," answered Elsa in her normal voice. "The rest of you
+sit down to supper. Gustav and I won't be a minute."</p>
+
+<p>"Better wash up, Roger," said Charley. "Dick, your room is ready for
+you!" and she disappeared into her own bedroom.</p>
+
+<p>When they finally sat down to the belated supper, Roger began at once to
+tell of the crop conditions and of the call on old Rabbit Tail.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's see, this is Friday and he promises the gang here on Monday. I
+think we'd better get busy to-morrow and make the drill connections on
+the old Lemon. What do you think of the whole scheme, Dick?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think it's perfect!" exclaimed Dick.</p>
+
+<p>"Perfect if my engine works," said Roger. "But even if it doesn't,
+you'll still have the old Lemon and a real well. So I'll have done you
+no harm."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you got to dismantle that condenser to move it?" asked Dick.</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty thoroughly, I'm afraid. But if the Indians are any good at
+all&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"If Rabbit Tail brings his pet gang," said Dick "there'll be four first
+class machinists in it, trained at<a class="pagenum" name="page_300" id="page_300" title="300"></a> Carlisle. Fellows who work only when
+they please, but Lord, they are wonders. I saw them put up an oil engine
+once that had been badly smashed en route. It was a poem, I tell you."</p>
+
+<p>"Heaven send them then!" exclaimed Roger. "If they put this thing over
+for us, I'll pay for it in cold cash as soon as I get it."</p>
+
+<p>"Rabbit Tail won't take money for this deal," said Charley.</p>
+
+<p>"The others will, but they won't ask for it." Dick filled his pipe, and
+pushed his coffee cup away with a little smile for Elsa.</p>
+
+<p>"My debts are getting so large now," mused Roger, "that I can begin to
+take a sort of pride in them. Gustav, as Dick's home now, will you come
+down to the Plant in the morning?"</p>
+
+<p>And at Gustav's nod Roger made his adieux and went home to bed.</p>
+
+<p>Monday dawned with the usual promise of merciless heat. It seemed as if
+the torrid days of late summer were harder to bear than July had been.
+Though there was an occasional dust storm, the air was quiet except for
+the little gusts of burning wind. These gusts were too transitory to
+carry a sand storm. But all day long, tall spirals of sand, like water
+spouts, whirled across the desert. One struck Dick's corral, during his
+absence, ripped off the roof of the tool house and overturned the
+watering trough. Several days later, one brought up against the
+condenser and after knocking off the thatch, collapsed, deluging the
+apparatus with sand. There was something uncanny about these gigantic
+figures, whirling suddenly across the desert, now viciously ripping up a
+cholla or a<a class="pagenum" name="page_301" id="page_301" title="301"></a> Joshua tree, now collapsing ridiculously against a rock.</p>
+
+<p>It was now too, that thunderstorms were occasionally heard in the
+distant western ranges, though rain seemed forever denied to the desert
+valleys. But on the Sunday noon before Rabbit Tail's gang was to arrive,
+the impossible happened. Roger and Gustav were eating their monotonous
+lunch of corned beef and canned brown bread when a curious roar broke
+the desert silence. As the two men looked at each other questioningly,
+there was a deafening crash and a huge deluge of water smashed down on
+the cook tent. The sun-baked canvas was like a sieve and in a moment
+both men were saturated.</p>
+
+<p>"A cloud burst!" exclaimed Roger, grinning fatuously at the delicious
+sensation of wet clothing and skin.</p>
+
+<p>"Gott, vat a country!" cried Gustav.</p>
+
+<p>Roger's grin disappeared. "The living tent, by Jove!" Heedless of the
+blinding torrent, he dashed to the tent where all the morning he had
+been sorting and checking drawings and notes. He stopped in the doorway
+appalled. Everything in the tent was dripping. Drawings, instruments,
+camera, open trunks and bedding were flooded. The patient work of months
+must be done over.</p>
+
+<p>"Hang this infernal desert!" roared Roger. "This is the last straw!"</p>
+
+<p>He stood glowering at the wreckage, water pouring over his head and
+shoulders, when, as suddenly as it had begun, the rain ceased. Roger
+looked out the door. Every grain of sand, every cactus spine bore a tiny
+rainbow. The whole desert floor was a mosaic<a class="pagenum" name="page_302" id="page_302" title="302"></a> of opals. The sky was of a
+blue too deep, too brilliant for the eye to endure. As Roger stood with
+mouth agape he was thrilled by a sensation he had not before
+experienced. The desert, ordinarily entirely odorless, gave forth a
+scent. Just for a moment a pungent perfume for which he could find no
+adjectives swept softly to his nostrils and was gone. Roger stood a
+moment longer as if transfixed. Then he smiled and turning into the
+tent, he began to repair the damage done.</p>
+
+<p>Promptly at eight o'clock on Monday morning, Roger and Dick, at work on
+the Lemon, were greeted by a pleasant</p>
+
+<p>"How! Boss!"</p>
+
+<p>Standing by the corral in various attitudes of ease, all of them smoking
+cigarettes, were the members of Rabbit Tail's gang. They were lean,
+powerful fellows, most of them young. They were dressed almost with the
+similarity of a uniform, black trousers, blue flannel shirts, girdled
+with a twist of bright colored silk, a bandanna twisted and tied filet
+wise about the head. Most of them wore their black hair waist long, but
+there were four men with short hair and Roger wondered if these were not
+the machinists of whom Dick had spoken.</p>
+
+<p>"Any of you men ever drill a well?" asked Roger. Two of the older men
+promptly nodded. "All right, Dick, here you are. Rabbit Tail, how many
+burros did you bring? Thirty. By Jove, that's fine! Now three of you
+must start clearing this space between the corral and pump house. See, I
+have it all pegged out. But, Rabbit Tail, I want all the mechanics down
+at the Plant."<a class="pagenum" name="page_303" id="page_303" title="303"></a></p>
+
+<p>The old Indian nodded, then said, "Where's Charley? You tell her come
+out here."</p>
+
+<p>"She's up at the house," said Dick. "There she is, on the porch with the
+squaw. Oh, Charley! Come here!"</p>
+
+<p>Charley came rapidly down the trail. Old Rabbit Tail shook hands with
+her solemnly. "Here is the gang. Old Rabbit Tail keep promise, see? I
+tell all these men why we come. See? They glad do this for white squaw
+good to Injuns. You say 'How' to them."</p>
+
+<p>Charley's fine eyes deepened with unshed tears. "I am so grateful to all
+of you!" she exclaimed. "I want to shake hands with each of you," and
+she went down the line, the strangers among the Indians looking at her
+with frank curiosity and interest.</p>
+
+<p>This little ceremony having been completed to Rabbit Tail's obvious
+satisfaction, the old chief set his men at the tasks designated at the
+Ranch and then with the rest of the gang and the string of burros, he
+followed Roger down to the Plant.</p>
+
+<p>That was a mad week. The Indians showed a willingness to work that Roger
+had never seen equaled by white men. They were as curious about the Sun
+Plant as children and deeply interested in Roger's explanation of it.
+Their general intelligence Roger found to be high above that of the
+average gang of whites. He never before had had the thrill of working
+with a crowd of mechanics who combined skill, intelligence and interest
+to this degree. The four machinists proved to be all that Dick had said
+and more. In all his life, Roger had never had so deeply satisfying a
+seven days. This, in spite of the fact<a class="pagenum" name="page_304" id="page_304" title="304"></a> that he worked like his men from
+daylight until dark, stopping only to eat the bountiful meals that the
+girls, with the Indian women, prepared at the ranch. This, in spite of
+ferocious heat and almost insuperable mechanical difficulties owing to
+the lack of lifting and trucking facilities.</p>
+
+<p>For the first four days of the week, Dick was quite despondent about the
+water problem. But on Friday afternoon, as Roger was superintending the
+reerection of the condenser, he heard a wild shout and beheld Dick and
+his four helpers laughing and slapping each other's backs, knee deep all
+of them in a stream that gushed into the ditch from the new well.</p>
+
+<p>"My luck has turned!" roared Dick. "My luck has turned! Look at it! Look
+at it! It will water fifty acres. I'll bet there won't be an inch of
+water left in the range. Wow!" and he plunged full length into the
+little crystal stream, his helpers following suit with a shout.</p>
+
+<p>It was the signal for a general recess. And the men, including Roger,
+took a ducking and returned to work steaming but unspeakably
+rejuvenated. The sudden appearance of the water seemed to Roger like a
+happy omen for the whole endeavor and it would have been difficult to
+tell who was the most enthusiastic for the rest of the day, Roger or
+Dick.</p>
+
+<p>Rabbit Tail's week was a full seven days. At five o'clock Sunday
+afternoon, the absorber was finished. The old tool shed stood remade,
+roughly to be sure, but securely, into an engine house. The condenser
+was half finished, the engine was standing in its new home, dismantled
+in parts but quite ready for Roger to adjust when the new parts should
+arrive.<a class="pagenum" name="page_305" id="page_305" title="305"></a></p>
+
+<p>When the old iron triangle called supper, Rabbit Tail sauntered up to
+Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"Good job, Boss, huh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Fine! The best ever! Rabbit Tail, the country is missing some wonderful
+mechanics and engineers in not getting you Indians interested in
+civilization."</p>
+
+<p>The old chief grinned and shrugged his shoulders. "To-night, we go," he
+said.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me keep Jo and the other three machinists," pleaded Roger. "I'm
+sure they'll be interested in finishing the condenser for me."</p>
+
+<p>"Ask 'em," grunted Rabbit Tail.</p>
+
+<p>"Come along," said Roger and he strode over to the bench where the four
+Indians were fitting together the condenser pipe. They looked up and
+grinned affably at Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"Rabbit Tail says you fellows may stay and help me finish this
+condenser, if you will. I know I can find the money to pay you for it.
+How about it?"</p>
+
+<p>Jo, the spokesman, was a tall thin Indian, with a fine brow and
+intelligent eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I guess we'll go on back to camp, Mr. Moore," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"But I thought you were interested in what I am trying to put over,"
+exclaimed Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"So we are. It's always interesting to learn what you whites are trying
+to do. You work so fearfully hard that we Indians are always curious to
+find out the idea back of the work. But as for helping you do the
+work&mdash;well, it's like this, you folks are always mighty interested in
+what we Indians do&mdash;making blankets or pottery or building hogans or<a class="pagenum" name="page_306" id="page_306" title="306"></a>
+making ceremonial altars. But I don't notice any of you really wanting
+to help us."</p>
+
+<p>Roger cast a bewildered look about him but the other bronzed faces
+betokened full acquiescence with Jo's words.</p>
+
+<p>"But why did you learn your trades so well?" he asked, finally.</p>
+
+<p>"Interested in the idea&mdash;and it helps us compete with the whites, when
+necessary!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then you really don't care about my finishing the plant?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why should we?" returned Jo.</p>
+
+<p>Roger sighed and scratched his head. "Then why did you come at all?"</p>
+
+<p>"The chief asked us and we knew Charley. She's been kind to me and I
+wanted to help her out."</p>
+
+<p>"If the whole gang of you would give me just two more days we could
+finish in good shape," pleaded Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"You can get along," replied Jo. "We've done what we promised."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you have, and a bully job. But&mdash;well, I'm floored. I just can't
+get your point of view." Roger's voice was rueful.</p>
+
+<p>Jo laughed. "And we can't get yours."</p>
+
+<p>There was an extra good supper that night and formal thanks on the part
+of Charley. Then, in the moonlight, the whole picturesque caravan moved
+off up the mountain trail.</p>
+
+<p>Charley, returning to the living room, said, "Well, children, I'm
+cheerful in spite of the fact that there's not two days' food left in
+the house."<a class="pagenum" name="page_307" id="page_307" title="307"></a></p>
+
+<p>"I've got a little credit still at Hackett's," said Roger. "I think
+Gustav had better go in to Archer's in the morning. I think my freight
+must be there from the Dean and we should be hearing from Ernest."</p>
+
+<p>Dick, smoking in the doorway, nodded, then repeated the remark that he
+had made on the average of once an hour ever since Friday. "There isn't
+a well like mine in a radius of a hundred miles."</p>
+
+<p>Gustav brought back two weeks' food supply, the freight from the Dean
+and letters from Ernest. They were very noncommittal but cheerful. He
+had cleared up the misunderstanding with the Smithsonian Institution,
+but as yet had no money and did not know when he could get back.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Roger, "we've got grub for a week or so. I'm not quite sure
+whose grub it is. These two camps seem to me to have become helplessly
+entangled."</p>
+
+<p>"Who cares!" said Elsa.</p>
+
+<p>"Not you, young woman," returned Charley, dryly. She still seemed
+indifferent to Dick but there was no mistaking her warm enthusiasm over
+Elsa as a sister.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to cut the first five acres to-morrow," said Dick. "That will
+solve the most pressing problems. The second field is dead. I'm going to
+plow it under. But I should worry. That's the best well in a radius of a
+hundred miles."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'll assemble my engine." Roger tamped down the tobacco in his
+pipe. "The Lord send that it goes together right."<a class="pagenum" name="page_308" id="page_308" title="308"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Amen to that," said Charley, while the others nodded.</p>
+
+<p>Another two weeks passed in unremitting industry, but by the second
+Saturday night, Roger with a sigh of unutterable satisfaction announced
+himself ready for a test of the plant on Monday. It was mid-September
+now, and it seemed as if the heat were a little less intense. The
+nights, at any rate, were not so parching. In spite of the sadness that
+would not lift, the little community was experiencing some of the
+contentment that comes from hard work and sympathetic companionship.</p>
+
+<p>Roger was finding that the regular, well cooked meals and the home life
+of the adobe was making a great difference in his mental as well as his
+physical condition. In spite of the nerve strain of the past months, he
+was beginning to feel that life never had been so much worth while as
+now.</p>
+
+<p>On the Sunday afternoon before the test of the rebuilt plant, Ernest,
+driven by Hackett, jogged up to the corral.</p>
+
+<p>After the noisy and excited greetings and after Ernest's delight over
+the moving of the plant had been expressed, Ernest slapped Roger on the
+back. They all were talking at once, on the adobe porch.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, put your eye on that, you emaciated desert blister!"</p>
+
+<p>Ernest pulled a bill case carefully from his inner breast pocket and
+carefully extracted a check which he handed to Roger. It was for five
+thousand dollars. Roger stared at it stupidly.</p>
+
+<p>"Browning! Who on earth is he?" he ejaculated.</p>
+
+<p>"Smithsonian! I had the check made out to me.<a class="pagenum" name="page_309" id="page_309" title="309"></a> It was simpler. But I'm
+going to make it payable to you, right now."</p>
+
+<p>He sat down at the table, pulled out his fountain pen and, signing the
+check, handed it over to Roger. The room was silent for a moment then,
+"Ernest," faltered Roger, his thin tanned face working. "I can't tell
+you&mdash;why old man, if I'd had a brother he couldn't have done for me what
+you have done. It's wonderful! How did you do it, Ern?"</p>
+
+<p>Ernest beamed. "There's more where that came from. They're crazy about
+your whole scheme."</p>
+
+<p>Roger stood staring at his friend, lost in admiration. "You are a
+genius, Ernest! Your talents as a salesman are lost on a college
+professor."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you think it! When I'm made President of the University, it will
+be because of my talents as a salesman."</p>
+
+<p>Everybody laughed. "Ernest, do tell us how you did it," urged Elsa.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait a minute!" cried Roger. "What shall I do with the check?" holding
+it as if it were alive and dangerous to the touch.</p>
+
+<p>"Put it in your pocket, you chump! Then have a talk with Hackett. He has
+a connection with a bank at Los Angeles and he does a lot of banking for
+the miners south of Archer's Springs. He'll take care of it for you."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't carry it in the pocket of my shirt, I perspire so!" protested
+Roger. "Why not shift it to Hackett right now?"</p>
+
+<p>"So be it!" returned Ernest, wearily. "Must I hold your hand while you
+do it! Say, did you move my clothes up here?"<a class="pagenum" name="page_310" id="page_310" title="310"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Our living tent is just the other side of the old tool house," replied
+Roger. "Come along, old man, and get rid of your store clothes. You look
+like a tenderfoot."</p>
+
+<p>"Farewell to decency again!" groaned Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>"When you come back, supper will be ready," called Elsa.</p>
+
+<p>Hackett was sitting in the shade of the engine house and Roger reached
+an understanding with him very quickly. He undertook to act not only as
+Roger's banker but as his purchasing agent as well, and Roger undertook
+to furnish him with a list of tools and machinery before his return to
+Archer's Springs at dawn.</p>
+
+<p>Gustav was waiting impatiently during the interview, and when Roger said
+with a sigh:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I guess that covers everything, Mr. Hackett," Gustav put in
+quickly:</p>
+
+<p>"Did Ernest tell you there is var in Europe. The Vaterland, England,
+France, Belgium. Mein Gott, you should see the papers they brought."</p>
+
+<p>"Good heavens! War! You don't mean it! Not a real one," cried Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, more or less real! Of course, Germany will be in Paris any time
+now, and that will end it," said Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>"But what is it all about? War! I can't believe it." Roger looked over
+the breathless, shimmering desert to the far calm blue of the River
+Range.</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody knows exactly who started it or why," said Hackett. "Looks to me
+though as if Germany was trying to hog Belgium."</p>
+
+<p>"Belgium deserves to be hogged," exclaimed<a class="pagenum" name="page_311" id="page_311" title="311"></a> Ernest, who had changed his
+clothes, "after her Congo history."</p>
+
+<p>"But if it is var, I must get back to the Vaterland," cried Gustav.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, as to that," returned Ernest, "I saw Werner in New York and he said
+for you to stay here till you heard from him. He plans to be down this
+way, this fall."</p>
+
+<p>Gustav grinned. "That vas good. I don't vant to go, sure."</p>
+
+<p>"Were you in New York?" asked Roger vaguely. "War in Europe! I can't
+realize it."</p>
+
+<p>"Why try?" suggested Ernest. "It'll be over before you succeed. What's a
+war in Europe to us, anyhow? Let's go in to supper."</p>
+
+<p>War was indeed a vague and shadowy affair to the little desert
+community: quite overshadowed by the importance of Ernest's successful
+trip. Roger did brood a good deal for a day or so over the disclosures
+in the bundle of newspapers, then the excitement of the testing of the
+plant swallowed everything else in life.</p>
+
+<p>There was no ceremony about this test. The memory of that other trial,
+with little Felicia as the central figure, was too fresh and too
+poignant. Just before the girls called breakfast on Monday morning,
+there sounded a soft chug, chug from the new engine house. It was so
+very soft that at first Charley thought she must be mistaken. Then she
+slipped out to see. Roger, his hot face tense and eager, was standing
+before his engine watching the perfect mechanism play.</p>
+
+<p>"Look at her, Charley! Look at her! Isn't she a<a class="pagenum" name="page_312" id="page_312" title="312"></a> dream? Ernest, look at
+that indicator&mdash;does she do any work? Has she power? Why man, she could
+pull the waters of the Yangtse Kiang up through the bowels of the earth
+and throw 'em on Dick's alfalfa fields!"</p>
+
+<p>Ernest stood staring at the engine, round eyed, his mouth open! "Man,
+what have you been putting over on me! Why, Rog, the old girl is
+practically noiseless. Throw in the pump, will you?"</p>
+
+<p>Dick promptly threw in the pump, but almost immediately roared. "Hey,
+slow her down! Slow her down! She's going to pull the pump up by the
+roots."</p>
+
+<p>"Rog, let's see your drawings a minute, you old sly boots, you!" said
+Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>"You will laugh at me and tell me to increase the absorber area, will
+you!" exclaimed Roger. "Why, old man, I've developed <i>the</i> low
+temperature, high speed engine! It's the one the world has been looking
+for for years!"</p>
+
+<p>In all the years Ernest had known his chum, he never had heard him
+express such enthusiasm as this, over his own work. Ernest's eyes were
+still staring, his mouth still open.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe you have, Rog! I believe you have! Lord, I wish I'd known
+this when I went East."</p>
+
+<p>"No more sweating down to Hackett's for gasoline, eh?" exclaimed Dick.</p>
+
+<p>Roger grinned. "Day before yesterday's sun is turning the wheels just
+now. Come on in to breakfast, folks. We can leave her to herself for a
+while."</p>
+
+<p>Then, as Elsa and Dick followed Ernest up the trail, Roger lingered to
+wipe a gauge tenderly with a<a class="pagenum" name="page_313" id="page_313" title="313"></a> bit of waste. As he did so, he noticed
+that Charley was standing in the doorway, her eyes fastened wistfully on
+the whirring fly wheel. She looked very like Felicia in her blue denim
+blouse and skirt and once more that old confusion of personalities
+flashed over Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"It's&mdash;it's like Felicia's own engine, somehow," said Charley. "She did
+love to help you so. I wish she knew."</p>
+
+<p>"Charley, dear girl&mdash;we miss her so, don't we!" Roger half whispered.</p>
+
+<p>Charley's lips quivered and Roger, hastily wiping his hands, took one of
+hers and carried it to his lips. "You are so like her!" he said. "So
+like her!"</p>
+
+<p>Then, they turned slowly and joined the others at breakfast.</p>
+
+<hr class="major" />
+<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em">
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_314" id="page_314" title="314"></a>
+<a name="THE_RIVER_RANGE_10359" id="THE_RIVER_RANGE_10359"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+<h3>THE RIVER RANGE</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>Late in the afternoon, after the men had carried on many and
+increasingly satisfactory tests on the Plant, Charley joined Roger on
+the porch. The others were with Dick in the alfalfa fields. They sat in
+silence for a time, then Charley said,</p>
+
+<p>"Roger, has it struck you that Ernest has been unlike himself since his
+return?"</p>
+
+<p>Roger pulled at his pipe and nodded. "He's putting up a good front, but
+the dear old boy does hate this desert life. It was a twist for him to
+come back to it."</p>
+
+<p>"It's more than that, Roger. He's uneasy and irritable. That's
+absolutely abnormal for Ernest, isn't it?" Then without waiting for an
+answer, she went on. "Roger, has Ernest given you any details of his
+interviews with the people in Washington?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure he has, at least all I wanted. He said he explained everything to
+the Big Boss down there and that after they had spent hours together and
+had gotten Dean Erskine on the long distance, he got the money. It was
+the mistake of some underling, turning me down, after Austin's death.
+The head of the Institution had supposed I had been taken care of."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" murmured Charley. She looked at Roger's face, so lined and tanned
+and now for the first time in months wearing an expression of relaxed<a class="pagenum" name="page_315" id="page_315" title="315"></a>
+contentment. She bit her lips and with an evident effort began again.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't think I'm intruding, Roger, will you, but I do want to ask you
+one more question."</p>
+
+<p>"You can ask me anything on earth, dear old Charley," replied Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"Well then, have you a clear understanding of the terms on which the
+Smithsonian let you have this money?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, on the same terms we had with Austin."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know that, or do you just take it for granted?"</p>
+
+<p>Roger hesitated. "Why&mdash;well, in a way, I just take it for granted. That
+was what Ern and I talked over before he left. He's better than I at
+that sort of thing. He has my power of attorney and signed up the
+papers. I haven't gone over this since he got back, I've been so busy."</p>
+
+<p>"You won't think I'm impertinent or nosey, will you, Roger, if I ask you
+one more question?" Charley's voice had tones in it like Felicia's and
+Roger was very gentle as he answered:</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing pleases me more than to have you show interest in my work,
+Charley."</p>
+
+<p>"Well then, let's have a look at those papers."</p>
+
+<p>Roger looked at her curiously. "You think Ernest is as careless as I? He
+isn't, and you know I'm careless only because I have such confidence in
+him."</p>
+
+<p>Charley nodded. "I know. Just put it down to female curiosity."</p>
+
+<p>Roger laughed and went lazily over to the living tent, returning shortly
+with a tin document box.<a class="pagenum" name="page_316" id="page_316" title="316"></a> This he unlocked and ran rapidly, then again
+carefully, through the papers it contained.</p>
+
+<p>"Ern must have them," he said finally. "Come to think of it, he just
+spoke of them but didn't give them back to me. They must be in his box."</p>
+
+<p>"To which you have no access?"</p>
+
+<p>Roger shook his head, still eyeing Charley with undisguised curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>Charley drew a long breath. "Roger, there's something about this deal I
+don't like. Ernest is so queer, and Elsa is worried and absentminded.
+And every time I try to say anything about Ernest's salesmanship she
+takes my head off. And you know what good friends she and Ernest are
+normally. They never row each other. But now they're always quarreling
+in undertones. I would think Ernest was sore about Elsa and Dick's
+engagement if Ernest hadn't told me before her and Dick that he thought
+Elsa was foolish but that he washed his hands of the matter."</p>
+
+<p>"Nevertheless that's probably what the worry is about," said Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"No, it's not," very decidedly. "This noon they were at it again, in the
+kitchen, while I was in my bedroom. I tried not to hear them but all of
+a sudden Ernest shouted, 'I don't see why I told you! You've done
+nothing but nag me, ever since. Werner's all right and what difference
+does it make whether I got the money from him or the Smithsonian?' I
+went right out and told them what I had overheard and asked them to be
+more careful. Ernest merely said they were talking of a family matter
+and Elsa burst into tears and walked away."<a class="pagenum" name="page_317" id="page_317" title="317"></a></p>
+
+<p>Roger laid his pipe down with a scowl. "Pshaw, Charley, you're foolish!
+What could be Ernest's object in deceiving me? He's as honest as
+daylight. He knew I was desperate and wouldn't care where he got the
+money as long as there were no strings to it."</p>
+
+<p>Charley flushed painfully. "I don't blame you for feeling that way.
+That's why I wanted to see the papers in the matter."</p>
+
+<p>"And why should Werner," asked Roger, "put money into a thing he never
+saw, when&mdash;Oh rot, Charley! I thought you had a mind like a nice
+fellow&mdash;above such hen rubbish."</p>
+
+<p>"My mind is feminine through and through," returned Charley. "I knew
+you'd scold me. But promise me one thing&mdash;that you'll ask Ernest to let
+you see the contracts."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll do that, of course. I should have done it before. That's being
+only businesslike."</p>
+
+<p>The opportunity for the request came at the breakfast table but in a
+manner different from what Roger had planned.</p>
+
+<p>"Somebody ought to take Mrs. von Minden's tent down," said Charley. "It
+looks stark lonely now at the dismantled plant."</p>
+
+<p>"By the way," exclaimed Ernest, "Roger, we never sent that poor fellow's
+papers to a German Consul. But it's just as well. When I saw Werner in
+New York it turned out that he knew Von Minden. He said he'd forward his
+papers to the proper persons."</p>
+
+<p>"How on earth did he know Crazy Dutch?" asked Roger.<a class="pagenum" name="page_318" id="page_318" title="318"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Just what I asked him. He says that a part of his work in this country
+is to keep an eye on all the resources of America, particularly of the
+Southwest. They like to keep in touch with the Germans coming to this
+country and help them to a profitable living. Seems that Von Minden
+really was quite an engineering pioneer before he went bug."</p>
+
+<p>"You never did say, Ern," Roger's voice was casual, "how you happened to
+run on Werner."</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't run on him at all," replied Ernest irritably. "I went up to see
+him on my way home. He told us to call on him if we ever were in New
+York. And I wasn't coming back to this God forsaken hole without seeing
+Broadway. Where is the mysterious black box, Rog?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'd rather send the papers to a German Consul, Ern. Now that they're in
+a state of war, over there, it might be more regular."</p>
+
+<p>"I promised Werner he should have them. Don't be a stick in the mud,
+Rog, and try to put anything regular over on me after all your
+high-handed predatory methods down here."</p>
+
+<p>Roger flushed. "I haven't taken a thing that won't be paid for to the
+last dollar."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'm not going to quarrel with you about Von Minden's box. I
+invited Werner down here to inspect the plant and you can fight it out
+with him. He'll fall dead when he sees the new engine."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not sure that I want him down here," Roger scowled, thoughtfully.
+"I have no patents as yet and I had an unpleasant experience with Von
+Minden, another with Gustav and I'm not altogether crazy about trying
+out a third German."<a class="pagenum" name="page_319" id="page_319" title="319"></a></p>
+
+<p>Gustav gulped his coffee and walked out of the room.</p>
+
+<p>Ernest suddenly flushed deeply, but said nothing.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you were keen about Germans," said Elsa.</p>
+
+<p>"I always have been, and I still am. And yet, ever since I've heard
+about this war&mdash;I don't know. I feel uneasy. Hang it! Germany had no
+business hogging across Belgium as she did. It was a dirty trick, just
+like the one, by Jove, Von Minden tried to play on me! Gustav, another
+German, take notice, tried to steal from me, too!"</p>
+
+<p>There was an awkward silence, then Ernest said a little belligerently:
+"Germany must fulfill her destiny, no matter who suffers."</p>
+
+<p>"What is her destiny?" asked Charley, curiously.</p>
+
+<p>"To rule the world. The Vaterland is superman. It's coming into its own,
+now!"</p>
+
+<p>"Superman fiddlesticks!" exclaimed Charley.</p>
+
+<p>"Seems to me you picked up a lot of silly rot on this trip East, Ern,"
+said Roger. "Who is this Werner, anyhow? I'll have you remember, old
+man, when it comes to a choice, I'm all American, as I believe you are,
+eh?"</p>
+
+<p>Slowly Ernest's face darkened. Slowly he rose from his chair. No one had
+ever before seen the look of passion in Ernest's beautiful eyes that now
+blazed there.</p>
+
+<p>"There's not a drop of blood in my veins, thank God, that's not German.
+I say to you 'Deutschland &uuml;ber alles,' and all that Ernest Wolf can do
+to bring it about, shall be done."</p>
+
+<p>"And I tell you," Elsa cried suddenly, as she<a class="pagenum" name="page_320" id="page_320" title="320"></a> crossed the room to face
+Ernest, "that I am all American and I hate Germany and all her works. I
+think you've acted like a fool, Ernest."</p>
+
+<p>"Be quiet, Elsa!" roared Ernest, in exactly his father's voice.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll not be quiet! I'm an American girl, not a German Fr&auml;ulein. I say
+that you've got to cut out all this superman stuff and tell Roger where
+you got that money."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you suppose I'm afraid to tell him? I was just waiting for Werner to
+come to satisfy Roger," shouted Ernest. He turned to Roger. "I got that
+money from Werner. Your Solar Heat Device is sold to the German
+Government."</p>
+
+<p>There was a sudden hush in the room. Roger sat hunched in his chair.
+Charley and Elsa glanced at each other apprehensively.</p>
+
+<p>Dick cleared his throat and spoke for the first time. "Easy, now Roger!"</p>
+
+<p>Roger did not seem to hear him. "How do you mean, you've sold me to the
+German government?"</p>
+
+<p>"What I say. The Smithsonian people turned me down cold and when I told
+my troubles to Werner, he offered to help me out. Germany's crazy to
+develop this neck of the woods. And crazier still to get fellows like
+you and me to using their influence among the educators and scientists
+of this country in favor of German culture."</p>
+
+<p>Roger's face was like stone. "How do you mean, sold my device to the
+German government?" he repeated.</p>
+
+<p>"What I say!" roared Ernest. "I sold it for fifty thousand dollars. I've
+checks for the rest here in my<a class="pagenum" name="page_321" id="page_321" title="321"></a> pocket, but I knew you'd get your back
+up, so I was waiting for Werner. Now listen, Roger, you've the chance of
+a lifetime. You've often said you were going to Germany if this country
+failed you, and it did."</p>
+
+<p>Roger looked around the room in a dazed way, then back at Ernest. "You
+sold my invention&mdash;the work of my life&mdash;without my knowledge or
+permission? Ernest, it can't be true. Why, you're my best friend!"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly I am."</p>
+
+<p>"And you sold it to a stranger. Sold me out. Why I'd as soon you sold a
+child of mine. Damn it, are you Germans born crooked?" He rose slowly.
+"You picked my brains and sold the contents. You sneaked on me! And I
+thought you were my friend! You've lied to me ever since you came home.
+Why did you lie&mdash;&mdash;" his voice rising now uncontrollably. "Why did you
+lie, you skunk?"</p>
+
+<p>Ernest's face turned purple. He leaned across the table and struck Roger
+in the mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"No one can say that to me!" he shouted.</p>
+
+<p>Roger rushed around the table and seized Ernest by the throat. "Now I'm
+going to kill you," he said between his teeth.</p>
+
+<p>Dick, shouting for Gustav, fought to break Roger's hold. Gustav came
+rushing over the porch.</p>
+
+<p>When Roger next was fully conscious of himself he was climbing from the
+desert up onto a broad mesa. The sun was sinking behind the mountains
+into which the mesa merged. When he reached the crest of the mesa, Roger
+paused, shaken and breathless. There was the scramble of little
+footsteps behind<a class="pagenum" name="page_322" id="page_322" title="322"></a> him and Roger turned to look. Peter, packless and
+breathing hard, was following him. Roger drew his shirt sleeves across
+his eyes. He knew that Gustav and Dick had pulled him away from Ernest.
+How much he had injured Ernest he did not know, nor, for the present,
+did he care. He recalled that, with Ernest motionless on the floor, the
+others had united in denouncing him, that Charley had turned on him with
+furious eyes. Then he had fled. Not toward Archer's Springs where he was
+known. But with a vague idea of crossing the Colorado into California,
+he had turned westward.</p>
+
+<p>He was fleeing not from fear nor from cowardice. He was fleeing because
+with the discovery of Ernest's duplicity, the entire edifice of his life
+had tumbled into ruins. A great loathing of the desert, of the work he
+had attempted there, but most of all, a red hate for Ernest, carried him
+across the many burning miles of desert to the foothills of the River
+Range. A blind desire to get away from it all, to lose himself forever,
+to forget all that he had ever been or known, but above everything to
+get away from Ernest was for the time being the motive force of his
+existence.</p>
+
+<p>He was carrying a bag of grub and his two gallon canteen which still was
+heavy with water. For a moment Roger considered some method of
+transferring his burden to the burro's little back. But Peter was so
+small, so winded, that he gave up the idea and trudged on to the west.
+Peter fell in after him and two scarcely discernible specks on the
+immense floor of the mesa they moved toward the black mountain top
+lifting before them. There was no sound save that of their own
+footsteps. There was no verdure<a class="pagenum" name="page_323" id="page_323" title="323"></a> here except the martial figures of the
+great cacti, those soldiers of the waste, that guard the eternal
+solitudes. There was no wind. Only a breathless sense of brooding in the
+remote wonder of the sky. The desert is a hard country; a country to try
+out the mettle of a man and leave it all dross or pure gold.</p>
+
+<p>It was starlight when Roger and Peter reached the top of the range.
+Beyond dimly lay another range.</p>
+
+<p>Roger resolved to camp for the night in the valley below. Peter was
+reluctant to go farther. In fact for the last hour, Roger had been
+obliged to lead him. The way down was very precipitous and they had not
+covered a third of it when Roger slipped and fell. He did not lose his
+grip on the lead rope and at the sudden jerk the little burro pitched
+forward after Roger. But Peter got his balance immediately and threw
+himself back on his shoulders, bracing his feet against the roots of a
+giant cactus and stood fast.</p>
+
+<p>Roger dangled helplessly over a black drop for a few seconds, then with
+the aid of the lead rope he crawled up to the root of another cactus
+where he lay for a moment. Then he started on downward, zig-zagging
+carefully this time as one should descend a trailless mountain.</p>
+
+<p>Roger slept fitfully in the sand at the bottom of the valley, waking and
+rising at the first peep of dawn. Peter had fared rather well. There
+were grass tufts growing at the roots of the great cacti, around about.
+Roger ate a cold breakfast. He found a rough hollow in a rock, where he
+gave Peter a small drink of water, then he started on. But, although he
+cursed the little burro roundly, Peter again was reluctant to<a class="pagenum" name="page_324" id="page_324" title="324"></a> move
+westward, and Roger had again to take hold of the lead rope.</p>
+
+<p>All day long, he continued the march westward. This range was like the
+Coyote Range, though there were more passes through the ridges, so that
+had he been able to find a trail, he could have moved rapidly. But the
+way underfoot was inconceivably rough and by noon Roger's shoes were cut
+and his feet bruised and bleeding. But he never for a moment considered
+turning back. He was through&mdash;through with the old work which had
+brought him only disappointment, through with the old affections which
+had only played him false. Even Peter who had come with him voluntarily
+was now trying to turn back.</p>
+
+<p>It was late afternoon when they reached a low mountain shoulder. As they
+breasted its crest, Peter raised his tail and brayed, starting forward
+at a trot. Roger followed to the mountain edge. The valley of the
+Colorado lay before him, a narrow valley here, with a range of mountains
+on the opposite side lifting brilliant peaks against the afternoon sky.
+The valley was sandy and the river looked shallow and slow moving, with
+arrow-weed growing along its edge.</p>
+
+<p>Peter led the way down. Roger had been fortunate in the time he chose
+for his crossing. The river was at its lowest level, sliding lazily over
+the sand. As Roger descended the mountain he found water marks where at
+flood, the river had filled the valley and gnawed deep into the vitals
+of the range. He followed the burro across the sand to the water's edge.
+Peter buried his nose in the stream, then rolled himself joyfully in the
+moist sand, snorting and blowing. Roger stood staring at the little
+fellow. Then<a class="pagenum" name="page_325" id="page_325" title="325"></a> as Peter began to crop the coarse grass which grew in
+sparse clumps among the straight stalks of the arrow-weed, Roger
+gathered together some bits of drift wood for his supper fire.</p>
+
+<p>He fried some bacon, made coffee, and seated himself in the sand. Peter
+dropped his soft nose over Roger's shoulders, and ate the bacon rinds
+one by one, then crowding still closer, tried to nibble at the cracker
+Roger was devouring.</p>
+
+<p>"Hang you, Pete, get round on the other side of the fire!" exclaimed
+Roger.</p>
+
+<p>It was the first time he had spoken in several hours and the sound of
+his own voice startled him. Peter trotted obediently around and stood
+opposite, head drooping as if in thought. Strangely small and gray he
+looked; strangely wise as if the same weathering of the centuries that
+had worn the mountain peaks into shapes of brooding significance had
+worn his little gray head into the semblance of Wise Patience, itself.</p>
+
+<p>When Roger had finished his meal, and packed, he walked slowly up and
+down the river bank. But nowhere could he see a better place for
+crossing than at the spot where he had built his fire. Here a small
+island amid stream made the crossing seem possible. He found a
+cottonwood log to which he tied his food pack and canteen as well as his
+clothes which he took off and rolled up. He fastened Peter to a clump of
+arrow-weed, then waded out into the stream, pushing the log before him.</p>
+
+<p>The water was very cold and the current much swifter than Roger had
+anticipated but he was an excellent swimmer and though the current
+carried him<a class="pagenum" name="page_326" id="page_326" title="326"></a> well down stream, he made a safe landing on the island with
+all his goods and chattels. Then he went back for Peter. He could not
+bear the thought of going on alone.</p>
+
+<p>The lead rope was long. Roger pulled the reluctant Peter to the water's
+edge, plunged in and was swimming violently in the current before the
+rope stretched taut and he realized that Peter was braced, stiff-legged
+on the bank. Roger swam back and climbed out of the water.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Peter," he said gently. "I'll swim beside you so you needn't be
+afraid."</p>
+
+<p>Peter moved his long ears back and forth.</p>
+
+<p>"Come! Come! Don't make me beat you. Come, Peter."</p>
+
+<p>Peter did not stir. Roger picked up a bit of driftwood and belaboured
+Peter's gray sides, but the beating might have been a sand flea hopping
+on him for all it appeared to move Peter.</p>
+
+<p>"Darn you, Peter!" shouted Roger. "Have you quit me too? I tell you, you
+shall not! Come now, I'm too tired to argue."</p>
+
+<p>He plunged once more into the water, once more swam into the current,
+whistling Peter's call as he did so. But to no avail. When he reached
+the bank this time he was angry. He roared at Peter and kicked at him
+with his bare toes. But he kicked him only once. Peter's ribs were
+strong and none too well covered.</p>
+
+<p>Peter looked at Roger's thin white body and his brown angry face, moved
+his ears, breathed hard and snorted.</p>
+
+<p>Roger roared again. "All right, sir! All right,<a class="pagenum" name="page_327" id="page_327" title="327"></a> sir! If you won't come
+with me, neither shall you go back to the Germans and their
+sympathizers. I'll fix you, young fellow!"</p>
+
+<p>He led Peter up to a mesquite tree and with trembling fingers tied the
+little gray head as high as he could pull it.</p>
+
+<p>"There," he said, "you can stay there till the buzzards get you" and
+without a backward glance he swam once more across to the island.</p>
+
+<p>Here he dressed and lay for a time resting in the sand. The sun had sunk
+behind the ranges. The night shadows in the valley were cool. Partly
+because of this, partly from sheer nervous and physical exhaustion,
+Roger shivered. Finally when twilight had settled in the valley, he sat
+up and gazed across the river. It was too dark to see Peter. There was
+only the murmur of the river in all that barren solitude. Then suddenly
+Peter brayed. It was not the usual ridiculous hee haw of the burro but a
+strange blending of whinny and scream. Roger shuddered and told himself
+that he would keep Peter company just a little longer, then move on.</p>
+
+<p>The desert night came on quickly and completely. The great desert stars
+had pricked out before the last light had left the mountain tops. An
+hour passed, then two. Roger was too weary to build a fire, too wretched
+to sleep. He sat huddled in the sand, his head against a great
+cottonwood log, his face toward the river. A dim red edge began to show
+over the ranges. It lifted into a crescent, then into a half circle.
+Suddenly the little valley was flooded with white light and the moon
+sailed free over the sliding river.<a class="pagenum" name="page_328" id="page_328" title="328"></a></p>
+
+<p>Roger stared eagerly toward the mesquite tree. Peter stood unmoving, his
+little gray head turned upward, his sturdy neck seeming unusually long
+and thin, stretched thus unnaturally. It seemed curious to Roger that
+the burro did not kick nor lunge. But Peter's patience, won by who knows
+what beaten and burdened ancestry, did not desert him. He did not tug at
+his rope but he brayed again, as if he were giving an eerie shriek of
+warning.</p>
+
+<p>Roger bit his nails nervously, then hollowed out a bed in the sand and
+lying down tried to sleep. The stars glowed down on him quietly. From
+where he lay he could see Peter. The little gray head must be tired. How
+Felicia had loved the little burro. Used to wash his face and brush his
+foolish mane. Felicia! Little lost Felicia! Roger groaned and sat up.</p>
+
+<p>His moment of reckoning had arrived, as it arrives once to every man.</p>
+
+<p>First he thought of Felicia. He recalled that first day on the train
+when she had sat in his lap so long and he had felt the whisper of fate
+in their meeting. He came down through the desert days with her. How
+pitifully few there were of them, after all! And he lived them over, one
+by one. He recalled her loveliness, her childish curiosity, her love of
+his work. He thought of her affection and of her timidity, her shrinking
+fear of a rough word. And suddenly he groaned and said aloud:</p>
+
+<p>"Thank God in His mercy that she didn't see me when I throttled Ernest!"</p>
+
+<p>Ernest! The friend of his boyhood and his young manhood. Generous,
+sweet-tempered, easy going Ernest! How patiently he had endured Roger's<a class="pagenum" name="page_329" id="page_329" title="329"></a>
+temper! How loyally he had devoted himself to Roger's experiments. How
+utterly he had given himself to their friendship. Why had he betrayed
+Roger at the last? What had happened? Roger's brain seemed on fire as he
+turned over in his mind the events that had led to Tuesday's tragedy.
+Charley had come to him and had said:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Well&mdash;no matter what she had said. Long before she had told him that his
+life failure was due to his selfish indifference to other people. He
+remembered that he had not believed her. But now the words seemed seared
+into his brain.</p>
+
+<p>Roger took a long drink, then as methodically as he could he examined
+his own temperament. First, he tried to consider himself as if he were
+Ernest looking at Roger. What had Roger ever done for Ernest? He had
+been a constant spur to Ernest mentally, forcing him into new fields of
+research and experiment, but only after all, for Roger's own purposes,
+or Roger's own ideas. What return had Roger ever made for the exquisite
+hospitality of Ernest's home and the tenderness of Ernest's mother?
+None! None whatever! What return even in kindness had Roger ever made
+for Ernest's untiring efforts to promote the solar device. Once more
+Roger whispered huskily:</p>
+
+<p>"None! None at all! Less than nothing!"</p>
+
+<p>So Ernest must see him as a brain devoid of any human qualities save
+that of quick temper. Thank heaven, Felicia never had seen him angry but
+once! But Charley had seen every red hate that had swept him since he
+had come to the desert. What would he not give if this were not so! More
+than any one in the<a class="pagenum" name="page_330" id="page_330" title="330"></a> world, he suddenly thought, he wanted Charley's
+good opinion. And how must she see him? Impatient, ugly tempered,
+selfish,&mdash;excepting toward Felicia. Thank God, she had seen how he had
+loved that little child.</p>
+
+<p>And so, here he was at thirty, a failure. It was better to acknowledge
+it now: to admit that the fault was his; to go on into some mining camp
+and lose himself than to drag on making a fool of himself at the Sun
+Plant. He would rest a little longer, then start on in the moonlight.</p>
+
+<p>Once more Roger stretched himself out on his bed of sand. As he did so,
+Peter brayed again. Roger jumped to his feet, the cold sweat starting
+from his forehead. Felicia's little burro! What devil could have entered
+into him that he could treat a dumb brute so! He tore off his clothing
+and jumped into the water. It was not easy to breast the current, he was
+so tired. But he made the bank and staggering up to the mesquite tree,
+he untied Peter.</p>
+
+<p>"There, old man," he said gently, "go back to your friends."</p>
+
+<p>Then he turned to cross the river. He was carried far below his camp
+this time and for some minutes after he landed he lay naked and
+exhausted before he could urge himself back to the cottonwood log and
+climb into his clothing.</p>
+
+<p>He was in a state now of utter despair. No grief, no anger can bring to
+the human mind the depth of suffering that self-loathing can. Roger lay
+with his forehead pillowed on his arm, for the first time in his life
+facing his own weaknesses. Just in the degree that his brain was
+clearer, his mind more honest, his<a class="pagenum" name="page_331" id="page_331" title="331"></a> nerves more highly strung than other
+men's, just in that degree did he suffer more.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps, after a time, he slipped into a half doze. But it seemed to him
+that the touch on his forehead was his mother's. No, it was Felicia's or
+was it Charley's? Again Charley and Felicia merged in his mind. Felicia
+was looking at him with adoring eyes. Thank God once more that she could
+never grow up to know the truth about him. But she had grown up and was
+stooping over him with a gentle hand on his forehead as if she
+understood him and forgave him a thousand times over.</p>
+
+<p>It was Charley, of course, Charley with the great heart and the seeing
+mind. What an awful thing for him to have brought another failure to the
+valley! Charley had had a sad life. Perhaps she had had dreams of her
+own, before she merged her destiny with Dick's. Dick was a poor
+weakling. But Felicia's death had saved him. Dick was a man now. If
+Felicia had seen him attack Ernest, she would have run away to her
+death, just as she had for Dick's frenzy. Potentially, he was a murderer
+too. But now he was a failure and as far as his red devil was concerned,
+Felicia had died in vain.</p>
+
+<p>Roger's heart seemed to stop beating with the horror of this thought.
+Try as he would he could not get away from the idea that potentially he
+shared Dick's guilt. And Felicia had been sacrificed in vain. Suddenly
+he clenched his fists. No, by heaven, this should not be!</p>
+
+<p>Roger pulled himself to his knees beside the cottonwood log and lifted
+his ravished face to the stars.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, God!" he shouted. "It was not in vain!<a class="pagenum" name="page_332" id="page_332" title="332"></a> I'm going back! I'm
+going back to Felicia and Charley and prove myself a man. I don't know
+why Ernest did it. But that doesn't matter. I'm going back. Listen to
+me, God!"</p>
+
+<p>Half kneeling, half crouching, with the sinking moon touching his
+burning eyes, his trembling lips, Roger watched the great compassionate
+desert stars as if waiting for an answer. And as he waited, the answer
+came. Roger whispered as if in reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes! Yes! I love her! I love her! I love her! Oh, Charley, my darling!
+I'm coming back to you and show you that Felicia did not die in vain!"</p>
+
+<p>Then he slipped down into the sand and fell asleep as deeply, as sweetly
+as a child, and the quiet stars looked down upon the dark slender figure
+with infinite understanding.</p>
+
+<p>The first rays of the sun roused Roger. He lay for a time blinking and
+trying to account for the peace and happiness of which he was conscious
+from the instant he opened his eyes. After a moment, memory spoke and he
+jumped to his feet and stretched himself. Then he gave a sudden shout.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I say, old Peter! You are a good scout! Waiting for me, are you?
+Hang it! I couldn't blame you if you were just waiting to kick my brains
+out. Just hold on till I get some breakfast and I'll be with you."</p>
+
+<p>At Roger's shout, Peter left off his desultory browsing, lifted his tail
+and brayed, an honest old fashioned bray that set Roger at his breakfast
+getting with a broad grin.</p>
+
+<p>The sun was not an hour high when the two started on the home trail.
+Peter scorned the lead rope now<a class="pagenum" name="page_333" id="page_333" title="333"></a> but led the way nimbly, finding a far
+easier trail than Roger had dragged him over the day before. Roger was
+tired and stiff. He was dirty and unshaven. But he was happy; happy as
+he had never dreamed of being; too happy, too utterly brain weary to
+think. He only knew that he was going home to Charley.</p>
+
+<p>They reached the mesa that evening, at sundown. With all the desire in
+the world, Roger could not go on. So he made camp in a little draw and
+lay down to sleep. He did not waken until morning.</p>
+
+<p>It was well toward supper time when Roger reached the ranch. There was
+no one to be seen. Roger turned Peter into the corral and fed him, then
+went into the living tent, shaved and changed his clothing. Charley,
+Elsa and Dick were at supper when Roger entered and with a quick sense
+of remorse he saw that each face turned toward him wore a look of
+startled anxiety. He paused in the doorway, the lamp glow disclosing the
+lines of exhaustion around his mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello," he said, huskily, "I've come back to you people, if you'll have
+me!"</p>
+
+<p>Elsa was the first to rush to him. "Oh, Roger, did you really want to
+come back?" she cried.</p>
+
+<p>Roger stooped and kissed her cheek. "Want to come back? Why, I've almost
+died of impatience getting back."</p>
+
+<p>Dick shoved Elsa gently aside. "I'm sure things can be fixed up, Roger,"
+he said. "Ernest isn't&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Roger interrupted by placing both hands on Dick's shoulders. "Old man,"
+he said. "The important thing to me now is for you to understand how I
+feel about you, how I understand what you've been<a class="pagenum" name="page_334" id="page_334" title="334"></a> through and how I
+need your help, just because of what you've been through."</p>
+
+<p>There was a sudden silence. Charley, her great eyes on Roger's face, did
+not move. Dick cleared his throat.</p>
+
+<p>"Why&mdash;why&mdash;Roger!&mdash;My God&mdash;do you mean it? That you don't hate me any
+more? Don't bluff me, Roger! I've been in too lonely a hell. What's
+happened to you, Rog?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've come to," replied Roger, dropping his hands from Dick's shoulders
+and crossing the room to stand before Charley.</p>
+
+<p>She had risen and was standing quietly behind her chair. Roger, with his
+eyes on hers, lifted both her hands against his breast.</p>
+
+<p>"Charley!" he said, huskily, "Oh, Charley! Charley!" and then, his voice
+and his will failed him and he bowed his head on her shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>Charley freed one hand and laid it on his head. "Poor child!" she
+murmured. "Poor old Roger!"</p>
+
+<p>Elsa sniffed in a manner peculiarly like a sob, and Roger raised his
+head with a sheepish laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"I guess I'm about all in," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"You're hungry and tired out," exclaimed Charley. "Sit down, Roger and
+have some supper."</p>
+
+<p>There was a little flurry of bringing fresh plates and an extra chair
+and the interrupted meal was begun again.</p>
+
+<p>"Where on earth did you go, Roger?" asked Elsa. "We saw you start
+straight across the valley."</p>
+
+<p>"I got as far as the river. I didn't do Ernest any real damage, did I?"
+Roger looked at Dick inquiringly.<a class="pagenum" name="page_335" id="page_335" title="335"></a></p>
+
+<p>"I guess not. He seems to have worked around, as usual. He and Gustav
+went into Archer's Springs yesterday."</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment's pause, then Elsa said, "What do you intend to do,
+Roger?"</p>
+
+<p>Roger laid down his knife and fork, dejectedly. "I don't know! How could
+a man like Ernest do such a rotten trick!"</p>
+
+<p>"He refused to make us any explanation whatever," said Dick. "As far as
+I'm concerned, I'm through with him unless he comes across with a
+satisfactory statement. I don't like the look of the whole thing."</p>
+
+<p>"Elsa agrees with Dick and me," Charley looked at Elsa's troubled face
+sympathetically, "that Ernest's got to be kept in Coventry until
+something drastic is done. We were all hoping and believing that you'd
+come back to see the matter through."</p>
+
+<p>Roger finished his second cup of coffee in deep thought. "I'll have to
+have a talk with Ernest," he said, finally.</p>
+
+<p>"Hackett brought in the new pump yesterday morning," said Dick. "He
+brought a bunch of newspapers. We've been floored by their contents."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," exclaimed Charley, "the war news is unbelievable."</p>
+
+<p>"They've sacked Louvain!" cried Elsa.</p>
+
+<p>"Who sacked Louvain? It sounds like the Dark Ages!" asked Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"The Germans!" Elsa, evidently controlling her voice with difficulty
+went on, "They've shot old women and children as hostages. Hostages! Why
+that word belongs to the Dark Ages. It's unbelievable!<a class="pagenum" name="page_336" id="page_336" title="336"></a> And the
+library&mdash;all those priceless things are burned."</p>
+
+<p>"Good God!" exclaimed Roger. Then, "What does Ernest say to this?"</p>
+
+<p>"None of us have talked to him since you left," said Charley.</p>
+
+<p>"But whether it's a war of offense or defense, there's no excuse for
+that sort of thing. I thought German culture&mdash;" Roger paused and Elsa
+cut in excitedly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Culture! I tell you they never were cultured, the Germans. Look at
+Professor Rosenthal and Dad and Ernest. How deep is their so-called
+culture? Bah! Petty tyrants in their homes and bloody savages, I'll bet,
+if they run amuck."</p>
+
+<p>"Keep your hair on, Elsa, old dear." Dick patted the excited girl on the
+shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Some one's coming up the trail," exclaimed Charley.</p>
+
+<p>There was a footstep on the porch as she spoke and Ernest appeared in
+the doorway. His face was sullen and he made no pretense of a greeting.</p>
+
+<p>"I came up to say that Mr. Werner will be here to-morrow and it will be
+necessary for you to see both him and me, Roger, and settle this
+miserable affair. We'll come up as soon as Werner arrives, probably late
+in the afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>Ernest turned abruptly on his heel. Roger sprang to his feet. Charley
+laid a quick hand on his arm. Roger gave her a glance. "It's all right,
+Charley. Don't worry! Hold on, Ernest. We'll have this thing out right
+now."<a class="pagenum" name="page_337" id="page_337" title="337"></a></p>
+
+<p>Ernest turned back slowly. "There's nothing to have out. A man has a
+right to his own political opinion. And as for the Werner matter, you
+insulted me for doing you a favor and I'm through with you."</p>
+
+<p>"Favor!" gasped Roger. "Why Ernest, you're crazy! You lied to me and
+sneaked on me and it wasn't to do me a favor, at all. It was for
+Germany. That's what gets all our goats. For <i>Germany</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what's the matter with Germany? You've worshiped at her shrine
+all these years, haven't you? And now in her hour of need, you turn
+against her," sneered Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>Roger looked from Charley to Dick in utter bewilderment. "Germany's hour
+of need! The hour of need of a horde of vandals.&mdash;Where's your common
+sense, Ern?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's a Dutchman's logic, Roger, that's all!" cried Elsa. "You're just
+beginning to recognize it! Lord, I was brought up on it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, dry up, Elsa! You were always a disloyal minx," growled Ernest.
+"Now, you folks are welcome to think what you please. I'm not like
+Roger, ready to murder a man who has a different political opinion from
+me. I'm going to see that Werner's given a square deal, then I'm going
+to quit the whole bunch of you."</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, Ern, you've got to straighten this business out," insisted
+Roger. "Crazy Dutch and Werner and Gustav and you! It's a dirty deal,
+somehow. Just why did you turn on your best friend, Ernest?"</p>
+
+<p>"Turn on my best friend! I like that from you,<a class="pagenum" name="page_338" id="page_338" title="338"></a> with your devil's
+temper. And you've turned nasty nice all of a sudden, about where you
+get your money, after robbing all the mines around here."</p>
+
+<p>"You know I've sent a list of everything I've taken from each mine to
+each mine owner and asked him to send a bill!" shouted Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"Huh! That may be, but when it comes to giving Mr. Werner a chance at
+the Solar Plant, I recalled all that and didn't suppose you'd be
+finicky."</p>
+
+<p>Roger's drawn face burned. Felicia's clock on the mantel ticked and
+Charley's deep eyes did not leave Roger's clenched fists. He ground his
+teeth, then drew a long breath.</p>
+
+<p>"That was a rotten thing to say to me, Ern, but I guess I deserved part
+of it. Of course, the contract with Werner's got to be broken, and I
+want you to chew on this. You've got to choose between Werner and me.
+Our friendship ends unless you drop Germany."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, hell!" grunted Ernest and he turned and disappeared into the night.</p>
+
+<p>Elsa shrugged her shoulders and began to gather up the dishes. Charley
+followed her example mechanically. Roger and Dick lighted their pipes
+and stood with their backs to the empty fireplace, and no one spoke
+until the dishes were finished and the girls were seated with their
+sewing.</p>
+
+<p>Then, "By Jove," said Dick. "I don't know what to suggest."</p>
+
+<p>"Neither do I," echoed Roger. "But this much I know. The main point is
+to save Ernest. The Solar Plant is secondary. He's got to do what's
+right in this."<a class="pagenum" name="page_339" id="page_339" title="339"></a></p>
+
+<p>"You'll never get away with it, Roger," exclaimed Dick. "Ernest really
+believes in this superman stuff. He's a German."</p>
+
+<p>"He's got to do what's right," repeated Roger, this time with a tired
+break in his voice. "I feel as if I'd never believe in a man again
+unless he does. What can I do, Elsa?"</p>
+
+<p>Elsa shook her head. "I don't know. If you people will think back you'll
+realize you've all been raised on adulation of Germany. Ernest is merely
+the logical product of his ancestry and environment."</p>
+
+<p>"How did you escape the poison, Elsa?" asked Charley.</p>
+
+<p>"Overstuffed," she replied. "And I'm not alone. There's any number of us
+American children of German parents who've been fed up on the
+'Vaterland' stuff."</p>
+
+<p>"Elsa," asked Dick, suddenly, "is Ernest a spy?"</p>
+
+<p>The girl turned crimson. Roger interrupted quickly: "Oh, I say, Dick,
+give Ernest first chance to answer that question."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'll answer it," replied Elsa. "He wasn't up to the time he came to
+the desert, I'm sure. He was just wonderfully prepared soil, ready for
+the planting of any sort of seed. What Mr. Werner did to him, I don't
+know."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think Werner is a spy?" asked Charley.</p>
+
+<p>"Probably, of an exalted order. As I look back now, he's been using Papa
+and all the rest of the silly Turnverein, any way he wants to. How much
+they know we never shall know. My heavens, what a dirty place the world
+is!"</p>
+
+<p>No one replied to this comment. Roger sighed<a class="pagenum" name="page_340" id="page_340" title="340"></a> deeply and a pitying
+glance passed between the two girls as he dropped his head dejectedly on
+his hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, let's postpone more talk until morning," said Dick. "Elsa, going
+to help me put the menagerie to bed?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied Elsa with alacrity, adding, as she followed Dick to the
+door, "Don't you think Roger'd better sleep here, to-night? With Gustav
+in the living tent&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Charley nodded. "I'll make up the cot on the porch." She eyed Roger's
+drooping head with tear-dimmed eyes, as the others went out.</p>
+
+<p>Roger lifted his worn face and gave Charley a long look. She was
+recovering some of her tone. Her eyes were bright and though the
+deepened sadness of her mouth would never lessen, the despondency that
+had marked her face when in repose ever since Felicia's death was gone.
+As Roger watched her, it seemed to him that if Charley as well as Ernest
+failed him, the blackness of the pit would indeed close around him. He
+rose suddenly and crossed the room to kneel beside her. He clasped her
+hands against his heart, and said slowly:</p>
+
+<p>"Charley, look in my face and tell me that you realize I am a changed
+man! That you need never fear my temper again!"</p>
+
+<p>Charley caught her lower lip which would tremble, between her teeth, and
+steady, wise, brown eyes gazed long into deep-set, wearied, blue eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"What happened, Roger?" Charley asked, at last.</p>
+
+<p>"I fully recognized my devil, for the first time, and fought him to a
+finish. I'm going to have many a tough struggle but you'll never see
+again nor will any<a class="pagenum" name="page_341" id="page_341" title="341"></a> one else, the thing little Felicia was so afraid of.
+You understand and believe me, don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>Charley nodded, not trusting her quivering lips to words.</p>
+
+<p>Roger dropped her hands and took her face in a tender clasp.</p>
+
+<p>"Charley, it's a poor, broken, futile thing just now, my life, but so
+help me, God, it will not always be so. And whatever it is or will be,
+it belongs to you. Will you take it, Charley?"</p>
+
+<p>There was a long pause during which Felicia's old enemy, the alarm
+clock, ticked loudly. Then Charley smiled and said uncertainly:</p>
+
+<p>"While I'm taking my own share of you, I think I'll take Felicia's too.
+Then I'll have all of you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Charley! Oh, Charley! My dearest love! My dearest!" Roger jumped up,
+pulled Charley to her feet and clasping the slender body in his arms
+laid his lips hungrily to hers. He kissed her eyes, her hair. "Charley!
+Charley! I'm a selfish brute, but you'll never know what you're doing
+for me. You ought to have a man worth ten of me but I'm going to have
+you just the same. Now I can bear even Ernest's failure. Do you really
+love me, my darling?"</p>
+
+<p>"Curiously enough, I do!" replied Charley with the old whimsical lift of
+her eyebrows. "Oh, you dear old single-track thinking machine, you!"</p>
+
+<p>Roger held her off and looked at her wonderingly. "You mean&mdash;Oh,
+Charley, I have been a fool in every possible way, haven't I?"</p>
+
+<p>Charley laughed, with her cheek against Roger's, her arm about his neck.
+Roger held her closer still. "Well," he said huskily, "I'm through with
+one kind<a class="pagenum" name="page_342" id="page_342" title="342"></a> of foolishness! Charley, will you ride into Archer's Springs
+to-morrow and marry me?"</p>
+
+<p>The girl laughed outright. "I certainly won't! Let me go, Roger. Here
+come Elsa and Dick."</p>
+
+<p>Elsa entered the room, her head on one side, her eyes bright and
+questioning.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Rog?" she exclaimed breathlessly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Elsa," he replied. "By Jove, I can't believe it myself but Charley
+says she'll marry me."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank the Lord for that!" sighed Elsa.</p>
+
+<p>"You're not good enough for her, Roger," said Dick, coming across the
+room with right hand outstretched but a grim face. "But when I think
+about Elsa taking me&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He did not finish the sentence but Roger nodded understandingly and the
+two men, regarding each other seriously over a long hand clasp, laid at
+that moment the foundation of a close friendship that was to last them
+to the end of their lives.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor old Ernest!" Roger broke the silence with a sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"Try not to think about him to-night, Roger," Charley laid a gentle hand
+on his arm. "You are so fearfully tired, I'm going to fix the porch
+couch and you must go to bed at once."</p>
+
+<p>Roger was glad to stretch out on the cot and close his weary eyes. But
+he could not sleep. The thrilling joy of Charley's welcome, the burning
+soft touch of her lips on his and with this, the sick sense of loss in
+the constantly recurring thought of Ernest combined to make sleep long
+in coming. He heard Dick, then Elsa call good night. He heard the
+subdued clatter of Charley in the kitchen making her breakfast
+preparations<a class="pagenum" name="page_343" id="page_343" title="343"></a>, and after a few minutes the sound of Felicia's alarm
+clock being wound for the night.</p>
+
+<p>"Charley!" he called softly.</p>
+
+<p>In a moment Charley's lovely head was outlined against the lamplight as
+she paused in the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't you been asleep, Roger dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Charley, how could Ernest have done it? I can't sleep for thinking
+about it."</p>
+
+<p>Charley came over to his cot and sitting down on the edge of it, lifted
+Roger's hot hand against her cheek. "You must realize that he thinks he
+loves the 'Vaterland' and that he is doing the best thing for the world
+in placing loyalty to Germany first."</p>
+
+<p>"Then he should be shot as a traitor," said Roger. "I can't believe that
+he thinks so crooked. Why, he's got a mind that's as pellucid as that
+spring Peter found in Lost Canyon."</p>
+
+<p>Charley smoothed his hair back from his forehead. "Poor old Roger! You
+may have been selfish toward your friends, but you certainly loved them.
+Try to go to sleep now, dearest. You'll need a clear head if you're
+going to save Ernest and the Solar Plant. Aren't the stars beautiful? I
+never lose my awe of their nearness in the desert."</p>
+
+<p>"They were wonderful over in the River Canyon," said Roger, relaxing
+with a long breath at Charley's touch on his forehead, while he clung
+closely to her other hand. "Do you really love me, Charley, my
+sweetheart?"</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the girl slipped to her knees beside the cot and buried her
+face against his on the pillows. "Oh, Roger! Roger! Just as much and
+more than Felicia did and for nearly as long."<a class="pagenum" name="page_344" id="page_344" title="344"></a></p>
+
+<p>"And I you," replied Roger, brokenly, "only I was such a self-centered
+fool I didn't know it. Don't kneel there, Charley, you're tired and must
+go to bed."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Roger! Roger! I've wanted you so! And the years have been so hard!
+Never leave me, dear! Don't make me go now! Let me watch here beside you
+till you sleep, just as you did for me that night Felicia died."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll never leave you, you darling! Even my work shall never drive me
+from you. We'll put things through together from now on. Oh, Charley! I
+don't deserve it!"</p>
+
+<p>"I know you don't!" this with a chuckle that was half a sob, "but
+somehow even old Peter can't bear to be separated from you."</p>
+
+<p>"Bless his old gray head! Charley, let me tell you about Peter and the
+river." Roger began eagerly but before his story was half finished his
+sentences were broken and finally ended abruptly. Roger was fast asleep.
+Charley, with a soft kiss on his hair, rose from the cramped position on
+her knees and went into the house. In a short time the adobe was in
+darkness and Peter, with a wisp of alfalfa on which he chewed
+meditatively, hanging from his mouth, leaned his gray head on the corral
+bars and eyed the stars unblinkingly.</p>
+
+<hr class="major" />
+<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em">
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_345" id="page_345" title="345"></a>
+<a name="THE_BLACK_BOX_11341" id="THE_BLACK_BOX_11341"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+<h3>THE BLACK BOX</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>Roger was awakened the next morning by the sound of Dick uncrating the
+new pump. He rose at once feeling quite himself. He had his belated
+breakfast alone, with Charley hovering in attendance.</p>
+
+<p>"Ernest and Gustav are down at the old camp as usual," she reported.
+"What are you going to do to-day, Roger?"</p>
+
+<p>"I want to go through Von Minden's papers. If I'd done a thorough job on
+that in the beginning, all the trouble might have been obviated."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know about that," said Charley. "It couldn't have been foreseen
+that Ernest would get in touch with Werner."</p>
+
+<p>"Will you help me?" asked Roger. "I want to get through before Werner
+comes."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you feeling fairly calm for the interview, dear?" Charley smoothed
+Roger's hair back, caressingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Calm!" Roger suddenly caught the girl to him in a passionate embrace.
+"Calm! I don't want to be calm when I think of you and all you are to
+me. Oh, my darling, my darling!"</p>
+
+<p>With Dick and Elsa's help, the Von Minden papers had been thoroughly
+gone over by mid-afternoon.<a class="pagenum" name="page_346" id="page_346" title="346"></a></p>
+
+<p>It was well on toward four o'clock before Ernest appeared with his
+unwelcome guest. Dick had descried a dust-cloud on the Archer's Springs
+trail about three o'clock and they all had seen a buckboard with two
+figures in it drive into the Sun Camp.</p>
+
+<p>"Werner must have come," said Roger, only half succeeding in keeping his
+voice casual.</p>
+
+<p>Dick nodded. "Hackett was telling me that he'd finally made up his mind
+to get a tin Lizzy. These old-time cowboys do certainly hate to give up
+their horses, don't they? But when the Chinaman said that he was going
+to buy a jitney for the miners, poor Hackett had to give in. Of course,
+he'll still have to use his horses and the pack-train for mountain
+work."</p>
+
+<p>Roger grunted absentmindedly and stored Von Minden's box in the kitchen,
+as Hackett drove Werner and Ernest up to the corral.</p>
+
+<p>Herr Werner, badly sunburned and dusty, seemed unfeignedly glad to have
+reached the ranch. He greeted Elsa and Charley effusively, shook hands
+with Dick and showed Roger a mixture of cordiality and deference in
+manner that was irreproachable.</p>
+
+<p>Left alone in the living room with Roger and Ernest, he came to the
+point at once:</p>
+
+<p>"Wolf tells me, Mr. Moore, that you have been much angered at his
+selling the solar device to me."</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly have been and I haven't the least idea of letting the thing
+go through," replied Roger. "A considerable part of the money you
+advanced has been spent but I shall spend no more of it and my friend
+Preble can arrange a loan that will cover what has been spent."</p>
+
+<p>"You know, of course," Werner took an audible sip<a class="pagenum" name="page_347" id="page_347" title="347"></a> of lemonade, "that a
+bargain is a bargain and that the contract Wolf signed is binding."</p>
+
+<p>"Ordinarily, yes," said Roger, "but I have an idea that before I'm
+through with you, you'll be glad to let go."</p>
+
+<p>"For heaven's sake, Roger!" cried Ernest irritably, throwing his
+cigarette in the fireplace, and taking a quick turn up and down the
+room, "don't start a row."</p>
+
+<p>"If you mean not to lose my temper, I can promise that," returned Roger,
+"but Germany can never have my solar apparatus."</p>
+
+<p>"How're you going to help yourself?" asked Ernest, with an ugly edge to
+his voice.</p>
+
+<p>"There are ways! Mr. Werner, Von Minden was a part of Germany's great
+system, was he not, for exploiting America? He was one of your agents
+and his job was to outline the desert empire Germany plans to take over.
+But being German, like Ernest's father who never will take the human
+element into consideration, you didn't count on the desert's sending
+your poor tool crazy, so he blabbed. Gustav is your watch-dog and spy,
+keeping you in touch at present with all my doings. Your own activities,
+outside of these minor ones, I imagine, center round the banking and
+educational interests of America. You've seen to it that our high
+schools and universities produce students that admire Germany. I must
+say that you have been highly successful up to now. But the superman
+stuff is a bit thick, Mr. Werner. It makes our American gorge rise in
+our throats."</p>
+
+<p>Roger fingered his cold pipe, swallowed several times, looked out the
+open door where he could see<a class="pagenum" name="page_348" id="page_348" title="348"></a> Charley at the bars, rubbing Peter's head,
+then went on:</p>
+
+<p>"What you've done to Ernest is obvious. He's the sweetest tempered, most
+easily influenced chap in the world. You caught him in New York after
+he'd failed with the Smithsonian&mdash;probably after some spy in the
+Smithsonian had put you wise, and fed him up with the superman idea and
+he, poor mut, fell for it."</p>
+
+<p>"Roger!" shouted Ernest. "You can't talk about me as if I were
+feeble-minded."</p>
+
+<p>"But hang it, Ern, you have been!" exclaimed Roger. Then, with a little
+break in his voice, "I tell you, you've been thinking and speaking
+treason and I won't have it! I won't have it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Come! Come! Mr. Moore!" said Werner; "supposing what you've surmised
+should turn out to be true. Might is right in this world."</p>
+
+<p>"You can't draw me into a discussion of ethics, Mr. Werner. Ernest and
+I'll have that out afterward. I'm just telling you this, that Germany
+can't have my solar device and it can't have Ernest. There's enough
+evidence in that tin dispatch box of Von Minden's, Mr. Werner, almost to
+persuade Congress to declare war on your super-fatherland. There's
+enough evidence in that box to make headlines in every American paper
+for a month. What it would do to pro-German sentiment in this country is
+a caution."</p>
+
+<p>Werner's sunburned face went purple. "Gott im Himmel!" he roared. "Did
+the fool keep my letters?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, but he copied them into his journal, with all sorts of other data
+of vital interest to the American public. We had a very pleasant morning
+reading his<a class="pagenum" name="page_349" id="page_349" title="349"></a> journal. My great regret is that I've so neglected that
+document box."</p>
+
+<p>With surprising quickness for a stout man, Werner pulled a revolver from
+his hip pocket, and pointed it at Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"I want that box, Moore!" he roared.</p>
+
+<p>Quick as a cat, Ernest crossed the room, and with a twist of Werner's
+wrist disarmed him.</p>
+
+<p>"None of that!" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Keep your shirt on, Mr. Werner!" said Roger. "You're going to need it,
+take my word for that!"</p>
+
+<p>Werner bit his nails for a moment. "Very well, sir. Give me back the box
+and I'll turn back the contract."</p>
+
+<p>"Not on your life! You turn back the contract and I'll give you a week
+to get out of the country before I turn the box over to the Department
+of Justice. Just one week, mind you, no more!"</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, Rog, you can't do that! It would be a dirty trick! Why, it's
+blackmail!" Ernest dropped the revolver on the table with a thud.</p>
+
+<p>"Good God, Ernest! Blackmail! Toward a man who is a spy&mdash;a man who plots
+against the physical and moral fiber of your country! Blackmail! Come
+out of your trance. There are some things that can't be done, Ern!
+Life's full of forbidden trails. My temper was one of them and poor old
+Dick's drinking was another. And the one most impossible of all for a
+real man to take is the one you're headed toward&mdash;a real man can't be
+renegade to his country."</p>
+
+<p>Werner, chewing nervously at his thumb knuckle, eyed Roger blackly. Then
+he turned abruptly to Ernest.<a class="pagenum" name="page_350" id="page_350" title="350"></a></p>
+
+<p>"And you!" he roared. "A fine German you are, you milk sop! A beautiful
+muddle you've made of this. Von Minden's letters here for months and
+what use have they come to? There'd have been an Iron Cross in this for
+you, had you shown sense."</p>
+
+<p>Ernest gave a sudden short laugh. "An Iron Cross would have been a
+wonderful reward for breaking up a man's life friendship. An Iron Cross!
+My word! Where's your sense of humor, Werner?"</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Werner, the contract!" urged Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"Damn you!" shrieked the German, jerking a heavy envelope from his inner
+pocket and throwing it in Roger's face. Roger caught it and after
+examining the contents, put it into his own pocket with a nod.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Mr. Werner," he said, "if you'll just annex Gustav, and plan to
+leave at sun down, Hackett will drive you in with Preble's team. I hate
+to lose Gustav. He was born to be a white man, poor devil."</p>
+
+<p>Werner cleared his throat and spoke sneeringly: "And how do I know
+you'll live up to your bargain, Moore?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'm an American! I promise to hold the papers a week and a promise
+isn't a scrap of paper in America. After the week's up, you won't enjoy
+the climate, I can assure you of that. I'll send you a check for the
+amount I've spent, next week, with the amount still untouched."</p>
+
+<p>"Roger!" shouted Ernest, "Don't be a fool! It's the chance of your life
+you're throwing down!"</p>
+
+<p>"Come with me, Wolf," cried Werner, "Come with me! I'll give you
+opportunities that you never dreamed of. You don't belong to this nation
+of<a class="pagenum" name="page_351" id="page_351" title="351"></a> thick-headed numb-skulls. You're a German. You know all that Moore
+knows about using solar heat. Come and help the Vaterland. Let this man
+rot. Bah! He belongs to a nation of swine!"</p>
+
+<p>There was silence in the adobe living room. Roger's face turned a slow
+purple and sweat stood on his forehead. But by a supreme effort he kept
+his clenched fists in his pockets and his eyes riveted on Ernest's.</p>
+
+<p>"Choose, Ernest," he said, suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>Ernest seemed scarcely to hear him. The sullenness that his face had
+worn constantly for many days changed slowly to a look of anger that
+distorted his features until his expression was demoniacal.</p>
+
+<p>He clutched the revolver and leaned across the table with a hoarse
+whisper:</p>
+
+<p>"By God, if you insult America again, I'll shoot you! It's one thing to
+admire Germany. It's another to sling mud at America."</p>
+
+<p>"What, you too, you hybrid!" shrieked Werner. "You play Germany into the
+hands of this swine; this monkey-headed inventor; this letter thief,
+this&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>With an inarticulate roar, Ernest pulled the trigger just as Roger
+knocked the revolver upward. The bullet lodged in the ceiling. But
+Werner had had enough. While Roger clung to the roaring Ernest, he
+rushed down the trail to the corral, where Hackett began at once to
+hitch Dick's team to the buckboard.</p>
+
+<p>"Let go of me, Roger! Let me get at him!" howled Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>Dick came running up the trail. "It's all right, Dick, don't bother!"
+called Roger. "Leave us alone<a class="pagenum" name="page_352" id="page_352" title="352"></a> a little while longer. What's the matter,
+Ernest? Be quiet, man! Let's talk like men and not row like a couple of
+dogs."</p>
+
+<p>Roger eased Ernest into a chair and Ernest ceased to struggle, but
+stared at Roger gloomily.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what are you going to do about it?" he asked sullenly.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to make you see the error of your ways." Roger smiled grimly.
+"Use your common sense, Ernest. What could Germany give you, except
+money? All your life ties are here."</p>
+
+<p>"Wonderful ties!" sneered Ernest. "Charley has turned me down, my father
+has turned me out and you've beaten me up."</p>
+
+<p>Roger concealed a grin. "Poor old chap!" he murmured. "So a woman's at
+the bottom of it all, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know why her refusing me affected me so," said Ernest, as if to
+himself. "But I felt as if nothing mattered. And then to have the Sun
+Plant a failure and my father's attitude! O pshaw, what's the use? Let
+me alone, Roger. I'm going to pack up and get out of here."</p>
+
+<p>"Ernest," said Roger, "if you don't stay by while we straighten this
+out, I'll never get over it and no more will you. We've loved each other
+too long, Ern. Our lives have become interwoven. If we break now we'll
+go lame all our days. You know that, don't you, old man? You folks have
+all done so much for me. I've got to keep your friendship in order to
+pay up some of my indebtedness, eh, Ernie?"</p>
+
+<p>Ernest drew a long breath and suddenly dropped his head into his hands
+and burst into tears.<a class="pagenum" name="page_353" id="page_353" title="353"></a></p>
+
+<p>"And now I'm crying!" he said. "Now I'm crying! There's no limit to my
+weakness."</p>
+
+<p>Roger, still with a little twisted grin, lighted a cigarette. "A peach
+of a superman you are, eh, Ern?"</p>
+
+<p>Ernest did not answer and Roger walked up and down the room, waiting.
+Finally Ernest lifted his flushed face and took the cigarette which
+Roger offered him, and began to speak, rapidly:</p>
+
+<p>"I was desperate, after the Smithsonian turned me down. Seems that they
+didn't like the look of things Austin did and that's why they dropped
+you. Werner looked me up. I found out later that Gustav had kept him
+informed, and that Werner had got Austin just as they got me. I honestly
+thought I was doing a great thing for you and the world, Rog. Werner
+showed me a list of names of people in this country that're helping
+Germany that would make your eyes start. And he was always praising
+America."</p>
+
+<p>"Ernest, has Werner any drawings of the plant?" asked Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"No, he hasn't."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you sure?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, because that's the first thing he asked me for, this afternoon.
+All our stuff that Austin had, his widow burned with his other papers.
+She said he told her to if anything happened to him. And you know I
+brought yours back, as I promised. What Gustav may have sent him I don't
+know, but evidently not satisfactory drawings or he wouldn't have been
+so keen to get more!"</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder about the new engine," mused Roger. "Well, I have little fear
+of that. Gustav isn't enough of an engineer to guess what he doesn't
+see. He<a class="pagenum" name="page_354" id="page_354" title="354"></a> couldn't make a drawing of the idea of that engine to save his
+neck. And Dean Erskine's got the only plan I ever finished of it."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure you're safe on that," insisted Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>"I think I am," agreed Roger, "and now, Ernest, I want to know how I can
+square up with you for my attack on you the other night."</p>
+
+<p>Ernest looked up at Roger and the sullen look which even his tears had
+not washed out lifted a little.</p>
+
+<p>"You mean&mdash;?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean that I had no business attacking you as I did. It was a rotten
+trick and I'm ashamed and sorry. My temper has been a brutal thing and
+you've always put up with it. If we can clear this thing up, I'm going
+to do better by you, Ern."</p>
+
+<p>There was a curious look in Ernest's beautiful eyes. "Do you know, I
+hoped for twenty years you'd get to see yourself in that light," he
+spoke thoughtfully. "What you've just said does away with any resentment
+I may have had about your temper, Roger. As for the other thing&mdash;" He
+paused.</p>
+
+<p>"Ern, how could you do it?" asked Roger huskily.</p>
+
+<p>"Before heaven, Roger, I did it solely for love of you. And you know I
+was brought up on admiration of Germany. I honestly thought that we
+could make you see it as I do. I've been seeing for days what a skunk
+trick it must have looked to you, but this obstinate streak in me
+wouldn't let me give up until Werner slanged America. Rog, I'll make it
+up to you somehow so you'll trust me again! See if I don't!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll trust you fast enough, old man, if you'll assure me that you're
+through with this superman stuff. Are you an American or a German,
+Ern?"<a class="pagenum" name="page_355" id="page_355" title="355"></a></p>
+
+<p>With a smile of extraordinary sweetness, Ernest put a hand on Roger's
+shoulder and said in a voice of utter sincerity, "I'm whatever you are,
+Roger. Thy country shall be my country and thy God, my God. After all,
+what is a man's country but the place of his loves and his friendships?
+And America has all of mine, Roger, all of mine."</p>
+
+<p>The two men stood in silence after this until Roger said, brokenly,
+"Thank you, Ernest, you've made a new man of me."</p>
+
+<p>"And now," said Ernest, briskly, "being considerably worse in debt than
+ever, the question before the house is whom do we do next?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know! I swear I don't," Roger sighed, as he took one of
+Ernest's cigarettes.</p>
+
+<p>Ernest gave a scornful laugh. "He doesn't know! the poor little woolly
+lamb! He doesn't know! with a plant such as is now established in the
+Prebles' backyard! Why, man, I could sell that to an Egyptian mummy."</p>
+
+<p>Roger laughed and at the sound Dick called in through the open door,</p>
+
+<p>"For the love of heaven, put us out of our misery! What's happened?
+We've been sweating blood!"</p>
+
+<p>Both men hurried out to the porch. Seated in a solemn row on the steps
+were Charley, Dick and Elsa.</p>
+
+<p>Ernest looked at Roger pleadingly. "You tell them, Rog. I want to attend
+to something in the tent."</p>
+
+<p>Roger sat down beside Charley and told the story. When it was finished,
+Dick said, "Are you sure he's not German, Roger?"<a class="pagenum" name="page_356" id="page_356" title="356"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Certainly he's not any longer!" exclaimed Elsa. "The strongest thing in
+Ernest's life is his love for Roger. He'll never give any woman what
+he's given Roger. That love has saved Ernest and will keep him safe. Oh,
+I'm so thankful! So thankful!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't cry, Elsa! I've had all the emotion I can stand in one day,"
+cried Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"I wouldn't waste a tear on either of you," returned Elsa, stoutly as
+she wiped her eyes. "Come along, Dicky belovedest. You're the only one
+who treats me with respect. I'm going to cook you the most perfect
+biscuits ever invented for supper."</p>
+
+<p>Ernest came into supper that night and after the first moment of
+embarrassment, the meal resolved itself into a frank discussion of ways
+and means, quite as if nothing had happened. Roger flatly refused to
+take Dick's possible loan.</p>
+
+<p>"You keep that for a rainy day fall back," he said. "You and Elsa aren't
+going to have smooth sledding for a long time yet."</p>
+
+<p>"How about you and Charley?" returned Dick. "Don't forget you've got a
+woman to provide for now!"</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks for reminding me," smiled Roger. "She's an extravagant minx too
+and accustomed to luxury."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, something will turn up, see if it doesn't," said Ernest. "In the
+meantime, there's considerable work to be done before Roger can claim
+that he's irrigating twenty-five acres of alfalfa. I'll guarantee that
+something will turn up before he's able to do that."</p>
+
+<p>"Looks to me as if I were going to cash in pretty<a class="pagenum" name="page_357" id="page_357" title="357"></a> heavily on this
+business," said Dick. "Well, I'll supply you alfalfa for the rest of
+your lives."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you for nothing," returned Charley, sweetly.</p>
+
+<hr class="major" />
+<div style="margin: auto; text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; padding-bottom: 1em">
+<a class="pagenum" name="page_358" id="page_358" title="358"></a>
+<a name="PAPA_WOLF_11753" id="PAPA_WOLF_11753"></a>
+<h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+<h3>PAPA WOLF</h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>October came in with a decided diminution of heat and with an accented
+brilliancy in sky and sand. The work of getting the remainder of the
+twenty-five acres into alfalfa went on rapidly. And in spite of the
+money uncertainty, there was the lift of hopefulness and happiness in
+the atmosphere of the ranch.</p>
+
+<p>The alfalfa grew amazingly. One morning Elsa electrified the ranch by
+announcing that the second field now in blossom was full of wild bees.
+No one believed her. Every one decamped at once to the field. It was
+quite true. Far and wide swept the burning barrens of the desert. But
+close about corral and pumping plant crowded the unbelievable verdure of
+alfalfa with the fringed green lines of cottonwoods on its borders
+silhouetted against the sullen yellow sand. And wild bees, drunk with
+rapturous surprise, buzzed thick in the heavy blossoms. Whence they came
+no one could guess. Dick was willing to wager that there was nothing
+else within a hundred miles on which a bee might feed.</p>
+
+<p>It was early morning. Roger and Charley allowed the others to drift back
+to their various occupations while they remained to watch the field.
+Seated side by side on a rock heap, Roger's arm around Charley's
+shoulders, they listened to the humming of the bees.<a class="pagenum" name="page_359" id="page_359" title="359"></a></p>
+
+<p>"If you weren't here, it would make me homesick," said Roger. "I can
+shut my eyes and see the old Preble farm and my mother in her phlox bed,
+calling to me to drive the bees away. I wonder if a fellow ever gets
+over his heartache for his mother."</p>
+
+<p>"Not the right kind of a fellow for the right kind of a mother," replied
+Charley, lifting Roger's hand against her cheek. "The price we pay for
+any kind of love is pain."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope when yours and my time comes to go we can go together," said
+Roger, "and that we won't have to start until our work is done. Queer
+how life's values shift. When I came down here, the thing I wanted most
+in life was to make a success of heat engineering. I thought it was
+impossible for me to reach an equal degree of desire about anything
+else. And now, while I want just as much as ever to go on with my
+profession, successfully, I want a thousand times more to be your
+husband and to be the right kind of a husband. I never have pipe-dreamed
+much about marriage, though I've done my share of flirting in my day.
+But for the first time in my life I realize that Bobby Burns knew what
+human life is in its innermost essence when he said:</p>
+
+<p style='margin-left: 4em'>
+"'To make a happy fireside clime for wean and wife,<br />
+That's the true purpose and sublime, of human life!'"<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>Charley did not speak but she turned and looked into Roger's blue eyes
+with her own bespeaking a depth of feeling that was beyond words. Roger,
+looking at the splendid brow above the brown eyes, kissed it reverently
+and then gazing at the beautiful curving mouth, he crushed his lips to
+Charley's. Then again they sat watching the bees in the alfalfa.<a class="pagenum" name="page_360" id="page_360" title="360"></a></p>
+
+<p>Charley noted before Roger the sound of hoof beats and looking round,
+beheld Hackett's two seated buckboard crawling slowly toward them.</p>
+
+<p>"Who on earth now!" exclaimed Roger. "It can't be&mdash;yes, by Jove it is
+Dean Erskine&mdash;and&mdash;and Mamma and Papa Wolf! Oh, Elsa and Dick are going
+to have real trouble now!"</p>
+
+<p>They hurried round to the corral, and shouted to the others so that the
+whole ranch was present to welcome the travelers. Ernest was first,
+lifting his mother bodily to the ground and kissing her a dozen times
+before Elsa had a chance.</p>
+
+<p>"Guess I can pull off a surprise party when I try!" he shouted. "Here,
+Papa, this is Charley. Don't you remember the little roly-poly who used
+to play in the swimming pool? And Dick&mdash;who tried to boss us."</p>
+
+<p>"Come up to the house! I know you're half dead," said Charley, leading
+the way as she spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want to go into any house till I've seen the Plant," exclaimed
+Dean Erskine, wiping the sand from his face.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a Plant for me, but coffee and some shade and a little breeze,
+maybe," cried Papa Wolf.</p>
+
+<p>"Better have some breakfast first, Dean," suggested Roger. "There's a
+long story goes with seeing the plant."</p>
+
+<p>"There's a long story goes with a number of things here I would
+suspect," grunted Papa Wolf, mounting the steps to the porch.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Papa, don't try to talk until you've eaten," called Mamma
+anxiously, from Ernest's arm. "Oh, but children, this is very pleasant,"
+as the party entered<a class="pagenum" name="page_361" id="page_361" title="361"></a> the living room. "How do you keep it so cool and
+how have you endured this dreadful heat?"</p>
+
+<p>"Heat!" laughed Elsa, "why, Mamma, this is our cool fall weather we're
+having now. You should have been here in the good old summer time."</p>
+
+<p>"God forbid, if it was warmer than this yet. Papa, take off your coat,
+and you too, Dean." Mamma lifted her dusty little black hat from a very
+flushed forehead. "These boys look cool in their flannel shirts and you
+so hot in your coats. And see what a nice fine place and a nice clock
+and a&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Hold, Mamma! Hold! You needn't talk every minute," interrupted Papa
+Wolf. "I promised to say nothing until we all have eaten. So now, enjoy
+your breakfast."</p>
+
+<p>But Papa and probably the Dean were the only persons who really enjoyed
+the meal. Elsa was plainly rattled and Dick whose worn face recently had
+looked much less haggard had settled again into lines of suffering.
+Except in looking after the guests' comfort, he had nothing to say.
+Charley and Roger were apprehensive as to the outcome of what was
+plainly to be a family row. Ernest, who talked a great deal, seemed
+excited and uneasy.</p>
+
+<p>When the coffee pot had been emptied and pipes and cigars lighted, Dean
+Erskine rose. He was small and thin and his Van Dyke beard was nearly
+white but he still gave the impression of tremendous nervous energy.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, I'm ready for the Plant, Roger," he said energetically.</p>
+
+<p>"No! No! The Plant can wait!" protested Papa. "You know all about why we
+have come, Dean, and I<a class="pagenum" name="page_362" id="page_362" title="362"></a> want you to stay and lend your good sense to the
+interview."</p>
+
+<p>"But my dear Wolf, it will be very unpleasant for me," exclaimed the
+Dean.</p>
+
+<p>"And for me!" added Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"For you, Roger! Why you're the cause of all our troubles and the Dean
+has backed you in all! Come now, don't be a coward. See it through! I
+must take my two children back with me. That is settled."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that what brought you down here, Papa?" inquired Elsa.</p>
+
+<p>"Ernest's letter brought me down here. It's the only letter he has
+written me since he left my roof. But it was most important."</p>
+
+<p>"You see, it was this way," Ernest cleared his throat, nervously, but
+his blue eyes were steady. "You told me not to communicate with you, but
+I've written regularly to Mother. So, of course, it amounted to the same
+thing. Naturally, I've tried not to write you about our worries. But
+finally, I made up my mind, Papa, that you needed to learn one or two
+things that I had learned down here. I knew there was no use in my
+asking you to come, so I merely wrote you of Elsa's engagement."</p>
+
+<p>Ernest turned to his sister and Dick, who sat side by side on the
+living-room cot.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not going to apologize to you two. Mamma and Papa had to know
+sometime or other. And I wanted Papa down here."</p>
+
+<p>"You should have let me write, Ernest. I might have given myself a fair
+show, I think." Dick's voice was bitter.</p>
+
+<p>"I did you no harm in the long run, Dick, old man,"<a class="pagenum" name="page_363" id="page_363" title="363"></a> said Ernest,
+eagerly. "Just bear with me for a while."</p>
+
+<p>"Ernie, you always were an old butter-in," cried Elsa angrily. "As if I
+weren't perfectly capable of managing my own affairs. Now you've ruined
+everything. Papa, I am going to marry Dick. Mamma, you will love him."</p>
+
+<p>"Wait, Elsa, wait," exclaimed Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>But Papa could not wait. "Marry a Preble!" he roared. "Marry a drunkard,
+the son of a drunkard! Oh, don't try to hush me, Mamma! You know you're
+just as anxious about the matter as I am. I had the Dean look Dick
+Preble up. His record in college was that of a drunken rounder. His
+father drank the old farm up, you remember that, Roger."</p>
+
+<p>"I remember folks said so, but all I know and all I want to know about
+Dick is what he is now. He's a new man and a mighty fine one."</p>
+
+<p>"Impossible! His father&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Dick jumped to his feet, but Charley spoke first. "Leave our father
+absolutely out of this, Mr. Wolf, if you please. He's not here to defend
+himself. Dick is."</p>
+
+<p>"Impossible!" roared Papa Wolf.</p>
+
+<p>Charley crossed the room swiftly and standing in all the dignity of her
+good height and her quiet beauty, she looked down on Papa Wolf.</p>
+
+<p>"I am telling you," she did not raise her voice, "not to include my
+father or my mother in this conversation. My brother and I stand on our
+own reputations and no one else's."</p>
+
+<p>Papa Wolf swallowed two or three times. "But inheritance," he said
+feebly.<a class="pagenum" name="page_364" id="page_364" title="364"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Nobody inherits the drink habit," returned Charley, disdainfully. "You
+can inherit a weak will but not a habit. Dick drank because he thought
+he was going to die and he went the pace, thinking like other fool men
+that he was living life to the full, in that way. By the time he had
+been cured of his illness, he had the drink appetite. But he's cured of
+that now."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know?" asked Papa Wolf, belligerently.</p>
+
+<p>"Because I know," replied Charley, shortly, returning to her chair,
+while Dick and Elsa stared at her, astonishment and gratitude both
+struggling in their faces.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, do I want my daughter to marry a man who's been a bum, eh? Do you
+think I, Karl Wolf&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Hold on, Mr. Wolf," interrupted Dick. "I never was a bum. Drink was my
+failing. I've always, with Charley's help, paid my own way. I have a
+real business down here now. Elsa loves the desert life and she loves
+me. I can take care of her and make her happy, I know."</p>
+
+<p>"You know, huh! Yet you remember Elsa's home. All its luxury?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I remember Elsa's home and I remember that Elsa and her mother
+were high class, unpaid servants in that home."</p>
+
+<p>Papa Wolf jumped to his feet. Ernest laid a hand on his arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait now, Papa. You've got the top layer off your chest. Now I'm going
+to tell you the inside story of what has happened in this desert in the
+seven or<a class="pagenum" name="page_365" id="page_365" title="365"></a> eight months. Light your pipe, Papa. It's going to be a long
+story."</p>
+
+<p>"Pipe! Pipe! I will not light my pipe!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why not? Nobody's married yet. You've got days and weeks if you wish to
+argue about that and you'll be liking Dick better all the time you're
+arguing. Now Elsa's marriage isn't the important matter you've to decide
+down here, at all. Light your pipe. Papa dear! You always did give me
+good advice, except about coming down here. Here, take a fresh box of
+matches."</p>
+
+<p>Papa Wolf, established once more, Ernest took a turn or two up and down
+the room, coming finally to a stop before the empty fire place. Roger,
+looking at his chum closely, realized suddenly that Ernest had aged in
+the past few months. There were lines around his eyes and his lips.
+Ernest looked from his father to his mother with a little smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Roger and I, in spite of our thirty years, were unsophisticated kids
+when we came into this country. I think we're grown up now. I think
+we're pretty certain to go a straight and decent trail to the end. But
+that I came mighty near to going a forbidden trail as Roger calls it, is
+your fault, Papa&mdash;and yours, Dean Erskine."</p>
+
+<p>He paused and although the Dean and Ernest's father looked at each other
+in amazement, neither interrupted and the younger man went on.</p>
+
+<p>"I never saw death until I came down here&mdash;I never knew love. I never
+knew real work. But here I have learned all three. We have lived here
+with an intensity as great as the heat. The&mdash;the primal passions<a class="pagenum" name="page_366" id="page_366" title="366"></a> have
+shaken us, Papa&mdash;and burned us clean&mdash;You know some creeds speak of
+Christ's hours between the Last Supper and His death as the passion of
+the cross. Sometimes I feel as if I could call my months down here my
+passion of the desert."</p>
+
+<p>Again Ernest paused, and those who had lived with him through these
+months of passion&mdash;passion of joy, of fear, of sorrow, of love, of
+personal grief and of world pain, listened with astonishment that
+jovial, easy-going Ernest should have felt as deeply as they.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. von Minden died first. Roger and Dick found her dead up in a
+remote canyon. She had thirsted to death. I wrote Elsa of her but not of
+her death. That would have set you to worrying about me, M&uuml;tterchen. She
+had the little black box with her that I wrote Elsa she had demanded
+from her husband. Whether she found in it what she wanted no one will
+ever know. But her death ended one of those strange, feverish life
+dramas that this trackless desert is always turning up. Next they found
+Von Minden, alone except for Peter. (You must meet Peter, Papa.) He
+probably died of heart failure. We don't know how she got the box away
+from him. Maybe she poisoned him. And next Felicia,&mdash;Felicia was exactly
+as Charley was, Mamma, when she used to come to play with us in the
+pool."</p>
+
+<p>Ernest looked at Charley&mdash;"I've got to talk about her, Charley, to make
+them understand."</p>
+
+<p>Charley moistened her lips, but nodded and Dick put his hand over his
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"She was like Charley too in that she was the kind of a girl that decent
+men instinctively love&mdash;not with one of these headlong, unreasoning
+loves, you understand.<a class="pagenum" name="page_367" id="page_367" title="367"></a> But with the kind of a deep-seated adoration for
+beauty and goodness and brain that gets a man where he lives and never
+leaves him. That's the way I got to caring for Charley and that's the
+way, in embryo, we all loved Felicia.</p>
+
+<p>"In the meantime, you understand we were all working like the very devil
+to get the plant up and the alfalfa in. I wrote home of that. How
+difficult the work here in the desert was is beyond description. And,
+what made it more difficult, after the Smithsonian turned Roger down, he
+got to working against time, and though he never said much, he gave an
+atmosphere of desperate hurry and worry to the camp, that simply got us
+all strung up to the breaking point. At intervals, too, he lost that
+famous temper of his. These tempers upset Felicia terribly."</p>
+
+<p>Roger filled his pipe with fingers that trembled a little. But Ernest
+was staring out the door now, with eyes that saw nothing.</p>
+
+<p>"Dick varied the monotony two or three times by getting drunk. He is an
+ugly whelp when he's drunk. Once he knocked Charley down and Felicia saw
+it and Roger and he mixed up over it and Elsa finally straightened it
+out, and we let him out of Coventry. But the next time he got drunk,
+Felicia, in her fright, ran away into the desert and was killed by a
+rattler. Charley and Roger found her. It nearly killed us all. But it
+cured Dick of drinking&mdash;that's one reason why I'm telling you. Don't
+cry, M&uuml;tterchen."</p>
+
+<p>"But you have Charley, Ernie! You have Charley!" sobbed his mother.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I haven't Charley. Roger has Charley.<a class="pagenum" name="page_368" id="page_368" title="368"></a> None of us deserved her, but
+Roger is nearer fit than the rest."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't, Ernest!" pleaded Charley.</p>
+
+<p>"I must, Charley. You'll see in a few moments what I'm getting at. Well,
+Papa, in the meantime, there was no money and it looked as if there
+would be no food. Roger's plant didn't work out as we'd planned. I wrote
+home the difficulties even of hanging a door. You can picture Roger
+trying to build a new engine out of wire and a string he had tramped ten
+miles into the ranges to find and steal. The alfalfa was dying for lack
+of water and there was no adequate pumping system even if we'd had
+adequate water.</p>
+
+<p>"It was at this point that I decided to go to Washington, Papa, and try
+the Smithsonian. You would have been the one, naturally, for me to turn
+to, but even if I'd had the inclination, which I hadn't, Roger
+absolutely wouldn't stand for the suggestion. So I went to Washington,
+all sort of strung up, you understand, and in bad mental trim because
+of&mdash;of everything. And in Washington I got a good swift kick. So I went
+to New York and spent the rest of Elsa's good money on Broadway. It
+didn't take me very far but when I went broke, I looked up your friend
+Werner. This is the point where you come in too, Dean Erskine.</p>
+
+<p>"Now I had been brought up at home, naturally, to worship all things
+German. I liked to think of myself not as an American but as a German.
+At school, this home influence should have been counteracted if America
+expects to make real citizens. But it wasn't. The High School taught us
+German and no other modern language. In college, all things mental
+centered on the<a class="pagenum" name="page_369" id="page_369" title="369"></a> German idea in the majority of the departments. And
+your department was the worst of all, Dean. You are a Germanophile
+yourself and you taught your students to be.</p>
+
+<p>"So behold me, calling on Werner and finding that Werner among other
+activities has been the head of an organized effort on the part of the
+German government for twenty years to Germanize America&mdash;through
+schools, churches, singing societies&mdash;oh, countless ways. And he was
+deeply worried about our British sympathies. And he wanted my influence
+in the college and elsewhere and he wanted Roger's big mechanical brain
+for Germany and so he offered me fifty thousand dollars for the Sun
+Plant and I took it."</p>
+
+<p>"Fine! Wonderful!" exclaimed Papa Wolf.</p>
+
+<p>"So I thought," said Ernest dryly, "but Roger and the others here
+thought differently. In fact when Roger found out about Werner, he tried
+to kill me, and then went away into the mountains with Peter for three
+days."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Ernie! Oh, Roger!" moaned Mamma Wolf.</p>
+
+<p>Papa Wolf's lips tightened. "But why, Roger?" he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait, Roger! I'm telling the story. Rog tried to kill me for selling
+out secretly the idea that was bone of his bone. He tried to kill me
+because I sold it to a government that has gone through Belgium like a
+Hunnish horde, and because I claimed to admire it for that. Well, he
+didn't kill me and I was very sore and decided to go to Germany to live.
+Then Werner came down to settle details with Roger, and Roger told him
+what was in the black box and made him give back the contract."<a class="pagenum" name="page_370" id="page_370" title="370"></a></p>
+
+<p>"The black box! What black box?" asked Dean Erskine.</p>
+
+<p>"The Von Mindens' black box. When I brought back word that Werner wanted
+it, Roger and Charley read the contents. It developed that Von Minden
+was one of a group working for the German government with the idea of
+making Arizona and New Mexico into German colonies. Gustav&mdash;you remember
+my writing of Gustav&mdash;was Werner's spy, keeping Werner informed of our
+every move and what he could about Von Minden."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe a word of it! Not a word! It's all British influence,"
+exclaimed Papa Wolf stoutly.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll have to believe it, because it's true," returned Ernest. "Roger
+was angry and threw Werner and Gustav out of the camp and made me choose
+between him and Werner. I chose Roger, because the time had come in my
+life when I'd got to make a tremendous decision. It's one you've got to
+make, Papa, and so has the Dean. I wanted you to make it my way. That's
+why I got you down here to see the things that I'd been up against."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't intend to ask us to break our neutrality, surely, Ernest,"
+protested Dean Erskine.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll develop your job in just a moment, Dean. Papa, what I want is that
+you repudiate Werner and all his works, and undertake to finance Roger's
+project."</p>
+
+<p>"My heavens, Ern!" cried Roger.</p>
+
+<p>"Tut! Tut! Rog&mdash;you be quiet. Dean, your job is to sell the Plant to my
+father, after you've both made your decision."</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot understand your talking to me in this<a class="pagenum" name="page_371" id="page_371" title="371"></a> manner, Ernest,"
+shouted Papa Wolf, pounding on the table till the belated breakfast
+dishes rattled.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll explain," said Ernest, imperturbably. "There's love of human
+beings. There's love of work. There's love of country. They make up a
+man's life. I had the first two and I thought that they were enough. But
+lately, I've discovered differently and I think a good many people in
+this country are finding out the same thing. I never gave the matter any
+thought until the Werner episode. Then I began to examine this thing
+called patriotism and I found that it was the very wellspring of a man's
+usefulness as a citizen. Without it family pride is a travesty. Without
+it, the impulse to build up sane and humane and lasting governments is
+lacking. Without it, a man may be ever so learned, ever so rich, yet he
+lacks any real place in community life. Patriotism is to a man's
+community life what religion is to his moral life.</p>
+
+<p>"Now I intend to lead a full, normal man's life. I want to love a
+country, and I couldn't see, when I got down to brass tacks, why that
+country should be Germany. This is the land that bred me and fed me.
+Actually I'm a physical part of the soil of America. What do I care how
+cultured Germany may or may not be? Here in America are the hills and
+valleys, the rivers and mountains that I know and care for. Here is the
+kind of government I like. Here is the place of my profession. I
+wouldn't marry a German fr&auml;ulein for anything. A slangy, athletic,
+bossy, saucy, well-educated American girl for mine! All the people that
+I love are here in America. You folks and all the relatives are here.
+Roger is here, Charley is here and up there on an American mountainside
+lies<a class="pagenum" name="page_372" id="page_372" title="372"></a> little Felicia. Papa, I am an American, not a German."</p>
+
+<p>Again there was full silence in the room. Then Dean Erskine cleared his
+throat. "Ernest, I want to thank you very much. I, too, am an American."</p>
+
+<p>Papa Wolf blew his nose and walked slowly out of the house. There was no
+one in the room who had not been moved deeply by the something poignant
+in Ernest's face, even though his voice was so sedulously casual. Before
+any one else had opportunity to speak however, Papa Wolf was back.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe a word about Werner," he said to Ernest. "But I am
+surprised, Ernest, after your upbringing that you should have deceived
+Roger as you did."</p>
+
+<p>"But are you an American, Papa?" persisted Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>"You numb-skull!" shouted his father. "I have been an American longer
+than you have hairs to your head. It's my land, even if I am sentimental
+about Germany."</p>
+
+<p>Once more he marched out the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, Dean, and see the Plant," said Roger. The Dean rose with alacrity
+and bumped into Papa Wolf, who came in again shaking his head.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see, Ernie, how you could have treated Roger so. Of course, I
+think he's crazy and all his works. But I've always loved him, though I
+was and am very mad at him for bringing you down here. I don't see how
+you could have done it."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought I owed it to Germany and that it would help him. You forget
+my German superman upbringing."<a class="pagenum" name="page_373" id="page_373" title="373"></a></p>
+
+<p>"I'll look at the Plant, of course," said Papa Wolf, "just to see what
+you have wasted your life blood on. But not one cent of money, boys."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want your money, sir," exclaimed Roger, proudly.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't eh! Then we're all satisfied," returned Ernest's father,
+following the Dean out of the door.</p>
+
+<p>The last place inspected was the engine house. Ernest made a simple
+explanation of the machinery while the Dean went over the engine almost
+as lovingly and keenly as Roger would have. Then Roger led the Dean back
+to the porch for a talk.</p>
+
+<p>"So this is the result of all your years of work, eh, Ernie?" said Papa
+Wolf. "Do you mean to say that you made that machine out of your own
+head?"</p>
+
+<p>"I only helped Roger," replied Ernest, "but it means a lot to me.
+Father, this solar work of ours will be recorded in history as the
+beginning of a new harnessing of energy."</p>
+
+<p>The older man looked at his son with interest. "You should have taken
+the trouble to explain all this to me, years ago, my son."</p>
+
+<p>"I know it," replied Ernest. "Well, anyhow, I've done my bit down here.
+When you go back I'll go back with you. I'm a teacher, not a pioneer."</p>
+
+<p>Papa Wolf seized both of Ernest's hand. "No! Really! Ernest, you really
+will go on with the professorship! Then I am satisfied. But we must not
+let this work be in vain. This child of your mind, Ernest, it must be
+recorded. It will help you in your professorship, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>Ernest nodded. "It's really a great thing, father. Roger has a wonderful
+mind."<a class="pagenum" name="page_374" id="page_374" title="374"></a></p>
+
+<p>"He's got a good mind, yes, but I'm asking you where would he have been
+all these years without my boy? O Ernie! Ernie! You've taken ten years
+off me! Now, you let me think. I'll sit and watch this engine of yours.
+You go along about your work, Ernie." And Ernest, a tired look in his
+eyes, went along as he was bidden.</p>
+
+<p>It was dinner time before the tour of inspection was done. Mamma Wolf
+spent the morning, after a nap, helping the girls to prepare a huge
+dinner. She and Elsa wept a little on each other's necks, and Mamma Wolf
+promised to take Dick to her heart and love him as another son. And
+somehow Elsa put full faith in Ernest's bringing his father around.</p>
+
+<p>No one talked business or politics at dinner. There were many details of
+the camp life to be told and many stories of the Von Mindens that
+invariably brought Papa Wolf to the verge of apoplexy with laughter.
+Ernest never had been more charming than he was now. And by some magic
+of his own, he drew Dick out to tell the story of his turquoise mining.
+Like almost any story of desert endeavor it was full of drama, of quiet
+heroism, and of weird humor. Papa and Mamma Wolf hung breathless on
+every word of it.</p>
+
+<p>"Himmel!" exclaimed Papa at the end, "if I were thirty years younger,
+I'd like just such adventuring!" The others looked at one another and
+smiled.</p>
+
+<p>When the long dinner hour was over, Papa Wolf lighted his meerschaum.
+"And now let's look at that engine again. You should come and see it,
+Mamma. Run by sunshine and almost as silent as the sun and powerful like
+it. Wonderful! Wonderful!"<a class="pagenum" name="page_375" id="page_375" title="375"></a></p>
+
+<p>"You've hardly looked at the alfalfa, Papa," said Ernest.</p>
+
+<p>"Plenty of time for that. One thing at a time. Come along, Dean. If you
+should explain that engine through to me two or three times more, I'll
+understand it. Ernest and Roger, they never thought to take old Papa to
+see the working model at the University. They thought because I was a
+fool about the working drawings, I knew nothing. Come on, Dean! Come
+along."</p>
+
+<p>Seated on two up-ended boxes before the engine, the two gray headed men
+spent the afternoon. The Dean could have been enticed away to examine
+the alfalfa and the pumping system. But not Papa. He went out at
+intervals to look at the absorber and to read the thermometer at the oil
+storage pit, then back to the engine.</p>
+
+<p>"And this is what Ernie has been working on for all these years. And I
+never could get it through my old head."</p>
+
+<p>"Ernest and Roger too," the Dean would suggest.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, Roger. But you know Ernest and his fine mind. Observe now,
+Dean, out there the parching, cruel sun, that strikes and kills. Here
+Ernest's magic, this silent machine that catches that sun and turns its
+death kiss into life. And out there, where the honey bees buzz, the
+magic made vital. My boy's brain did such miracles and I never knew it
+until now. I even forbade him the house when he insisted on giving birth
+to his idea."</p>
+
+<p>The others drifted in and out and at last the supper hour came and once
+more the clan gathered at the familiar table.<a class="pagenum" name="page_376" id="page_376" title="376"></a></p>
+
+<p>"Why, Papa, I haven't seen you with such appetite or with such spirits
+since last Christmas," said Mamma.</p>
+
+<p>"You haven't seen me with such cause. And how mad I was when I came&mdash;eh,
+Mamma!"</p>
+
+<p>"You know, Papa," said Ernest, "we never could have put over the Plant
+if it hadn't been for the Prebles. I swear Charley has fed us and Dick
+has guided us and had faith in us when it seemed as if the whole world
+outside had turned us down."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it so?" exclaimed Papa as if realizing that fact for the first time.
+"So you stood by my boy, eh, Dick? Well, that's good! My boy has stood
+by you and so will I. Now listen, boys. Why can't I do a little
+adventuring, eh? Let's make this a thousand acre Plant. And the Dean
+says that this engine will put every other low temperature, high speed
+engine off the market. Why not build some and sell them, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"But Mr. Wolf," said Roger. "I haven't felt as if you ought to put money
+in. If anything should go wrong and you should lose by it, I'd never
+forgive myself."</p>
+
+<p>Papa Wolf put his hand on Roger's knee. "Roger, I've known you since you
+were born and I loved your father. He died a disappointed man. When I
+think of the things Ernie said this morning I realize that perhaps if
+I'd been a better patriot I wouldn't have let a man so valuable to the
+community die a disappointed man. Now you're an even more valuable man
+than your father was, and so is Ernest. Shall I wait for outsiders to do
+for my son and your father's son? Or shall I help you organize so as to
+develop this hot country for America? And again I did my only son<a class="pagenum" name="page_377" id="page_377" title="377"></a> an
+unkindness in not understanding his work&mdash;almost a fatal unkindness.
+Suppose he had left us for Germany. Shall I not make it up to him? And
+lastly, my son treated you dishonorably. Shall he and I not together try
+to make it up?"</p>
+
+<p>Roger's tense face worked.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, don't speak! I know how you feel," cried Papa. "Now I have more
+than enough tucked away for Mamma and me. And I have two friends, one in
+the brewery, one in the bank. We can organize a company. We have Dick's
+ranch and the turquoise mine and Ernest's and your plant. We can get
+plenty of money. I'll make all those M&auml;nnerchors come down here. We'll
+irrigate this whole desert. We'll open up mines&mdash;we'll&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He got up to pace the floor. "Why there's an empire here for Uncle Sam
+that the Reclamation Service can't handle. We'll do it."</p>
+
+<p>"Roger has talked of Asia Minor," said Dick, with twinkling eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, we'll tackle that later," replied Papa dreamily. "America is a
+good field. Dean, are you coming in with us?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks," returned the Dean. "But Ernest and I have another job,
+fighting <i>furor Teutonicus</i> up at the university. But I'll be on hand
+for such advice as I can give."</p>
+
+<p>"I think," Papa went on after a brisk nod, "we'll spend a month or so
+down here, Mamma and I. Ernest, you can go on up and open the house and
+we'll be back after Christmas. If all works well, I'll have to spend a
+part of each year down here. Dick, can't you get those Indians you talk
+of to build Mamma and Ernie<a class="pagenum" name="page_378" id="page_378" title="378"></a> and me a little house, near by? Then you
+and Elsa can have this and Charley and Roger must build them a little
+nest somewhere. And we all are fixed, see!"</p>
+
+<p>There was a little pause, then Elsa ran across the room and threw
+herself in her father's arms. "Oh, Papa! Papa! I never knew what a saint
+you were until now."</p>
+
+<p>Papa Wolf smoothed Elsa's hair tenderly. "I still think you are a fool,
+Elschen. But if your mother and I are down here to watch closely&mdash;the
+very first time, sir," he glared at Dick, "that I find&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You won't have to do anything, Mr. Wolf," said Dick. "I'll cut my
+throat."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't talk silly," exclaimed Papa. "Just try to be a good boy and we'll
+help. Of course, I think Elsa is a fool but I thought Ernest was one and
+now look!"</p>
+
+<p>The Dean slipped out, unobserved and a moment later Charley whispered to
+Roger,</p>
+
+<p>"Let's get out and let Dick have his chance to clear everything up."</p>
+
+<p>And so Roger and Charley found themselves alone, under the stars.</p>
+
+<p>"I just can't realize it, at all, can you, Roger dearest?" asked
+Charley.</p>
+
+<p>Roger did not answer for a moment. They were standing beside the corral,
+looking toward the shadowy mountainside where lay Felicia's grave.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I could believe she saw and knew everything," he said, brokenly.
+Then as Charley said nothing, he turned and took her in his arms with a
+sudden passion that found expression in hot kisses and half broken
+sentences.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Charley! Charley! After all I'm not a<a class="pagenum" name="page_379" id="page_379" title="379"></a> failure. I am&mdash;Darling, you
+do love me, you are sure of that&mdash;! How beautiful you are! How
+beautiful! You are as lovely as the desert. God, Charley, but I'm
+happy!"</p>
+
+<p>Charley, clinging to him speechlessly, finally raised her head, and
+looked with Roger across the desert night of silence and blue, while the
+rich sense of space, of mystery, of heaven very near and life's
+bitternesses far away touched them both at once. And Peter, a wisp of
+cat's claw hanging from his mouth, rubbed his patient head
+affectionately against Roger's arm.</p>
+
+<p style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:3em; text-align:center;'>THE END</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Forbidden Trail, by Honoré Willsie
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FORBIDDEN TRAIL ***
+
+***** This file should be named 22284-h.htm or 22284-h.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/2/2/2/8/22284/
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+
+</pre>
+
+</body>
+</html>
diff --git a/22284-h/images/illus-emb.png b/22284-h/images/illus-emb.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..012b825
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-h/images/illus-emb.png
diff --git a/22284-h/images/illus-fpc.jpg b/22284-h/images/illus-fpc.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..af5cfc7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-h/images/illus-fpc.jpg
diff --git a/22284-page-images/f001.jpg b/22284-page-images/f001.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2364000
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/f001.jpg
diff --git a/22284-page-images/f002.png b/22284-page-images/f002.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f727bb2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/f002.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/f003.png b/22284-page-images/f003.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b3a82b0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/f003.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/f004.png b/22284-page-images/f004.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e8957c4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/f004.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p001.png b/22284-page-images/p001.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..67d80fd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p001.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p002.png b/22284-page-images/p002.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..abe01de
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p002.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p003.png b/22284-page-images/p003.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9fd7547
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p003.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p004.png b/22284-page-images/p004.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b9d0653
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p004.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p005.png b/22284-page-images/p005.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ba75648
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p005.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p006.png b/22284-page-images/p006.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2a915fc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p006.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p007.png b/22284-page-images/p007.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0423fb0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p007.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p008.png b/22284-page-images/p008.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d810182
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p008.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p009.png b/22284-page-images/p009.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7662c99
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p009.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p010.png b/22284-page-images/p010.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2cf538b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p010.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p011.png b/22284-page-images/p011.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..63a853b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p011.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p012.png b/22284-page-images/p012.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..70f63ce
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p012.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p013.png b/22284-page-images/p013.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2245813
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p013.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p014.png b/22284-page-images/p014.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d2ea3b7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p014.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p015.png b/22284-page-images/p015.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b3cc18d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p015.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p016.png b/22284-page-images/p016.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..383fcf1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p016.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p017.png b/22284-page-images/p017.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e8baa92
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p017.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p018.png b/22284-page-images/p018.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..358420a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p018.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p019.png b/22284-page-images/p019.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..12fe542
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p019.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p020.png b/22284-page-images/p020.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..04c7e78
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p020.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p021.png b/22284-page-images/p021.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..13ef41a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p021.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p022.png b/22284-page-images/p022.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1fbd9bf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p022.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p023.png b/22284-page-images/p023.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..87114f3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p023.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p024.png b/22284-page-images/p024.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..79c403d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p024.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p025.png b/22284-page-images/p025.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b556908
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p025.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p026.png b/22284-page-images/p026.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c10809a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p026.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p027.png b/22284-page-images/p027.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e8a6059
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p027.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p028.png b/22284-page-images/p028.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..49390db
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p028.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p029.png b/22284-page-images/p029.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..31f75f2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p029.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p030.png b/22284-page-images/p030.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..256947c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p030.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p031.png b/22284-page-images/p031.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cc2f07d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p031.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p032.png b/22284-page-images/p032.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..10625f3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p032.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p033.png b/22284-page-images/p033.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2e427ea
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p033.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p034.png b/22284-page-images/p034.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..70591b7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p034.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p035.png b/22284-page-images/p035.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..72da2c6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p035.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p036.png b/22284-page-images/p036.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..37a27f0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p036.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p037.png b/22284-page-images/p037.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..77a940f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p037.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p038.png b/22284-page-images/p038.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..311159e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p038.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p039.png b/22284-page-images/p039.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..035eb77
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p039.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p040.png b/22284-page-images/p040.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..220ffae
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p040.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p041.png b/22284-page-images/p041.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f4e6e14
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p041.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p042.png b/22284-page-images/p042.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..71ecfa1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p042.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p043.png b/22284-page-images/p043.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..56b2b48
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p043.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p044.png b/22284-page-images/p044.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..92f0047
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p044.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p045.png b/22284-page-images/p045.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..54633d3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p045.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p046.png b/22284-page-images/p046.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d4dbacc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p046.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p047.png b/22284-page-images/p047.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..115c3b3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p047.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p048.png b/22284-page-images/p048.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cfcd7e6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p048.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p049.png b/22284-page-images/p049.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c0c68d7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p049.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p050.png b/22284-page-images/p050.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a4808fc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p050.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p051.png b/22284-page-images/p051.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1273c82
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p051.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p052.png b/22284-page-images/p052.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3844f05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p052.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p053.png b/22284-page-images/p053.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b463b11
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p053.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p054.png b/22284-page-images/p054.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b456013
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p054.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p055.png b/22284-page-images/p055.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0b90040
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p055.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p056.png b/22284-page-images/p056.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4157cae
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p056.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p057.png b/22284-page-images/p057.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1577d9b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p057.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p058.png b/22284-page-images/p058.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ac955b1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p058.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p059.png b/22284-page-images/p059.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7a23463
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p059.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p060.png b/22284-page-images/p060.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b5d6a27
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p060.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p061.png b/22284-page-images/p061.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..77d6205
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p061.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p062.png b/22284-page-images/p062.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..616a17d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p062.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p063.png b/22284-page-images/p063.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0ccc567
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p063.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p064.png b/22284-page-images/p064.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ab56826
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p064.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p065.png b/22284-page-images/p065.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e68c9d2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p065.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p066.png b/22284-page-images/p066.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0dbd908
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p066.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p067.png b/22284-page-images/p067.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a719e88
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p067.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p068.png b/22284-page-images/p068.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f7ce307
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p068.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p069.png b/22284-page-images/p069.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5487f97
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p069.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p070.png b/22284-page-images/p070.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ad4c3ad
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p070.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p071.png b/22284-page-images/p071.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..70018c1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p071.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p072.png b/22284-page-images/p072.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c11d01c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p072.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p073.png b/22284-page-images/p073.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f5227c9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p073.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p074.png b/22284-page-images/p074.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b0bf4b6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p074.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p075.png b/22284-page-images/p075.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b151cf8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p075.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p076.png b/22284-page-images/p076.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8c364fa
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p076.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p077.png b/22284-page-images/p077.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0f762d5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p077.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p078.png b/22284-page-images/p078.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d79cc06
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p078.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p079.png b/22284-page-images/p079.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7bfdbe3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p079.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p080.png b/22284-page-images/p080.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1ca47c1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p080.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p081.png b/22284-page-images/p081.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0a56abf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p081.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p082.png b/22284-page-images/p082.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0982eeb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p082.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p083.png b/22284-page-images/p083.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d430a26
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p083.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p084.png b/22284-page-images/p084.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..41f2462
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p084.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p085.png b/22284-page-images/p085.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d026f26
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p085.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p086.png b/22284-page-images/p086.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a984515
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p086.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p087.png b/22284-page-images/p087.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0b1f3a5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p087.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p088.png b/22284-page-images/p088.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..38b3844
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p088.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p089.png b/22284-page-images/p089.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8c584ce
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p089.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p090.png b/22284-page-images/p090.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4b6bdc3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p090.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p091.png b/22284-page-images/p091.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..821fe3b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p091.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p092.png b/22284-page-images/p092.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f5f9487
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p092.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p093.png b/22284-page-images/p093.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..169cb4b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p093.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p094.png b/22284-page-images/p094.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7b05a72
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p094.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p095.png b/22284-page-images/p095.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b7c24f9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p095.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p096.png b/22284-page-images/p096.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8b4cc88
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p096.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p097.png b/22284-page-images/p097.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8d15095
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p097.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p098.png b/22284-page-images/p098.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..787f90c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p098.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p099.png b/22284-page-images/p099.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e696ad5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p099.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p100.png b/22284-page-images/p100.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..140c690
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p100.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p101.png b/22284-page-images/p101.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c6dc5d9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p101.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p102.png b/22284-page-images/p102.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c6420ab
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p102.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p103.png b/22284-page-images/p103.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fa6c44d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p103.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p104.png b/22284-page-images/p104.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..249ed82
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p104.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p105.png b/22284-page-images/p105.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..43944d3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p105.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p106.png b/22284-page-images/p106.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..247842f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p106.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p107.png b/22284-page-images/p107.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3168a3c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p107.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p108.png b/22284-page-images/p108.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ee97603
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p108.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p109.png b/22284-page-images/p109.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d62a882
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p109.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p110.png b/22284-page-images/p110.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..35668ee
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p110.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p111.png b/22284-page-images/p111.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e147f8f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p111.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p112.png b/22284-page-images/p112.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4b43f36
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p112.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p113.png b/22284-page-images/p113.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..52c8281
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p113.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p114.png b/22284-page-images/p114.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..54dde19
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p114.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p115.png b/22284-page-images/p115.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..72fba9f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p115.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p116.png b/22284-page-images/p116.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a4050cd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p116.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p117.png b/22284-page-images/p117.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e4bebf6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p117.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p118.png b/22284-page-images/p118.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0855a75
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p118.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p119.png b/22284-page-images/p119.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..080be71
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p119.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p120.png b/22284-page-images/p120.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b98deef
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p120.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p121.png b/22284-page-images/p121.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fdd495d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p121.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p122.png b/22284-page-images/p122.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5f20708
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p122.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p123.png b/22284-page-images/p123.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ea59f43
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p123.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p124.png b/22284-page-images/p124.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e786d66
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p124.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p125.png b/22284-page-images/p125.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..98b8524
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p125.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p126.png b/22284-page-images/p126.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a6258cf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p126.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p127.png b/22284-page-images/p127.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2888b0f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p127.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p128.png b/22284-page-images/p128.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1588132
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p128.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p129.png b/22284-page-images/p129.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..39ad2f2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p129.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p130.png b/22284-page-images/p130.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6273d5e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p130.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p131.png b/22284-page-images/p131.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..47fc240
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p131.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p132.png b/22284-page-images/p132.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8871c3e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p132.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p133.png b/22284-page-images/p133.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..aca1120
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p133.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p134.png b/22284-page-images/p134.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ae31a57
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p134.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p135.png b/22284-page-images/p135.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e297a28
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p135.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p136.png b/22284-page-images/p136.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..83604da
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p136.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p137.png b/22284-page-images/p137.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f304761
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p137.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p138.png b/22284-page-images/p138.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fac5042
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p138.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p139.png b/22284-page-images/p139.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c9bedb0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p139.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p140.png b/22284-page-images/p140.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..342723c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p140.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p141.png b/22284-page-images/p141.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3fe63e4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p141.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p142.png b/22284-page-images/p142.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..335be0d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p142.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p143.png b/22284-page-images/p143.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4334e57
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p143.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p144.png b/22284-page-images/p144.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0ce0c7e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p144.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p145.png b/22284-page-images/p145.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a4df770
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p145.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p146.png b/22284-page-images/p146.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..082d29b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p146.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p147.png b/22284-page-images/p147.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5aceb1d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p147.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p148.png b/22284-page-images/p148.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1cabc9a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p148.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p149.png b/22284-page-images/p149.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8e757d4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p149.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p150.png b/22284-page-images/p150.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6d90d43
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p150.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p151.png b/22284-page-images/p151.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..19c6d43
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p151.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p152.png b/22284-page-images/p152.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c237e49
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p152.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p153.png b/22284-page-images/p153.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..02b2d14
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p153.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p154.png b/22284-page-images/p154.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..bef9df7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p154.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p155.png b/22284-page-images/p155.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8b442e5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p155.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p156.png b/22284-page-images/p156.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fc0b4a0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p156.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p157.png b/22284-page-images/p157.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b68ac71
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p157.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p158.png b/22284-page-images/p158.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..95246da
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p158.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p159.png b/22284-page-images/p159.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..aedc646
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p159.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p160.png b/22284-page-images/p160.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3edf560
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p160.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p161.png b/22284-page-images/p161.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..099a265
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p161.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p162.png b/22284-page-images/p162.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..83056e2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p162.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p163.png b/22284-page-images/p163.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9f8f084
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p163.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p164.png b/22284-page-images/p164.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..27ee3c2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p164.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p165.png b/22284-page-images/p165.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d0a3196
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p165.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p166.png b/22284-page-images/p166.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1f77e39
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p166.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p167.png b/22284-page-images/p167.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e710956
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p167.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p168.png b/22284-page-images/p168.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e64b212
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p168.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p169.png b/22284-page-images/p169.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8a60eaa
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p169.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p170.png b/22284-page-images/p170.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ce26429
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p170.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p171.png b/22284-page-images/p171.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8321a80
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p171.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p172.png b/22284-page-images/p172.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cdfefff
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p172.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p173.png b/22284-page-images/p173.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d7a5b36
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p173.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p174.png b/22284-page-images/p174.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..13445a2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p174.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p175.png b/22284-page-images/p175.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d1330a2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p175.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p176.png b/22284-page-images/p176.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9905a6f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p176.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p177.png b/22284-page-images/p177.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1be78ab
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p177.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p178.png b/22284-page-images/p178.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..346b54b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p178.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p179.png b/22284-page-images/p179.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7a16f4c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p179.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p180.png b/22284-page-images/p180.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..798a7be
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p180.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p181.png b/22284-page-images/p181.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b60de05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p181.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p182.png b/22284-page-images/p182.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ed823ca
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p182.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p183.png b/22284-page-images/p183.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..33960d3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p183.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p184.png b/22284-page-images/p184.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..32dc7e1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p184.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p185.png b/22284-page-images/p185.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..dbaf566
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p185.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p186.png b/22284-page-images/p186.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..41fe2a1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p186.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p187.png b/22284-page-images/p187.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..87b6610
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p187.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p188.png b/22284-page-images/p188.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d75dd13
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p188.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p189.png b/22284-page-images/p189.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..81e9b7a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p189.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p190.png b/22284-page-images/p190.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..117b27f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p190.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p191.png b/22284-page-images/p191.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a976fe1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p191.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p192.png b/22284-page-images/p192.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..786ffc9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p192.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p193.png b/22284-page-images/p193.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ea977f4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p193.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p194.png b/22284-page-images/p194.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c4b92a9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p194.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p195.png b/22284-page-images/p195.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ee8b781
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p195.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p196.png b/22284-page-images/p196.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f195a12
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p196.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p197.png b/22284-page-images/p197.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..377aa68
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p197.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p198.png b/22284-page-images/p198.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e3c69dd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p198.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p199.png b/22284-page-images/p199.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3be77a8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p199.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p200.png b/22284-page-images/p200.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c7beb38
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p200.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p201.png b/22284-page-images/p201.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3b8a8eb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p201.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p202.png b/22284-page-images/p202.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0f19f33
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p202.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p203.png b/22284-page-images/p203.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3ab18df
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p203.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p204.png b/22284-page-images/p204.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6046cf2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p204.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p205.png b/22284-page-images/p205.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8c8d0b4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p205.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p206.png b/22284-page-images/p206.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d4b12a6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p206.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p207.png b/22284-page-images/p207.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b118007
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p207.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p208.png b/22284-page-images/p208.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cf6d35c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p208.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p209.png b/22284-page-images/p209.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4d1fab2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p209.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p210.png b/22284-page-images/p210.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7504573
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p210.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p211.png b/22284-page-images/p211.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fa2bbe9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p211.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p212.png b/22284-page-images/p212.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..deeeffe
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p212.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p213.png b/22284-page-images/p213.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1549c13
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p213.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p214.png b/22284-page-images/p214.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b45f091
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p214.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p215.png b/22284-page-images/p215.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0a547b8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p215.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p216.png b/22284-page-images/p216.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4fcf0d3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p216.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p217.png b/22284-page-images/p217.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7af5fdb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p217.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p218.png b/22284-page-images/p218.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7c92aa8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p218.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p219.png b/22284-page-images/p219.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..01fd1fd
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p219.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p220.png b/22284-page-images/p220.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d21f9f8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p220.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p221.png b/22284-page-images/p221.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8f83d9c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p221.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p222.png b/22284-page-images/p222.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8c9d17c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p222.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p223.png b/22284-page-images/p223.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1c8563b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p223.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p224.png b/22284-page-images/p224.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4e6db38
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p224.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p225.png b/22284-page-images/p225.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1cbefe1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p225.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p226.png b/22284-page-images/p226.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8cd2060
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p226.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p227.png b/22284-page-images/p227.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..14b0eb7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p227.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p228.png b/22284-page-images/p228.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a004f24
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p228.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p229.png b/22284-page-images/p229.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..67ac142
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p229.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p230.png b/22284-page-images/p230.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f562565
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p230.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p231.png b/22284-page-images/p231.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5bd9438
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p231.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p232.png b/22284-page-images/p232.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..39d3b2e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p232.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p233.png b/22284-page-images/p233.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8b5c47d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p233.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p234.png b/22284-page-images/p234.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..afc27a9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p234.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p235.png b/22284-page-images/p235.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d0deeaa
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p235.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p236.png b/22284-page-images/p236.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..895e778
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p236.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p237.png b/22284-page-images/p237.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..906a782
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p237.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p238.png b/22284-page-images/p238.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5c04c77
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p238.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p239.png b/22284-page-images/p239.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9f2c945
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p239.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p240.png b/22284-page-images/p240.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2d70094
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p240.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p241.png b/22284-page-images/p241.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b3c92bc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p241.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p242.png b/22284-page-images/p242.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..aafc036
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p242.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p243.png b/22284-page-images/p243.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2207574
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p243.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p244.png b/22284-page-images/p244.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cbab047
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p244.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p245.png b/22284-page-images/p245.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e5509a3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p245.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p246.png b/22284-page-images/p246.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b7d0cab
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p246.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p247.png b/22284-page-images/p247.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2c4a169
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p247.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p248.png b/22284-page-images/p248.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b42dc4c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p248.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p249.png b/22284-page-images/p249.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3f727fe
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p249.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p250.png b/22284-page-images/p250.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..bc8dc8b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p250.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p251.png b/22284-page-images/p251.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..076be8d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p251.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p252.png b/22284-page-images/p252.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..657df52
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p252.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p253.png b/22284-page-images/p253.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..77e3123
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p253.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p254.png b/22284-page-images/p254.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2575d99
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p254.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p255.png b/22284-page-images/p255.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a664d68
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p255.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p256.png b/22284-page-images/p256.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..83ca0ce
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p256.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p257.png b/22284-page-images/p257.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8fd237b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p257.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p258.png b/22284-page-images/p258.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..69f07e7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p258.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p259.png b/22284-page-images/p259.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2714a32
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p259.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p260.png b/22284-page-images/p260.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..55be9b6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p260.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p261.png b/22284-page-images/p261.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..bfeee8a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p261.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p262.png b/22284-page-images/p262.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c4833ef
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p262.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p263.png b/22284-page-images/p263.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1d96a2d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p263.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p264.png b/22284-page-images/p264.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d81c843
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p264.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p265.png b/22284-page-images/p265.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a07b9c4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p265.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p266.png b/22284-page-images/p266.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e5543fa
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p266.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p267.png b/22284-page-images/p267.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6c789d4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p267.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p268.png b/22284-page-images/p268.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..23fa2ef
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p268.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p269.png b/22284-page-images/p269.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f2abfbc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p269.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p270.png b/22284-page-images/p270.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..339ac56
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p270.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p271.png b/22284-page-images/p271.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7246dd2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p271.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p272.png b/22284-page-images/p272.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..023b990
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p272.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p273.png b/22284-page-images/p273.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..af50d4b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p273.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p274.png b/22284-page-images/p274.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..31e802a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p274.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p275.png b/22284-page-images/p275.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e98c9d1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p275.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p276.png b/22284-page-images/p276.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..dbf2439
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p276.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p277.png b/22284-page-images/p277.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1618834
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p277.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p278.png b/22284-page-images/p278.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ebb3d87
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p278.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p279.png b/22284-page-images/p279.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..42a9db5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p279.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p280.png b/22284-page-images/p280.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c3026a6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p280.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p281.png b/22284-page-images/p281.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d39ceb1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p281.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p282.png b/22284-page-images/p282.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..eb07a66
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p282.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p283.png b/22284-page-images/p283.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..657baee
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p283.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p284.png b/22284-page-images/p284.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ec9358f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p284.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p285.png b/22284-page-images/p285.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ca755ae
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p285.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p286.png b/22284-page-images/p286.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d1119e4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p286.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p287.png b/22284-page-images/p287.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a69df43
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p287.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p288.png b/22284-page-images/p288.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2edf596
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p288.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p289.png b/22284-page-images/p289.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4907d52
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p289.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p290.png b/22284-page-images/p290.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a0691e2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p290.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p291.png b/22284-page-images/p291.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f1556d8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p291.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p292.png b/22284-page-images/p292.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4477459
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p292.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p293.png b/22284-page-images/p293.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cf50367
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p293.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p294.png b/22284-page-images/p294.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f9fd311
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p294.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p295.png b/22284-page-images/p295.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5a5bdae
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p295.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p296.png b/22284-page-images/p296.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e0fcd86
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p296.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p297.png b/22284-page-images/p297.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a276117
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p297.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p298.png b/22284-page-images/p298.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1bd2f41
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p298.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p299.png b/22284-page-images/p299.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d91a9ad
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p299.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p300.png b/22284-page-images/p300.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..17c8e2e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p300.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p301.png b/22284-page-images/p301.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..09272e0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p301.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p302.png b/22284-page-images/p302.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..724fd32
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p302.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p303.png b/22284-page-images/p303.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..97d72c1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p303.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p304.png b/22284-page-images/p304.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cec9b43
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p304.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p305.png b/22284-page-images/p305.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..56332ad
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p305.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p306.png b/22284-page-images/p306.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7046169
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p306.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p307.png b/22284-page-images/p307.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7f0d157
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p307.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p308.png b/22284-page-images/p308.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ccafee6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p308.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p309.png b/22284-page-images/p309.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f262af1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p309.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p310.png b/22284-page-images/p310.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ce7781d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p310.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p311.png b/22284-page-images/p311.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..69c7787
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p311.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p312.png b/22284-page-images/p312.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a762883
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p312.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p313.png b/22284-page-images/p313.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5ccdbe3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p313.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p314.png b/22284-page-images/p314.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5d8248d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p314.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p315.png b/22284-page-images/p315.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7012a39
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p315.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p316.png b/22284-page-images/p316.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..622866c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p316.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p317.png b/22284-page-images/p317.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..696b040
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p317.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p318.png b/22284-page-images/p318.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..32bcdae
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p318.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p319.png b/22284-page-images/p319.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..53d2787
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p319.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p320.png b/22284-page-images/p320.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ea183ab
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p320.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p321.png b/22284-page-images/p321.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9d6e8b3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p321.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p322.png b/22284-page-images/p322.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7d8058b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p322.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p323.png b/22284-page-images/p323.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ae1cf68
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p323.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p324.png b/22284-page-images/p324.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..aaf8e52
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p324.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p325.png b/22284-page-images/p325.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..db1b851
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p325.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p326.png b/22284-page-images/p326.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9664742
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p326.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p327.png b/22284-page-images/p327.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..619a788
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p327.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p328.png b/22284-page-images/p328.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..13f866f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p328.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p329.png b/22284-page-images/p329.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..654a0f5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p329.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p330.png b/22284-page-images/p330.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6b96bcf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p330.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p331.png b/22284-page-images/p331.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0711f9b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p331.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p332.png b/22284-page-images/p332.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6d790d4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p332.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p333.png b/22284-page-images/p333.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c031da0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p333.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p334.png b/22284-page-images/p334.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..79045e4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p334.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p335.png b/22284-page-images/p335.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2b9f7de
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p335.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p336.png b/22284-page-images/p336.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7fa82ba
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p336.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p337.png b/22284-page-images/p337.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c1d5b29
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p337.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p338.png b/22284-page-images/p338.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f961862
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p338.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p339.png b/22284-page-images/p339.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..bca85cc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p339.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p340.png b/22284-page-images/p340.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a0b5a81
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p340.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p341.png b/22284-page-images/p341.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c1487ea
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p341.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p342.png b/22284-page-images/p342.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9c2fa8a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p342.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p343.png b/22284-page-images/p343.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..eb58f9c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p343.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p344.png b/22284-page-images/p344.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a24c327
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p344.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p345.png b/22284-page-images/p345.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2c9fcee
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p345.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p346.png b/22284-page-images/p346.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d138f0d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p346.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p347.png b/22284-page-images/p347.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0a3b5f8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p347.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p348.png b/22284-page-images/p348.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c5535ab
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p348.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p349.png b/22284-page-images/p349.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8f1a946
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p349.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p350.png b/22284-page-images/p350.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..950da0b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p350.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p351.png b/22284-page-images/p351.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..789e9f4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p351.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p352.png b/22284-page-images/p352.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f97883e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p352.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p353.png b/22284-page-images/p353.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d1dbd90
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p353.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p354.png b/22284-page-images/p354.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..228ad76
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p354.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p355.png b/22284-page-images/p355.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8c5a06c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p355.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p356.png b/22284-page-images/p356.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5e5104b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p356.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p357.png b/22284-page-images/p357.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..571b69a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p357.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p358.png b/22284-page-images/p358.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..37c7082
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p358.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p359.png b/22284-page-images/p359.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cb1bd30
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p359.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p360.png b/22284-page-images/p360.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1177e65
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p360.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p361.png b/22284-page-images/p361.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5b29502
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p361.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p362.png b/22284-page-images/p362.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..39b0898
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p362.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p363.png b/22284-page-images/p363.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5775fa7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p363.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p364.png b/22284-page-images/p364.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d366299
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p364.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p365.png b/22284-page-images/p365.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..525b6c0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p365.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p366.png b/22284-page-images/p366.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a793ccb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p366.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p367.png b/22284-page-images/p367.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4b42ea4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p367.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p368.png b/22284-page-images/p368.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9f13de7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p368.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p369.png b/22284-page-images/p369.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7da5270
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p369.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p370.png b/22284-page-images/p370.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6efe4d1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p370.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p371.png b/22284-page-images/p371.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..eb491eb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p371.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p372.png b/22284-page-images/p372.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1645233
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p372.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p373.png b/22284-page-images/p373.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5b5639e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p373.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p374.png b/22284-page-images/p374.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e0acdfa
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p374.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p375.png b/22284-page-images/p375.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d102149
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p375.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p376.png b/22284-page-images/p376.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..18d106e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p376.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p377.png b/22284-page-images/p377.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b936679
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p377.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p378.png b/22284-page-images/p378.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d51e7bb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p378.png
diff --git a/22284-page-images/p379.png b/22284-page-images/p379.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7fc1655
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284-page-images/p379.png
diff --git a/22284.txt b/22284.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..dfaec1c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,12768 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Forbidden Trail, by Honore Willsie
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Forbidden Trail
+
+Author: Honore Willsie
+
+Release Date: August 9, 2007 [EBook #22284]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FORBIDDEN TRAIL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "THE TRAIL LIFTED ZIG-ZAG OVER THE COYOTE RANGE"
+--Page 283]
+
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+THE FORBIDDEN TRAIL
+
+By HONORE WILLSIE
+
+Author of
+
+"The Heart of the Desert,"
+"Still Jim," "Lydia of the Pines," etc.
+
+A. L. Burt Company
+Publishers--New York
+Published by arrangement with Frederick A. Stokes Company
+
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+Copyright, 1919, by
+Frederick A. Stokes Company
+
+All rights reserved, including that of translation
+into foreign languages
+
+Printed in the United States of America
+
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER                                              PAGE
+
+I. THE DREAMER                                          1
+II. HOPES DEFERRED                                     32
+III. THE NEW DAY                                       52
+IV. CHARLEY                                            81
+V. VON MINDEN                                         105
+VI. THE LETTER FROM WASHINGTON                        130
+VII. THE RUNAWAY                                      151
+VIII. THE LONELY HUNTER                               176
+IX. GUSTAV                                            186
+X. DEATH IN THE DESERT                                206
+XI. DICK'S SICKNESS                                   228
+XII. DICKY'S LAST BOUT                                249
+XIII. THE GREAT DIVIDE                                265
+XIV. WASHINGTON                                       275
+XV. RABBIT TAIL'S GANG                                295
+XVI. THE RIVER RANGE                                  314
+XVII. THE BLACK BOX                                   345
+XVIII. PAPA WOLF                                      358
+
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+THE FORBIDDEN TRAIL
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE DREAMER
+
+
+Roger was only seven. He was tall for his age and very thin. He had a
+thick crop of black hair and his eyes were large and precisely the color
+of the summer sky that lifted above the Moores' back yard. These were
+the little boy's only claims to beauty, for even at this time Roger's
+face was too much of the intellectual type to be handsome. Beauty is
+seldom intelligent. Roger's long, thin jaw, his thin, thoughtful mouth,
+his high forehead, were distinctly of the thinking, dreaming type.
+
+It was midsummer and Roger's tanned legs and feet were bare and
+scratched and mosquito bitten. He wore a little blue gingham sailor
+suit, which was much rumpled and soiled.
+
+Charlotte was five. She was tall for her age too. In fact at five she
+was nearly as tall as Roger. But she was not as thin as he. She had
+large brown eyes of astounding depth and softness and bronze brown hair
+that was short and curly. There were lovely curves in her scarlet,
+drooping lips and a fine arch to her head above the ears. There was a
+dimple in her round chin. She sat in front of Roger who was astride one
+end of a great plank that was up-ended on a barrel.
+
+"You go over and get Ernie and Elschen, Charley," commanded Roger in a
+deep, boyish voice.
+
+"I won't!" returned Charley, succinctly, crowding closer to Roger, as
+she spoke.
+
+"Well now, do you think I'm going to play alone all the afternoon with a
+baby?" roared Roger. "You're too little to work this teeter-tauter with
+me. I'm not going to stand it, I'm not. You get off!"
+
+"I won't," repeated Charley, none the less firmly that the red lips
+trembled. "I runned away from our house to play with you and I'm going
+to play, I am."
+
+"You ain't going to play alone and Mamma says I gotta take you home in
+half an hour if nobody doesn't come for you."
+
+"I won't go home." Charley ended this time with a sob.
+
+"Now don't bawl!" exclaimed Roger, in alarm, twisting the little girl's
+head around so that he could peer into her face. He kissed her in a
+paternal manner. "Don't bawl! I'll take care of you."
+
+Charley wiped the kiss off on the sleeve of her checked gingham dress
+and smiled. Roger left the see-saw and climbed to the top of the board
+fence.
+
+"Ernie!" he shouted in a tone that sounded through the quiet village
+like a siren horn. "Ernie! You and Elschen come on over!"
+
+Mrs. Wolf appeared at the back door of the house next door.
+
+"Ernie and Elschen are doing the dishes. When they finish they will be
+over."
+
+"Will it take 'em long?" asked Roger. "I got all my chores done."
+
+"They're nearly done. Here's Elschen ready to go now."
+
+"It was my turn to wipe, so I got through quick. Ernie's awful mad,"
+cried a small girl, scrambling hastily over the fence.
+
+Elsa was six. She was short and plump, an almost perfect miniature of
+her pretty mother, who stood smiling in the doorway. Her hair was true
+gold. While it was not curly it was full of a vitality that gave it the
+look of finely spun wire as it stood out over her head in a bushy mass.
+She was red of cheek and blue of eye, a jolly, plucky little girl, much
+more enterprising and pugnacious than Ernie, who followed her shortly
+over the fence.
+
+Ernest was Roger's age and he looked so much like Elsa that a stranger
+might have thought them to be twins.
+
+He landed with a thud. "Where'd you get the teeter-tauter, Roger?" he
+cried.
+
+"Don't you see, you old ninny? I heaved up the plank Papa put down for
+the walk to the clothes-reel, and the barrel, I sort-of--now I kind of
+borrowed that out of the Sauters' barn. I guess they wouldn't care. I
+left a penny on the barn floor to pay for it. It's the strongest barrel
+I most ever saw. You go on the other end and Charley and I'll stay here.
+Elschen, you can be candlestick."
+
+"I ain't going to be candlestick very long, I ain't. Not for you old
+boys," said Elsa, climbing, however, to the place assigned her, where
+the board balanced on the barrel.
+
+The children see-sawed amicably for perhaps five minutes when Roger
+roared--
+
+"Hey! All of you get off! I got to fix this better."
+
+"I'm not agoing to move," replied Elsa.
+
+"I ain't agoing to move," agreed Charley.
+
+"Come on, you girls, get off," cried Ernie. "What you going to do,
+Roger?"
+
+"I'll show you! If you girls don't get off, I'll dump you," suiting
+action to words, as he tilted the plank sidewise. Elsa got a real bump,
+from the barrel to the ground. Charley's end of the see-saw was on the
+ground so she scrambled up laughing. Not so Elschen. She was red with
+anger. She flew at Roger and slapped him in the face.
+
+Roger turned white, and struck back, the blow catching Elsa in the
+stomach. She doubled up and roared. Roger's voice rose above hers.
+
+"I'll kill you next time! I'll kill you, you low down old German pig,
+you."
+
+Slow moving little Ernie ran to put his arm round Elsa.
+
+"Don't you hit my sister again, Rog Moore!"
+
+Roger jumped up and down and kicked the barrel. "You get out of my yard!
+I hate you all!"
+
+"Not me, Roger?" cried Charley, anxiously, running up to take his hand.
+
+Curiously enough even in his blind passion, the boy clung to the
+childish fingers, the while he continued to kick the barrel and to roar,
+
+"I'll kill you, Elsa!"
+
+The screen door clicked and Mrs. Moore hurried down the back steps. She
+was very tall and slender, with Roger's blue eyes and a mass of red
+hair piled high on her head. She carried one of Roger's stockings with a
+darning ball in the toe in her left hand and the thimble gleamed on the
+middle finger of her right hand as she put it on Roger's shoulder.
+
+"Roger! Roger! You're rousing the whole neighborhood!"
+
+Roger struck the slender hand from his shoulder. "I hate you too. Let me
+alone!"
+
+Mrs. Moore turned to the others. "Children, take Charley over in your
+yard for a little while. Roger is being a very bad boy and I must punish
+him."
+
+Roger hung back, still roaring, but his mother dragged him into the
+kitchen. Here she sat down in a rocker and attempted to pull him into
+her lap, but he would have none of her. He threw himself sobbing on the
+floor and Mrs. Moore sat looking at him sadly.
+
+"I don't know what we're going to do about your temper, Roger. This is
+the third spell you've had this week. I don't see why the children play
+with you. Some day you _will_ murder some one, I'm afraid. I used to
+have a temper when I was a child but I'm certain it was nothing like
+yours. One thing I'm sure of, I never struck my dear mother. Thank
+heaven, I haven't that regret."
+
+Roger wept on.
+
+"I've tried whipping and I've tried scolding. Perhaps I'm the wrong
+mother for you--" A long pause, during which Roger's slender body did
+not cease to writhe in sobs. Then his mother continued: "Poor little
+Elschen, that was an awful knock you gave her! I shall have to apologize
+to Mrs. Wolf again. She's always sweet about your badness."
+
+She began work on the stocking once more. Roger's sobs lessened and his
+mother rose to wet a towel-end and bathe his face. But when she returned
+from the sink, the child was asleep, his head pillowed on his arm. It
+was thus that his temper storms always ended. Mrs. Moore had observed
+that when she had whipped him for one of his explosions, he always slept
+much longer than when she merely allowed him to sob himself quiet. So
+though his father still advocated whipping, she had concluded that
+whipping led only to further nerve exhaustion and she had stopped that
+form of punishment.
+
+Half an hour later Roger rolled over on his back and stared for a moment
+wide eyed, at the ceiling. Then he got up quickly and running over to
+his mother, he threw his arms about her neck and kissed her
+passionately.
+
+"Oh, Mother! Mother! I love you so! I'm so sorry I slapped your hand. I
+will be good! Oh, I will be good!"
+
+He took the hand which he had struck in both his own and kissed it.
+
+"Poor hand," he half sobbed, "poor hand!"
+
+"All right, dear," said his mother, freeing her hand gently. "Now, go
+make up with the other children."
+
+Roger darted out the door and his mother heard him shouting to his
+playmates.
+
+It was an hour later that she went to the back door, to send Roger home
+with Charley. What she saw there sent her flying once more to interfere
+with the children's play. Fastened by bits of rope and twine to the
+plank were her three choicest sofa cushions, of white silk which she
+herself had embroidered. A child lay on its stomach on each of these,
+wildly gesticulating with legs and arms while Roger played the garden
+hose on them.
+
+The four culprits in a sodden row before her, Mrs. Moore sought counsel
+from Mrs. Wolf, who had come hurrying at her neighbor's call.
+
+"What shall I do with him? It was his idea, he says."
+
+"Sure it was," exclaimed Roger stoutly. "We were shipwrecked sailors.
+The tempest had raged for three days like in 'Swiss Family Robinson.'"
+
+"But why did you get the sofa cushions?" asked Mrs. Wolf.
+
+"Oh, that was my invention to make the teeter-tauter more comfortable.
+Then they made nice waves for us to rest our stomachs on when we swam."
+
+"You knew how I prize those cushions. That one with the roses took me
+all last winter to do," said Roger's mother sternly.
+
+"I--I--yes, I kind of knew, but I forgot. I always forget when I'm
+inventing. Don't I, Ern?"
+
+Ern nodded and put his arm over Roger's shoulder.
+
+"I must try to help you to remember, little son." Mrs. Moore sighed.
+"For three days you cannot play with Ernie and Elschen."
+
+Instantly a howl rose from the two little Wolfs. "We can't play without
+Roger! It was our fault too!"
+
+"Indeed, that's too hard on all of them, Mrs. Moore. We'll have bedlam
+for three days," protested Mrs. Wolf.
+
+"But he's always losing his temper and hurting your children," exclaimed
+Mrs. Moore.
+
+"But he keeps them interested, anyhow," replied the little German
+mother. "They never ask to go away when Roger is with them. There's
+something so lovable about him in spite of his temper."
+
+"He hit me in my poor little belly--" began Elschen.
+
+"Elschen!" shrieked her mother.
+
+"Stomach," Elschen substituted hastily. "My poor little stomach. But I
+don't care, I love him anyhow."
+
+"But how about my sofa pillows?" asked Mrs. Moore.
+
+"We'll give you the money out of our banks," said Ernie.
+
+Elsa jumped up and down. "So we will! And you too, Roger!"
+
+"Sure I will. And I'll iron the roses out for you."
+
+The two mothers looked at each other with a glimmer of a smile in light
+and dark blue eyes.
+
+"You can each put a quarter in the Sunday School contribution box next
+Sunday and we'll call it square. Do you agree, Mrs. Wolf?" Then as her
+little neighbor nodded, Roger's mother went on. "Go change your wet
+suit, Roger, and take Charley home. Lend me some of Elschen's little
+things for her, Mrs. Wolf. The child is soaked."
+
+"Mamma! That's a _mile_ out to Prebles'," roared Roger.
+
+His mother looked at him, completely out of patience. "Well, _Roger_!
+after this afternoon's various performances!"
+
+"Oh, I'll go!" cried Roger hastily. "I was just talking, that was all!"
+and he fled to the house.
+
+Roger and Charley, hand in hand, trailed up the street in the haphazard
+manner of childhood. The Prebles lived on a farm half a mile beyond the
+limits of the town of Eagle's Wing. The board walk ended not far beyond
+the Moores' house and the children automatically chose the center of the
+road where the dust was deepest. By scuffling their bare feet
+continuously they managed to travel most of the distance to the farm in
+a cloud of dust which Roger explained was a deep sea fog.
+
+Dick Preble met them at the door of the farm house. Dick was a stocky
+boy of ten with a freckled face surmounted by a thatch of sandy hair.
+
+"Charley! Where have you been? We thought you were asleep upstairs.
+Mamma was just getting scared. And whose clothes have you got on?"
+
+Charley rushed headlong past her brother, shrieking for her mother,
+while Roger struggled with his explanation of certain of the afternoon's
+complications.
+
+"Gee!" was Dick's comment, "I'll bet Charley gets the paddle whacks for
+running away."
+
+"You weren't thinking of driving into town, were you?" asked Roger.
+
+"Naw, lazy bones! You can just foot it, after half drowning my sister."
+
+"You better keep your old sister home then," replied Roger, starting for
+the gate.
+
+It was a long walk for seven-year legs. Roger was considerably less
+active on the return trip than he had been plowing through the sea fog
+on his way out. But his mind was hard at work.
+
+"It would be nice to have a railroad all the way out to Prebles'. One
+that just us children could use--under the road. And I'd have little
+doors that would open up in the road and we'd peek out. And if we saw
+any grown ups coming we'd close the door quick. I'd be the engineer and
+Ernie the fireman. And we wouldn't have that old Dick at all. He's too
+big and cross. The girls could ride if they'd behave and run errands for
+us. Let's see. We'd have to dig it out first. Then we'd want ties and
+rails and a little engine. I wonder how much it would cost. But it would
+be very useful. 'Specially if we let Mr. Preble send his corn to town on
+it. He wouldn't have so much trouble with his hired men if they could
+ride on my engine, I bet."
+
+This delectable dream, with infinite variations, carried Roger home.
+Supper was on the table and Mr. Moore was already in his place. A thin
+man, Roger's father, with a deeply lined face and good gray eyes, under
+a thatch of iron gray hair. He was a master mechanic, now owner of a
+little factory which turned out plowshares. Moore had devised machinery
+which enabled him to turn out plowshares of a superior quality, in
+greater quantity and at a cheaper rate than any of his larger
+competitors in neighboring states. His was only a small concern,
+employing twenty-five or thirty men, but even this made Moore the chief
+manufacturer of the town of Eagle's Wing, whose only other glory was
+that it housed the state university. The members of the college faculty
+did not recognize many of the town people socially. But Dean Erskine,
+the young new dean of the School of Engineering, had visited the plow
+factory and had been so enthusiastic over Moore and his work that he had
+come a number of times to the house, bringing Mrs. Erskine with him.
+Factory management was a new theme in these days and Dean Erskine found
+Roger's father open minded to his theories.
+
+"Well, old son, have you been a good boy to-day?" asked Mr. Moore as
+Roger slid into his place at the table.
+
+"No, sir. I've been pretty bad. Say, Papa, how much would it cost to
+build a railroad, under the ground, from our house to Prebles'?"
+
+"A good deal of money. What way were you bad, Rog?"
+
+"Oh, about every way, temper and all. Papa, I guess I'll build that
+railroad. I got a big piece of pipe and a gauge that might work. Guess I
+might begin to make a engine. Aren't I a pretty good inventor, Papa?"
+
+"I don't know, Son. Nothing you've ever said or done makes me think
+you're one yet. In the first place an inventor is the most patient
+animal in the world. An inventor just can't lose his temper. Why don't
+you begin by inventing a way to control your temper, Son?"
+
+Roger subsided into his bowl of bread and milk.
+
+Mr. Moore was smoking on the front porch when Mrs. Moore joined him
+after putting Roger to bed. She sat down on the steps beside him while
+she told him of Roger's day.
+
+"He's so contrite and so sweet, after one of his passions!" she said.
+"And yet, well, maybe it's his age, but he's so sort of casual about his
+temper. To-night, for instance, after he'd said the Lord's Prayer, he
+added, 'And please God, help me to find some pipe to make that engine
+and some rails too. And bless Charley, she's so little. And bless Mamma
+and Papa. And Lord, you might do something about my temper if you have
+time. Amen.'"
+
+The father and mother laughed together, then Mr. Moore said, "I do hope
+the boy will keep up his interest in mechanics. It's the coming game for
+real he-men. The world's going to turn into a big machine. The way
+things are going now with me, I'll have a real place for the boy when he
+finishes school. Dean Erskine's about persuaded me to let him go to
+college. I've been dead set against a college engineer until I met
+Erskine. He's made me feel as I'd have had less of an uphill pull if I'd
+gone to engineering school, and he says I've made him feel as if he
+never had enough shop practice."
+
+Moore stopped to chuckle. Then he went on, after refilling his pipe,
+"Yes, machinery is the greatest thing in the world. I took on five more
+men to-day, Mamma. All union men. I've decided to give in on that point
+and have a strictly union shop."
+
+"I think you're right," said Mrs. Moore. "After all the union is the
+working man's only protection."
+
+Moore grunted. "I don't care so much about the right of it as I do the
+expediency. And I haven't time to buck the union."
+
+"You've changed a lot since you left off working with your hands,"
+commented his wife, noncommittally.
+
+"A man has to change his point of view when he becomes an employer
+instead of an employee. Old girl, we're on our way up the ladder and
+nothing but old Grim, himself, can stop us. And when I came in from the
+old farm, when I was twelve years old, I had only my two hands and the
+clothes I stood in."
+
+"You've been wonderful!" murmured Mrs. Moore. "Do you know, Mr. Wolf has
+done well too. His wife said he couldn't speak a word of English when he
+came to this country--at just twelve, too, and now he's manager of the
+Grand Dry Goods Company."
+
+"He's a nice fellow with a mighty pretty wife."
+
+It was Mrs. Moore's turn to grunt, which she did, in the manner of a
+wifely sniff. And the two sat in silence, hands clasped in the lovely
+summer night.
+
+After all, Roger did not get beyond a first attempt at the railroad
+building. He began the tunnel the next day, he and the two little Wolfs
+digging vigorously until a hole as large as a bath tub was completed.
+While resting from this toil, Roger conceived the idea of making a
+wading pool, with the aid of the hose. Some vague lesson won from
+previous experience made him ask permission of his mother and this
+given, the three children spent an ecstatic, though muddy, day in the
+improvised pond.
+
+Roger's father suggested that evening that the pool be gradually
+enlarged to make a swimming pool. He enlisted Mr. Wolf's aid for the
+summer evenings and in a couple of weeks a very creditable pool, brick
+and concrete lined, made a summer heaven of the back yard for the little
+friends.
+
+It was the pool that made this summer perhaps the most memorable one of
+Roger's childhood. It was the one, anyway, to which in after years his
+mind harked back with the most pleasure and with the greatest frequency.
+
+Even little Charley learned to swim. Roger never was to forget her
+slender beauty, as she stood ready for her dive on the pool edge. This
+was his last memory of the little girl, for the Prebles gave up farming
+that fall and moved away. Somebody said that Mr. Preble drank up his
+farm, which at the time seemed mere nonsense to Roger.
+
+Roger's tenth summer was memorable too. But he ceased to think of
+himself as a child then, because that was the summer his mother had
+typhoid fever and all summer long he was practically his own man. His
+father could give him no time, for there was a strike in the factory
+that lasted during the six weeks that Mrs. Moore was the sickest. The
+night that his mother was passing through her crisis, men threw stones
+in the kitchen windows.
+
+Mrs. Moore believed that she was going to die. One day when her mind was
+clear, despite her deathly weakness, she made them leave the little boy
+alone with her while she told him of her consuming anxiety over his
+temper. And she talked to him too about a motherless young manhood and
+how he must try to keep clean and straight. She made him promise that if
+any of the facts of life puzzled him, he would go to his father and not
+let naughty minded little boys tell him bad stories. Then while Roger
+sobbed, she fell asleep and when she woke she was definitely better. But
+Roger never felt like a child again. He felt that he knew all that men
+knew about life, and death as well.
+
+Mrs. Moore never was really strong again. Their keeping a servant dated
+from that summer and so did a little electric car, the first one in
+Eagle's Wing. Yes, perhaps this was as memorable a summer as Roger's
+seventh. Yet it lacked the magic and the beauty that made imperishable
+the joy of the swimming pool summer.
+
+And then came his fourteenth summer.
+
+Roger was a strapping big lad at fourteen. He was as tall as his father,
+who was five feet ten, and was still growing rapidly. He was thin but
+hard-muscled, with good shoulders that were not as awkward as they
+looked. After a year of pleading, his father agreed to let him spend his
+vacation in the plow factory; and Roger in overalls, his dinner pail in
+hand, was his father's pride and his mother's despair. She did like to
+see her only child well dressed.
+
+Ernest's father wanted Ernie to come into the store that summer. But
+after his years under Roger's tutelage, Ernie was all for mechanics, so
+he too acquired overalls and a dinner pail and went into the plow
+factory. Elschen was broken hearted because there was no way in which
+she also could become a wage earner.
+
+The university lay at the south end of the little town. The plow
+factory, now employing two hundred men, lay at the north end. Jim Hale,
+the chief engineer, blew the whistle every morning at seven o'clock and
+again at five o'clock. There was an hour off for dinner pails at twelve.
+A nine hour day, a few years ago, was not considered a long day, that
+is, not by employers of labor. That the employees were beginning to feel
+differently, Roger was to learn that summer in a manner that was to
+shape his whole life.
+
+The workmen were of a type little known now in our big industrial
+centers. Without exception they were North Europeans: Germans,
+Norwegians, Swedes and Danes. About fifty per cent. of them were foreign
+born. The rest of them were American born. A good many of the German
+born had not taken out first citizenship papers, but the Norwegians and
+Swedes had done so, so had the Danes. Enough of them had a certain
+amount of pride in their work to make the factory an interesting and
+profitable place for a boy to serve his first apprenticeship in.
+Practically all married men in the factory wanted to settle permanently
+in Eagle's Wing and send their children through the town's splendid
+schools. A majority of them planned to send their sons through the State
+University.
+
+John Moore had a good eye for men. He had built up an apparently solid
+and permanent organization. Yet for all his keen eye, the more
+successful he became, and the larger his business, the more incapable he
+grew of winning his men's liking. He had worked unbelievably hard from
+his boyhood up. He had given himself to his work without stint. He had
+no sympathy with any of his employees who would do less. His wage, as a
+mechanic, had never exceeded two seventy-five a day. He bitterly
+resented any man's wanting more.
+
+Moore was the entire brains of his factory. He was his own manager, his
+own superintendent, his own purchasing and sales agent--a man of
+splendid mind, hidebound by the egotism and prejudices of the self-made
+man. At fifty, he was going at his highest speed, every nerve taut,
+ready to break at the least disturbance of the load.
+
+Roger admired his father with a blind idolatry that was quite foreign to
+his ordinary mental attitude. He was naturally critical of men and
+things. To be a forge boy in his father's factory was to Roger to be
+touching the skirts of real greatness.
+
+"Father," he said one night at supper, "I had a row with Ole Oleson
+to-day."
+
+"Which Ole Oleson?" asked his father. "There are nine of them in the
+factory."
+
+"The second forge foreman. His girl Olga is in my grade at school."
+
+His father nodded. "What was the row about? As I warned you, Rog, if I
+catch you with the lid off that temper of yours, I'll treat you exactly
+as I would any other employee."
+
+"But you didn't catch me, this time!" Roger grinned. He had fine white
+teeth and his eyes were still the wonderful sky blue of his childhood.
+"Ole said you were as hard as one of the plowshares and that some day
+the men would soften you like they take temper out of steel and that
+then you'd never be any good again."
+
+John Moore snorted. "And you let the fool get a rise out of you, of
+course!"
+
+"I knocked him down."
+
+"And what did he do?"
+
+"He knocked me down."
+
+"Then what?" asked Moore.
+
+"We shook hands and went to work again." Roger grinned at his mother's
+horrified face.
+
+"I'd have fired you both if I'd seen it," said his father. "You were
+late again this morning, Son. Remember you're docked for that."
+
+"Anyhow," Roger went on without noting apparently his father's warning,
+"he got confidential, while we were eating dinner, and told me that if
+you didn't give them an increase they were going on a strike that would
+make you sit up and take notice. He says you won't give the increase so
+the strike's due about the middle of July."
+
+"Oh, the fools!" exclaimed John Moore. "I can't have a strike now with
+that big Russian order to fill. That order makes or mars me."
+
+"Then you'll give 'em the raise! That's good!" Roger gave a sigh of
+relief.
+
+"Raise nothing! Why, I can't raise them! Roger, you're old enough to
+begin to understand these things. The only way I'm able to compete with
+the trust is by working on such a narrow margin of profit that it makes
+their overhead look like Standard Oil profits. So far they've let my
+patents alone, chiefly, I suppose, because my machinery is efficient
+only for the comparatively small output. I never have been able to
+accumulate much working capital. A protracted strike would put me out of
+business. On the other hand a material increase in wage would kill that
+Russian contract and I've already borrowed money on it."
+
+"Roger, you shouldn't have told your father that when he was tired,"
+said Mrs. Moore, handing her husband his third cup of tea.
+
+"Don't be a goose, Alice," returned Roger's father. "What are they going
+to ask for, Son?"
+
+"A minimum of three dollars a day and eight hours."
+
+"Then I'm finished!" exclaimed Moore, setting his lips.
+
+"Why don't you tell them when they come to you just what you've told
+me?" asked Roger. "They'll understand."
+
+"They won't believe a word of it. Nobody knows so much about a business
+as one of the workmen. And the poorer the workman the more he knows. I
+think I'll go up to see the Dean."
+
+Roger and his mother sat late on the porch, while Mr. Moore conferred
+with his friend. Mrs. Moore summed up her own feelings on the matter of
+the strike when she said just as Roger started for bed:
+
+"Well, as far as I'm concerned, I've never been so happy as I was when
+your father was just a plain mechanic, earning his two and a half or so
+a day and with no responsibility except to do his work well. Ever since
+he's been his own boss, he's been changing. I don't feel as if he were
+the same man I married. And what does he get out of it? Worry, worry,
+fuss, fuss. I tell you, Roger, my dear, I've come to the conclusion that
+the more complicated life gets, the less happiness there is in it."
+
+Roger bent and kissed his mother. "Maybe I'll feel like that when I'm
+older," he said, "but I don't now. And I guess Father likes the worry.
+It's like playing a game. I'm going to get into it, you bet, just as
+soon as I get through school."
+
+His mother made no reply.
+
+On the morning of July fifteenth, a delegation of three workmen waited
+on John Moore in his office. They made exactly the demands that Roger
+had reported and they received the same reply that Roger had received,
+with just about the same amount of detail as to the running of the
+business. The strike was scheduled to begin on the first day of August.
+
+Roger and Ernest, plugging away at the forge, heard the men's side
+constantly. At night Roger heard his father's. At first, naturally
+enough, both boys' sympathies were all with Roger's father. Then,
+because he was now a working man himself, Roger began to notice that
+his father had brutal ways with the men. Three or four times a day Moore
+always went through the factory. A careless mechanic would receive a
+cursing that, it suddenly occurred to Roger, no real man ought to
+endure. The least infringement of the factory rules was punished to the
+limit by a system of fines. Moore drove the men as relentlessly as he
+drove himself. This aspect of his father Roger naturally never discussed
+with his chum, but he spoke of it to his father on the morning of the
+first of August as they made their way to the factory.
+
+"They think you feel to them just like you do to a machine and it makes
+them sore, all the time," said the boy.
+
+"Heavens! what do they want? Must I kiss them good morning?" exclaimed
+Moore.
+
+Roger laughed. "No, but I know what they mean. I've seen you when you
+talked as though you owned them--and not that either. It's sort of like
+if you could recollect their names, you'd hate 'em."
+
+"Shucks, Rog! You're getting beyond your depth!" said his father.
+
+The seven o'clock whistle did not blow that hot August morning. All the
+neighborhood of the factory was full of lounging men with clean faces
+and hands. It was like Sunday. Ernest went to work in his father's
+store. Roger spent the morning in the office with his father. In the
+afternoon he circulated among the men. At first many of them resented
+this. Naturally enough they looked on the boy as his father's spy.
+
+But Moore had nothing to conceal nor had the men. Roger was intelligent
+and thoughtful far beyond his years, and little by little the men got
+in the habit of debating with him the merits of the case.
+
+Roger forgot that summer that he was a boy. Even at Saturday afternoon
+baseball, his mind was struggling with a problem whose ramifications
+staggered his immature mind.
+
+Ole Oleson, the forge boss, talked more intelligibly, Roger thought,
+than any of the others. There was a bench outside the picket fence that
+surrounded Ole's house, and Ole's house was not a stone's throw from the
+forge shed. Here nearly every afternoon Ole, with some of the strike
+leaders, would gather, and when not throwing quoits in front of the
+shed, they would talk of the strike.
+
+Roger, his heavy black hair tossed back from his face, his blue eyes
+thoughtful, his boyish lips compressed in the effort to understand,
+seldom missed a session. The strike had lasted nearly a month when he
+said to Ole.
+
+"My father says that if the strike isn't over in two weeks, he's
+ruined."
+
+"That's a dirty lie!" exclaimed a German named Emil.
+
+Before Roger's ready fist could land, Ole had pulled the boy back to the
+bench.
+
+"What's the good of that!" said Ole. "Emil, this kid's no liar. Don't be
+so free with your gab."
+
+There was silence for a few moments. The group of men on the bench
+stared obstinately at the boy Roger and Roger stared at the group of
+factory buildings. Unpretentious buildings they were, of wood or brick,
+one-story and rambling. John Moore had bought in marsh land and as he
+slowly reclaimed it by filling with ashes from his furnaces, he as
+slowly added to the floor space of his factory. Roger could remember the
+erection of every addition, excepting the first, which was made when he
+was only a baby. He knew what the factory meant to John Moore and with
+sudden bitterness he cried,
+
+"I don't see what good it will do you to ruin my father!"
+
+"'Twon't do us no good," returned Ole. "He ain't going to be ruined.
+Look here already, Rog. I got a girl, your age. She goes in your class.
+What kind of girl is she?"
+
+"She's a smart girl. Smart as lightning," answered Roger.
+
+Ole nodded. "Sure she is. Now Emil, he's got two boys and three girls.
+Canute, over there, you've got three little girls, ain't you? Yes--and
+Oscar, you got one boy, and John Moore, he's got one boy. Now, listen
+once, Rog. I tell you about myself and that tells you about all of us
+here.
+
+"I am born in Norway, the youngest of nine, and when I am ten years my
+folks come to America. They come to give their children a chance to live
+comfortable and not have to work like dogs all the time, just to keep
+alive. All right. They come here to this town. My father gets a job and
+my big brothers get a job and we all do fine. They put me into school
+and my father says I can go clean through the University. Then he dies
+and my brothers all marry and when I have just one year in the High
+School I have to quit and go to work.
+
+"All right! I get a job in a machine shop where a fellow named John
+Moore has a machine next to mine. He's a good smart fellow. We're good
+friends, many years. But he has a good education."
+
+"He has not!" interrupted Roger, flatly. "He's never been in school
+since he was twelve and he's supported himself ever since he was
+twelve."
+
+"He's educated all the same," insisted Ole.
+
+"He taught himself everything he knows," Roger cried.
+
+"All right! All right! Anyhow, he makes a new kind of a machine and
+takes his savings and starts to make plowshares, ten a day, over in that
+little brick house, there. And he works like the very devil. Why? Why,
+so that little Roger Moore that's come along can have it easier than he
+had. Same as I'm working for my little Olga and same as Canute and Emil
+and Oscar is working."
+
+"That's only part of it, with father, anyhow," Roger exclaimed. "Of
+course, he's ambitious for me, but, you see, he has these ideas inside
+of him that have to come out. He'd have done it if I'd never been born."
+
+"He does it so's his children gets ahead. Every married man's that way.
+Otherwise, why work?" This was Emil's contribution.
+
+"All right," Ole pushed on. "Anyhow first thing I know I'm working for
+John Moore and he's getting ahead while I'm staying in the same old
+place, same old pay. And now listen. Already, when he gets ahead he
+changes. He gets bossy and ugly. Seems like a man can't be a boss
+without changing, without getting so he curses the fellow he bosses. And
+Emil and Oscar and Canute and I and all of us say, 'Here's Moore getting
+ahead. His boy goes through the university on what Moore makes us earn
+him. He has a hired girl for his wife. Now our children can't go to the
+university on what Moore pays us. And our wives can't keep a hired girl.
+Moore couldn't earn a cent without us. He's got to give us enough of
+what we earn him so's we can live easy as he does.'"
+
+"He don't live easy," retorted Roger. "You ought to see him. He works
+harder than any of you, day and night, he never stops. My mother's
+always complaining that she's lost him. And if he's your age, Ole, he
+looks ten years older. I tell you carrying that factory is an awful
+load. None of you folks could run it. You haven't got the brains. Father
+ought to be the big earner. He's got the big brains."
+
+"He can be the big earner," said Canute, a thin, slow speaking Dane, "if
+he gives us a chance to save and enough time to enjoy a little every day
+the sunshine and make gardens or bowl or play with our children. That's
+what we came to America to get and, by God, we're going to get it."
+
+"He doesn't get it." Roger spoke with an unboyish sadness in his voice.
+"That factory has him body and soul. I don't see what's the use."
+
+Again there was silence. Then Ole said, "I guess the thing that makes me
+hate him is how he's changed already. Look, Rog, I'm an American
+citizen. I can't have any man curse me like I was a slave. No money can
+pay for it. And one reason this strike's going to hang on till your
+father gives in is because he don't know how to boss men. And they all
+hate him."
+
+"And envy him!" cried Roger.
+
+"Sure," agreed Emil. "Envy him, we do. That's why we're striking."
+
+"And supposing the factory goes out of business?" Roger asked. "You'll
+all have to move away or take any old job. This is the only factory in
+this town."
+
+Ole laughed. "Your father's got you bluffed too, Rog."
+
+"You'll see!" returned Roger, through his white teeth. "You'll see." And
+he started abruptly for home.
+
+The first week of September slipped into the second. The night of the
+fourteenth, John Moore said at the supper table, "I bought the old
+Preble place, to-day. Traded in this place for it, so we'll have that
+free and clear out of the wreck."
+
+"What do you mean?" faltered Mrs. Moore.
+
+"What I say," he snapped. "The Russian contract has been canceled. Money
+never was so tight in thirty years as it is now. Wolf says he thinks
+there's a panic coming, and so does the bank. I can't borrow a cent
+more. I'm through with my fling, Alice, and I'm going back to a farm."
+
+Roger choked a little on his tea. His mother said, unsteadily, "John
+dear, if going back to the farm brings you back to me, I shall thank God
+for the strike."
+
+Roger's father scowled at his wife for a moment, then suddenly
+something, perhaps the gentleness of her voice and the sweetness of her
+eyes, caused him to push his chair back and going around to her side to
+kneel with his head against her shoulder.
+
+Roger slipped out of the room, blowing his nose. He went into the back
+yard and sat scowling at the swimming pool until he heard the front door
+click on his father, then he went to bed.
+
+The following day when Roger went into the office, his father's coat was
+hanging on the accustomed hook, but his father was not there. Vaguely
+alarmed, Roger started a search through the factory. His alarm proved
+unfounded, for he discovered his father in the little building that had
+been the original factory. He looked up when Roger came in.
+
+"Look, Rog," he said. "I'd like to take this old machine up to the farm
+with us. We could store it somewhere. It's the first machine--the one I
+started business with."
+
+Roger nodded but could not speak. Moore looked around the room.
+
+"Well, I've had a good run for my hard work," he said, bitterly. "An old
+man at fifty and a worn out farm to spend my old age on."
+
+"You've got Mother and me. And why don't you start again, Father? I'd
+help."
+
+"I'm too old, Roger. I've lost my vim. We'll close the shop, to-day. A
+man's coming up from Chicago to buy in the machinery."
+
+A half hour later, Moore posted a great sign on the office door. "This
+factory goes out of business to-day." Then with the various keys of the
+buildings in his pocket, he went home. Roger hung about to see how the
+men took the news.
+
+By noon, the two hundred employees of the factory with many of their
+wives and children were gathered in the factory yard. At first they
+seemed cynically amused by what they called Moore's bluff. By
+mid-afternoon, however, after repeated assurances from Roger that his
+father was going to be a farmer, the crowd became surly. A strange man
+got up and made a speech. He said that capitalists like Moore should be
+destroyed, that men such as he were a menace to America. Roger, standing
+by Ole's side, saw suddenly in his inner mind his father's gray head on
+his mother's shoulder.
+
+"You lie, you dirty anarchist!" he roared, and heaved a brick at the
+speaker's head.
+
+There was an uproar. Some one helped the speaker wipe the blood out of
+his eyes and tied his head up, while Ole pinned both Roger's arms behind
+him.
+
+"They say that's Moore's boy threw that brick," cried the speaker. "Come
+up here, you hell cat, and show yourself to these downtrodden workmen."
+
+"Let me go, Ole," said Roger, with sudden calm. "I want to say
+something."
+
+Ole looked into Roger's blue eyes. "All right," he said, after a moment,
+"only if you get mad again, I can't answer for this crowd. They're
+sore."
+
+"I'm all right," muttered Roger, and he pushed his way to the office
+steps where the speaker stood. "Here I am," he cried; "what about it?"
+
+"Here he is," roared the stranger, pulling Roger round to face the
+crowd. "If he tries murder now, what'll he do when he has a factory of
+his own?"
+
+Roger thrust his trembling hands into his trousers pockets. "Don't you
+think it!" he shouted. "What do I want of a factory? To let a crowd of
+ignoramuses like you ruin me--just out of ignorance and envy? Not on
+your life! My father's going onto a farm and I'm going with him. I hope
+you're all satisfied."
+
+"Farm!" sneered the stranger. "Why, he'll have a bunch of scabs up here
+to-morrow. I know Moore!"
+
+What Roger might have said, one cannot know, for at that moment a man
+drove up in an automobile and shouldered his way up to the office door.
+He pulled a bunch of keys from his pocket as he mounted the steps.
+
+"Who are you?" asked Roger. "I'm Mr. Moore's son!"
+
+"I'm Mr. Wrench of Chicago. Trouble serious?"
+
+"No," replied the boy. "Just a lot of hot air."
+
+"One moment please," said the strange speaker. "There'll be serious
+trouble here if some questions aren't answered. What is your business
+here?"
+
+"I'm to see to the dismantling of the factory," answered Mr. Wrench,
+indifferently.
+
+A long breath seemed to rise from the listening crowd. Automatically it
+broke up into little groups and the best efforts of the strike leaders
+could not pull it together again. Roger felt that the excitement was all
+over and he made his way slowly home.
+
+At midnight that night a terrific explosion shook the little town of
+Eagle's Wing. Roger had not finished pulling on his clothes when the
+fire bells began to ring. He caught his father rushing out of the front
+door. Ernie and his father joined them and they followed other hurrying
+groups toward the factory.
+
+It was all ablaze, as well as several of the workmen's houses, which
+with the main factory building had been demolished by the explosion.
+Everybody asked questions at once and a hundred pairs of hands tried to
+help unreel the hose and bring it to bear on the main blaze.
+
+"Turn on the water!" shouted a fireman.
+
+"No! No!" roared a voice, and a man in his undershirt rushed up and
+tried to tear the hose away from those that directed it. It was Oscar.
+
+"No! Let her burn! Let her burn! We'll show that infernal hound of a
+Moore if he can take our chances away from us!"
+
+"Oh, then 'twas you!" cried Moore, and he leaped for Oscar.
+
+A dozen men sprang to pull them apart, but Roger was there first. He
+hung onto his father in desperate silence, while others pulled Oscar
+away. Mr. Wolf and Ernest followed the Moores as Roger led the way to a
+seat on a heap of debris.
+
+"There, old friend, there!" said Wolf. "Don't take it so hard! I know! I
+know! If it was my store it would break the heart of me. But we cannot
+break. We cannot."
+
+Roger kept his hand on his father's shoulder. Moore rested his head on
+his hand and said nothing.
+
+"It's all right, Daddy! You walloped him a good one," said Roger.
+
+"His old snoot was all over his face," added Ernest in a cheerful voice.
+
+"Hush, boys, come away for a little bit," said Mr. Wolf. And he led the
+two back toward the hose. But Roger would not go far. He loitered behind
+lest some one should molest that silent figure on the heap of debris.
+All the vicinity was brilliant with firelight. And standing waiting thus
+he saw a sight that he never was to forget. It was his father, bowing
+his head on a piece of the twisted, wrecked machinery--the machinery
+into which he had put the passionate hopes and dreams of his manhood.
+And moving nearer lest some one else should see, Roger saw that his
+father was sobbing as if indeed his heart was broken.
+
+That picture was to direct the entire course of Roger's life. For it
+never left him. And at first it filled his boyish mind with such
+bitterness that he could not hear of labor and its strivings and
+troubles without seeing red.
+
+But as the years on the farm slipped by and the atmosphere of
+competition and of feverish ambition gave place to the sweet silences,
+the quiet plodding, the placid sureness of farm living, the bitterness
+gave way to a dream.
+
+Gradually Roger ceased to blame the factory workmen who had destroyed
+his father, or to blame his father for the egotism and selfishness that
+had driven his employees into reckless stubbornness. He saw behind both
+the urge of the inevitable, unquenchable desire of human beings for
+happiness; for the happiness that comes only when men have sufficient
+leisure in which to expand their minds and souls.
+
+And as he grew older and read deeper it seemed to him that the solution
+lay only indirectly in any system of government. It seemed to him that
+until man had learned how to use directly and freely the power sources
+of nature, inequalities of wealth would always persist. And he had
+learned in one bitter lesson that unhappiness and economic inequality go
+hand in hand.
+
+And so Roger dreamed his dream. For many years it was such a mad seeming
+dream that he was ashamed to speak of it, even to Ernest. And yet it was
+simple enough in its first outlines.
+
+This was, Roger told himself, a machine age. The more perfect became
+man's use of machinery, the more leisure could he have and the more
+wealth. Ultimately man's efforts must concentrate on the effort to find
+power with which to drive the world's machinery. Coal was disappearing,
+water power was coming into its own. Was there not, however, some
+universal source of power that could be harnessed and given to the use
+of man? Some power that capital could not control nor labor misuse and
+destroy?
+
+It was thus that Roger came to study the possibilities of Solar Heat
+utilization. It was thus that he became the world's first and greatest
+pioneer in a new field of engineering--a field so mighty that it was to
+become the dean of all other fields of power engineering.
+
+He dreamed a dream of solving the problem of labor versus capital. He
+was to learn through years of heart breaking endeavor that neither
+capital nor labor has use for a dreamer of dreams no matter how
+practical the dreams may be, unless the dreamer is selfish enough, is
+grasping and ruthless enough to trample over other men to the top.
+
+Roger was to learn, before he achieved success, that a man's genius can
+go no higher than his character permits it to go. He was to learn that
+only out of a man's will to conquer himself can come the finest
+accomplishment of his work. And he was to learn that for most of us fate
+works with curious indirection. So that the story of Roger's dream deals
+not with a struggle between capital and labor, but with a man's struggle
+with solitudes; it deals not so much with machinery as with nature; and
+not so much with scientific facts as with human passions.
+
+Thus for most of us, if we could but see it so, life is not a matter of
+colorless and naked straight lines but is a rich mosaic made up of a
+thousand seemingly unimportant items.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+HOPES DEFERRED
+
+
+Although John Moore never became reconciled to the failure of his
+factory, still he was not really unhappy on the farm. There is something
+too normal, something too entirely natural about a return to the soil
+after middle age, to permit a man broken and worn, as was Roger's
+father, really to be discontented when working in his own fields.
+
+The farm never paid very well. After the first year or so they were
+obliged to mortgage it, and sometimes the interest was hard to meet. But
+after the stormy factory years, these anxieties seemed innocuous enough
+and Roger and his mother, anyway, were deeply happy.
+
+Roger made an old corn crib over into a laboratory. During his High
+School period, with his faithful henchman, Ernest, he spent all his free
+moments on various and mysterious experiments in the patched-up little
+shack. Many were the vile smells and the outrageous noises that floated
+out over the farm, but nobody complained, except Roger's mother, and she
+only mildly. No startling results were forthcoming from these
+experiments, but John Moore encouraged the boys in their attempts.
+
+"Chemistry was my weak point," he would say. "Get all you can of it,
+Rog. Perhaps you'll succeed where I failed."
+
+"All the chemistry in the world couldn't have run Ole Oleson for you,"
+Roger would reply.
+
+"No, but it would have made a real engineer of me," his father would say
+thoughtfully.
+
+When Roger was a freshman and sophomore in college, he suffered a
+complete relapse from his interest in experimental work, and his father
+was very much depressed, but both his mother and Dean Erskine laughed at
+Mr. Moore's fuming.
+
+"Let the poor child have his play time," said Alice Moore. "Between the
+farm work and that nasty laboratory the boy hasn't known anything but
+work since we came out here. If you'd had more chance to play, John
+dear, your nerves would be in better shape now. I'm glad he's learned to
+dance, bless him."
+
+"Give him his fling, Moore," said the Dean. "He was getting one sided,
+and he's way ahead of his class now, as a result of all his corn crib
+grinding. Football and girls won't hurt him at all for a year or so.
+I'll see to it that he doesn't neglect his work. If I'm any judge of men
+at all, that boy of yours is going far. You've no cause to worry."
+
+So Roger was not nagged at home. Somehow his father raised the money to
+pay a hired man so that except in the long summer vacations Roger was
+relieved from farm work. Until well into his junior year, he merely
+carried the required work in college and devoted all his excess energy
+to football and girls. He was notably successful in both fields. He was
+six feet tall, lean and muscular and a splendid half back. He was eager
+and chivalrous and had a charming smile and was a famous schemer of
+things to do, and places to go. The University was co-educational and
+Roger had no rival with the girls except perhaps Ernest. Ernest was
+whimsical and sweet and very musical, and he took the girls seriously,
+which Roger refused to do.
+
+But all the playing came to an end in Roger's junior winter. A venomous
+epidemic of La Grippe swept over the world that year and Roger's mother
+succumbed to it. A month after her death, John Moore gave in to
+pneumonia and early in February Roger found himself alone in the world.
+
+Roger escaped with only a mild attack of the disease, but the shock of
+his loss left him for a time, it seemed, spiritually and physically
+bankrupt. There was nothing left. The worn out farm was eaten up by
+mortgages. The stock and implements would only just pay food bills, the
+doctor, the funeral expenses.
+
+One cold gray afternoon Roger closed the gate for the last time and,
+suitcase in hand, started down the road to town. He had not covered half
+the distance when he met Ernest.
+
+"Hey, Rog, old man, I was just coming up. Where are you going?"
+
+"To Mrs. Winkler's. Got my room there for taking care of the furnace,
+walks, and any old thing."
+
+"Forget it!" exclaimed Ernest. "You're coming home with me until you get
+braced up. Mother and Dad said so."
+
+"That'll make it harder when I do get back. Besides, old lady Winkler
+might not hold the place for me." Roger spoke firmly. Nevertheless he
+allowed Ernest to help him with the suitcase and made no objection when
+his chum turned off Main Street toward the Wolf home.
+
+Mrs. Wolf kissed him and put him to bed, while Elsa brought a hot water
+bottle and a cup of hot milk. He hung about the house for several days,
+dreading the return to college and Mrs. Winkler. But Mrs. Wolf knew
+Roger almost as well as his own mother had known him. She left him alone
+until one snowy afternoon, after a prolonged absence in his room, he
+came into the kitchen with traces of tears about the eyes. Mother Wolf
+was paring apples for mince meat. Papa Wolf would eat no food not
+prepared by hers or Elsa's hands.
+
+"Help me with these nut meats, Roger, there's a good boy," she said.
+
+Roger sat down by the table with a long sigh and began to pick at the
+hickory nuts.
+
+"Elsa's gone to Choral Union practice," volunteered Mother Wolf. "Ernie
+is doing some laboratory work he said he was behind in. You must be
+getting somewhat behind, too, Roger."
+
+"I guess so," agreed Roger, indifferently.
+
+"Papa met Dean Erskine in the Post Office yesterday. The Dean said you
+were the most promising man in your class."
+
+"What good does that do," asked Roger, "when they're gone and can't
+know?"
+
+"How do you know they can't know?" asked the little woman sharply.
+"Older and wiser people than you believe otherwise. One thing is sure,
+that the only real thing you can do for your parents now is to carry on
+what they began. Life is short and there's no time to waste, Roger dear,
+no time to waste."
+
+"Are you getting tired of me here?" asked Roger quickly.
+
+Mother Wolf's pretty blue eyes filled with tears. "Do you have to be
+unkind, Roger?" she asked.
+
+"Forgive me!" he exclaimed. "I know you'd let me live here if you
+thought it would be good for me."
+
+There was silence. The coal range glowed and the snow without sifted
+endlessly past the window. Suddenly Roger rose and putting on his
+overcoat and cap went out into the storm.
+
+Dean Erskine was in the little office off the junior laboratory. Roger
+had not seen him since the day of his father's funeral, but he kept his
+voice and manner casual.
+
+"Good afternoon, Dean Erskine. How many hours am I behind in lab work?"
+
+The Dean too was off hand. "I've lost count, Roger."
+
+"It's sort of sniveling baby work, anyhow," said Roger. "I did it all
+once; up in the corn crib."
+
+"I know that," said Erskine. "That's why I've let you neglect it so
+outrageously. I had hopes too that you'd wake up and ask to do other
+things. But it seemed that you preferred experimenting with Welsh
+rarebits at Hepburn Hall and marshmallow sundaes at Allen's."
+
+Roger had the grace to blush. He grinned sheepishly, then said soberly:
+"I'm through with all that now."
+
+"Oh, it has its place in a normal man's life! Only you seem to have
+crowded several years of it into two. If you're not in training I don't
+mind if you smoke. Only close that door into the classroom."
+
+The Dean pulled out an outrageous old pipe. Roger closed the door, then
+lighted a cigarette. The two smoked in the silence of old friendship
+for a while, then Roger said,
+
+"Dean, what do you know about solar heat?"
+
+The Dean looked at him suspiciously. "The usual things. Why?"
+
+"I'm not trying to trip you," exclaimed Roger. "I've read all I can find
+on it, and that's darned little. You know those arrangements of mirrors
+in an umbrella-like frame, focussing the sun's rays on a point at the
+center, where the steam boiler is located?"
+
+"Yes," said the Dean.
+
+"Well, I don't believe the fellows that are working along that idea are
+right. The mechanism is hopelessly complicated, unwieldy and expensive."
+
+Erskine nodded, his gaze on Roger's dreaming eyes.
+
+"Ever since I was a kid," said the boy, slowly, "in fact ever since the
+factory went to pieces, I've had a pipe dream. It's sort of nutty, you
+know, and I suppose you'll think it's childish, but--"
+
+"Let's have it. I accept your apologies," said the Dean, smiling.
+
+And so Roger was launched for the first time on the telling of his
+dream. He was a little halting and incoherent at times, but his old
+friend listened attentively. When Roger had finished, he said,
+
+"It's a good dream, Roger, and sound in its general premises. Have you
+ever got down to brass tacks with it and tried to design a solar
+engine?"
+
+"No, I've only a lot of notes and sketches. It always seemed to cost so
+much that I never had courage to go any farther."
+
+Erskine refilled his pipe. "I have a dream too. Only mine is in pretty
+good working shape. My dream has been to turn out of this school men
+who were practical engineers but who also had ideas. Men who were never
+satisfied with a bridge, a motor, a gas engine after they had finished
+it, but would be forever trying to improve it. Such men, of course, are
+rare, but in the fifteen years I've been here, I've sent out five or six
+lads who have given American engineering a real lift. I haven't come
+across a fellow before though who had any concrete vision of the world's
+labor problems in relation to the inventing game."
+
+He fell to brooding and Roger waited patiently. Erskine finally looked
+up. "It's a big dream, boy. Too big for you or any other man to put over
+in a single generation. But we'll do what we can toward giving it a
+start. You cut out junior laboratory and get to work on your designs.
+When you finally get one that seems workable, we'll have the shops make
+a model." He paused, then rose and Roger rose too while the Dean put a
+hand on his broad young shoulder. "You've launched on the finest, most
+thankless, most compelling, most discouraging, most heart thrilling game
+in the world, Roger. You'll probably be poverty stricken all your life,
+but Lord! Lord! what riches of the mind will be yours!"
+
+Roger flushed and lifted his head in a gesture that was infinitely
+young.
+
+"I'm used to poverty, sir."
+
+"I know you are and so am I. Good night, Roger!"
+
+"Good night, Dean! Thank you!" and Roger, in spite of his grief,
+returned to the Wolfs' with his face set triumphantly toward the
+future.
+
+The next morning he deposited his suitcase in old lady Winkler's most
+meager and coldest bedroom and after he had stoked the furnace and
+shoveled the walks he bolted for the college drafting room.
+
+It was not until the fall of his senior year that Roger completed a
+design of a solar engine which Dean Erskine was willing to turn over to
+the University shops, that a model might be made. Roger had taken Ernest
+into his confidence and that faithful friend undertook to make all
+drawings for him. Ernest had no originality of mind, but he was an
+excellent workman and a first class mathematician and laboratory man.
+Early in January, the model was completed, and on a cold Saturday
+afternoon, the test was made. Roger and Ernest came home to the Wolfs'
+for supper deeply discouraged.
+
+"But why wouldn't it work?" asked Elsa, as the boys wiped the supper
+dishes for her.
+
+"If I knew that, I wouldn't be blue, would I?" grunted Roger.
+
+"I wish I understood the stuff you talk," Elsa went on. "I don't see how
+on a cold day like this you'd expect to run an engine with heat from the
+sun."
+
+"We didn't try to," said Ernest.
+
+"Didn't try to!" echoed Elsa. Then she banged the tea kettle angrily
+back on the stove. "I do think you boys are disgusting! Here I'm so
+interested in your work and you treat me as if I were a baby! And I'd
+like to know who does more for you two great hulks than I do. You simply
+disgust--"
+
+"Hold on, Elsa," roared Roger. "For the love of Mike! I'll confide the
+inmost secrets of my being to you if you'll stop jawing. Now listen!
+You can see that we can't get as high temperatures out of the sun's rays
+as we can out of burning coal or gasolene?"
+
+Elsa, much mollified, leaned against the sink and fastened her violet
+eyes on Roger's face.
+
+"I understand that," she said.
+
+"Wonderful!" murmured Ernest.
+
+Elsa made a face at her brother and Roger went on with a grin. "So I'm
+trying first of all to develop a practical, efficient engine that will
+run with the temperatures I'm able to get from Sun Heat."
+
+"And won't the model work at all? Not a bit?" asked Elsa.
+
+"She just sits and looks at me without moving a muscle," replied Roger.
+
+"Can't the Dean tell you what's the matter?" Elsa ventured.
+
+"The Dean!" snorted Ernest. "Isn't that just like a girl? Why, Roger
+knows more about low pressure engines in a minute than the Dean'll know
+in his whole life. Come on, Rog, if you've finished your kindergarten.
+Let's go up to see Florence King and her bunch at the Beta house. It
+will rest our brains."
+
+"Not for me," replied Roger. "I've done enough girling to last me a
+spell. I'll stay here and educate Elsa till she goes to choir practice,
+then I'm going home and bone on that design."
+
+"Sorry for you," sniffed Ernest, and was off.
+
+Roger deposited Elsa at the church door, then returned to Mrs.
+Winkler's. The light burned in his cold little room nearly all night.
+But when he went to bed, sketches for the complete redesigning of the
+engine lay on his table. And it was this changed design which he kept
+through all the vicissitudes of struggling to market his dream.
+
+During his senior year, Roger, with Ernest and other promising men of
+the graduating class, had several jobs offered him by different
+manufacturing and engineering concerns. In the earlier days of the
+University, a young graduate of the School of Engineering had been
+looked on with contempt by the business men of the state. He was a
+"book" engineer to them, just as a graduate of the School of Agriculture
+was a "book" farmer to the farmers of the state.
+
+But, as the years had gone on, it was observed that the minor jobs,
+obtained with difficulty by the men whom Dean Erskine had trained and
+recommended, nearly always became jobs of fundamental importance. The
+observation bore fruit. Little by little "Dean Erskine men" were
+scattered across the continent until even as early as Roger's graduating
+year, it was the custom of engineering concerns and manufacturers to
+watch the Dean's laboratories closely and to bespeak the services long
+before commencement of every promising lad in the class.
+
+By the Dean's advice, however, Roger did not accept any of these
+positions. He decided to take an instructorship in the University and
+keep on with his experiments in solar engineering. Both he and Erskine
+felt that in a couple of years, at most, Roger would have something
+practical to offer the world. Ernest also took an instructorship,
+working toward his doctor's degree. His father was delighted. He was
+immensely proud of Ernest's work in college, and a full professorship
+for Ernest would have meant as much to Papa Wolf as the national
+presidency for his boy.
+
+The two years flew rapidly. The summer that he was twenty-five, Roger,
+armed with letters of introduction from the Dean, and a roll of
+drawings, went to Chicago. He was about to market his dream and he
+proposed to give the two summer months to the job. After that--well, the
+possibilities staggered even Roger's imagination, which was an active
+one.
+
+Haskell and Company, makers of Gas-Engines! The sign was as
+inconspicuous as the firm was famous in the middle West. Roger, after
+two days of waiting, was staring at the faded gilt letters until the
+moment of his interview with Mr. Haskell arrived. He was a little
+uncertain about the knees, but very sanguine for all that. Mr. Haskell,
+a small man with a grizzled beard, sat behind a desk in a room that was
+small and dingy. The desk seemed to Roger an unnecessarily long way from
+the door, as he advanced under Mr. Haskell's eyes.
+
+"Well, Sir, so you're one of Erskine's men. Ought to be good. Solar
+engine, though, doesn't sound cheerful. What's the idea?"
+
+Roger unrolled his drawings and began his explanations. Haskell listened
+with keen interest, asking questions now and again. When Roger, flushed
+of cheek, had finished, Haskell lighted his cigar, which had gone out.
+
+"Very clever! Very clever! A nice little experiment. What do you want to
+do with it?"
+
+"I want you to manufacture and sell these solar heat plants," replied
+Roger boldly.
+
+"I see. But are you sure such a plant is practicable?"
+
+"Absolutely!"
+
+"Where have you had one working?"
+
+"At the University."
+
+"You mean in the laboratory."
+
+Roger nodded. Haskell cleared his throat and looked over Roger's black
+head for a minute, then he said:
+
+"My dear fellow, I am a business man, not a philanthropist. When you can
+come to me and say, 'I've got a plant in Texas and one in Mississippi
+and one in Egypt and they've worked for, say two years, and the folks
+want more,' why, then you'll interest me. But I don't see putting a
+hundred thousand dollars into a laboratory experiment, however clever."
+
+Roger's clear blue eyes, still unsophisticated despite his twenty-five
+years, did not flinch. There was a perceptible pause, however, before he
+said:
+
+"But, Mr. Haskell, how am I going to get a dozen plants into use unless
+some one manufactures and installs them for me?"
+
+"Some one will have to do just that. But you'll have to pay for it."
+
+"But I thought great concerns like yours," persisted Roger, "were
+constantly looking for new developments."
+
+"We are. But frankly, Mr. Moore, your whole idea is too visionary. Some
+day, undoubtedly, we shall have solar engineering. But that day is
+several generations away. We have coal and all its by-products and water
+power is just beginning to come into its own."
+
+"Coal would have to retail at a dollar a ton to compete with my solar
+device in a hot climate," interrupted Roger.
+
+"Very interesting if true! But you've erected no plant in a hot climate.
+I'll tell you what I will do though, Mr. Moore. I could very well use
+your unusual knowledge of heat transmission in my concern. I'll give you
+three thousand a year to begin with."
+
+Roger got slowly to his feet, rolling up his drawings. "Thank you, Mr.
+Haskell. But I think I'll stick to my solar engine."
+
+Haskell rose too. "An inventor's life is hell, my boy. Better come in
+out of the rain."
+
+"But why should it be hell?" asked Roger. "The inventor is the very
+backbone of the industrial life of the world."
+
+"I know it. But for every good invention offered there are a thousand
+poor ones. We who pay the piper have to be careful."
+
+"I'm much obliged to you for giving me so much time," said Roger,
+picking up his hat.
+
+"Not at all. And remember that my offer to you is a permanent one."
+
+Roger grinned, and left the office.
+
+Outside the building he drew a long breath, stared abstractedly at the
+passing crowd, then drew out his second letter of introduction. James
+Howe and Sons Company, Marine Engines. Roger decided to walk to his
+second meeting. It would give him time to collect his thoughts. The walk
+was a long one and by the time he had covered the distance his hopes had
+soared again.
+
+James Howe and Sons Company did not seem overjoyed by the letter of
+introduction and for some time it seemed as if Roger could not pass the
+young woman who guarded the main office door. He was finally admitted,
+however, to the office of Mr. Hearn, the general manager. Hearn was a
+man of forty, full faced and ruddy.
+
+"I get the idea! I get the idea!" he said impatiently when Roger was
+about half way through his explanations.
+
+Roger flushed. "You can't possibly, Mr. Hearn. I haven't reached the
+main idea yet."
+
+"I've got enough to convince me that you're hopelessly impractical. Give
+it up, young man! Give it up and get into something that'll pay the bill
+at the corner grocery. Solar power is about as practical as wave power.
+Fit merely for the dreams of poets. Sorry not to be able to give you
+more time. Good day! Miss Morris, call in the foundry boss."
+
+Roger found himself in the street before he had finished rolling up his
+drawings. "Well, I'll be hanged!" he muttered. Then he suddenly smiled.
+"I think I came down here with an idea that we'd be turning out machines
+in a couple of months! Gee, if I'm landed by Christmas, I'll be lucky."
+He pulled out the third letter of introduction, and his head lifted
+defiantly, started off to present it.
+
+The Dean had been generous with his letters, but by the end of the first
+week in Chicago, Roger had presented them all. Curiously enough, in all
+this week of meeting with manufacturers Roger told but one of them his
+ultimate dream. John McGinnis, maker of kerosene engines, was elderly
+and Irish and immensely interested in Roger and his idea.
+
+He slapped Roger on the back. "It's a grand idea, me boy! If I wasn't
+just about to retire, hanged if I wouldn't help you to build one plant.
+How come you ever to take up solar heat though, with the world all
+howling for a real kerosene engine?"
+
+They were sitting in McGinnis' pleasant office, the windows of which
+overlooked Lake Michigan. The old man had cocked his feet up on his
+mahogany desk and had about him an air of leisurely interest. He gave
+Roger the mate to the long brown cigar he himself was smoking and after
+a few minutes Roger said, hesitatingly:
+
+"When I was a kid of fourteen, labor difficulties ruined my father. He
+owned a little plow factory, employing a couple of hundred men. I got a
+good deal of the men's side for I worked as a forge boy that summer, but
+after the crash, for a long time, I was all for father's side of the
+matter. Gradually though, I began to think differently.
+
+"I began to be sorry for the men as well as for my father. They were
+hardworking, ambitious chaps who wanted to get ahead, just as my father
+did. They took the only way they saw for getting ahead. They didn't
+believe that just because father was the brain of the concern, he should
+be well-to-do and they poor.
+
+"I couldn't find any system of government that I was convinced would
+remove the economic inequalities that were the root of the trouble. So I
+began to think about sources of wealth. You can see how my mind fastened
+first on machinery, then on power, then on quantity and accessibility of
+power; then solar heat."
+
+McGinnis nodded, then smiled. "You're a damn queer inventor. What do you
+expect to get out of it?"
+
+"All any man can get on the physical side out of anything is a living,"
+replied Roger. "What I am getting and expect to have more of, is some
+great adventures."
+
+McGinnis smoked for a while and said, "If I were twenty-five instead of
+seventy, I'd look at it as you do. Being seventy I have to say to you,
+me boy, that though some day you may work out a practical plant for hot
+countries, you'll never solve the labor problem. As long as human nature
+exists we'll have social inequalities. But, after all, as long as you
+contribute something real to the world in the way of a power idea, devil
+a bit does it matter what motive put you at the job."
+
+Roger smoked in silence.
+
+"Had any encouragement in Chicago?" asked the older man.
+
+"Not a bit," replied Roger, cheerfully. "But the trip has done me good.
+I've learned that I can't sell an idea. I've got to sell a working
+plant."
+
+"Right you are! And with the patent situation fully covered. Those
+drawings of yours are full of interesting suggestions for makers of any
+kind of engines. Philanthropic of you to show them about Chicago."
+
+"By Jove!" exclaimed Roger, with a startled air. "I guess I'd better
+beat it back to Eagle's Wing until I get out of swaddling clothes. I
+supposed the firm that would take this up would take care of the
+patents. I don't know anything about patents myself."
+
+"Better learn," said McGinnis. "Many of your ideas are clever and need
+protection."
+
+Roger laughed ruefully. "I thought," he confessed, "that I'd have the
+thing marketed in a couple of months."
+
+"Listen," said the old man. "On the average the man who has an invention
+that is of fundamental significance gives his life to perfecting and
+marketing it, then dies hungry. Do you get me?"
+
+"But there are exceptions, aren't there?" insisted Roger.
+
+"Yes, but no such pipe dream as you have there," pointing to the
+drawings, "could be an exception."
+
+"Would you advise me to give it up?" Roger asked curiously.
+
+"I would not. That's your job. Civilization owes its existence to chaps
+like you."
+
+Roger, face flushed, black hair rumpled, blue eyes glowing, rose to go.
+
+"I can't exactly thank you," he mumbled. "Only," his voice
+strengthening, "if I hadn't met you, I'd have gone back home discouraged
+and almost as ignorant as I left. As it is, I feel in bully fighting
+trim."
+
+Old John McGinnis got to his feet. "God bless you, my lad. When I'm
+twanging a harp, up above, I'll be having an interested eye on you."
+
+Roger started back to Eagle's Wing that evening. Ernest and Dean Erskine
+were both deeply interested in Roger's report, which he gave in the
+Dean's library the night he reached home.
+
+"Pshaw! I should have told you a lot of things that would have helped
+you," exclaimed the Dean when Roger had finished. "But one forgets up
+here in the classroom how the war rages out in the industrial world."
+
+"Will patents cost a lot?" inquired Ernest. "You know I don't use all my
+salary. Draw at will, old man."
+
+"Thanks, old top," replied Roger. "Since I cut out girls and golf, I've
+been saving a bit myself."
+
+"The patents won't cost a great deal, if you do the work yourself,
+Roger," said the Dean. "But it's going to take time to learn the patent
+game."
+
+"Well," said Roger, with a sigh, "if I've got to become a patent
+attorney in order to patent my ideas, I suppose I can. But gee, I am
+glad I don't want to get married. You were wise in not letting me give
+up that instructorship, Dean, as I wanted to."
+
+Dean Erskine smiled ruefully. "Seems to have been about the only sane
+advice I've given you."
+
+"Don't you think it, sir!" exclaimed Roger. "If I ever do get away with
+this, yours will be the credit."
+
+"And Ernest's," added the Dean.
+
+"You bet, Ernest! And now, I'm going out to the University library and
+read up on patents," said Roger, with the familiar squaring of the
+shoulders.
+
+He had need to square his shoulders: a greater need than either he or
+his two devoted friends could dream. For as the months slipped into
+years, it seemed more and more obvious that either Roger's ideas were
+utterly impractical or else that he was actually several generations
+ahead of his time. In his brilliant, yet thoroughgoing way, Roger
+studied patent law and registered two years after his trip to Chicago
+_as_ a patent attorney in Washington. He worked constantly on the
+development of his plant, improving here, discarding there, until he had
+reached the point, he felt, where he could do no more until he had funds
+for a practical plant, in a hot climate.
+
+He and the Dean and Ernest estimated that not less than fifty thousand
+dollars would be essential for such an initial plant. The sum might
+have been fifty million for all its accessibility to Roger. Most of the
+wealthy men whom Roger was able to reach admitted the cleverness and the
+interest of his ideas. None of them could be persuaded that the idea
+would be a good investment. Once in desperation Roger went to Chicago to
+a firm whose letter heads read "Bankers, Stocks and Bonds, Promoters,
+Investments." Roger was turned over to a young man who wore a garnet
+ring and who was at the head of the Engineering Investments Department.
+The two had several long sessions. Then the man of the garnet ring
+proposed that a company be organized for half a million dollars and that
+his company undertake to sell the stock. Roger was much encouraged.
+
+"That's fine," he said. "How long would it take to raise fifty thousand
+dollars?"
+
+"Not long," replied the young promoter, whose name was Eaton. "Of
+course, you understand that the first money will have to go for office
+expenses and salaries."
+
+"Whose salaries?" asked Roger. "I don't want any and I need only a few
+day laborers."
+
+"You don't get me." Eaton was patient. "I'm speaking of the Solar
+Company's Chicago office."
+
+"Shucks! We don't want an office in Chicago. What we want is a plant in
+Arizona."
+
+"If you think we can sell stock in a nutty scheme like this without
+plenty of mahogany furniture and high sounding titles on glass doors,
+you're even greener than I thought you were," said Eaton.
+
+Roger looked at him thoughtfully. "Oh, I see!" he said after a moment.
+"When would you want to begin on this work?"
+
+"As soon as you can raise a little preliminary expense money for us, say
+$1500."
+
+"Oh," said Roger again. "Of course, you realize that the only thing that
+will give that stock any value is building plants with the money we get
+from selling it."
+
+"Why, certainly! But we must make a right start. An office in your
+bedroom may go in Eagle's Wing but not in Chicago."
+
+"Oh!" said Roger for a third and last time. And the conference adjourned
+sine die.
+
+Something about this interview depressed Roger profoundly.
+
+He went home, locked up his drawings and threw an old canvas over the
+model of the solar engine that had stood for so many years in a corner
+of the graduate laboratory. It was six months before he could induce
+himself to touch his work again. And it dawned on him that his twenties
+were slipping by and that he was becoming unsociable and grave. But
+there seemed no remedy for the matter. His dream had become the most
+vital part of his life, and would not let him lead a normal existence.
+Such is the price that a dreamer pays for his vision.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE NEW DAY
+
+
+Roger, climbing the steps to the Science Building on the day that he was
+thirty years old, wondered if his working life was to end as it had
+begun within its ugly walls.
+
+The building stood at the western edge of the campus. It was a Gothic,
+Jacobean, Victorian composite, four stories high, built of yellow
+sandstone, marble and brick. It boasted a round dome, rising from a
+Gothic main roof and a little pagoda-like tower on each of the mansard
+roofs that crowned the two wings. There had been a time when to Roger
+the Science Building had been beautiful. But he saw its ugliness now and
+laughed about it with Ernest.
+
+On this December afternoon, Roger stayed late in the laboratory with
+twenty seniors who for some weeks had been carrying on strength tests of
+varying mixtures of concrete. The sun was low in the west and the
+corners of the huge old room were dark. But a red glow from the west
+window filled its center, turning the concrete briquettes piled on the
+table in the middle of the room to gold.
+
+Roger stood by the table, examining the students' reports on the
+fractured briquettes. His black hair, with the sunset full upon it, was
+like molten bronze. Roger's face had changed in the years since his
+undergraduate days. His figure was the same, six feet of lean muscle;
+his eyes were as blue and his face as thin and intellectual as when as a
+small boy he had dreamed of an underground railway. But there had grown
+subtly into his face a look of grimness and unhappiness that robbed it
+of the youth it still should have retained.
+
+A shock headed student came to the table with a briquette.
+
+"How does the thesis go, Hallock?" asked Roger.
+
+"Slow, just now, Mr. Moore."
+
+"What's the trouble?"
+
+"Oh, the best of the information is in German and I'm rotten at
+scientific German."
+
+"You've taken the required work in German, haven't you, Hallock?"
+
+"Squeezed through by a hair's breadth," the boy answered with a grin.
+
+Roger grunted. "Neglected it, of course, when you've been told time and
+time again that a reading knowledge of scientific German is essential to
+research success. I wonder why an undergraduate has to be a fool?"
+
+"I'm not a fool," contradicted Hallock flatly.
+
+"Any man's a fool who's working his way through college and fails to get
+the most he can out of every course offered him. I know, because I
+worked my way through my last two years, neglected my German and had to
+make it up after I graduated. That thesis will make or mar you as far as
+your first job goes. Who'd you have your second year German with? If I
+were you, I'd take a semester of it over again."
+
+"I'd rather never get a diploma than go back to old Rosenthal."
+
+"Mr. Rosenthal," corrected Roger sharply. "Speak respectfully of an
+instructor."
+
+"Aw," exclaimed Hallock, now evidently angry, "why should I speak
+respectfully of a beer-guzzling Dutchman who sneers at the girls in the
+class every time they recite?"
+
+There was sudden silence in the room. Hallock was evidently relieving an
+accumulation of irritation. "If I had been Miss Anderson this morning
+I'd have slapped his fat face for him."
+
+"Be careful, Hallock! I can't permit you to talk this way to me about a
+member of the faculty."
+
+"Then you're no better than he!" shouted Hallock. "The damned Dutch run
+this college and I'm sick of it."
+
+There was a sudden murmur of agreement from the highly edified audience
+now grouped behind Hallock. This was an old sore that had existed in
+Roger's own days under Rosenthal.
+
+"Pshaw, I know all about Mr. Rosenthal's peccadillos, Hallock," he said.
+"But he's a teacher and scholar of the first water. Girls always take
+general remarks personally. Miss Anderson had better forget it, whatever
+it was. Girl hysteria, probably."
+
+Hallock suddenly began to cry with rage. "Hysteria, damn you, don't you
+insult her too!" Then, as an angry sneer appeared on Roger's face, he
+unexpectedly leaned over the table and punched Roger on the nose.
+
+Roger vaulted over the table and with a rapid clip laid Hallock flat.
+The boy was on his feet in a moment, crying, but game. The edified
+audience held the two apart.
+
+"You don't know what the Dutch slob said! You don't know," sobbed
+Hallock.
+
+Roger did not speak. In fact he could not. He stood white and trembling
+for some time, a scarlet trickle of blood running from one nostril. His
+struggle for control was so obvious that even Hallock perceived it and
+was silent. With the other lads he stood in embarrassment while the
+laboratory clock ticked and the end of the winter sunset filled the
+room.
+
+It seemed to Roger that the fight was as difficult now as it had been
+years before, when he had struck his mother's soothing hand from his
+shoulder and later had kissed that same hand and had wept his heart out
+with his cheek upon it. In the brief moment as he stood with clenched
+fists and bowed head, waiting for the red mist to give way to his normal
+vision it seemed as if all his life passed in review before him tinged
+with the hot glare of his mental and spiritual tempests. Then, as many,
+many times before, he seemed to feel the gentle hand, that he had
+struck, laid softly on his forehead. He heaved a great sigh and looked
+up.
+
+"The class is dismissed," he said. "Hallock, hold a snowball to your
+chin as you go home."
+
+When the class had left the room, Roger washed his face at the sink in
+the corner, wiping his hands on a towel that was gray with age. Then, he
+dropped the towel and stood leaning against the table, head bowed, arms
+folded.
+
+The gloaming increased. A cheerful whistle sounded in the hall and
+Ernest came in.
+
+"Well, old top? Ready to go home?"
+
+"Ern, do you know a girl named Anderson?"
+
+"Yes, very pretty. Engaged to young Hallock, they say. What about her?
+Don't tell me you've begun to be interested again in petticoats."
+
+"I had the deuce of a row with Hallock, just now," said Roger.
+
+"Change your clothes as you tell me about it," suggested Ernest. "It's
+late."
+
+Roger obediently started for the closet, talking from the door as he
+dressed. Ernest lighted his pipe and listened thoughtfully under the
+electric light he had turned on. He was a shorter man than Roger and
+stockily built. He was still very fair, with soft yellow hair already
+receding from a broad forehead. His eyes were beautiful, a deep violet,
+soft dreaming eyes that men as well as women trusted instinctively.
+
+"I'm sure you've seen Miss Anderson," he said when Roger had finished.
+"She's a funny foolish little thing. Just the kind to attract an
+unsocialized grind like Hallock. I guess there was a good deal of a row
+in Rosenthal's class this morning. One of the seniors told me. Rosenthal
+said to Miss Anderson--say, Rog, you're not listening."
+
+Roger picked up his hat. "I don't care what Rosenthal said. He always
+was a boor. The point with me is that I've lost my temper in the
+classroom for the last time. Come on, Ern."
+
+They were crossing the snowy campus before Ernest spoke. Then he laid
+his hand on his friend's arm.
+
+"The fool kid brought it on himself. I can see how he got worked up. You
+can be exasperating and he gave you what he'd like to have given
+Rosenthal. Nevertheless, no man can take a crack on the chin with a
+thank you, Roger."
+
+Roger did not reply. They turned into River Street where the street
+lights flashed through the bare branches of the elms. An occasional
+sleigh jingled by. Lights glowed from pleasant windows where children
+were silhouetted against the curtains. Ernest stopped before the big,
+comfortable Wolf house.
+
+"Come in to supper, Roger."
+
+"I'll not be good company, Ern," but Roger's voice was wistful.
+
+"Come along! Mother doesn't mind your grouches, and I guess the rest of
+us can endure one more."
+
+Roger turned up the brick path that led to the door.
+
+"Hello, boys!" Elsa called, as the front door slammed. "You're late!"
+
+Elschen at twenty-nine was still very pretty in an unobtrusive way. Her
+yellow hair was thick and curly. Her eyes were like Ernest's and her
+skin was fair, with a velvety flush in her delicately rounded cheeks.
+
+"Supper's ready," she went on. "Papa just came in. Don't keep him
+waiting, children."
+
+Roger and Ernest went quickly into the dining room where Papa Wolf was
+just sitting down. He nodded to them over his spectacles, then helped
+himself to a slice of meat.
+
+"Where's Mamma?" asked Ernest, passing the bread to Roger.
+
+"Here, liebchen!" Mamma Wolf came in, carrying a steaming coffee pot.
+She set it down, then hurried round the table to kiss first Ernest, then
+Roger.
+
+"You know Rog can't eat without you, Muetterchen," laughed Ernest.
+
+"He doesn't get his manners from the Germans," snapped Elsa.
+
+"Never mind! I've gotten the only home life I've known in eight years
+from them," returned Roger. He and Mamma Wolf exchanged an affectionate
+glance.
+
+"Pass the biscuits, Elsa," said Papa Wolf.
+
+"Going anywhere to-night, Elsa?" asked Ernest.
+
+"Yes, we have choir practice every night from now to Christmas."
+
+"The carols are beautiful!" exclaimed Mamma Wolf. "I heard them last
+night when I stopped by the church for Elsa. Ernest, pass your papa the
+preserves and put the cake where he can reach it. It's fresh, Papa,
+never fear. I only finished frosting it as you came in." Mamma Wolf
+looked at her husband a little anxiously.
+
+"That Smithsonian man telephoned you again this afternoon, Ernest," said
+Elsa. "He wanted to call this evening and I told him to come along."
+
+"I wonder what he wants," mused Roger. "He's been hanging round for a
+long time."
+
+"Pass the biscuits, Ernest," from Papa Wolf. "The cake is very bad,
+Mamma."
+
+"Oh, Papa, is it? And I took such trouble!" The distress in the gentle
+voice made Roger scowl.
+
+"In America, Papa," Elsa's voice was mocking, "where you have lived for
+some forty years, it is not considered courteous to criticize the food
+at the table."
+
+"Hush, Elschen! Papa can say what he wishes, always, to me. Is it not
+so, Karl?"
+
+Papa Wolf pushed away his plate, wiped his mustache and leaned back in
+his chair with a smile and a sigh of repletion.
+
+"You spoil us all, Mamma!" he exclaimed. "Elsa, Uncle Hugo comes
+to-night and we will have a little music. You will give up choir
+practice, just for once."
+
+Ernest glanced at his sister apprehensively. She flushed resentfully.
+"But I must go, Papa!" she cried. "I take the salary the church pays me.
+I must sing well."
+
+"Laughing and flirting with the new bass is not practice," returned
+Papa. "You stay at home to-night, Elschen."
+
+Elsa glanced at Ernest, who shrugged his shoulders. Then she gave a long
+look at her father with eyes that were black with anger.
+
+"Papa, I'm going to choir practice," she insisted.
+
+Her father brought his fist down on the table. "Am I or am I not master
+in my own house?" he shouted. "Elsa, what you have needed was a German
+upbringing. You will stay at home to-night and make music with Hugo and
+me."
+
+"Papa," said Elsa slowly, "I am twenty-nine years old and I can't endure
+this sort of thing much longer. Mother and I are just unpaid servants
+for--"
+
+"Elsa! Bitte! Bitte sehr!" exclaimed Mother Wolf.
+
+Elsa's dark look went to her mother, then to Roger, who was still
+scowling. Her lips trembled. She shrugged her shoulders and rising began
+to clear the table.
+
+The three men went into the library and lighted their pipes. Papa Wolf,
+having with much difficulty persuaded his meerschaum to draw, parted his
+coat-tails and settled himself on the piano stool. Then he threw his
+head back while he touched a few quiet chords. He had a beautiful,
+massive head. Roger, ensconced in a deep Morris chair, thought, as he
+had thought many times before, that it was a head that should have
+belonged to an artist rather than to a dry goods merchant. The chords
+merged into a quiet melody. Ernest buried his head in the evening paper.
+Roger let his pipe go out and his face settled into lines that added ten
+years to his age.
+
+The subdued clatter of dishes from the kitchen finally ceased and Elsa
+came through the room. Her father stopped her as she passed and put his
+arm about her waist.
+
+"Sweetheart, don't be cross with me," he said. "It's just that Papa so
+loves to have his little girl with him."
+
+Elsa put her hand on his gray head and looked down into his face but
+said nothing.
+
+"Come now," he went on, "sing a little song of forgiveness with me."
+
+Still with his arm about her he played with one hand and sang as he
+played:
+
+    "Du, du! liegst mir im Herzen!
+    Du, du! liegst mir im Sinn!
+    Du! du! machst mir viel Schmerzen
+    Weiss nicht wie gut ich dir bin."
+
+There was a sudden ring at the doorbell and with a little laugh that was
+half a sob, Elsa hurried to let Uncle Hugo in. He was tall, thin and
+blonde, yet his resemblance to Mamma Wolf, his sister, was unmistakable.
+
+"So! We make a little music to-night," he boomed in a rich bass, "and
+the audience is set," bowing ironically to Roger, still in the clouds,
+and Ernest, his head still in the paper. "Where is the Muetterchen?"
+
+"Coming in a minute," called Mamma, from the dining room. "I can hear.
+Go ahead."
+
+Elsa sat down at the piano. Papa Wolf opened his 'cello case. Uncle Hugo
+put his silver flute to his lips and played a tentative sweet note. In a
+moment the strains of Schubert's Serenade, exquisitely rendered, filled
+the quiet house. Roger relighted his pipe and let it go out. Whenever
+over her shoulder, Elsa cast a quick glance at him, his gaze was
+fastened intently on the ceiling.
+
+For an hour the music continued without interruption. Then the doorbell
+rang again and Ernest went to answer it.
+
+"Come into the den so we won't disturb the concert," Roger heard him
+say. "Rog, come in here, will you?"
+
+Roger obediently made his way into a little room off the dining room,
+devoted to the men of the household. A short smooth-shaven, sandy-haired
+man was standing by the reading table. Roger and he shook hands.
+
+"I've been talking to Dr. Austin a good deal about your solar heat
+apparatus, Rog," said Ernest, "and he's got a proposition to make. Let's
+sit down and talk it out."
+
+He pushed a jar of tobacco toward Austin and the three men, eyeing one
+another with frank interest, settled themselves in the easy chairs which
+Ernest indicated with a nod.
+
+"I think Ernest said that you represent the Smithsonian Institute,"
+Roger said. "What do you want to do? Put my engine in your museum?" This
+with a short laugh.
+
+Austin shook his head. "I see you are about as ignorant as the rest of
+the world as to the real nature of our work. Confess now!"
+
+Ernest smiled. "I suppose I've been reading papers and reports from the
+Smithsonian for ten years, but until I met you, Mr. Austin, I was
+certainly vague about who or what the work represented. Go ahead and
+give Moore the explanation you gave me, will you?"
+
+"Well," began Austin, "an Englishman named Smithson left his estate to
+his nephew named Hungerford with the stipulation that if Hungerford died
+without heirs, the state was to go to found the Smithsonian Institution
+in America. Hungerford obligingly died without issue. It was in 1835, I
+think, and after a great deal of red tape, about half a million dollars
+was turned over to the American Congress to go to work with.
+
+"Of course, Congress did considerable false stepping but finally the
+Institution was organized with the avowed purpose of increasing and
+diffusing knowledge. Rather a large program, eh! It was proposed to
+carry this program out by stimulating talented men to make original
+researches by offering prizes, by appropriating every year a sum of
+money for particular researches and by every year publishing reports on
+the progress of difficult branches of knowledge.
+
+"The original bequest has been increased until now the Institution has
+use of the income on a million dollars. You'll be surprised to know how
+much real work has been done by this very little advertised branch of
+our government. For example, out of the system of weather observation
+developed by the Institution grew the United States Weather Bureau. The
+United States Ethnological Research is all done by us--as witness the
+monumental studies of our American Indians. Powell's great explorations
+were fathered by the Smithsonian and so were Langley's experiments in
+flying machines as well as his studies of solar heat."
+
+"My word!" exclaimed Roger, "so they were!"
+
+"When I was in the northern part of the state, last summer, studying
+certain Indian mounds, I ran across one of your fellow instructors who
+mentioned your work in heat engineering. I've always been much
+interested in that line of research, so when I came West again I tried
+to get in touch with you."
+
+"I'm not hard to reach, surely," said Roger.
+
+"Oh, yes, you are," returned Austin.
+
+"It was this way, Rog," Ernest's lazy, gentle voice interrupted. "I kept
+Dr. Austin away from you until I felt that there was some hope. I didn't
+want you to have another disappointment."
+
+"As I got your idea from Mr. Wolf, it seems to me that the Smithsonian
+might be glad to back you in further experiments," said Austin.
+
+Roger's thin face flushed as it was apt to do when his work was under
+discussion. "This is mighty kind of you, Dr. Austin, but my work has
+gone beyond the experimental stage. I'm ready to erect Solar Power
+Plants if I can find the money."
+
+"Rog, you're not ready!" cried Ernest, with unusual vehemence. "You've
+no idea of the troubles you'll be up against when you try actually to
+erect a working plant, in a hot country."
+
+"I'm not afraid," returned Roger shortly. "One thing is certain, I'm not
+going on experimenting any longer."
+
+"My understanding of your device is, that it is practical only in
+tropical or semi-tropical climates," said Austin.
+
+"This first device is, yes," answered Roger shortly. "If I can ever get
+this one launched, I shall take up other climates."
+
+Austin eyed Roger keenly for a moment, then he said suddenly,
+
+"Why don't you let me see your plans? We might possibly have something
+to say that would interest you."
+
+"Oh, of course! I wish I had some of them here. And it's too late to go
+up to the laboratory to-night."
+
+"Wait a moment, Roger! Wait a moment," exclaimed Ernest. "Praying that
+we'd get to this point to-night, I brought down a set of drawings." He
+unlocked a drawer of the table and pulled out a roll of paper.
+
+Roger spread some of the sheets on the table and the black, the yellow
+and the sandy heads bent over them.
+
+"This," began Roger, "is the general ground plan of a plant designed to
+produce about 50 horse power. This detail here, which looks like a
+design for a glassed-in hot bed for early cabbage, is the heat absorber.
+It consists of a trough lined with some insulating material, covered
+with two layers of ordinary window glass. Under this window glass I flow
+crude oil, which absorbs the sun's heat as it comes through the glass. I
+get some remarkable temperatures, right here in Eagle's Wing. Here is a
+month's thermometer readings during July."
+
+Austin studied the table thoughtfully. "The heated oil is the fuel for
+a low pressure engine. What engine do you use?"
+
+"One of my own design. Here are the drawings."
+
+Austin bent over these with absorbed interest and for an hour Roger
+answered his questions. At the end of this time, Austin lighted his
+pipe, which had gone out, and took a turn or two up and down the room.
+Then he paused suddenly in front of Roger and said, "Why don't you go
+down into Arizona and put up a small pumping plant as an experiment for
+the Smithsonian? I know this is not the large way, the commercial way,
+but I am convinced that this is the careful, practical way. Your friend
+Wolf tells me that the most popular reason given by the business houses
+you've visited for turning you down has been that you've never actually
+erected a working plant. Why not try it for us? Then you'll be in a
+position to talk business."
+
+Roger, his face a still deeper red, looked from Austin to Ernest and
+back again. He relighted his pipe with fingers that shook.
+
+"How big a plant?" he asked huskily.
+
+"Big enough to irrigate about twenty-five acres of desert for alfalfa.
+I'm convinced that when you actually undertake to put such a plant in
+operation, you'll realize that there are details to be remade that you
+never dreamed of, on paper."
+
+Roger did not speak for a moment. Five years ago he would have refused
+such an offer as this, without hesitation. It was very different, this,
+from turning out say a thousand units in six months. Yet, so long had
+hope been deferred that Roger hesitated, not for lack of enthusiasm for
+Austin's offer, but because the sudden joy that rose within him made it
+difficult to speak. Finally he turned to Ernest, who was watching him
+with a look of inexpressible satisfaction in his beautiful eyes.
+
+"Will you go with me, Ern?"
+
+"The family will kick, but I'm going," answered Ernest.
+
+"What are the terms, Dr. Austin?" asked Roger.
+
+"We'll buy all machinery and apparatus and pay for labor and living up
+to ten thousand dollars."
+
+Roger could not believe that his sterile years of endeavor and
+disappointment were to bring forth even this small fruit. He laid his
+pipe down, picked it up, then said, "I can't tell you what this
+opportunity means to me. It's--it's my work, you see, and--and--"
+
+"That's all right," Austin spoke hastily. "When can you start? I know
+exactly the spot in Arizona that we would wish you to go to--Archer's
+Springs. Have you a map of Arizona?"
+
+"Yes, some of the Geological Survey maps," said Ernest, opening up a
+chart case.
+
+"Here's the spot." Austin put his pencil on the map. "It's about twenty
+miles north of the railroad, a mining country, but we've always believed
+that the valleys here could blossom if we could get water to them. The
+Reclamation Service never expects to get in there."
+
+"I know that," said Roger eagerly, "and yet a cheap power would make an
+inland empire of that section."
+
+"Have you ever seen it?" asked Austin.
+
+"No, Chicago has been my uttermost limit of travel so far. But I've
+studied hot countries and their resources for ten years."
+
+"My idea is," said Austin, "that we buy all our supplies at St. Louis.
+I'll go that far with you. You can buy the essentials for making camp at
+Archer's Springs and by the time you are ready for it, freight will have
+brought the rest. I believe there is an excellent trading store at
+Archer's Springs where you can buy a camp outfit. I'll wire down and
+find out."
+
+"Jove, Rog, doesn't that sound great!" exclaimed Ernest.
+
+"When shall we plan to start?" asked Roger.
+
+"Why not at once, so as to get the plant running by Spring, when the
+real heat comes on?" Austin looked from one eager face to the other.
+
+"We both are teaching, you know," said Ernest. "I thought next June--"
+
+"Next June!" shouted Roger. "This is the first of December, Dr. Austin.
+We'll have found substitutes and be ready to travel immediately after
+the Christmas recess."
+
+Ernest winced. "That's crowding things! But--well, you're the boss of
+the expedition, Rog. I'll be with you."
+
+"Fine!" Austin rubbed his hands together. "We'll start our purchase list
+now, eh?"
+
+The concert, which had proceeded during the evening without
+interruption, now stopped abruptly, just as the clock struck ten.
+
+"How about deferring that until to-morrow?" asked Roger. "I've a number
+of lists in my desk at the Science Building that will help us."
+
+"That's a good idea," Austin rose as he spoke. "Will you both take
+dinner with me at the hotel to-morrow evening and we can give the
+evening to this?"
+
+"We'll be there," replied Roger, following Austin to the door. When he
+returned, Ernest was locking up the drawings. "Well, Ern, old boy, it's
+not big business, but thanks to you, it's a real start in that
+direction, anyhow. How can I thank you?"
+
+"By helping me to break the news to the family. It's most deucedly short
+notice. We'll have some trouble in finding substitutes for our classroom
+work."
+
+"I'm sure Benson and Ames will be only too glad of the chance," Roger
+spoke decidedly. "I thought of them this afternoon. I swear I was in
+earnest in saying I was through with teaching. And now this! It's like a
+double answer to prayer."
+
+"Boys!" called Elsa, "the beer is waiting."
+
+Ernest was well into his second stein and his third cheese sandwich
+before, in response to repeated kicks from Roger, he made his
+announcement. There was a moment's silence, broken by Elsa.
+
+"Lucky dogs! Take me along!"
+
+"But, Ernest, you cannot go," protested Papa Wolf. "Let Roger go if he
+wishes. I have nothing to say to that. But, my son, with the chance for
+a full professorship in a great university--no!"
+
+Roger sighed. He was sorry for Ernest, but he never could understand his
+docile relationship to his father. Ernest came back, pluckily enough.
+
+"I think I ought to go, Papa. It will be a fine experience and I will
+come back to teaching with a new interest."
+
+"But why waste time? Why waste time?" cried his father. "You are nearly
+thirty. Instead of playing in the desert for a year, you should be
+marrying and starting a home."
+
+"It won't be play, Mr. Wolf," said Roger. "It'll be bitter hard work,
+but it will add considerably to Ernest's reputation."
+
+"Pah! Pah! _Was ist's!_" snorted the older man. "You are a good boy,
+Roger, but you are full of foolishness. You are bad for Ernest."
+
+"Pshaw, Papa, don't talk like a goose," protested Elsa, her cheeks
+crimson. "All the initiative Ernest's got, Roger gave him. Why not let
+Ernest see a little of life before he settles down forever? Let him have
+just one adventure, for goodness sake."
+
+"Will you be still, Elsa?" asked her father sternly.
+
+"Hush, Elschen," whispered Mamma Wolf.
+
+"Roger should be settling down and finding a wife for himself," Papa
+Wolf went on. "He'd soon get over his absentminded ways."
+
+Ernest suddenly laughed. "Why, Papa, Roger looks on women about the way
+you look on inventors."
+
+"Dry up, Ern," said Roger.
+
+"What sort of a thing is it, this desert machine?" asked Uncle Hugo.
+
+"It's a method of utilizing solar heat for power," replied Roger.
+
+"Ah, yes, the big umbrella-like things. I've seen them in the pictures."
+
+"Not at all," corrected Roger crossly.
+
+Ernest spoke suddenly, very firmly but without raising his gentle voice.
+"I'm sorry to go against your wishes, Papa, but I'm going, just the
+same."
+
+His father's mouth opened in astonishment. There was silence for a
+moment, broken by a sob from Mamma Wolf. Then Papa Wolf roared: "So
+that's it! You are of age. But disobedience I will not countenance. If
+you go, never again can you live in my house."
+
+"Oh, Karl!" cried Mamma Wolf.
+
+Elsa sniffed audibly. "What a tempest over a little thing! Uncle Hugo,
+have some more beer?"
+
+"I must be going," said Hugo, taking the beer nevertheless.
+
+"So must I," exclaimed Roger, rising hastily. "Then it's settled,
+Ernest?"
+
+Ernest leaned over to take another sandwich. "It's settled. Don't cry,
+Muetterchen. I'll bring you home a horned toad and you can make me a bed
+and serve my meals in the garage."
+
+Roger took Mamma Wolf's hand and kissed her cheek. "Good night, dear,"
+he whispered.
+
+Mamma Wolf smiled bravely and clung to his fingers for a moment. "You
+have made me sad, Roger, but I can't help loving you!"
+
+Roger kissed her again. "I'm not going to let you be sad long. I'll
+bring Ernie back to you safe and sound. Well, I'm off to bed! Good
+night, Elsa!" and he was gone with a bang of the front door.
+
+The days to Christmas flew by with unbelievable speed. Papa Wolf washed
+his hands of the whole adventure, as Elsa continued to call it, and
+refused to allow any mention of it in his hearing. This was Ernest's
+first insurrection, and his father seemed to have no tool but silence
+with which to combat it. Christmas eve and Christmas day were celebrated
+with all the usual beautiful German customs. It seemed to Roger that he
+enjoyed them more each year, and this year, with the novel sense of
+achievement in his heart, the joy of the day was unalloyed.
+
+Although Papa Wolf was obdurate about the adventure, his big heart could
+not permit him to allow him to let Austin spend Christmas day in a
+hotel. When he learned that Austin had a wife and child in Washington,
+nothing would do but that the Smithsonian man should share in a home
+Christmas. Papa Wolf provided another guest also, a stranger named
+Adolph Werner. He was a German banker, traveling across America on
+business, and the Wolf family was instructed to treat him with great
+deference. Stout and bespectacled, he proved a delightful guest and Dr.
+Austin displayed a gift for comic songs that brought the house down.
+
+The two guests discovered that they both had studied for several years
+in Munich and a great meeting of spirits followed, materially assisted
+by Papa Wolf, Uncle Hugo and a bowl of Glueh Wein. And when it was still
+further discovered that Werner's next stopping place was St. Louis, he
+was invited at once to join the Sun Planters, as Elsa had dubbed them.
+He accepted at once and on New Year's Day, with Elsa and her mother
+weeping and Papa Wolf blinking back tears but sternly refusing to say
+good-by, the party pulled out of the little Eagle's Wing station. Herr
+Werner proved to be a delightful traveling companion and he became so
+much interested in the details of the experiment that he insisted that
+he be invited to visit the plant; an invitation that was given most
+cordially by Roger.
+
+Thanks to Dr. Austin's experienced presence, the purchases in St. Louis
+were made in record time and at the end of the second week in January,
+Roger and Ernest set forth alone for the desert country.
+
+It was their first trip west of the Mississippi and both men were
+absorbed in watching the changes of scenery as the train whirled from
+one state to the next. Albuquerque was an hour behind when Ernest came
+into the smoking compartment where Roger was engaged in drawing on the
+back of an old envelope.
+
+"Say, Rog, I know you aren't interested in the sex, but there's the most
+unusual little girl on the train. She's seven years old and traveling
+all alone. Her name is Felicia. She got in at Kansas City. They checked
+her through like a pup. She's going out to join her brother and sister
+on a mining claim near Archer's Springs."
+
+Roger did not stop his pencil. "Seems as if we'd have neighbors," he
+said.
+
+"I hope this is a sample of Archer's Springs girls!" said Ernest.
+"Honestly, Roger, she's a lovely kid. Come on back and see her. I'm
+going to take her out on the observation platform with me."
+
+Roger grunted, and Ernest, with a grin, left him in peace. It was an
+hour later when Roger, having forgotten about the child, but wanting to
+ask Ernest a question, made his way to the observation platform. It was
+so exceedingly dusty that Ernest and his little friend had it to
+themselves.
+
+"Here she is, little Felicia!" cried Ernest. "And here he is, big
+Roger!"
+
+The little girl looked up at Roger. He returned the look with a
+surprised interest. He did not know much about little girls, but it
+seemed to him that she must be rather unusual. She had large brown eyes
+of astounding depth and softness. She was tall for her seven years, tall
+and graceful, in a short soiled blue gingham dress, and socks wrinkling
+down on stubby Oxford ties. Her hair was brown, curly and short. There
+were lovely curves in her scarlet drooping lips, and a fine arch in her
+head, above the ears.
+
+She made a little curtsey and shook hands in the limp manner of
+childhood. Roger smiled at her, and sat down.
+
+"Ernest, what was the size of the glass you and Dr. Austin were finally
+able to get?"
+
+"Eight by twelve. Felicia, tell Mr. Moore where you're going."
+
+"Out to live with Charley and Dick," said the child obediently.
+
+"Have they been there long?" asked Roger, lighting his pipe.
+
+"Ever since Mother died. They left me with Aunt May. But now I'm going
+out to be with Charley. Dear, dearest Charley, that's what Aunt May
+says."
+
+"Charley must be your favorite brother," commented Roger, a trifle
+absentmindedly as he tried to define the disconcerting attraction
+Felicia had for him.
+
+"Ho! How silly you are!" laughed the little girl. "Charley's my big only
+sister. Her whole name is Charlotte Emerson Preble and she looks just
+like me. Aunt May says so."
+
+"Preble!" exclaimed both the men.
+
+"Charley Preble!" Roger went on. "Ern, don't you remember the pretty
+little girl who used to play with us?"
+
+"Of course I do. That's why Felicia has been puzzling us so. We were
+just kids, but seems to me Charley looked exactly as she does."
+
+"Did sister Charley ever talk to you about Eagle's Wing?" asked Roger.
+
+"I don't recollect Charley. She went out to take care of Dick when I was
+so little. Charley's awful good. She'll take such care of me as never
+was on sea or land. Aunt May says so. And I'll love her more than I do
+God."
+
+"Was Dick sick? I remember him as a big, husky boy, don't you, Ern?"
+
+Ernest shook his head. "I don't remember him. You were the one who used
+to go out to Prebles' to play."
+
+"Dicky was sick," Felicia piped on. "Dicky's like Dad. He'll never
+amount to much, Aunt May says."
+
+"Look at the queer kind of cactus we're beginning to pass, Felicia,"
+interrupted Roger, hastily.
+
+Felicia leaned against his knee. No little girl ever had done so before
+and Roger looked at her curiously.
+
+"The desert's awful homely, isn't it?" she said.
+
+"It certainly is," agreed Ernest, lighting a fresh cigar.
+
+For a moment the three stared at the unending wastes of brown and
+gray-green, belled over by a cloudless sapphire sky.
+
+"Homely and hot, but I don't care as long as I'm where Charley is. I
+don't remember her, but I know how I'm going to feel about her." Here
+she took a long look into Roger's gray eyes. "I guess I'd like to sit in
+your lap," she suggested.
+
+Roger lifted her to his knees and she settled back comfortably in the
+hollow of his arm. A flooding sense of tenderness surprised him into
+silence.
+
+"You are deserting me," protested Ernest.
+
+"No, I'm not," returned little Felicia Preble. "I like you very much but
+I feel as if I'd like to sit in Roger's lap."
+
+And in Roger's lap she sat, while the racing purple shadows on the
+yellow desert gradually grew black, until the yellow turned to lavender,
+and both gradually merged into a twilight that was silvered by star-glow
+before the last crimson disappeared in the west. She sat there long
+after Ernest went inside to read, in the same quiet that enwrapped
+Roger. It was a strange quiet for Roger; a quiet of sweetness and
+content that he had not known since his mother's death. With that warm,
+supple little body pressed against him, his mind for once left his work
+and paused to ponder on the loneliness of the past sixteen years and on
+the thrilling promise of the desert star-glow. No human being can be
+completely sane who does not pause at intervals to express the
+tenderness that marks humans from animals. But Roger did not know this.
+
+It was six o'clock in the morning when the train pulled in to Archer's
+Springs and Ernest, Roger and Felicia alighted. They stood for a moment
+in silence after the train pulled out. They were apparently the only
+persons awake in the world.
+
+"Where's Charley?" asked Felicia suddenly.
+
+The station door opened and the baggage man, in blue overalls and
+jumper, appeared. He was frankly interested in the new arrivals and
+answered Ernest's question promptly.
+
+"Preble? Sure! Dick Preble was here the first of the week. Told me he'd
+be in next week to meet the little girl. How'd you come a week early,
+sissy?"
+
+Felicia's lip was quivering. "I don't know! Aunt Mary put me on the
+train and said Charley would meet me."
+
+"Can we telephone them?" asked Ernest.
+
+The baggage man grinned. "Telephone? Boys, come here a minute."
+
+He led them to the other side of the concrete station where the view was
+unobstructed by the train shed, and pointed northeast.
+
+"Take a look," he suggested.
+
+The station platform ended in yellow sand. Across an open space were
+some one-story buildings; beyond these an indefinite level of sand that
+melted, at what distance one could not say, into a line of mountains
+that were black and crimson and at last snow-capped against the
+translucent blue of the morning sky.
+
+"This road," said the baggage man, "goes along pretty good for eight or
+ten miles north, then it's nothing but a wagon track trail. If you
+follow it for twenty-five miles you reach Preble's mine. He says he's
+trying dry farming this spring. There ain't a living human being, except
+a few Injuns, between there and here. Sabez? And they ain't a brute
+thing but coyotes, and lizards and maybe wild burros, and so they ain't
+no call for a telephone."
+
+Roger looked at the group of buildings across the way. "Is this all
+there is to Archer's Springs?"
+
+"Sure, and it's a pretty good little old town, don't forget it. All the
+miners in the range south of here trade here. You'd better go across the
+street to the Chinaman's and get some breakfast."
+
+Preble's claim lay twenty-five miles northeast. So did the government
+land where the Solar plant was to be built. Roger and Ernest discussed
+the matter at breakfast and decided to carry Felicia along with them on
+the morrow when they started for their own camp.
+
+"And think how surprised Charley will be when you drop in on her,
+Felicia," suggested Ernest.
+
+Felicia blinked back the tears and began to nibble her breakfast.
+
+"It's a darn big desert and a darn small town," said Roger. "I wonder if
+Austin was right in telling us we could outfit here. Let's ask the
+baggage man."
+
+The obliging baggage man pointed out the largest of the sheet-iron,
+adobe buildings across the way. "Best trading in a hundred miles," he
+said.
+
+With Felicia dancing between them, the two made their way to Hackett's
+Supply House. The exterior was not promising, but within was everything
+the desert dwellers could need. Working from Austin's list they were
+soon supplied with tents, working outfit and tent boards. Hackett, a
+stout, slow-speaking man, was not staggered even when Roger asked him to
+deliver the goods.
+
+"Expect a lot of freight in a couple of weeks, you say? All right, I'll
+send you up with a team and when your freight comes in you can drive it
+back again. You can board the horses at Preble's."
+
+Their purchases were complete by noon, but Hackett would not let them
+start until morning. "No use," he said, "for tenderfeet to try camping
+on a short trip and it would be hard on the little girl. Get a dawn
+start and make the trip in one shift."
+
+So they whiled away the afternoon by a tramp over the desert, and after
+supper turned Felicia over to the landlady at Delmonico's, the adobe
+hotel, which was clean if it was meager. They were sitting in the
+office, which boasted a rusty sheet-iron stove, a desk, and a hanging
+lamp, when a thin, middle-aged man came slowly in the door and walked
+hesitatingly up to Ernest.
+
+"My name is Schmidt," he said. "I saw you at supper. Mr. Werner, he
+wrote me you vas coming and asked me to do vat I could for you."
+
+Ernest and Roger shook hands delightedly.
+
+"I come here for my health," Schmidt went on, "and maybe I help you. I
+vork for my board."
+
+"We'll see how things are after we get settled," said Roger, carefully.
+"Have a cigar and tell me how you came to know Mr. Werner."
+
+"I clerked by a bank he vas interested in," replied Schmidt, settling
+himself with the cigar. Roger and Ernest liked him at once, from his
+stiff brown pompadour and kindly blue eyes behind his spectacles to his
+strong, capable looking hands. Before they parted for the night it was
+agreed that Schmidt would come back with them when they came in for the
+freight. Austin had warned them that help was almost impossible to get
+in the desert and this seemed a wise thing to do.
+
+The sun had not risen the next morning when the three climbed aboard the
+heavily laden wagon and started along the trail Hackett had carefully
+described for them.
+
+It was not a smooth trail. Even the first eight or ten miles, mentioned
+with pride by the baggage man, were cut with draws and strewed with
+heavy rocks. But the air was like a northern May. The cactus was full of
+singing northern birds preparing for their spring migration. The horses
+plodded steadily without urging. The mountains lifted in colors ever
+more marvelous and the Adventure seemed to Roger satisfactory beyond
+expression.
+
+"I think it's beautiful, Ern," he said at last.
+
+"Gad, I don't," replied Ernest, wiping sand out of his eyes.
+
+"I do!" cried Felicia, jouncing up and down on the wagon seat between
+the men. She was powdered white with sand. "Charley will c'lapse when
+she sees me."
+
+The horses were used to desert going. The tenderfoot drivers let them
+have their own way. Hackett had tried to describe certain landmarks
+along the route so that they could gauge the distance covered, but with
+small effect on Ernest and Roger. All points of the desert looked alike
+to them. They only knew that if they followed the trail north long
+enough, they would strike Prebles' late that night.
+
+Just at sundown, however, Roger pulled in the horses. "That trail's
+getting awfully faint," he said.
+
+"Sand's drifted like snow across it," agreed Ernest. "In fact, there
+hasn't been any trail for the last mile. But we can't miss our way. That
+white peak with three points is at right angles anyhow to us, as it
+ought to be."
+
+Roger started the horses on, but after a short time stopped again.
+
+"I'm not going on till we locate the trail," he announced.
+
+"What are you going to do? Not stay here all night," protested Ernest.
+
+"You bet I am. Ernest, we're off the track right now. We won't be able
+to find the trail until daylight."
+
+Ernest's obstinate chin set. "I'm for going on."
+
+Roger flushed in the fading light. "I'm the leader of this expedition
+and I say stop."
+
+"Pshaw! I didn't think you were so timid, Roger," exclaimed Ernest.
+"I'll go on foot and find the trail."
+
+"Don't be a fool, Ernest," cried Roger.
+
+But if a quick temper was Roger's besetting sin, pig-headedness was
+Ernest's. He jumped down from the wagon and disappeared into the dusk.
+
+Felicia and Roger waited for a time patiently. Then Roger shouted, half
+a dozen times, "Ernest!" There was no answer.
+
+"Darn chump!" muttered Roger. "Come on, Felicia, let's make a fire of
+grease wood so he can find us."
+
+They built the fire and an hour passed, then two, but Ernest did not
+appear.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+CHARLEY
+
+
+Felicia soon grew weary of the game of fire building and begged off.
+Roger, with the aid of the ax, gathered a huge pile of grease wood, then
+with Felicia beside him, wrapped in a blanket, he sat down before the
+fire to wait.
+
+The child, her deep eyes glowing like black rubies in the flickering
+light, the lovely curves of her mouth drooping, leaned against Roger's
+shoulder, for a little while, then she turned and looked up into his
+face for a long minute. Roger returned the look, a little wonderingly.
+Felicia's attractiveness still puzzled him.
+
+"I love you very much," she said, "more than I do Ernest."
+
+Roger smiled down at her. "But you must love our old Ernest too, even if
+he has deserted us."
+
+"Oh, I do love him, but it's you I think about, last thing at night!"
+
+Felicia gazed up at Roger with a look of such mysterious depth that he
+caught his breath. Felicia suddenly shivered.
+
+"The desert's awful big! Oh, why do you suppose Charley didn't meet me?
+I want Charley," with a sob.
+
+Roger jumped to his feet and brought another blanket from the wagon. He
+spread it before the fire and urged Felicia to lie down on it. This she
+was persuaded to do only after Roger loaned his lap for a pillow and
+she finally fell asleep, her head on his knee, his hand clasped against
+her cheek.
+
+Another hour slipped by. Cramped and cold, Roger tossed an occasional
+branch in the fire with his free hand and speculated with uneasiness for
+Ernest, as to the nature of the faint sounds that came from the
+eastward. He decided that coyotes must be in the vicinity and he drew
+the blanket close over Felicia's shoulders. He was strangely unlonely.
+The desert silence and space about him, the low-lying stars, the faint
+cloud of mountain range were not alien to him. They all were the setting
+for the work toward which his whole life had moved. He knew too little
+of the desert really to be fearful for Ernest, whose return he expected
+any moment.
+
+He dozed a little. A sudden sound of hoof-beats roused him. A man jumped
+from his horse on the opposite side of the fire. He was a stocky fellow,
+wearing blue overalls and a red sweater. Before he had given Roger more
+than a quick "Hello!" another horse came up and a woman alighted. Roger
+laid Felicia's head on the blanket and clambered stiffly to his feet.
+The young woman gave Roger a quick glance, then ran toward the sleeping
+child.
+
+"Felicia! Baby Felicia!" she cried. "Did you think Charley had deserted
+you?"
+
+Felicia sat up with a jerk. "Charley!" she screamed. "Charley! I knew
+you'd come!"
+
+"Hello, Roger Moore!" exclaimed the stocky young man. "Are you the same
+young plutocrat who used to own a swimming pool?"
+
+Roger laughed. "The same, except that I'm no longer a plutocrat. How did
+you recognize me?"
+
+"Oh, we met Ernest Wolf meandering about the desert. Hello, baby, do you
+remember brother?" kissing Felicia, who was in Charley's arms.
+
+Charley was tall, nearly as tall as Roger, and he noticed as he turned
+to shake hands with her that she held the child easily, as if she were
+very strong. Then he was looking into eyes that suddenly seemed deeply
+familiar.
+
+"I don't remember much except the pool," said Charley. "How are we going
+to thank you for taking care of Felicia?"
+
+"I don't know how we are going to thank Felicia," Roger replied. "Where
+is Ernest?"
+
+Preble laughed. "He was pegging for all he was worth in the wrong
+direction. We had some trouble to persuade him that he was wrong."
+
+"That's Ernest, sure enough!" exclaimed Roger.
+
+Preble went on more soberly. "It really isn't a laughing matter though,
+a tenderfoot astray in this country. I tried to impress that upon him.
+It just happened that Charley and I were out looking for our pet cow and
+we ran on Wolf about five miles north of here, heading west and going
+strong. He had picked up a wagon trail I made last week going for
+adobe."
+
+"Where is he now?" asked Roger.
+
+"Oh, we left him herding the cow. We'll pick him up on the way back.
+Let's get started. Lord, but you've grown, Felicia! Come here and let me
+look at you."
+
+Big brother and little sister looked at each other attentively in the
+firelight. Dick Preble was still red headed and freckled, with only a
+vague resemblance to his sisters.
+
+"Four years since we left you, little Felicia. Charley, she looks just
+as you did at her age, only not so tall. I don't see how Aunt Mary could
+have been such a fool as to have sent her a week ahead of time."
+
+"Aunt Mary never managed anything correctly in her life, bless her
+heart," replied the older sister. "Help hitch up, Dicky. We're only five
+miles from home, Mr. Moore."
+
+They were ready for the trail in a few minutes. Felicia delayed the
+start by refusing to be separated from Charley and finally Charley's
+horse was hitched to the tailboard of the wagon and Charley mounted the
+high wagon seat. Felicia, established between Roger and her sister, was
+in a state of great excitement and at first monopolized the
+conversation. But after a time, she quieted down and by the time they
+overtook Ernest, she was asleep, her head against Roger's arm, her hand
+clasping one of Charley's. Nor did the greetings waken her.
+
+"Well, Ern, old chap, how's the North Pole?" called Roger.
+
+"You go to thunder!" replied Ernest with a laugh. He tied the cow in the
+place of Charley's pony and mounting the pony rode ahead with Preble.
+
+Roger wanted a number of questions answered. Where had the Prebles gone
+after leaving Eagle's Wing and what had they done in the interim, were
+his opening queries.
+
+"We went to a little town, near St. Louis," answered Charley, "and
+Father did well. Dick and I both went to college. What in the world are
+you doing out here, Mr. Moore?"
+
+"For heaven's sake don't 'mister' me, old friends and neighbors as we
+are. Why, we lived on your old farm till Father and Mother died!"
+
+"Did you indeed? And what brought you out here? Mining?"
+
+"No, some experimenting in irrigating for the government."
+
+"Heaven send that you're successful!" exclaimed the girl. "Dick is going
+to get some alfalfa in this winter, and I know that our well won't take
+care of it. But he _will_ go ahead."
+
+"Felicia is startlingly like you, as a child. I have just one picture of
+you in my mind--standing on the edge of the pool, ready to dive, but
+looking around at me and laughing. Felicia laughs just that way."
+
+"Poor baby, coming all this way alone! But there seemed nothing else to
+be done. We couldn't afford to go back for her nor could Aunt Mary come
+on with her."
+
+"She got along famously and made friends with every one," said Roger.
+"Jove, isn't it wonderful, running on you people out here!"
+
+"It's going to be wonderful for us, I know," returned Charley.
+
+The wagon rumbled and bumped, and then Charley asked:
+
+"Where is your camp to be?"
+
+"We don't know, except we're to take up some government land adjacent to
+yours. But your name isn't on our survey map."
+
+"No, we have the old Ames claim," replied Charlotte. "You must plan to
+stay with us until your camp is set up."
+
+"You're very kind," said Roger.
+
+"It's a God-send to have neighbors coming to us," the girl went on.
+
+Roger made no reply and the road becoming unbelievably rough, Charley
+gave her attention to holding Felicia on the seat and nothing more was
+said until Preble called back,
+
+"Careful through this gate, Moore! Wait till I get a light."
+
+"We're home," said Charley. "Wake up, Felicia dear."
+
+Dick appeared in a moment with a lighted candle stuck within and on the
+side of an empty can. It threw a long finger of light on the gate posts
+of a corral.
+
+"We call those candle-lanterns, 'lightning bugs,' down here," explained
+Charley. "'Bugs,' for short."
+
+"I want one for myself," exclaimed Felicia, suddenly. "Only very small,
+so's my doll can use it."
+
+"You shall have a dozen if you want them, baby!" cried Dick, lifting her
+down carefully over the wagon wheel.
+
+The men unhitched and attended to the horses, then followed a short,
+winding trail up to the lighted doorway. They entered a long, low room,
+with adobe walls a muddy yellowish color. The floor was of rough plank
+with a single Navajo blanket of gray and black before a little adobe
+fireplace. There were half a dozen camp chairs in the room, a couch in a
+corner, covered with a blue Indian rug, a homemade table in the middle,
+several pelts and shelves of books in the walls and more books and an
+alarm clock on the mantel shelf. It was a crude room, but one felt its
+harmony of tone and homelike quality at once.
+
+"Put your suit cases in here," said Dick, leading the way through an
+open door into a candle-lighted room. It was a barren little place, but
+there was a comfortable cot on either side of the room and a packing box
+between that was half washstand, half bureau. Charley appeared in the
+door:
+
+"Supper'll be ready as soon as the kettle boils," she announced. "Little
+Felicia is in bed and fast asleep. Dick, you'd better go milk that poor
+cow."
+
+Dick started off obediently and Ernest sat down on his cot.
+
+"I'll wait till the kettle boils. Gee, I walked a thousand miles. Roger,
+go out and help with the supper, you lazy brute."
+
+Charley laughed. "There's nothing to do unless you want to start a fire
+in the fireplace."
+
+Roger followed her to the kitchen, where she pointed to a brimming
+wood-box. He looked with interest at the immaculate kitchen. The walls
+were whitewashed, the floor scoured to a silvery purity, the stove was
+shining.
+
+"What a bully camp you have!" he exclaimed, pausing with his arm full of
+kindling to look at Charley. For the first time, as she stood watching
+the teakettle with the lamplight full upon her, he got a clear view of
+his hostess.
+
+She was slender but not thin. Her shoulders were broad and square and
+her chest was deep and she was slim-hipped like an athletic boy. She
+gave Roger a curious impression of strength, very unusual to connect
+with a girl. Yet for all her height and vigor, she was very lovely. Her
+hair was darker than Felicia's, a wiry, burnished bronze, in a braided
+mass about her head. Her face was long, with a well-cut short nose and
+an oval chin. There were lovely curves in her scarlet, drooping lips.
+Her eyes were large, a melting brown that was almost black. It was the
+child Felicia's face, but with a depth of sweetness, a patience and
+pride in lips and eyes, acquired by what difficulties of living, Roger
+could not have told, even had he had sufficient understanding of women
+to have noted the existence of those qualities. He did, however, see her
+wonderful resemblance to Felicia.
+
+"You are like Felicia, grown up, all of a sudden," he said. "It's hard
+to rid myself of that illusion. Ernest and I have had a bully time with
+that small girl."
+
+"I'm so glad to have her here that--well, when you have been in the
+desert longer, you'll realize what human beings can mean to each other,"
+said Charley. "There! The kettle's boiling. Fly with your wood."
+
+Roger flew. Dick came in with the milk and the four sat down to a supper
+of baked beans, tea and canned apples. It was a pleasant meal, but Roger
+and Ernest, weary beyond words, were delighted when it was finished and
+they could tumble into bed.
+
+Roger was wakened the next morning by the alarm clock in the dining
+room. Ernest jumped up at once and Roger lighted the candle.
+
+"Six o'clock," he said. "Well, our new job has begun, Ern."
+
+There was a great rattling of the stove lids in the kitchen, above
+Dick's whistle, then through the windows a light dawning toward the
+corral. By the time that Roger and Ernest had shaved and were hurrying
+down the little trail, the red glow in the east had made the "Bug"
+unnecessary. All the horses were munching alfalfa and Dick was
+whistling in the cow-shed.
+
+The two men stood a moment at the corral gate and looked about them.
+
+The house faced the west. It had been carefully placed on a broad ledge
+of the mountain, a few feet above the desert level, yet the few feet
+were enough to give a complete view of the valley that swept forty miles
+to the west into the range that held the Colorado within bounds. The
+sandy levels of the desert swept to the very foot of the mountain, and
+Dick had fenced in about twenty-five acres. It was not yet under
+cultivation, but a scraper half-filled with sand near the corral fence
+testified to Dick's intentions. There were practically no farm
+buildings: just the cow-shed, with a sheet-iron roof and a canvas
+covered shelter in a corner of the corral. Shed and corral were on the
+desert level and a good two hundred feet from the house. As they stood
+in silence, Dick came up with his pail of milk.
+
+"Great view, isn't it? I'm going to have twenty-five acres of alfalfa
+here by June."
+
+"I thought you were mining," said Ernest.
+
+"I came to the desert to dry-farm but I got sidetracked with turquoise
+mining up the mountain yonder. Nothing in that, but alfalfa is thirty
+dollars a ton and we get five crops a year."
+
+"Which way does the government land lie?" asked Roger.
+
+Dick grinned. "Look in any direction! You'll have no trouble locating
+yourselves. Let's go in to breakfast."
+
+Charley and Felicia were sitting at the breakfast table and the meal was
+quickly eaten.
+
+"What do you two do first?" asked Charley as Ernest finished his second
+cup of coffee.
+
+"Locate the camp site and set up housekeeping, so as not to intrude on
+you any longer," replied Ernest.
+
+"Shucks! You wouldn't talk that way if you'd lived here a few years,"
+exclaimed Dick.
+
+"You're the first human beings," remarked Charley, "except Dick and a
+few Indians and old Von Minden that I've seen in six months."
+
+"But don't you ever go to town?" asked Roger.
+
+"Not often. It's a hard trip and some one has to stay with the stock."
+
+Dick looked at Charley with quick reproach. "You know it's always
+something urgent that takes me in, Charley. And you nearly always refuse
+to go."
+
+"Nearly always, yes, Dick," replied Charley.
+
+Dick shrugged his shoulders and there was a moment's silence which
+Ernest broke.
+
+"When are you coming to see us, Felicia?"
+
+"Every day, Ernest," replied the child.
+
+"Mr. Ernest," corrected Charley.
+
+"No! No! We're old friends," protested Ernest.
+
+"And Roger's a friend too," added Felicia. "A dearest friend."
+
+Ernest grinned. "Felicia! How can you forsake me so! Here's Roger, a
+notorious woman-hater, and you wasting your young affections on him,
+when you might have me with a turn of your finger."
+
+"You shut up, Ernest!" exclaimed Roger. "Don't pay any attention to him,
+Felicia."
+
+"I won't," replied the child. "But I'll keep right on liking him, next
+to you."
+
+"I see some work ahead for me!" ejaculated Dick.
+
+Charley refilled Dick's coffee cup and smiled at him.
+
+"I'll bet on you, Dicky," she said. "We'll have supper at six, Roger.
+I've put up a lunch for you two men."
+
+"By Jove," said Ernest, "we'll have to supply water to this ranch for
+nothing, Rog."
+
+"Right!" answered Roger, rising. "Come ahead, old man."
+
+It was not yet eight when they drove out of the corral, along the line
+of fence that edged Dick's prospective alfalfa field. There was a
+monument, Dick said, at the southwest corner of the field that would
+start them on their way. Neither man spoke for some time, then Ernest
+remarked in his gentle voice:
+
+"Extraordinarily lovely girl!"
+
+Roger grunted.
+
+Ernest flushed. "Honestly, Roger, you are the limit! She's too fine a
+woman to be turned off with a grunt."
+
+"Who's turning her off?" demanded Roger. "I don't see why you're always
+accusing me of hating women. I don't hate 'em. I'm keen about them and
+you know how I ran after them until I had to cut them out and attend to
+business. But now, my scheme of life can't include them. You waste
+enough time and thought every year on petticoats to have made you
+president of the university. Now, I'm trying to concentrate on one
+thing, solar heat. It's a full job for any man, that's all. If you want
+to get up a case on Charlotte Preble, go to it. She's too big for my
+taste, even if I had time to think about her."
+
+Ernest groaned and once more silence fell until he roused himself to
+ask: "Would that be a monument yonder?"
+
+They pulled up before a heap of stones, the marker of a mining claim, so
+familiar to the desert dweller, and spread the government map on their
+knees.
+
+"Let's see," said Roger. "Here's Preble's claim, and next him, west, is
+the Mellish claim, and beyond that, still west, is government land.
+Simple enough if the sand hasn't drifted on their monuments."
+
+It was not difficult. They passed the Mellish workings, a great hole in
+the ground, with a deserted shack beside the windlass. A short distance
+on, they located his monument and quickly found themselves on government
+land.
+
+"Well," sighed Ernest, "it certainly is God-forsaken!"
+
+They looked about them. Far to the west lay a jagged line of blue
+mountains, against a blue sky. To the east, the barren tortured peaks of
+Coyote Range, brown and black in the blazing morning sun, so near that
+they could see the smoke rising from Charley's kitchen chimney, so far
+that the adobe looked like a doll house against the range. Between them
+and Coyote Range lay the desert valley, a rich yellow, thick dotted with
+fantastic growths of cactus and cat's claw.
+
+"Lord, I think it's great!" Roger drew a deep breath. "Let's unload, old
+man."
+
+They worked without stopping except for lunch, until five o'clock. With
+ax and shovel they cleared away cactus and drifts of sand for a level
+space on which to set up their living tent. Austin had given them plans
+for this. They laid a rough floor and raised around this a four foot
+wainscoating. They used no tent pole, but stretched their canvas on a
+frame of two by fours, above the wainscoating. The result was a pleasant
+airy compartment with headroom even for Roger. They had not finished
+their tent when suppertime arrived. But they took Dick's word that tools
+and supplies would be unmolested.
+
+"We may have trouble locating water," said Ernest as they started the
+team homeward. "Austin thought we'd strike it most anywhere in the
+valley, you remember, but Dick says Mellish never reached it."
+
+"I'll bet we find water if we go deep enough." Roger lighted his pipe
+with the sense of comfort of a man whose back is aching from honest
+toil. "Dick's information is only hearsay. He's got a good spring there
+at the corral and he told me there was considerable water in the lower
+workings of the old mine up in the range. We'll dig till we reach water
+if we have to tap Hades. And the Lord send that we don't have to waste
+much time on a detail like that!"
+
+"Right-O! Those must be buzzards circling toward the mountains. Rog,
+what do you suppose the folks at home are doing about now?"
+
+"Thinking about us. It's pretty early to be homesick, old boy."
+
+Ernest smiled in his gentle way. His eyes looked bluer than ever in his
+parboiled face. "Don't worry about me, old man. I'm not getting cold
+feet, only your folks were pioneers and mine were not. We Germans are
+gregarious."
+
+"Shucks!" replied Roger. "Some of the best pioneers in this country were
+Germans. And you aren't German, anyhow. You're an American. Buck up,
+Ernest!"
+
+"I will! See what's coming!" Ernest pointed with a laugh to a tiny
+figure flying toward them along the trail.
+
+"I came further than I dared to come!" screamed Felicia, "but you were
+so slow. And Charley's got a great big supper for you. Dicky shot some
+quail. And oh, I've missed you both so!" This last as she climbed up on
+the wheel and Ernest lifted her to the seat.
+
+"Now, everything's all right," said Ernest.
+
+Eight o'clock the next morning found Roger and Ernest finishing the
+living tent. By noon the kitchen tent, which really was a fly resting on
+four poles, was up, and the gasoline stove installed. It required the
+remainder of the day to knock together a rough table, two long benches
+and to prepare supper. And at eight o'clock that night both men were
+glad to go to bed.
+
+The next day they began work on the well. The ultimate success of the
+plant rested on the premise that not too far below the surface of the
+valley there was water. Dick was pessimistic on the subject. He came
+down one evening to view progress when, after three days of toil, the
+boys had dug to the depth of about ten feet. The three men lighted their
+pipes and squatted in the sand by the well hole.
+
+"I don't see why you don't establish your plant up in the range and use
+your power for mining," said Dick. "You'll never strike water here."
+
+"Unless we can develop irrigation plants, the idea would be just a toy
+here," replied Roger. "There's bound to be water here, if we go deep
+enough. You tell me the lower levels of the mines up in the ranges on
+both sides are wet."
+
+"Yes, they are," agreed Dick. "Why don't you fellows get an Indian to
+help you on this kind of work?"
+
+"Where would we get one?" asked Ernest doubtfully.
+
+"Oh, one is liable to mooch along the desert any time."
+
+"Are they good workmen?" Roger's voice was absentminded as he scowled at
+the well.
+
+"Some of them are wonders, but they are no good, unless you get a bunch
+of them under a chief. Then they're O. K."
+
+Roger groaned. Ernest laughed. "Remember, Rog," he said, "what Austin
+told us about the unexpected problems in the building of a desert
+plant."
+
+"You'll get plenty of those," agreed Dick. "Well, I'll be going back. If
+I see an Indian, I'll send him to you. In the meantime, remember that
+I'm your first purchaser of water, though my well's a regular gusher and
+will take care of more than the twenty-five acres I can get in this
+winter."
+
+"Don't be so sure," Roger chuckled. "You may come and apologize to our
+well and ask for a drink yet."
+
+Dick joined in the laugh at this suggestion and started homeward and the
+two Sun Planters went to bed.
+
+As if the desert were determined to show them early in the game a fair
+sample of its lesser annoyances, when Ernest entered the cook tent the
+next morning he found it fairly wrecked. All the canned goods had been
+rolled off the shelves and the labels had disappeared. Flour, sugar,
+crackers were knocked about in the sand. Ernest roared for Roger, who
+came on a run.
+
+"Looks as if a burro had been here from the tracks," exclaimed Roger.
+
+"Two or three burros, I should judge," said Ernest. "Why, Rog, the
+beggars have eaten all the can labels! We'll never know whether we're
+opening tomatoes or beans. That flour's useless, and so's the sugar.
+Look at the coffee! I told you not to leave it in a sack. Oh, hang it
+all! What a country!"
+
+"Let's see where the little devils went." Roger started out of the tent.
+The small hoof tracks were not difficult to find. Beyond the confines of
+the camp, the sand lay like untracked snow. When they picked up the
+trail, it led directly to the Coyote Range.
+
+Ernest suddenly spoke cheerfully. "We'll have to go up and ask Charley
+for some breakfast. It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good!"
+
+"We'll have to shave if we're going up there and that takes time,"
+protested Roger.
+
+"What are you going to eat? No sugar, no flour, no coffee!"
+
+"Let's be quick about it, then," said Roger, hurrying into the living
+tent.
+
+The Prebles laughed, but they were very sympathetic and blamed
+themselves for not warning the boys that stray burros and coyotes were a
+menace to any stores left unprotected.
+
+"String some wire about six inches apart around your four poles and
+weave yucca stalks in and out. It makes a bully cool wall and keeps the
+varmints out," said Dick.
+
+"My heavens, man! I haven't time to do raffia work," cried Roger, half
+laughing, half serious.
+
+"I'll do it for you," said Felicia. "I can weave like I did in school.
+And if I do that, Charley won't make me have lessons with her every
+day."
+
+"Oh, won't I!" returned Charley. "Roger, you get the wires up. That
+won't take but a few minutes and when old Fanny Squaw comes along in a
+week or so to sell ollas I'll send her down to cut and weave yucca for
+you. It can't cost you more than four bits. In the meantime, I can let
+you have some supplies to tide you over till some one goes to town."
+
+"You see what it means to have brains in the family," said Dick.
+
+"It's lucky some one in this bunch possesses them," laughed Roger. "By
+the way, how do there come to be stray burros in the mountains?"
+
+"Miners die or desert them and they go wild," replied Dick. "I must try
+to catch and tame one for Felicia, after the alfalfa is in. Which
+reminds me that I must get on the job. I've got your barrel of water
+ready in the wagon, so come along."
+
+The start was late that day and they had not gone down a foot when they
+struck rock. Another trip had to be made to the Prebles to procure some
+sticks of dynamite from Dick's little store at the neglected turquoise
+mine. And still no sign of water.
+
+The evenings were lonely. At first the two went frequently to the ranch
+house, as Dick, sweating in his barren alfalfa fields, insisted that the
+house be called. But everybody was too tired for social effort. Dick was
+grading and plowing all day long and Charley, after her housework was
+finished, often drove for him in the field. The mid-day heat and the
+unwonted labor made Ernest and Roger glad to go to bed early. After they
+had eaten supper and cleared up the dishes, they would build a little
+fire in the sand outside the living tent and for an hour sit before it.
+Even on chilly evenings the fire had to be small, for the firewood was
+bought from Dick's none too great supply. He in turn bought from an
+Indian who cut mesquite far up in the ranges and toted it by burro pack
+to the corral.
+
+Ernest, sitting thus, would pluck at his banjo and sing to the stars,
+finding ease thus for his homesick heart. Roger sat in silent
+contemplation, now of the fire, now of the stars. In spite of his
+impatience over petty details, he was happier than he had been since his
+undergraduate days. The marvelous low-lying stars, the little glow of
+fire on Ernest's pleasant face, the sweet tenor voice and the mellow
+plunking of the banjo were a wonderful background for his happy dreams.
+Roger still believed that a man's work could fill every desire of his
+mind and soul.
+
+    "I have so loved thee,"
+
+(sang Ernest one evening),
+
+    "But cannot, cannot hold thee.
+    Fading like a dream the shadows fold thee,
+    Slowly thy perfect beauty fades away,
+    Good-by, sweet day! Good-by, sweet day!"
+
+There was the soft thud of a footstep in the sand and an Indian appeared
+in the soft glow of the fire. Ernest broke off his song, abruptly. The
+newcomer was of indeterminate age, with black hair falling nearly to
+his waist over a bright red flannel shirt. He wore black trousers
+girdled at the waist by a broad twist of blue silk. His feet were bare.
+
+"How!" he said, nodding and smiling. "I hear music way out. Come see
+maybe white medicine man."
+
+"Good evening," returned Ernest. "Sit down by the fire."
+
+"How'd you like a job?" asked Roger. "Did Mr. Preble send you?"
+
+"No job!" The Indian shook his head. "Sick!"
+
+"Is that so?" Roger's voice was sympathetic. "My friend's a good
+medicine man. Where are you sick?"
+
+"In my tooth!" The visitor opened a capacious mouth, displaying a badly
+ulcerated gum.
+
+"That's easy! Get the peroxide bottle and a teaspoon, Ern. We'll fix him
+up, poor duck. What's your name, old man?"
+
+"Qui-tha," replied the Indian.
+
+"All right, Qui-tha. Now you take a teaspoonful of this and hold it in
+the front of your mouth, see!"
+
+Qui-tha looked closely into the faces of the two men, then with touching
+docility he did as Roger bade him. In a moment he was blowing foam
+violently into the fire. The two men looked at each other a little
+aghast.
+
+"You should have held it in your mouth, Qui-tha!" cried Ernest.
+
+The Indian reached for the teaspoon and poured himself another dose.
+This he held in his mouth for a moment, gazing at his physicians
+solemnly the while. Then he again blew foam into the fire.
+
+"Heap strong medicine," he said. "Fine, strong medicine. Never saw such
+strong medicine. You good medicine men. Qui-tha stay work for you. You
+let keep bottle."
+
+"Sure," replied Ernest, "only be very careful of it. Don't use it up too
+fast."
+
+Qui-tha nodded. "You give blanket. Qui-tha sleep here by fire."
+
+And sleep he did, rolled up even as to his head, his feet to the dying
+embers, while his hosts, undressing by candle light, grinned at each
+other in silent amusement. When Dick came down with the triweekly
+barrel of water he was astonished to see Qui-tha slowly weaving yucca
+stalks into the wire that now bound the poles of the cook tent.
+
+"For heaven's sake, Qui-tha, you old bum, you've always refused to work
+for me!" he shouted.
+
+The Indian grinned, then explained very seriously. "These white men heap
+smart. Make strong medicine. Qui-tha work one week, pay white medicine
+men."
+
+Ernest called Dick into the living tent and made him an explanation
+while Qui-tha looked inquiringly at Roger at the sound of Dick's
+laughter.
+
+"Do, for the love of all of us, keep feeding him peroxide until he's
+cajoled into giving me a hand in the field. Won't Charley be amused by
+this?"
+
+But Qui-tha was not to be cajoled. He prolonged his promised week to
+two, but would serve only his two medicine men. He was a most erratic
+workman, but what he did, he did exceedingly well. The cook tent with
+its woven sides of faded green was a structure of real beauty. Qui-tha
+consumed a week in the doing of this job, and ate all of three dozen
+cans of tomatoes, for which he displayed what Ernest called an
+abandoned passion. After he had finished with the cook tent, he sat for
+a day at the edge of the well, watching the two white men at their back
+breaking toil, then he silently undertook to man the bucket hoist for
+them. At frequent intervals he would refuse to hoist for a time and
+would urge Roger and Ernest to rest with him.
+
+"Why work all time, uh? Wind no blow all time. Sun no shine all time.
+You no dig all time, uh? Sit with Qui-tha and smoke and think."
+
+"He's got a lot of horse sense, Roger, after all, hasn't he?" said
+Ernest one day after the Indian had laughed at them for their mad
+driving at the waterless well.
+
+Roger straightened his tired back. "Fine, for an Indian! I like to hear
+him laugh. On things that don't demand our white sophistication, do you
+notice what a good sense of humor he has?"
+
+"By Jove, I wish he'd go up and help the Prebles. I think it's a fright
+for Charley to be working in the fields," exclaimed Ernest.
+
+Roger nodded. "Guess I'll try him on that angle." He clambered out of
+the well and squatted by Qui-tha on the ever-increasing pile of sand and
+stone by the well edge.
+
+"Do you see that white girl up there in the field, driving the horse?"
+pointing over the lifting desert to the distant figure, difficult to see
+now as the sun sank.
+
+"Yes," replied the Indian.
+
+"Won't you go up and help so the girl can go back to the house and do a
+woman's work?"
+
+The Indian puffed thoughtfully at his cigarette. "Why?" he asked,
+finally.
+
+"Because they need help. They'll pay you."
+
+"Would you go help Indian squaw so she no have do hard work?" queried
+the Indian.
+
+Roger scratched his head.
+
+"Charley Preble, she heap strong, like a man. Work no hurt her. No hurt
+Injun squaw. Let 'em work."
+
+Roger had nothing more to say. But the fact that Charley worked so hard
+bothered both men, though Ernest, with his unconsciously German attitude
+toward women, was much less troubled about the matter than Roger. Roger,
+for all his neglect of the gentler sex for the past few years, had that
+attitude toward women, half of tenderness, half of good fellowship, that
+is characteristic of the best American men. And although he laughed at
+Ernest's sentimental mooning about Charley, he really was more concerned
+over the girl's hard life than was his friend.
+
+She was still to him Felicia, grown up, and Felicia was still the little
+Charley Preble of the swimming pool. It was a confusion of personalities
+that might easily have grown into romance had not Roger been too
+completely and honestly preoccupied with his work.
+
+The next afternoon the hoist broke and leaving Ernest and Qui-tha to
+patch it up, Roger plodded up to the alfalfa field.
+
+The valley sloped very gradually from the mountains. Dick was working
+with a scraper, carefully throwing line after line of the shallowest
+possible terraces at right angles to the valley's slope. The irrigating
+ditch which was to carry the water that was to flow gently over the
+terraces was already finished.
+
+Charley, who had been driving the horses while Dick handled the scraper,
+sat on a heap of stones beside the fence. She was very brown, yet in
+spite of her rough work she looked well. Her khaki blouse, her short
+skirt and high laced boots were smart and her broad soft hat, though
+covered with dust, was picturesque and becoming. Roger dropped on the
+rocks beside her, with a sigh.
+
+"Tired?" asked Charley. "Aren't you off duty early?"
+
+"I came up to labor with you," replied Roger, his blue eyes very clear
+in his tanned face. "You're working too hard."
+
+"What would you have me do? Sit on the front porch and watch Dicky work?
+That's not my idea of a pioneer's mate."
+
+"But can you stand it?" asked Roger.
+
+"It's no harder than golf and tennis and a swim all in one day. I've
+done that many a time. And I'm as eager as Dick is to reclaim this
+desert. I'm almost if not quite as interested in this as you are in your
+work."
+
+"I didn't mean to intrude or criticize," began Roger.
+
+"You didn't do either. I appreciate your interest, and I'm just trying
+to make you see that the pioneer women aren't all dead yet. Some day
+there'll be pepper trees and peach trees along that ditch, and for miles
+and miles round here, the green of alfalfa."
+
+"If you get enough water," murmured Roger.
+
+"If we get enough water," agreed Charley.
+
+They both paused and looked from Dick, sweating behind the horses, to
+the unending yellow of the desert against which Dick and the horses
+looked like pygmies. Finally Charley said with a sudden chuckle,
+
+"Roger, one thing I do remember is your spitfire rages--very vaguely,
+but they must have been rather devastating to have made an impression on
+my baby mind."
+
+Roger's smile was a little twisted. "Nice thing to remember of me. Where
+is your tact, woman!"
+
+"Mercy! You aren't sensitive about it after all these years? I thought
+it funny that your baby temper and the pool were all I could rake up out
+of our past."
+
+"Where is Felicia?" asked Roger, abruptly.
+
+"She went up to the spring to fill my little canteen with water."
+
+"Thank heaven," said Roger, "that she can't rake up my past. I'm going
+to stroll up to meet her." And he doffed his hat and was off, feeling
+that somehow he had not made great headway.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+VON MINDEN
+
+
+That evening, after the little fire had burned to a bed of coals, Ernest
+said: "About time for the stuff to have come from St. Louis."
+
+"I've been thinking of that," returned Roger. "And we've nearly run
+through the Prebles' extra supplies. Why don't you go in to Archer's
+Springs and bring a load out. Dick is planning to go day after
+to-morrow."
+
+"Wouldn't you rather go?" asked Ernest.
+
+"Not if I can help it."
+
+"Thank heaven!" exclaimed Ernest. "I was afraid you'd want the job, and
+even Archer's Springs would look good to me!"
+
+Roger laughed and slapped Ernest on the shoulder. "You homesick
+Dutchman! Crazy for the mail, aren't you? There must be something there
+from Austin. I'm glad you want to go, for I'd hate the trip. Let's turn
+in!"
+
+Wednesday morning, just at dawn, Dick and Ernest, each driving a team,
+pulled up before the cook tent where Roger and Qui-tha were finishing
+breakfast.
+
+"Charley says you're to come up there for supper to-night," called Dick.
+"Felicia has permission to come down to fetch you at five o'clock."
+
+"All right," returned Roger. "When do you expect to be back, Dick?"
+
+"All depends on luck. Perhaps not before Friday noon."
+
+"Take care of Ernest," called Roger as the two teams started on. "He's
+flighty!"
+
+"Don't get drowned in that fine well of yours, Rog!" shouted Ernest.
+
+Roger lighted his pipe and helped Qui-tha clean the plates and cups with
+sand and old newspaper.
+
+"Don't know how we'll do dishes when the newspapers give out, Qui-tha,"
+he said.
+
+"Keep burro. He clean 'em," suggested Qui-tha, with a mischievous grin.
+
+"Wah! Go way! We're not Hualapais like you," retorted Roger.
+
+Qui-tha laughed, and followed Roger to the well. The chill of the early
+March morning was beginning to lift.
+
+Roger pulled off his coat, preparatory to dropping down into the well,
+then paused. The sun was just lifting over the peaks. The ranch house
+was in black shadow. No man with Roger's capacity for work could be
+lonely with that work at hand. No man with Roger's fine imagination
+could have failed to have felt his pulses quicken at the sudden
+conception of the desert's wonders that flashed before his mind as his
+outward eye took in the sunrise. He saw in flashing panorama the
+desert's magnificent distances, its unbelievable richness of coloring,
+its burning desert noons, its still windswept nights, and a vague waking
+of passions he never had known stirred within his self and work-centered
+soul.
+
+The air was full of bird song. What Ernest called the dawn's enchantment
+was just ending. Blackbird and robin, oriole and mocking bird, piped
+full-throated from every cactus. To Ernest this was the one redeeming
+touch to the desert's austerity. To Roger it was the crowning of an
+almost unbearable charm. The sun wheeled in full glory over the peaks.
+The adobe flashed out from the shadow and Roger slid down into the well.
+
+He loaded the bucket with broken rock and called to Qui-tha to hoist
+away. To his surprise, there was no response. Roger climbed hurriedly
+out, calling to the Indian. He looked in the cook tent and the living
+tent and then his eye caught Qui-tha's tall figure already diminished by
+distance, moving rapidly westward toward the River Range.
+
+"By Jove," he exclaimed, "that's cool! I wonder if he took anything with
+him but the peroxide bottle?"
+
+A quick inventory showed nothing missing, and with a sigh Roger returned
+to the well.
+
+It was slow work, filling the bucket, clambering out to hoist it, then
+down again. But at noon, when the sun shone full into the well, Roger
+noticed a sudden darkening of the brown rock at the bottom. He seized a
+pick and worked rapidly. Water! Not a gushing spring, but a steady
+increase of moisture that, as he dug on, became a trickle, then a slowly
+rising pool about his ankles.
+
+No discoverer of a noble river ever felt prouder than Roger as, after he
+had hoisted out the bucket and tools, he stood at the well's edge gazing
+far down at the dirty pool.
+
+He was standing so, a tall figure, his face streaked with dirt and
+sweat but with satisfaction radiating from every line of his thin tanned
+face, when, "Hello!" called a man's voice behind him.
+
+Roger turned with a jerk. A little gray-headed man and a little gray
+burro were standing by the work tent.
+
+"Perhaps I could get something to eat here," said the stranger.
+
+"Certainly," returned Roger, not too enthusiastically. He did not know
+desert hospitality, excepting what he had met at the Preble ranch. The
+man turned promptly to the burro.
+
+"I'll take off your pack, Peter, if you see to it that you don't stray."
+
+The burro looked at his master with the gaze of a wise old dog and,
+relieved of his pack, moved slowly to the shade of the living tent.
+Roger, looking his guest over, from faded overalls and blue flannel
+shirt to battered sombrero, led the way into the cook tent.
+
+"Whew!" said the stranger. "Sun's getting higher. Noons are hot. When
+did you reach these parts?"
+
+"A couple of weeks ago. My name's Moore,--Roger Moore."
+
+The man nodded. "Mine's Otto von Minden. I'm an engineer. Been in the
+desert country ten years."
+
+Roger was moving about, making coffee and slicing bacon. "What are you
+doing, prospecting?" he asked.
+
+Von Minden jerked a quick look at Roger from a pair of small brown eyes.
+"Yes, I'm prospecting. What are you doing?"
+
+"Experimenting with solar heat. This is the place to get it if this
+noon is a promise of more to come."
+
+"Heat!" cried the stranger with sudden excitement. "Heat! God! What I
+have known of heat. Blistering, burning, blinding! Nights when the very
+star rays scorch and the moon's a caldron of white lava. Ten years of
+it, Moore, ten years!"
+
+Roger looked at his guest with interest. "You aren't an American?
+There's just a little accent in your speech."
+
+"Me? No. I'm German born and bred. What are you going to do with your
+solar heat?"
+
+"Harness it," replied Roger, "and see if I can make it work for me."
+
+"There's a fool born every minute," said Von Minden.
+
+"You're quite right," returned Roger, cheerfully.
+
+There was no further conversation until Roger had put the coffee, bacon
+and cold biscuits with a can of pie-fruit on the table. Von Minden fell
+to voraciously. His table manners were very bad, his hands were dirty
+but there was something about him that interested Roger.
+
+"I've had great trouble getting water," he said. "Just struck it, this
+noon. 'Twill be enough for drinking and my condenser, I guess, but
+nothing for irrigation."
+
+"Can't do anything with a dug well, here," grunted the guest. "Better
+drive one."
+
+"Is the sand really fertile in this region?" asked Roger.
+
+"Fertile? Friend, there's an empire waiting to be born, right here, if
+only they can get water and fuel."
+
+"If we can get the fuel we can pump the water," said Roger. "You're
+right! There is an empire here. Mineral resources beyond the dreams of
+avarice, four or five crops a year of food-stuffs. Why, man, millions of
+people could come in here and be self-sustaining."
+
+"What do you mean by 'in here'?" Von Minden spoke sharply.
+
+Roger hesitated. "I mean really something pretty big. A cheap fuel would
+open up Arizona, New Mexico, Southern California and Northern old Mexico
+as no one can conceive who's not studied the subject. If I can put over
+my experiment, I shall add to the potential wealth of this country as no
+single individual has ever done. I'm going to get some one's ear at
+Washington, some day, if it's not till I'm a doddering old man. We ought
+to have Mexico, you know, because when the inland empire begins to grow,
+we'll overflow into Mexico. But we never can have her, of course. We can
+only hope that she'll grow into a real nation we can neighbor with, like
+Canada."
+
+"Ah hah! And how're you going to bring about this millennium?" asked Von
+Minden.
+
+But Roger, whose outburst to a stranger had been unprecedented, had
+nothing more to say on the subject.
+
+"Will your burro eat table scraps?" he inquired.
+
+"Yes, especially bacon rinds. Oh, Peter, come here, liebchen!" he
+called.
+
+There was a sound of little light footfalls in the sand and Peter's wise
+gray face appeared in the doorway.
+
+"Come here, sweetheart." The little burro crowded carefully around the
+table end until his head rested on Von Minden's shoulder. One by one,
+the old prospector handed up the bacon rinds and biscuits to him and
+Peter chewed sedately, flopping his ears back and forth.
+
+"You are a good little boy. Now run along out," as the last rind
+disappeared and the burro trotted sedately out to browse industriously
+among the roots of the cactus.
+
+"He really seems to understand," exclaimed Roger delightedly.
+
+"He _knows_!" cried Von Minden. "And now, tell me about this solar heat.
+How are you going to harness it?"
+
+Roger shook his head. "That I won't tell you now. But if you'll come
+back in three months' time, I'll show you the plant."
+
+"You're afraid of me, eh? Well, perhaps that's a good idea. Afraid of
+me! Afraid of poor old Von Minden! There was a time when--ach!
+Well--perhaps you'll let me have a nap here on a bench. Then Peter and
+I'll go on up into the ranges."
+
+"Make yourself at home," replied Roger.
+
+Von Minden stretched his short length on the bench and closed his eyes.
+Before Roger had finished the dishes he was snoring. The little burro
+was standing in the shade of the living tent when Roger came out of the
+cook shelter. He looked pathetically small and thin and Roger, who had
+taken a great fancy to him, brought him a pail of water, and scratched
+his head and talked to him before going on into the tent. Here he was
+shortly absorbed in sorting his blue prints. He was studying the ground
+plan of the absorber, when an uncanny sense of being watched made him
+look over his shoulder. Von Minden, a sawed-off shot-gun aimed at
+Roger's back, was standing in the doorway.
+
+"You will come down here and open up the world's best empire, will
+you--for America, eh? Not yet, my friend!" Von Minden's voice was husky
+and unsteady.
+
+Roger did not move. In fact, he was incapable of moving.
+
+"Look here," he began. Then as in a mist he saw Peter's gray head appear
+at his master's elbow and Peter himself, with his pack on his back,
+thrust his way past his master into the tent, just as Von Minden pulled
+the trigger. The shot seemed to hit everything in the tent but Roger.
+The mist before Roger's eyes turned to red and he made a spring for his
+guest. But Von Minden turned and fled, Peter after him, straight
+eastward across the desert toward the Coyote Range. They ran with
+surprising speed. Roger delayed long enough to get Ernest's rifle out of
+his trunk. By the time he had loaded it, after searching frantically
+several minutes for the box of cartridges, Von Minden and his little
+burro were far beyond rifle shot.
+
+Roger started after them, hot foot, swearing viciously as he ran. As he
+saw the little German turn into the ranch trail a sudden fear for the
+two girls mingled with his anger. But Von Minden did not stop at the
+ranch house. As Roger reached the alfalfa field, burro and man veered to
+the right, around the adobe and rapidly on up the mountain trail, where
+they were quickly lost to view.
+
+Roger saw Charley come hastily out of the house, followed by Felicia and
+when, panting and shaken with rage, he reached the house, they were
+still looking curiously toward the mountain trail.
+
+"What's the trouble, Roger?" called Charley.
+
+"He shot at me, the damned hound! Tried to kill me!"
+
+He would have passed on up the mountain trail, but Charley had hurried
+down the trail and interrupted him quietly, with a steady hand on his
+arm.
+
+"It's only Crazy Dutch!" she said. "You mustn't mind him!"
+
+"Mind him!" shouted Roger. "I tell you he tried to kill me."
+
+"You should have kept his gun for him until he was ready to go. That's
+what we always do. And as for his taking a pot shot at you, why, that's
+all in the day's work in this part of the country."
+
+She smiled as she spoke, looking levelly into his eyes from her splendid
+height. Felicia caught his sleeve.
+
+"We were coming down to call on you, Roger, and now you've spoiled it,"
+she said.
+
+"Sit down on the steps and cool off a little," suggested Charley. "You
+know you can always kill Crazy Dutch if you want to. He's always around.
+He's really a dear old man when you come to know him. He's helped me out
+here many a time when Dick's been sick or away." She was smiling still
+more broadly as she led Roger to the steps. He felt as if he were being
+hypnotized.
+
+"But he tried to kill me," he repeated feebly, as Charley stood his
+rifle in a corner of the porch and sent Felicia for a cup of water.
+
+"Poor child! Did he try to kill you?" Charley patted his arm as if he
+were a small boy. "Sit down in the shade here. I know you think we're
+all crazy down here and I guess we are. But you'll get fond of poor
+Crazy Dutch yourself. Dick loves him and he tried to shoot Dicky, when
+they first knew each other."
+
+The red mist cleared suddenly from Roger's vision. He drank deeply of
+the water Felicia brought him and looked at Charley curiously. She was
+the first person since his mother had died who had been able to ease his
+outbursts of temper. Felicia was still aggrieved. She looked at Roger
+reproachfully.
+
+"We were coming down to call on you and now you've spoiled it."
+
+Roger jumped to his feet with a laugh. "I'll go home at once. Come
+along."
+
+"No, we've got to dress up. It's going to be a regular call," said the
+child.
+
+"We were coming down about half past four to bring you back to supper
+with us," said Charley.
+
+Roger was suddenly conscious of the fact that he had a day's beard on
+his face. He started down the trail, hastily, after retrieving his gun.
+
+"I'll be glad to see you ladies whenever you call," he said, "but I'm
+not going to promise not to shoot Crazy Dutch if he comes round again."
+
+The call, which was made with due ceremony at the hour mentioned, was a
+great success. Roger, fresh shaved, and quite recovered from the shock
+of Von Minden's visit, played host with just enough formality to delight
+Felicia. Charley was deeply interested in the plans for the Sun Plant.
+It was the first time Roger had explained his general scheme of solar
+heating to her and he was surprised by her eager intelligence.
+
+The sun was setting when they started back to the ranch house, with
+Felicia chatting like a magpie. Roger did the milking and the other
+chores, by the light of a "bug."
+
+Charley gave them a simple supper, but the beans and bacon, hot biscuit
+and canned blackberries seemed extraordinarily delicious to Roger. He
+and Felicia washed the supper dishes while Charley put a batch of bread
+to rise.
+
+The evening tasks finished, they established themselves before the
+living-room fire. Roger lighted his pipe.
+
+"Can't I sit up till quarter after eight to-night, Charley?" asked
+Felicia.
+
+"You wanted to do that last night," replied Charley.
+
+"And you wouldn't let me. Won't you to-night?"
+
+"No, dear."
+
+"Then," great eyes on the implacable face of the alarm clock, "I've only
+five minutes to sit up. Charley, I can't bear it."
+
+"Oh, yes, you can," said Roger. "Think how awful it would be if you had
+to go to bed at half-past seven. That's what happened to me when I was
+your age."
+
+"Didn't your mother love you? I don't see how she could help it. You
+must have been a cunning boy."
+
+"I was a long-legged, awkward, freckle-faced brat, but she loved me.
+Mothers are like that."
+
+Felicia nodded understandingly but did not take her eyes from the clock.
+"There it goes, that nasty little minute hand! I'm sorry I ever learned
+to tell time."
+
+"Say good night to Roger, Felicia, and run off to bed. There's a dear."
+
+Felicia rose obediently, put her arms around Roger's neck and kissed
+him. "I don't like a man's kiss, when it tastes of tobacco," she said,
+"but I suppose I might as well get used to it for when we're married,
+Roger."
+
+"I'm sorry," said Roger, meekly. "I'll give up smoking if you really
+want me to."
+
+Felicia giggled, picked up her doll, then turned to look at the clock.
+It pointed to one minute after eight. She put out her tongue at her
+enemy, then dragged slowly into the bedroom which she shared with
+Charley, and shut the door.
+
+Roger and Charley smiled at each other. "Were you a chatterbox, too, at
+her age?" he asked. "I can't remember that you were."
+
+"Dick says I was."
+
+"But you're very silent for a girl. What has changed you?"
+
+Charley laughed, then answered soberly: "The desert."
+
+They both sat looking at the fire after this. The silence had lasted
+some time when Charley said thoughtfully: "And so a big dream will
+materialize in our valley after all. I can't tell you how glad I am."
+
+"Why?" asked Roger, with interest. "Did Dick come out here with a big
+dream?"
+
+"Yes, we were going to make the desert blossom like the rose. We were
+going to have the biggest alfalfa ranch in the southwest."
+
+"Well, you've got a good start, haven't you?"
+
+Charley shook her head and lapsed into silence again. Roger refilled his
+pipe and replenished the fire. The flames leaped up and turned the gray
+Navajo to rose color. The night wind which Roger had learned to expect
+about nine o'clock swooped down the chimney. The faint bark and long
+drawn howl of a coyote pack sounded from the valley and from behind the
+adobe rose a whimper that increased to a scream that was almost human.
+Roger sat forward in his chair.
+
+"Wild cats!" said Charley. "Dick and I both have shot several but we
+can't get rid of them."
+
+"Look here," exclaimed Roger. "I'm going to stay here all night."
+
+"What's the matter? Afraid to go home?"
+
+Roger grinned. "Yes, but I'm more afraid to leave you two girls here
+alone."
+
+"My good man, I've been staying here alone about every two months for
+four years. I'm not a bit afraid."
+
+Roger looked at her keenly, but her deep eyes did not waver. "You may
+have got used to it," he said obstinately, "but I'll wager anything that
+when you first came you were just paralyzed with fear."
+
+"I was indeed!" Charley shook her head as if in wonder at that early
+fear. "I used to barricade myself in the bedroom and slept with the
+little .22 at the head of the bed."
+
+"I don't see how your brother--" began Roger.
+
+"He _had_ to go," interrupted Charley. "Don't you try to prove that Dick
+isn't devoted to me, for he is. He had to see the doctor because he came
+out here with bad lungs. He's all cured of that now. No one could be
+more of a dear than Dick, when he's--well."
+
+She spoke with such vehemence, leaning forward in her chair with such a
+depth of protest in her wide eyes that Roger was surprised.
+
+"Good Lord, I wasn't criticizing Dick. I think he's a fine chap. Only I
+don't think a girl ought to be sleeping alone, twenty-five miles from
+the nearest neighbor."
+
+"I'm safer here alone than I would be in St. Louis or Chicago,"
+exclaimed Charley, leaning back in her chair with a little laugh. "Now
+tell me what you are going to do after your Sun Plant begins to pump
+water?"
+
+"Try to get money interested in developing this and other waste
+countries. There are untold mineral riches in these ranges, if only
+there were a cheap way to get them out. Now don't get excited as Crazy
+Dutch did and shoot me up! By the way, he told me his name was Otto von
+Minden."
+
+Charley nodded. "I believe he comes of good family. He speaks the finest
+kind of Berliner German. Poor old thing!"
+
+Roger snorted. "I'll _poor_ him when I catch him! I'll have him
+committed to an asylum."
+
+Charley laughed. "You'd have hard work getting that done. Asylums are
+rare here and every one is fond of the little German. I wish I knew as
+much as he does about German literature. Some day I'm going to Germany.
+It must be a wonderful country."
+
+"Did you learn German in college?"
+
+"In High School and the University both. I'd like to have had some
+French too, but there were no native French teachers and I didn't fancy
+learning French with somebody's accent plus my own. On the other hand
+the German teachers and the courses they offered were fine. I feel as if
+I knew more about Germany than any other country outside the United
+States."
+
+"So do I," replied Roger, thoughtfully.
+
+"I think that instead of getting Crazy Dutch committed you'd better get
+to know him," Charley went on. "He's so well connected in Germany, in
+spite of his forlorn appearance, he might prove a valuable acquaintance
+for you."
+
+Roger, whose wrath against Von Minden had disappeared much to his own
+astonishment, nodded his head, and once more silence fell between them.
+
+It was ten o'clock when Roger next observed the inexorable hand of the
+alarm clock.
+
+"I wish I'd never learned to tell time," he said as he rose reluctantly,
+"and I wish you'd tell me as much about yourself as I've told you about
+me."
+
+"There's so little to tell," protested Charley.
+
+"Oh, there's a great deal to tell," contradicted Roger. "The chief thing
+being why the desert has changed you from a chatterbox to a Sphinx."
+
+"That you'll never know! Run along home now before the coyotes or Von
+Minden get you."
+
+Roger grinned and said good night.
+
+He was up with the birds the next morning, prepared to give a long day's
+work to cleaning the well and covering it. It was not yet noon when he
+saw a curious procession moving toward the camp along the Archer's
+Springs trail. It appeared to consist of a small string of burros, led
+by a bright red or pink umbrella.
+
+"I thought somebody said the desert was lonesome," said Roger to
+himself. "Me--I run a regular wayside inn." He lighted his pipe and sat
+down on the well curb to wait. Gradually he discerned that the pink
+parasol, undulating now against the sapphire of the sky, now against the
+dancing yellow of a sand drift, was upheld by a woman who sat astride a
+tiny burro. It was ten minutes after he discovered this that the lady
+rode majestically into the camp and dismounted, with magnificent
+gesture, throwing one leg over the burro's drooping head. The three
+burros who were strung behind her stopped in their tracks as though half
+dead.
+
+Roger rose and doffed his hat. This was the largest woman he ever had
+seen. She was easily three inches taller than Roger and splendidly
+proportioned, huge of shoulder, broad of hip, but without an ounce of
+fat upon her. Her face was gaunt and brown: thin lips, long thin nose,
+gray eyes set deep, iron gray hair straggling over her forehead from
+under a dusty pink sunbonnet. She wore a linen duster buttoned close to
+her chin.
+
+"How do you do, sir," she said in a pleasantly modulated voice. "My name
+is Clarissa Foster von Minden."
+
+"Mine is Roger Moore. Won't you come into the cook tent and let me get
+you some lunch?"
+
+"Yes, thank you," looking about her with keen interest. "This is the
+place."
+
+Roger, lighting the gasoline stove, looked at his caller inquiringly.
+She smiled at him as she pulled off her sunbonnet and dust coat,
+revealing a robe of pink calico not unlike an old fashioned "mother
+hubbard."
+
+"I am a disciple of the Yogis, Mr. Moore. I dreamed that my husband was
+to be found in such a camp as this and here I am."
+
+"I suppose you're referring to Otto von Minden. Yes, he was here
+yesterday. He's a genial soul. He tried to shoot me."
+
+Mrs. von Minden nodded. "That's Otto. He had those ways. I've not seen
+him for five years. No bacon, Mr. Moore. I never touch animal fats. Just
+some tea, fruit and crackers. Later, I'll unpack some olive oil which
+you may use when cooking for me."
+
+Roger nearly dropped the tea kettle. His mouth fell open as he stared at
+his caller.
+
+"Don't be startled, my friend," she cried. "Great things are to come to
+you if you obey the Voices. And I've brought my own tent and supplies."
+
+"But your husband isn't here, madam," protested Roger. "To tell you the
+truth, I wouldn't have him about the place. He's just plain crazy."
+
+"Oh, no, he's not crazy. He's had a touch of the sun, undoubtedly. But
+he's not crazy. He's a brilliant man. I can make him very useful to
+you."
+
+Roger scratched his head and grinned. "You haven't by any chance had a
+touch of the sun yourself, Mrs. von Minden?"
+
+The lady laughed. "I must seem so to an outsider. You are still on the
+first plane while I am on the seventh."
+
+"I'll water the burros while the kettle boils," said Roger hastily. He
+provided plentifully for the poor brutes, at the same time gazing
+desperately toward the ranch house. He felt badly in need of advice.
+
+As if in answer to his need he saw a tiny figure come down the trail
+from the corral. It was Felicia, evidently coming to the Sun Plant.
+Roger slipped into the living tent and wrote a hasty note to Charley,
+apprizing her of events and begging her to come to his aid. By the time
+he had established Mrs. von Minden at her luncheon, Felicia reached the
+camp. But before his visitor caught sight of her, he had sent the child
+back with the note. He felt immeasurably relieved when this was
+accomplished.
+
+"Now, madam," he said, "perhaps you would not mind resting here in the
+cook tent while I finish covering in the well. It is dangerous to leave
+it open with all the people that run about the desert in this
+neighborhood."
+
+Madam graciously gave her assent and Roger fell to work briskly,
+laughing now and again to himself in a half vexed way. Sooner than he
+had dared hope, Charley and Felicia appeared. Leaving Felicia to watch
+the burros, Roger led Charley into the living tent and gave the details
+of his predicament. Charley laughed quietly but immoderately and Roger
+joined her.
+
+"How many crazy people have you in the desert?" he asked, finally.
+
+"Uncle Otto is the only one I've known in my four years here. You're
+having wonderful luck. And the old boy has always pretended he's a
+bachelor."
+
+"Perhaps he'll shoot her on sight," said Roger in a hopeful voice.
+
+"Oh, what an awful thing to say!" protested Charley.
+
+"Wait till you see the dame," returned Roger. "Charley, I can't have her
+staying the night here and I don't dare to send her up to your place.
+She might run amuck."
+
+"Pshaw, no, she won't! I'll take care of her. Show me the lady."
+
+Roger led the way to the cook tent. Mrs. von Minden sat on a bench, her
+back against a tent pole, her eyes closed. She opened them, however,
+when Roger spoke her name and acknowledged the introduction to Charley
+and Felicia with considerable air. She refused Charley's offer of
+hospitality, with utter finality.
+
+"Here my Yogis directed me, and here I must stay until my husband comes.
+I will be no burden, after my tent is set up, if the young man will cook
+for me. And my gray hairs are sufficient chaperone."
+
+"But I will not cook for you," said Roger very firmly. "My partner and I
+find it hard enough work cooking for ourselves. We are under great
+nervous and physical strain, Mrs. von Minden, and I must tell you
+frankly, it will be extremely inconvenient to have you here. This rough
+camp is no place for a woman."
+
+"No place for a woman, eh?" repeated Mrs. von Minden. "Why it's paradise
+compared to some of the places Otto von Minden has kept me in." She rose
+suddenly and began to pace the sandy floor, a majestic figure in spite
+of her grotesqueness. "What was I when he found me, an unsophisticated
+girl of twenty, living in my quiet New Hampshire home. He promised me
+everything--travel, court life, the emperor's favor. What does he give
+me but desert camps? Camps where he and I were the only human beings
+within a thousand miles. Camps where I worked like any squaw--where a
+bit of tent and a blanket made our entire equipment. Five years ago he
+left me. I've taught school long enough to save money for an outfit and
+now I shall not leave till I have found him and given him the message of
+the Yogis."
+
+"But, Mr. von Minden comes to see me every once in a while. You'll be
+much more apt to find him at the ranch than here."
+
+"Here I must stay," reiterated the unwelcome guest, with a sudden quaver
+in her voice that made Roger say hastily:
+
+"Oh, very well! Mrs. von Minden. If you'll show me which is your tent
+pack, I'll try to make you comfortable."
+
+"I'll stay and help," said Charley.
+
+"So will I," cried Felicia. "I'd love to unpack the burros. All the
+bundles are so knobby. Are there any doll dishes there, Mrs. von
+Minden?"
+
+As if she saw the child for the first time, Mrs. von Minden gazed at her
+in astonishment. "Why, my dear, how much you look like your sister! No,
+there are no doll dishes there, I'm sorry to say. Come, children!" and
+her pink robe blowing she led the way to the patient burros.
+
+"Isn't this fun?" whispered Charley to Roger.
+
+"Maybe! But how'll I explain to Ernest?"
+
+The mere thought of this sent Charley off into a gale of laughter that
+caused Mrs. von Minden to ask sharply:
+
+"What is so funny?"
+
+"I'm just laughing at what Mr. Moore's partner and my brother will say
+when they get in some time to-night and find a lady established here,"
+answered Charley frankly.
+
+The visitor smiled grimly and set about her unpacking. The particularly
+knobby bundle which had fascinated Felicia proved to be a rocking chair,
+enwrapped by the canvas tent. There was a compact little cooking outfit,
+several large books on Occultism, an air mattress, two pink quilts, a
+pink pillow and a suitcase of clothing. One burro was loaded with
+provisions, consisting of olive oil, sugar, coffee, flour and canned
+cheese.
+
+Roger knocked together a crude tent frame and stretched the tent over
+it, Mrs. von Minden directing while Charley and Felicia tugged with him.
+The guest refused to allow Roger to make a bunk for her. The Yogis, it
+seemed, had told her to sleep on the ground. When the mattress and
+rocking chair and a box for a table had been established in the tent
+Madam expressed herself as satisfied.
+
+"You may rest now, children," she said, "while I concentrate."
+
+"By the way," suggested Roger. "How about the burros? With all the good
+will in the world, I can't feed them, for I have no fodder."
+
+"You have a ranch, Miss Preble," said Mrs. von Minden. "I will pay you
+for boarding them. What is the charge?"
+
+"My brother will take care of that on his return," answered Charley.
+"We'll lead them up when we go home."
+
+"You're not going yet, Charley," exclaimed Roger, in alarm. "You must
+stay to supper."
+
+"I never was so popular in my life," laughed Charley. "Of course I'll
+stay. Let me have a look at the new well, Roger. Do you think it's going
+to meet your demands?"
+
+She crossed the camp to admire the new pump, Roger following.
+
+"I don't think it will do more than supply engine and camp needs,"
+replied Roger. "I don't know whether to go ahead, prospecting for water,
+or to erect the plant first."
+
+"Why don't you erect your plant, then if you don't find enough water
+after drilling for it, with your engine, move up to the ranch and use
+our spring. I'm not trying to graft something free. We'll be glad to pay
+for it. But our old gasoline engine is an awful lemon and it's going to
+be an awful job to keep up the supply of gasoline."
+
+"Jove! My first customer? Charley, you're a peach!" exclaimed Roger. "I
+suppose I might put my plant up on your place to begin with. But no,
+this is the spot the Smithsonian picked, it's government land, and to
+move now might make endless complications. But you'll have your pumping
+plant, Charley, before any one else does. And we'll make the alfalfa
+crops pay for it."
+
+Charley nodded, then gasped, "Look, Roger! Oh, if Ernest and Dick could
+only steal in now!"
+
+The guest had pulled her rocker out before the tent flap and was seated
+in it, eyes closed, hands clasped over her stomach, immovable except for
+a light swaying of her chair.
+
+"Concentrating, I suppose," muttered Roger. "Charley, I'll bet the old
+bird will never leave me. I have the feeling."
+
+"What on earth does she mean by concentrating?" gasped Charley, through
+her laughter.
+
+"Oh, it's some of that occult rot, I don't doubt," groaned Roger.
+"Charley, stay till the fellows come. I'm frightened."
+
+"On the contrary," laughed Charley, "I'm going to get us all an early
+supper and put those burros to bed before dark."
+
+She was as good as her word. The afterglow had not faded from the sky
+when Roger returned to the camp, after helping Charley with her chores.
+His guest had retired to her tent and Roger withdrew to his and threw
+himself down on his cot to await the return of Dick and Ernest.
+
+It was midnight when the teams rattled into camp. Roger hastened out at
+once.
+
+"We'll unhitch and leave both wagons here to unload in the morning,"
+said Ernest.
+
+Dick already was silently unchecking his horses, returning only a grunt
+to Roger's greeting.
+
+"I'll go with you, Dick, and take our team to the corral," said Roger.
+
+"Don't be a fool!" growled Dick. "I'll take them without any help. If
+I've got to board 'em, I'll do the work for 'em. Don't you butt in!" He
+mounted one of his own horses and stringing the others behind, he rode
+off under the starlight.
+
+"For the Lord's sake!" exclaimed Roger, following Ernest into the tent,
+"what's the matter with Dick?"
+
+Ernest tossed a pile of mail onto the trunk beside the candle. "I
+haven't the remotest idea. He was as jolly as usual when we had our
+supper at sunset. About an hour ago I spoke to him and he took my head
+off. I haven't tried him since. Sweet for poor Charley."
+
+"I didn't know he was subject to grouches," mused Roger. "Say, Ern,
+before I read the mail, I've got some news for you."
+
+"Qui-tha done some real work?" asked Ernest with a yawn.
+
+"Oh, Qui-tha! I'd forgotten him. He departed that morning without a
+farewell. We have, however, another guest, who is at this moment asleep
+in her own tent, near the cook house."
+
+"Get out, Roger! It's too late for joking. Let me get to bed."
+
+"A regular lady, Ern, six feet two or three in height and as near as I
+can make out she's here for keeps. She's Von Minden's wife."
+
+Ernest stopped yawning. "Who the deuce is Von Minden?"
+
+"Oh, I forgot to mention him. He's the man who tried to shoot me
+yesterday."
+
+Ernest stared at Roger incredulously. "Rog, what's the matter with you?
+You're positively maudlin."
+
+Roger chuckled. "Next time you want excitement, Ernie, don't go to
+Archer's Springs. Stay right at home here in the God-forsakenest spot on
+earth. Now I'll make my story as short as I can, but you've got to hear
+it to-night. I can't sleep with it on my chest and she's liable to break
+loose with something any time."
+
+He finished his story as rapidly as possible, Ernest's consternation
+growing as he proceeded.
+
+"But, my Lord, Rog, she can't stay here!" he cried.
+
+"So I told her. So Charley told her. But she's here. In her tent. On her
+air mattress. Her rocking chair beside her. Her books on occultism at
+her head."
+
+"I was going to ask you to read that letter from Washington to-night,"
+said Ernest, feebly, "but I feel that I need immediate rest. I'll go up
+in the morning to see Dick and if he still has his grouch with him, I'll
+bring him back to tackle the lady."
+
+Roger yawned. "Guess I will leave the mail until morning. That woman
+has exhausted me more than any job we've tackled yet."
+
+He blew out the candle and in a few moments the little camp was silent
+in the star glow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE LETTER FROM WASHINGTON
+
+
+In spite of his weariness, Roger could not sleep. He scarcely had closed
+his eyes when the memory of Dick's curious ugliness made him open them
+and stare into the darkness. What in the world could induce a seemingly
+pleasant fellow like Dick to go off apparently without cause into a deep
+seated grouch?
+
+Roger shook himself. What a fool he was to lie awake over a thing as
+trivial as this. All men were moody. Roger told himself that, excepting
+Ernest, every man he knew had unaccountable grouches. Then he closed his
+eyes and opened them again. Would Dick row Charley? It was unthinkable
+that a man should row a woman of her type. Roger had discovered that he
+admired his old time playmate very much. She was so calm, so clear
+headed and keen thinking. With all the dignity of her splendid boyish
+physique added to her splendid intelligence, it was very unpleasant to
+think of her having to submit to bullying.
+
+Roger turned over with a sigh. After a time of tossing, moved by an
+unaccountable impulse, he crept out of bed and peered from the tent flap
+toward the ranch house. A faint speck of light flecked the darkness. He
+scratched a match and looked at his watch. It was half past two. He went
+back to bed, where he lay for a half hour, wondering what was going on
+at the ranch house.
+
+This was an unusual proceeding for Roger. Like most only children Roger
+had grown up self-centered and more or less selfish. His work had tended
+to increase these characteristics. Not since his mother's death, with
+the single exception of his thoughtful affection for Mamma Wolf, had
+Roger spent so much of himself on another's problem as he now was
+spending on Charley's.
+
+He rose again. The light still shone from the adobe. He slipped into his
+clothes and noiselessly left the tent. It was nipping cold and he walked
+as fast as the heavy sand permitted. As he neared the ranch, a second
+light appeared and moved down to the corral. A few minutes later Roger
+had reached the bars.
+
+"Dick," he cried softly to the dark figure that was pulling the harness
+off one of the horses. "It's Roger! Anything the matter? I saw the
+light." The figure dropped the harness and ran over to the bar. As the
+"bug" light caught her face, Roger saw that it was Charley.
+
+"Oh, Roger!" she exclaimed. "I'm so glad, so glad to see you!"
+
+He vaulted over the bar.
+
+"Hush," she said, "Dick's sick and I've just gotten him to sleep."
+
+"Sick! That accounts for his grouch then! Why couldn't he say so! Shall
+I go for the doctor, Charley?"
+
+"No! No! He's subject to these attacks. Did--did Ernest mind his being
+cross?" In the candlelight Charley looked anxiously into Roger's face.
+
+"Not a bit. He just wondered about it because the change came on so
+suddenly. What is it? His stomach?"
+
+"Yes, his stomach," replied Charley.
+
+"Sure you don't want me to go for the doctor?"
+
+Charley's voice trembled a little. "Very sure! But you can hang up the
+harness for me while I hold the light." Then, as Roger obeyed with
+alacrity, she asked: "What made you come up this hour of the night?"
+
+"I couldn't sleep. Then I began to think about your brother's grouch. I
+got up and took a look in this direction and saw the light. I don't know
+just why I came. Restless, I guess!"
+
+He tossed the lines over a peg and came back to take the lantern from
+Charley. As the light flashed on her face he saw that she looked very
+tired and that her lip was quivering. A wordless surprise swept over
+Roger. The feeling he had had that Charley was like an interesting boy
+whom he would wish to keep for a friend was rudely shocked by that
+quivering lip. Only a girl's lip could tremble so.
+
+"Something _is_ wrong," he said, anxiously. "Let me help you."
+
+"You have helped me, more than you can know. Go home to bed now or you
+won't be fit for work to-morrow. And that work is just about the most
+important thing in this valley."
+
+Roger could think of no adequate reply. He lowered the bars for Charley
+and put them up again. The two stood in silent contemplation of the
+desert night. The night wind was dying as dawn approached. Above and
+below was one perfect blending of dusky blue, with only the faint fleck
+of star silver to mark the sky from the earth. Roger's nerves quickened
+to the wonder of the night. He turned to Charley.
+
+"I don't feel as if I'd ever lived before," he half whispered.
+
+"I know," replied the girl. "I don't believe a person could be a real
+agnostic in the desert, do you?"
+
+"No," said Roger, simply.
+
+"You must go to bed," repeated Charley. "And you mustn't worry any more
+about me." She turned to run quickly up the trail to the adobe.
+
+Roger started campward.
+
+He was wakened later in the morning by the sound of conversation.
+
+"I'm sorry, madam, but I'm no cook, and I dislike olive oil, anyhow. If
+you'll eat the pancakes as I fry 'em, in bacon fat, you're more than
+welcome to all you wish. But if you want olive oil used, you must fry
+them yourself."
+
+"Where's the other young man?" asked Mrs. von Minden.
+
+"Hey! Rog!" roared Ernest. "You're wanted."
+
+Roger sat up on the edge of his cot with a yawn. As he did so, his eye
+fell on the unopened letters on the trunk.
+
+Without waiting to dress he opened the one postmarked Washington. He
+read it through twice, then very deliberately rose and pulled on his
+clothing. His face was pale beneath the tan as he stepped out into the
+morning sun.
+
+"Ernest, here's some bad news!" he called. "Come over to the tent a
+moment."
+
+As Ernest hurried up, Roger said slowly, "Austin is dead and the
+Smithsonian Institute says it doesn't know anything about the deal with
+me."
+
+Ernest dropped the pancake turner he was holding. "Good God!" He read
+the letter, then looked up into Roger's somber face. "Dropped dead in
+New York three weeks ago. Poor chap!"
+
+Roger nodded. "But what was he up to? The writer of that letter says
+that although the Smithsonian was interested in a general way in our
+work, Austin had no authority to go ahead. Now, where did he get the
+money?"
+
+"I suppose he was afraid some one else would get in on it while the
+Smithsonian was hesitating, so he funded up himself. I suppose they'd
+have paid him back. You remember his cursing out the delays and the red
+tape that hampered everything connected with the government. I thought
+he was hipped on the subject, but now--"
+
+"What makes you think all that?" asked Roger.
+
+"Well, don't you remember in St. Louis, when he was ordering stuff from
+the Condit Iron Works he said he'd pay the bill himself, to get the
+stuff started?"
+
+Roger shook his head. "I don't remember. But I guess you're right. Lord,
+what a good scout he was to have so much faith in me! I wonder how much
+he spent on us, and whether his wife is provided for?"
+
+"That won't be hard to find out. What we've got to worry about now is
+the situation with the Smithsonian. They can't realize how far we've
+gone."
+
+"Yes, they do," replied Roger. "That letter from, what does he sign
+himself--Hampton?--is in reply to the report I sent Austin from Archer's
+Springs, two weeks ago. Why, they've got to go on with it!"
+
+"If they won't, we are up against it," groaned Ernest. "I don't want to
+ask father for money, and you and the Dean have tried every one in the
+world."
+
+"And who the devil wants you to ask your father for money for me?" Roger
+shouted. "Haven't we got practically all the material we need, bought
+and paid for? We don't need anything except food. We'll do the work
+ourselves."
+
+Ernest's gentle voice interrupted. "But, Rog--"
+
+"Don't _but_ me," roared Roger. "I tell you nothing shall stop me now!
+If it takes twenty years, I'll go through with this. I'd rather cut my
+throat than not go on with it. I've waited for five years for this
+chance. The death of one man won't stop me, nor the indifference of some
+fool government clerk. This plant is going to be built."
+
+"What I started to say," said Ernest quietly, "when you began your
+brain-storm, was that if you'd sell your laboratory equipment up home it
+would guarantee us food for six months. The Dean would attend to it for
+you."
+
+Roger sat down on his cot, rather suddenly. "That's a good idea, Ern,"
+he said, meekly.
+
+Ernest picked up the pancake turner. "I'm with you to a finish in this,
+Roger. You don't have to jaw me, you know."
+
+"Sorry, old man," muttered Roger.
+
+"It's all right," replied Ernest. "I'll finish getting breakfast. We've
+got all day to talk this over. One idea occurs to me. Perhaps this man
+Hampton who signs this letter would be less cold to the project if he
+had details. Why don't you give him the whole story, both of the plant
+and of our relationship to Austin?"
+
+"That's a good hunch," exclaimed Roger, immensely cheered up by the
+suggestion. "Well," with a sigh, "I might have known I was having too
+much luck."
+
+"It's the old lady. She's a bird of ill omen. I knew it the minute I saw
+her, this morning. Come out as soon as you can, Rog. I don't dare to be
+alone with her."
+
+Roger grinned, but did not hasten his shaving. Ernest could be
+facetious. After all, the building of the plant was not Ernest's dream.
+Roger was shocked by the news of Austin's death, but the shock was not
+due to grief. Austin simply represented opportunity to the young
+inventor. A sudden fear was clutching at his heart lest now the plant
+would never be completed. Roger had learned much since his arrival in
+the desert. He had begun to realize that the desert fights ferociously
+any attempt to subdue her. He knew now that it was going to take much
+longer than the outside margin he had allowed to build the plant. If a
+driven well failed, he must try out the Prebles'. Perhaps Dick's
+knowledge of irrigation would prove to be sketchy and that water supply
+too would prove inadequate. He believed still that his plans for the
+plant itself would not have to be changed.
+
+"I heard every word you two said," Mrs. von Minden's voice rose
+suddenly. "You needn't worry at all. I'll concentrate for you
+immediately after breakfast."
+
+"In that case, we are ruined," Roger muttered, smiling in spite of
+himself, as he dropped the tent flap behind him.
+
+The lady visitor was sitting on a bench beside the table in the cook
+tent, contemplating a cup of coffee and a plate of crackers.
+
+"Was it your idea, madam," said Ernest, attacking a pile of pancakes
+some ten inches high, "that your husband would find you in this camp?"
+
+"So the Yogis say," replied Mrs. von Minden.
+
+"Why don't you fry yourself some cakes, Mrs. von Minden?" asked Roger.
+
+"Part of my creed is never to prepare food for myself if it is possible
+to get some one else to do it. A complete inertia is a vital step toward
+Nirvana."
+
+Roger grunted. "Then you'll never find Nirvana in this camp, I can tell
+you."
+
+"Good morning!" cried Felicia, appearing suddenly in the doorway.
+
+"Dicky is sick," she announced, "and Charley sent me down here for the
+day. She said please for you not to come up because Dicky is so cross,
+she doesn't want any one around."
+
+Ernest and Roger looked at each other.
+
+"I think I'd better go up," said Roger.
+
+"No, I'll go," insisted Ernest.
+
+"Charley doesn't want you," cried Felicia. "She says so and she always
+means what she says."
+
+"Oh, you've found that out, have you?" asked Ernest. "Well, have a
+flapjack; my cook is an artist."
+
+"I've had breakfast, thank you," replied the little girl. "I'm going out
+and look at the things in the wagon."
+
+"Go to it!" exclaimed Ernest. Then to Roger, "I see you've struck water
+at last. That news evidently impressed you less than other events, last
+night."
+
+Roger nodded. "There's not much of it and it's vile to taste. But it'll
+take care of our camp wants and the engine. Charley suggested that if we
+didn't strike an adequate supply when we drove the well farther, we'd
+better set the plant up at their place. They'd be our first customers."
+
+"Better not take her up till you've done a lot of experimenting down
+here," said Ernest, quickly.
+
+"I don't expect to do much experimenting," replied Roger. "But I've
+started here and I'll keep on here, especially since this unexpected mix
+up."
+
+Mrs. von Minden, who seemed to have been lost in thought ever since
+Felicia's appearance, now spoke suddenly, but with closed eyes.
+
+"No, don't leave this spot. You are destined to great good luck here."
+
+The two men looked at each other. Ernest shrugged his shoulders and
+Roger sighed and asked:
+
+"Did the pump come?"
+
+"Yes, and the hose and the pipe for the condenser. We brought that and
+the glass, the cement, more lumber, and the drum of sulphur dioxide.
+There are two more big loads down there."
+
+Roger nodded. "I'll take my turn at it to-morrow. Did you see Schmidt?"
+
+"Yes, and he suggested that if we'd tie Preble's team to our wagon, he'd
+drive a load back for us, so only you would need to come in."
+
+"We can't afford to have Schmidt come out here now," sighed Roger.
+
+"Let him come!" murmured the visitor, still with closed eyes. "He will
+be provided for. It's a great work and must go on."
+
+Roger jerked himself to his feet. "Let's go outside, Ern," he exclaimed.
+
+Madam opened her eyes for a moment to say, "Send the child in to wash
+the dishes!"
+
+Ernest turned a chuckle into a hiccough and followed Roger over to the
+well. "Roger, it won't cost much to keep him for a week and that
+provides for getting Hackett's team back and stopping that expense."
+
+Roger nodded. "Let's leave those dishes on the table till she does 'em
+or we have to get lunch."
+
+"O. K.! There she goes into her tent. Rog, she's plain crazy. Well, what
+do we tackle to-day?"
+
+"We'd better get the pump ready and then start to build the engine
+house. I want it big enough to include the laboratory."
+
+"Right-o! Dick suggested we save lumber by making the engine house of
+adobe. He says the sand storms that'll blow next month will ruin our
+apparatus if we don't cover it well."
+
+"Where'll we get the adobe?" asked Roger.
+
+"He said that that layer of clay we struck about four feet down in the
+well is extra fine adobe and that he'll show us how to handle it. I
+wonder how long he'll be sick, poor chap! Was Dick ever sick this way
+before, Felicia?" he called.
+
+"Lots of times!" the child called back. "Oh, Ernest, here's a little,
+little bundle that's so soft it can't be a machine. Can't I open it? It
+might be for me."
+
+"Go ahead!" replied Ernest.
+
+"If the adobe won't take too long, I like the idea," said Roger. "But
+with our new financial problem, we're working against time."
+
+"Oh, isn't it awful. Nothing but dish cloths for Charley!" shrieked
+Felicia.
+
+"She'll have all the small items in those wagons in a hard knot,"
+exclaimed Roger. "Felicia! Come and help unpack the pump, there's a good
+girl!"
+
+When the wagon had been unloaded, the two men began the installation of
+the pump. By noon they had not finished the job. Roger had infinite
+patience with machinery. Ernest practically none.
+
+"You'd have kicked the face off any human being that acted as mulish as
+this pump, Rog," growled Ernest. "Hang the thing! Let's throw it away
+and get a good one."
+
+Roger laughed. "And you'd have no end of patience with a pupil as onery
+as this pump, Ern. It's all right. We'll have it going in a moment."
+
+And go she did, to the excited admiration of Felicia, who had been an
+attentive audience during the entire performance. Mrs. von Minden did
+not leave the confines of her tent until mid-afternoon, when she spent
+some time preparing herself a meal. After lunch, Ernest would have gone
+to offer his services at the adobe, had not Felicia protested to the
+point of tears, that Charley would be angry. Somewhat to their own
+amusement the two men gave in to the vehement small girl, and the ground
+work for the absorber being complete, they began to clear space for the
+engine house and consumer. Felicia with a kitchen knife and the pancake
+turner, toiled away after the two men all the afternoon.
+
+About five o'clock Ernest took her home. He was gone some time and Roger
+had supper ready on his return. Ernest had fed the horses and milked
+for Charley, who said that Dick would be around on the morrow.
+
+"Then I'll write my letter to-night and start in with the two teams at
+daylight," said Roger. "You finish grubbing off for the condenser,
+Ernest, and make a carpenter's bench. And try not to kill our visitor."
+But the visitor was invisible all the evening, nor had she appeared
+before Roger left the next morning. He was well on his way toward
+Archer's Springs by daylight. The wagons were empty and the horses
+fresh, so that he reached the railroad station by mid-afternoon and had
+the wagons loaded by dark ready for the return trip.
+
+At the Chinese restaurant where he went for his supper he saw Schmidt.
+
+"Well!" exclaimed the German. "You vas here at last, nicht wahr!"
+
+Roger nodded. "I hear you are coming up for a visit."
+
+"Visit? No! No! To stay. Ya! To stay!"
+
+Roger shook his head. "Can't feed you, old man!" and then, before he
+knew it, he was telling the sympathetic German of the Smithsonian's
+dereliction.
+
+"These American governments!" groaned Schmidt. "Vat a stupidness! In
+Germany such a foolishness is impossible. Vell, I come for a veek and
+bring my own grub. I haf a leetle money, enough to feed me. Vat I lack
+is vork--vork to keep me from going crazy with the heim-weh in this
+ocean of sand, and some one mit brain to talk to. The baggage-man--the
+storekeeper--the Chinaman--Gott! I know their every mind like a primer,
+so long have I talked to them."
+
+There was to Roger something irresistibly likeable about Schmidt's
+sentimental, jovial face.
+
+"Come ahead, then!" he said. "You'll have to bunk in the cook-tent, and
+bring your own bed with you, but we'll be delighted to have you with
+us."
+
+Schmidt rubbed his stubby hands together. "I go at vonce and pack up,"
+he exclaimed. "Ve vill drive by my place in the morning and pick me up,"
+and he started for the door.
+
+At five o'clock the next morning the two heavily laden wagons crawled
+out on the desert trail, campwards. It was slow going, particularly
+after they struck the deep sand which began ten miles out of the town.
+Gustav Schmidt was rather silent when they stopped at noon, to water and
+feed their horses and to eat the lunch the Chinaman had put up for them.
+He was heavily coated with dust and his face had burned badly.
+
+Half way through the second sandwich he said: "Ve'll get even with that
+sun, eh? Ve harness him and make him pump vater on us and on this damn
+sand, eh? Gott, vat a country!"
+
+"What's the matter with this country?" asked Roger, blowing the sand off
+a ripe olive. "It's exactly the kind of country I want to make solar
+power with and it's exactly the kind of country you want to cure your
+bad lungs. If you don't like it--"
+
+"Vait! Vait!" interrupted Schmidt. "I know vat you vill say. If I don't
+like it, go back to Germany. Some day I do go back, but not yet. Ven I
+go, I try to take you and young Wolf mit me. This is the land of
+nature's opportunity. In the Fatherland, the government gif the
+opportunity. This is the land for the adventure, for the exploitation,
+nicht wahr? Germany the land for the thinker, like you? Nicht wahr?"
+
+Roger shook his head. Nevertheless, his eyes were wistful. Many times
+during the afternoon he thought of Schmidt's remark. Roger's education
+and reading had long ago persuaded him that Germany was the land for the
+thinker, that there a man would not have to struggle for ten years to
+give birth to an idea such as his. He wondered why he never had cut
+loose and gone to the Fatherland. Some subconscious sense of obligation
+to his own country, he supposed. And yet, he thought bitterly what a
+fool he had been! Surely there could be no passion, not even the love
+for women, as deep-rooted, as overwhelming and as racially right as a
+man's desire to express his dreams. And that expression was denied him
+in his own country unless he put up a fight that depleted his creative
+force, surely by half.
+
+He sighed heavily and yet his thoughts returned to the little new power
+plant with a vague heart warming as though already it spelled home to
+him.
+
+Toward sundown, a curiously picturesque group passed them on the trail.
+Half a dozen squaws, with bare black heads and capes of red bandannas
+sewed together, were plodding toward town laden with ollas. Roger pulled
+up his team and called to them. Dick had told him to buy one of the
+great Indian water jars at his first opportunity.
+
+"Will you sell me one?" he asked.
+
+The oldest squaw nodded and held up a fine two gallon jar. It was just
+the color of the desert sand and was ornamented with swastikas and
+triangles in lines of vivid black.
+
+"How much?" asked Roger.
+
+"Eight bits," she said.
+
+Roger dropped a dollar into her slender brown palm. The squaw flashed
+white teeth at him and a younger woman pressed forward holding up an
+olla no bigger than a teacup, a duplicate in design of the one he had
+just bought.
+
+"I'll take that for Felicia," he murmured. "How much?"
+
+"Two bits."
+
+He tossed her the quarter. "You make 'em camp up there?" asked the old
+squaw.
+
+"Yes," replied Roger. "Come and call on us, ladies."
+
+"We bring 'em baskets, maybe," replied the squaw.
+
+Roger nodded and started the horses on, looking back from time to time
+for pure pleasure in the beauty of those scarlet fluttering capes.
+
+They reached the camp about ten o'clock and were vociferously welcomed
+by Ernest, who, before taking the horses up to the corral, insisted on
+showing them his day's work.
+
+"Nothing doing on the carpenter's bench," he said, flashing the
+"lightning bug" toward the site of the engine house. "Look here. Dick
+came over right after breakfast and we were hard at this all day."
+
+All the lumber in the camp had been requisitioned to make adobe molds.
+"We mixed the adobe with that clutter of broken hay that the glass came
+in," explained Ernest. "Dick says the Mexicans use stable scrapings,
+but I couldn't stomach that. You see you just peg the boards up in the
+sand, a foot apart and pack them full of the adobe. That'll be the
+thickness of the house. Then when the strips are dried, we'll cut them
+the length we want. Two days more work will give us all we need."
+
+"Vat a country!" exclaimed Gustav.
+
+Ernest and Roger laughed. "I take it Dick is O. K. again," said Roger.
+
+"Quite himself. Said Charley was used up, but she came down late this
+afternoon with Felicia and she said she was feeling fine. Felicia made
+those little bricks yonder. Charley has put her into overalls. She's
+simply ravishing in them."
+
+"And how is your guest?" asked Roger. "I've been telling Schmidt about
+her. He's heard of Von Minden at Archer's. And it seems she outfitted
+there. Claimed to have come up from Phoenix and said she had an
+engagement with us."
+
+"Well, she was invisible, practically until noon to-day. Then she
+brought her rocking chair here where Dick and I were at work and
+concentrated on us all the afternoon."
+
+"Concentrated? Vat iss concentrated?" asked Gustav.
+
+"Well, she rocks in the chair, holding the pink umbrella till Dick
+lashed it to the chair back for her. She keeps her eyes closed and
+doesn't speak, though she did explain that she was talking to her
+mother, who is on the seventh plane, concerning the successful erection
+of the engine house. Dick seems quite smitten by her. He gazes on her
+and gazes as if fascinated, then he goes off behind the living tent and
+laughs."
+
+"My God, what a country!" groaned Roger.
+
+"I've got a bed fixed up for you in the cook tent, Schmidt," said
+Ernest. "You'll be safe if none of Mrs. von Minden's spirit friends
+bother you. She told me that she heard them playing the accordion in the
+cook tent last night."
+
+"I love music," was Schmidt's response, and the three men went laughing
+to bed. Roger wakened in the night but once. Through the open tent flap
+he beheld Mrs. von Minden rocking silently in the starlight before her
+tent.
+
+"She's going to get on my nerves," he murmured and fell asleep again.
+
+Dawn was just breaking over the mountains the next morning when Roger
+entered the cook tent. He was greeted by Gustav, who was purple with the
+cold but grinning cheerfully, and the smell of coffee.
+
+"It vas not so soft, sleeping on Frau Nature's heart in the desert,
+nicht wahr!" he exclaimed. "Coyotes vere eating the garbage last night
+mit gulps and snortings and I slept not. It vas not the music I had been
+promised. So I make the breakfast early."
+
+"I didn't sleep well myself the first night or two," said Roger. "Desert
+silence makes a lot of noise to a town-bred man. Hey!"--going to the
+door--"Ern! You lazy Dutchman! The new cook'll leave if you don't get up
+for your breakfast."
+
+Gustav and Roger were half through the meal when Ernest appeared.
+"Mud-pie making is hard work," he groaned, sliding stiffly onto the
+bench beside Roger.
+
+"I certainly hate to make adobe brick when every day counts so," said
+Roger. "Let's use sheet iron."
+
+"It'll be better to take Dick's advice," insisted Ernest. "He says the
+dust storms are frightful here and the heat worse. The adobe shelter
+will be grateful on many counts."
+
+"Ve'll all vork hard," said Gustav, "and the 'dobe vill be up strong,
+before ve know it. Ven it is done, it is done good, and that is right. I
+vash the damn dishes. You go make the mud mixing. Then I come."
+
+"We're going to hate to let that chap go when his visit's up," said
+Roger, as he and Ernest began work on the adobe.
+
+"Maybe we won't have to let him go," replied Ernest. "You stir the mess
+up, Rog, and I'll put it into the molds. Dick is going on with his
+grading, but he'll be over in a day or so and show us how to begin the
+house building."
+
+"The trouble with you is, Ern, that you're flighty-minded. You're tired
+of making a Sun Plant and all excitement over building a mud house."
+
+"I wouldn't have a single track mind like yours for a million dollars,"
+returned Ernest cheerfully.
+
+Roger grinned and presently began to whistle as he worked. Mrs. von
+Minden proved to be an exceedingly unexacting guest. After it was
+evident to her that her hosts had not the slightest intention of doing
+special cooking for her she did her own. She ate only two meals a day,
+preparing one at mid-morning and one at sundown. The remainder of the
+day she spent within her tent, reading or rocking in her chair,
+concentrating on the camp work. She seldom talked and then only on the
+matter of what she called Yogi-ism.
+
+Gustav took a violent dislike to her and refused to work if she looked
+at him. Roger declared that on the next trip to town he was going to
+telegraph Phoenix and see if she had not escaped from an insane
+asylum. But Ernest only laughed.
+
+"Poor old soul! She's not crazy except on her religion. Let her alone.
+She's no expense and no trouble!"
+
+"She gives me the willies," insisted Roger. "I never knew before that I
+had a temperament."
+
+"Gosh, I could have broken that to you twenty-five years ago," said
+Ernest. "Only I supposed obvious facts were as plain to you as to other
+people. Here she comes for her afternoon's work, bless her, pink
+umbrella, pink nighty and all. What a lucky dog Von Minden is."
+
+Roger chuckled and joined Gustav, who moved hastily to continue his
+brick making back of the lady's chair.
+
+Working so, he was facing the ranch and presently he saw Charley cross
+the alfalfa field to join Dick. A moment later, the two figures were
+following the team across the field. Next Felicia flashed down the
+trail, a tiny dot of blue, and shortly he saw Dick lift her to one of
+the horse's backs. Roger's mind harked back to old days. He recalled
+Charley's father giving her and him just such a ride over the fertile
+corn fields of home. And he pondered for a moment on the thing called
+fate.
+
+There was a little hand that clung to his as he and Charley scuffled up
+the dusty road to the farm. There was Dick's ruddy boyish face, sternly
+disapproving. There was a childish treble, "I shall love Charley. She'll
+take such care of me as never was on sea nor land. Aunt May says so."
+And finally there was the woman's voice. "Go home to bed now, or you
+won't be fit for work to-morrow. And that work is about the most
+important thing in this valley now."
+
+And now, Charley drove a team over a desert field, while he--what was he
+doing after all? Roger rose abruptly and lighting his pipe began to
+stroll aimlessly around the camp. Was this dream that had worked itself
+into the very fiber of his nature worth while? The desert, shimmering in
+endless silence about him, seemed very far from that world of machinery
+that he had worshiped so long. Supposing that Charley did bring the
+desert to bearing. Supposing that he did harness the sun and start an
+empire to building in these barren wastes. To what avail?
+
+Though his dream were the very foundation of their existence, men would
+fight here for the supremacy of riches, just as of old. And why not?
+Through the welter of cut-throat striving man had won his intelligence.
+Who was he to endeavor to lessen that competition?
+
+How restless, how discontented he had been for nearly ten years! Was he
+not missing the best of life and was not happiness the real goal of
+living? And did not men get the only real joy from wife and child? Did
+any work that did not focus round these two bring real content?
+
+A sudden swelling of his heart, a sudden rush of blood through his
+brain, a sudden thrill of his lean strong body that seemed to extend to
+the very heart of the desert, brought Roger to pause in his walking. He
+gazed for a long moment at the little blue figure astride the horse, and
+at the tall figure in khaki beside Dick.
+
+The March afternoon was hot but with a clear tang that was as
+exhilarating as winter frost. The range back of the ranch house was
+brown where the sky line shone clear. But the gashed and eroded sides of
+the mountains were filled with drifts of purple clouds that melted now
+in soft blue billows into the sky, now in ragged streams of crimson into
+canyons black in the distance. The little sounds of the camp were as
+nothing. The pygmy figures in the alfalfa field were infinitesimal. A
+new sense of the immensity of the universe poured into Roger's soul with
+devastating force and for the first time in his life Roger realized his
+own lack of importance.
+
+A moment of this and then the instinct that has lifted man above the
+brutes spoke in him again. He would not belong to life only through
+children. He would make himself immortal through his work, work by which
+men should live and think and have their being for ages to come.
+
+With a long sigh, Roger tossed his black hair back from his face and
+returned to his brick making.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE RUNAWAY
+
+
+The three men toiled arduously for two days on the brick making. At the
+end of that time the desert all about the camp was paved with adobe
+brick, baking in the sun until Dick should come to start them on their
+house building. On the evening of the second day, Roger tramped up to
+the ranch house and proposed to Dick that they exchange work for half a
+day; Roger to finish Dick's grading, while Dick instructed Gustav and
+Ernest in the gentle art of adobe laying.
+
+But Dick would not strike the bargain. "I've only an hour's work before
+I'm ready to start the seeding," he said, "and I won't trust any one to
+attend to that but myself. I'll just ride over to the Sun Plant in the
+morning and it won't take half an hour to teach you fellows all I know
+about putting up the house."
+
+"I'm going too," said Felicia. She was sitting, cuddling her doll before
+the fire, for the nights were still cool.
+
+"Almost your bedtime, Felicia," warned Charley.
+
+The child gave Roger an agonized look.
+
+"I brought you a present, Felicia," he said, and pulled the tiny olla
+out of his pocket.
+
+"Oh, a water jar! Just like yours, Charley!" shrieked Felicia, taking
+the little bowl carefully in her slender childish fingers. "Where did
+you get it, Roger?"
+
+Roger described his meeting with the squaws, and Dick added, "The whole
+outfit is camping on a canyon the other side of the range. Old Rabbit
+Tail told me this morning when he brought down the wood. It's there they
+find the rock they make these ollas of. It's a kind of decomposed
+granite. They pulverize it with their metates, add boiling water and get
+a very fair clay. Qui-tha is up there with them and his strong medicine
+has made a hit."
+
+"Do they make dishes cheap, Dicky?" asked Felicia, crowding close to her
+brother's knee. "Would they make me some doll dishes cheap, do you
+think?"
+
+Dick lifted the little girl to his knee and kissed her. "Why cheap,
+little old chick-a-biddy?"
+
+"Because I heard you tell Charley funds were getting awful low now you'd
+sold the last of the turquoise. But this doll will starve, Dicky, if she
+doesn't have dishes to eat off of."
+
+"She looks fairly well fed," suggested Charley, shaking her head a
+little helplessly over the frank statement of the family finances.
+
+"She mustn't get run down, though," said Dick. "When I see one of the
+squaws, I'll order some dishes, money or no money."
+
+"I don't see why Aunt May didn't send along more of her toys," sighed
+Charley. "It was so stupid of her! There is nothing at Archer's
+Springs."
+
+"Don't you worry, Charley!" cried Felicia. "The squaws will make me
+some. I'll ask 'em."
+
+"That's a good sport," said Dick, hugging the child against his broad
+chest. He was Felicia's devoted slave, and Charley had no help from him
+in maintaining discipline. It was she who said now:
+
+"Look at the clock, Felicia, dear."
+
+"I'd rather not," answered Felicia. Nevertheless, she slid off Dick's
+lap and with the doll and the olla in her arms, kissed each of the
+grown-ups in turn, and went off to bed.
+
+"She's the best kid I ever saw," said Dick, after her bedroom door had
+closed.
+
+"And the prettiest," added Roger.
+
+"You men spoil her," protested Charley, "and it's too bad because she
+really is unusual."
+
+"Pshaw! You were just like her," grunted Dick, "and we all petted you.
+And heaven knows, you aren't spoiled. Of course, you're much too strict
+with Felicia--and me."
+
+Charley flushed. "You don't really think so, do you, Dick?" she asked.
+
+Roger joined Dick in a chuckle at this. Charley's adoration of her
+brother was obvious to the most casual observer. She laughed a little
+herself and it occurred to Roger that her laugh was much like Felicia's,
+just as innocent and spontaneous.
+
+"I can always get a rise that way, eh, old girl," cried Dick. "And I
+know why you're blushing. You hate on top of this, to remind me that I
+haven't bedded the horses. Well, I'll attend to it instantly and relieve
+your embarrassment. I'll be back in a moment, Roger."
+
+"Dick is in good trim again," said Roger.
+
+"Oh, I do so hope he'll stay well!" exclaimed Charley with a sudden
+fervor that surprised Roger. "He's such a dear and he's been so
+handicapped! I think it's going to make a big difference to him, having
+Felicia and you people here. He's been so lonely."
+
+"Haven't you been lonely?" asked Roger.
+
+"Yes," replied Charley. Then after a pause, "How does your work go?"
+
+"Very slowly! I get half crazy with impatience. Even after all the
+warnings I received, I had no idea of the difficulties in the desert. I
+realize now that I'm only about half equipped, for desert building."
+
+"You mean mentally or financially?" asked Charley with a quick look.
+
+"Financially, of course--or--what made you ask me that?" Roger's voice
+was a little indignant.
+
+"Well, you see," answered Charley, "I've been in the desert longer than
+you and I know that impatience leads to madness. And you're an impatient
+sort of person."
+
+"Impatient!" Roger burst out. "Impatient! When for ten years I've clung
+to one idea, hoping against hope, believing that the impossible would
+happen."
+
+"You poor boy! Don't you suppose I know? But now that you're down here
+at work, you've got to be even more patient. The desert is cussed mean.
+You and Dick have both got to contend with the old vixen for a long time
+before you put your dreams through."
+
+"Don't you worry about my impatience," replied Roger. "My middle name is
+patience. You'll see!"
+
+Dick's cheerful whistle came up the trail. Charley looked at Roger as he
+thoughtfully relighted his pipe. His bronze black hair was ruddy in the
+firelight, Charley liked his hair and she liked his square jaw and deep
+gray eyes, though they seemed to her a little cold and selfish as were
+his lips. Charley had been educated with boys in the big middle western
+town whither the Prebles had moved. From the time that she had entered
+kindergarten at four until she graduated from college at twenty-two she
+had buffeted through life shoulder to shoulder with boys. Charley knew
+men and she had read Roger as clearly as though his mind were an open
+book. She knew that the desert would either make or ruin a man of
+Roger's temperament.
+
+Dick swung open the kitchen door. Roger rose, slowly.
+
+"You folks had better have supper with us, to-morrow night," he
+suggested.
+
+The Prebles accepted with alacrity and Roger wandered slowly home across
+the desert. He liked the Prebles, better than he had ever liked any
+family but Ernest's. Patience! He'd show that tall, dark-eyed girl that
+his fund was limitless.
+
+Schmidt was worth two ordinary men, in spite of the fact that he was not
+in full health, and that he was deliberate in all his movements. His
+deliberation meant that he used his head to guide his hands. What with
+his steady persistent following of Roger's rapid, feverish energy and of
+Ernest's cheerful conscientious poddering, by mid-afternoon the engine
+house walls were half finished. When Charley, carrying a great basket,
+reached them about sundown, the door frames were almost covered in.
+
+Ernest introduced Schmidt, who laughingly showed his muddy hands.
+
+"I never saw three people who more evidently needed baths," Charley
+laughed in turn. "I suppose Felicia is the worst of the lot. Where is
+the child?"
+
+"Felicia!" ejaculated Roger.
+
+"She hasn't been here to-day," exclaimed Ernest.
+
+Charley set the basket slowly down on the sand while her face whitened.
+"She started down here at nine o'clock with her doll and her olla."
+
+There was a moment's silence, then Roger cried cheerfully, "Well, don't
+be frightened! Nothing could have happened to her. She must have gone on
+an investigating trip of her own."
+
+"I'll go after Preble," said Ernest, "and we'll take the horses and
+round her up in a jiffy."
+
+He and Gustav started immediately up the trail. Roger stopped long
+enough to carry the heavy basket to the cook tent. "Look out for Miss
+Preble, will you, Mrs. von Minden?" he said to that lady who was
+finishing her second meal.
+
+"I must go home," faltered Charley. "She may--Roger, look in the old
+Mellish shaft." She gave a little sob and Mrs. von Minden suddenly put
+her arm about her.
+
+Roger started on a run after the others.
+
+They overtook Dick, just as he was turning out of the lower end of the
+alfalfa field into the trail. At their shout he pulled up the horses and
+waited. He began to unharness before the first sentence was finished. He
+and Roger both mounted, leaving Gustav and Ernest to go up to the corral
+after the other two horses. Just at this moment there came through the
+afterglow a familiar treble shriek.
+
+"Oh! Oh! Dickeee!"
+
+The four men were motionless. Coming down the trail from the mountains
+was a little figure in blue overalls, curly head glorious in the last of
+the sunset gleam.
+
+"Wait for me, Roger, wait!" shrieked Felicia, trying to quicken a very
+tired gait, and much impeded by a basket, which she clasped with both
+arms. Ernest suddenly broke into a run and picked the child up, basket
+and all. Dick dropped from his horse and followed to lift her away from
+Ernest's clinging arms.
+
+"She's my sister, let me take her," he said hoarsely.
+
+"Vere vas you, liebchen?" asked Schmidt.
+
+"Well," said Felicia, looking a little bewildered--"Oh, Roger dear,
+look--the squaw gave me a basket and some eenty dishes, just like the
+olla."
+
+"Felicia, where have you been?" begged Roger; "tell us, honey."
+
+"Why, I just went over the mountain to find the place Dick told about
+where the Indians make dishes. And I got lost, and a squaw found me and
+I had a funny dinner with her and I bought these dishes and I told her
+Dick would pay for them and I brought you each a present and I'm awful
+tired." She stopped for lack of breath.
+
+Dick looked helplessly at the other men. "It's five mountain miles to
+that Indian camp," he said.
+
+"I got tired," Felicia nodded her head, "but Qui-tha brought me home. He
+wanted some more peroxide. So I gave him the bottle in your room, Dicky.
+He was so good to bring me home. He went right back with it."
+
+"I wish I'd had a quart for the good old fool," said Dick.
+
+"Where are you all going? Where's Charley?" asked Felicia.
+
+"She's nearly frantic about you," exclaimed Roger. "We were all going to
+look for you."
+
+Felicia's liquid eyes widened with sudden understanding. "Put me down,
+Dick, I want to go to Charley."
+
+"Here she comes now," said Ernest.
+
+Charley was breathless with running. Felicia set her basket in the sand
+and rushed into her sister's arms. The men all started explaining at
+once. Charley, still clasping Felicia, listened, then looked down on the
+curly head resting against her heart.
+
+"Felicia, how could you be so naughty," she asked gently.
+
+"Now, don't you scold her, Charley," protested Dick.
+
+"Do I ever scold any one, Dick? Only Felicia must realize that she did a
+very dangerous thing that she must never, never do again."
+
+"How do you mean, dangerous?" asked Felicia. "Did I make you feel badly,
+Charley?"
+
+"You made me sick at heart with fear, Felicia," replied Charley.
+
+Felicia gave a great sob. "Oh, I wouldn't do that for anything!"
+
+"I move," said Roger, "that we go on over to the Sun Plant and that the
+two ladies talk this over after supper. And I'll carry Felicia
+pig-a-back."
+
+The motion was unanimously carried. Ernest went up to help Dick with the
+chores and Roger and Gustav prepared supper while Charley sat on the
+bench with Felicia in her lap, and directed operations. The pot of beans
+and the biscuit she had brought in the basket made the meal-getting a
+simple matter. Mrs. von Minden was almost human, that evening. She sat
+with the young people during their meal and for an hour afterward, once
+rising, unexpectedly, to kiss Charley.
+
+Felicia went to sleep when half way through supper, just after she had
+given Roger his present.
+
+"It's a little clock," she said, holding out a small steam gauge, rusty
+and battered. "I found it in one of the sheds up on the mountain, where
+I stopped to rest."
+
+Roger looked at it curiously. "That was an expensive gauge in its day,"
+he said. "How do you suppose she happened to find it?"
+
+"Harder not to find it," replied Dick. "The ranges are full of deserted
+mines. They took out all the free gold, then tried to work out the rest,
+found it too expensive, went broke and walked out. There's enough fine
+machinery up in the mountains to make you believe what folks say around
+here, that more money goes into the ground than ever comes out of it."
+
+Roger looked at Dick thoughtfully. "I'm glad to know that," he said.
+"Felicia's given me a sure-enough present, haven't you, little girl?"
+
+But Felicia, her head burrowed against Dick's willing shoulder was fast
+asleep.
+
+"When do you expect to cut your first crop, Dick?" asked Ernest.
+
+"If the alfalfa gets a toe hold before the first of May I'll get a crop
+this summer. The dust storms don't begin till May. They all blow down
+from the north or west and I'm sure that that draw between here and the
+field will protect me. I shall start cottonwoods and arrow-weed wind
+breaks as soon as I turn the water in. Hackett is getting some young
+trees for me."
+
+"Isn't farming a terrible thing--terrible," said Mrs. von Minden
+suddenly. Then she closed her eyes and began to speak rapidly. "When we
+first came out here Otto wanted me to run a ranch for him while he did
+his other work. I was so innocent and so ignorant that I let him start
+me at it.
+
+"In the Colorado river bottoms it was, below Fort Mohave. A group of
+fools like me thought to grow alfalfa in the bottom land, and dike the
+fields to keep the Colorado out at flood. Covered with arrow-weed, six
+and eight feet tall, the land was, when we got there. But the dikes were
+finished and some of the folks were beginning to clear the land.
+
+"Otto cut enough arrow weed to put the tent up and then he found that he
+must put our bed high on a platform, the rattlesnakes were so thick.
+This done, he left me some money and told me to get an Indian to help me
+and off he went on one of his prospecting trips. I used to lie at night
+staring at the sky and crying with fear, fear of Otto and fear of the
+snakes that rattled and whirred all night.
+
+"I found an Indian and he and I cleared about five acres of land and got
+the seed in. But the water used to run out of my mouth every minute with
+the snake fear. Then one night a rattler got one of our horses and my
+fear of what Otto would say if the other was bitten was greater than my
+fear of the snakes, and one night, while I watched beside the remaining
+horse, I killed a rattler. I waited for him to coil, then as I had seen
+the others do, I brought the butt end of an arrow-weed down on the coils
+and my fear of snakes was gone.
+
+"Food was hard to get. There were only eight of us there. And as it got
+hot, some of them left. By the time we were expecting the river to rise
+in spring flood, there were only three fools in the colony. And I seldom
+saw the other two. There was a hundred acres of arrow-weed between them
+and me. My Indian left, after the crop came up. So I was all alone when
+the flood came. The first day my dikes began to leak. For eighteen hours
+I toted adobe to mend them with. When my strength gave out the water was
+two feet deep over my little field. My baby came that night, much too
+soon. I'd have died just as it did, if my Indian with a squaw hadn't
+happened back to beg for food. They took me over to the California side
+in their flat boat, and I never went back to the ranch again, though
+Otto tried to make me."
+
+There was silence for a time. Mrs. von Minden, eyes still closed, seemed
+to be concentrating. Suddenly Charley leaned forward to say a little
+huskily,
+
+"But why are you going back to him, Mrs. von Minden?"
+
+"I have a message for him from the Yogis."
+
+"I know him pretty well," Charley went on, carefully, "and he's been
+very kind to me. But he's never mentioned you. He's quick and queer,
+he's been alone so much, and very quick with his gun."
+
+"He won't touch me," answered Mrs. von Minden. "He's afraid of me, the
+German bully."
+
+"Tut, madam, tut!" exclaimed Gustav. "Germans no more mistreat their
+vomen than other peoples."
+
+Madam opened her eyes. "Tell that to some one who hasn't been married to
+one."
+
+"There are brutes in all nations," said Ernest. "You certainly have had
+more than your share of trouble."
+
+"Hah!" the gaunt face in the rocking chair was scornful, "I merely told
+you my ranching experience. I've mined with Otto, too, and prospected
+and herded sheep and cattle and run a boarding house."
+
+"Mrs. von Minden, you can't be very comfortable in this rough camp,"
+pleaded Charley. "Do come up to my comfortable house. I'd love to have a
+woman visitor."
+
+"You're very kind, my child, but I must stay here. I've been so
+ordered."
+
+"We'd better be starting back, Charley," suggested Dick. "Felicia is
+getting sounder asleep every minute."
+
+And so the party ended.
+
+The erection of the engine house went on briskly. Before even Roger's
+impatience could have demanded it, the sheet iron roof was on and
+Schmidt began to putter with the doors and windows. The completed
+building was not unpicturesque. The dull yellow-gray walls were topped
+by a roof of red corrugated iron, with deeply projecting eaves.
+
+Roger had bought the sheet iron from Dick, who had used considerable of
+this material in the buildings round his turquoise mine. Ernest and
+Gustav toiled up to the mine one morning and at night returned with a
+good supply of the sheet iron. Roger made a concrete base for the
+engine, at one end of the building. Gustav made two doors, one for
+either end, by nailing the corrugated iron onto a wooden frame. A work
+bench and shelves erected by Ernest completed the work on the engine
+house except for the hanging of the doors.
+
+The three workmen were pleased with their job and sat contemplating it
+in great contentment, one evening after supper.
+
+"The engine should be here next month," said Roger.
+
+"That is to be of your design?" asked Gustav.
+
+Roger nodded. "The Dean of our old college is getting it made for us. He
+began work on it as soon as we closed the deal with Austin. If he
+doesn't hustle we'll be ready for it before he is. We'll begin work on
+the absorber, to-morrow."
+
+"I must uphang my door to-morrow," said Gustav. "Vat place did you put
+the hinges?"
+
+"Hinges! By Jove, we haven't a hinge to our names!" exclaimed Ernest.
+"Dick will have to help us out again."
+
+But for once Dick failed them. "It's too bad," he told Ernest the next
+day, "but I've been meaning to get hinges every time I've gone to town.
+But I forgot. You'll have to use some stout leather, the way I do."
+
+"Well, let me have some leather, then," begged Ernest
+
+"Sorry, old chap, but there's not a scrap of leather an inch long around
+this place. You see I sole Charley's and my shoes, and I've robbed all
+the mines around here of belting to do it with and that doesn't mean
+that I've had much belting either. Lots of other people have had the
+same idea I've had. But take a day off and go up to the Sun's Luck, five
+miles up that trail yonder and I think you'll find a few pieces."
+
+Ernest groaned, then laughed. "Dick, poor old Roger will faint at the
+idea of more delay, and for hinges! We'd better let the doors go till
+some of us go into Archer's."
+
+Dick shook his head. "Ern, you get those doors up, and up right. I'm
+betting on there not being a real sand storm for six weeks yet, but if
+one should come, and you have any delicate apparatus in the engine
+house, you'll regret not having sand proof doors and windows. And to
+tell the truth, Charley and Felicia are both nearly bare foot."
+
+"So am I," said Ernest, "and Rog is too."
+
+"What's a day in the desert?" laughed Dick. "Go on and bring down some
+leather for the crowd, Ern."
+
+And go he did, although Roger protested until Ernest mentioned the
+matter of Charley's and Felicia's shoes. Then he gave a ready consent.
+Ernest returned by mid-afternoon with perhaps a yard of belting, the
+half of which he gave to Dick, much to that hard worked gentleman's
+delight.
+
+The days passed swiftly. Ernest was less homesick after Schmidt's
+arrival and the intelligent German's industry and interest in the work
+completely won Roger's heart. When the week of his visit was up, Roger
+resolved that he would find a way to feed three instead of two if he had
+to start the camp to eating desert mice. He wrote now to the Dean,
+asking him to sell his laboratory equipment. Dick took the letter to
+town.
+
+The absorber was not as ambitious a structure as the engine house.
+Nevertheless, it took twice as long to build as Roger had thought it
+would. The foundations consisted of a shallow trough raised from the
+ground on four by four supports. It covered several hundred square feet
+and sloped very gently to carry the flow of oil. It was covered with
+double layers of window sash. The task of laying this was considerable
+and in spite of the men's best efforts, the breakage was large enough to
+use up practically all the reserve glass. But the most trying task of
+all was that of making the great trough leak proof with asphaltum. Even
+after the rest of the job was done and the huge cold frame lay gleaming
+mightily in the desert sun, the men still puttered with leaks in the
+trough, which they tested by pouring water over in lieu of the oil which
+would ultimately form the flow.
+
+Roger and Ernest were at work on this task one morning when Gustav
+returned with a barrel of water from the ranch. Before driving back with
+the team he came excitedly round the corner of the engine house.
+
+"The alfalfa vas up already!" he shouted. "A little shadow of green on
+yellow sand. Lieber Gott! vat a country! And the kleine Felicia almost
+eating it like a little rabbit. And Dick talks like it vas golt. And he
+vas vorried. He says a sand storm vas coming to-day. Look!"
+
+Gustav pointed down the valley to the south. A gray blue haze, not
+unlike a sea fog, was slowly advancing.
+
+"Fasten up the tents. I go back mit the horses," said Gustav,
+disappearing as abruptly as he had arrived.
+
+"If any one thinks a little thing like a sand storm can stop work on the
+plant, he's mistaken," grunted Roger. "Anyhow Dick said one wasn't due
+for six weeks."
+
+Ernest looked from the approaching gray cloud to Roger's obstinate
+mouth, shrugged his shoulders and daubed another brush full of hot
+asphaltum over a crack.
+
+Suddenly a hot blast of air took their hats off. The tent gave a boom.
+The window-sash resting against the engine house wall fell with a
+tinkling crack. Without a word the two men ran to close the tent. When
+they had finished, the whole world was a swirling dust cloud through
+which they could not perceive each other when ten feet apart.
+
+"Make for the engine house!" roared Ernest. "I'll fetch the old lady."
+
+He was better than his word for he brought not only the madam, but her
+rocking chair and a book. Certainly no one could have accused their
+visitor of being a trial. She took the storm with the utmost philosophy
+and spoke scarcely a hundred words until the storm was over.
+
+When he had stowed Mrs. von Minden and her rocker inside Ernest slammed
+the door shut and turned the button. "If Gustav tries to get back
+through this, he'll lose his way, without fail," said Roger.
+
+"How long do you suppose it'll last?" asked Ernest.
+
+"The Lord knows! Have you got any tobacco with you?" Roger sat down on a
+box of window glass and took out his pipe. For half an hour they sat
+listening to the howl of the wind while Madam read.
+
+"Evidently it doesn't intend to quit for a while," said Roger finally.
+"Guess I'll make up my diary and write some letters. I understand now
+why Dick was so insistent on this adobe. You take a look at the cook
+tent and I'll see if the house tent is still standing while I get some
+paper."
+
+The wind increased in violence until long past noon. They retrieved some
+canned stuff from the kitchen tent and ate it with their mouths full of
+the sand that sifted through the cracks of the doors and windows. Madam
+satisfied herself with crackers. It was very hot, even in the adobe.
+About three o'clock Roger wiped the sweat out of his eyes and
+paused--pipe poised:
+
+"It's letting up, Ern," he said.
+
+Ernest paused to listen. There was a perceptible lull in the uproar, and
+the lull increased until at five o'clock they emerged from their
+shelter. The air had miraculously cleared. The sky was a deep, rich
+violet and the desert, lighted by the westering sun, was a beaten gold
+and remodeled to unfamiliar lines. Well known cat's-claw and cactus
+clumps had disappeared. A sand drift a foot in length covered the well
+curb. A drift that touched the thatch lay against the east side of the
+cook tent and had spilled within, half burying the tables and benches.
+Within the living tent, sand lay thick on trunks and cots. But the tents
+had withstood the day's siege, stolidly.
+
+"Let's look at the absorber," said Roger, gloomily.
+
+They plowed through a great billow of sand at the end of the engine
+house. Ernest groaned. Two of the four by fours at the end of the great
+trough had been undermined and had collapsed, carrying a great part of
+the trough with it. The exposed part of the trough was filled with an
+indiscriminate mixture of sand and asphaltum.
+
+"My God! What a country!" cried Ernest.
+
+"My God! What a pair of fools," returned Roger. "After all Dick's
+warnings, why didn't we build for sand storms! Lend me a hand here,
+Ern, with this four by four. My word! Where's Dick going? Hey, Dick!
+What's your hurry?"
+
+He might as well have hailed the setting sun. Dick driving his own team,
+Hackett's hitched to his wagon tail, whirled by at a gallop.
+
+Roger and Ernest stood gaping, first at the receding puff of dust on the
+Archer's Springs trail, then at each other.
+
+"Something's wrong at the ranch!" exclaimed Roger finally.
+
+Ernest nodded and they both turned to stare toward the ranch house. As
+they stood scowling into the blinding desert light, a little gray burro
+rounded the corner of the cook tent, and a moment later Crazy Dutch
+appeared.
+
+"We need a traffic policeman in this desert," said Ernest solemnly.
+"There's too much passing at this corner."
+
+"Get your gun, quick, Ern. It's Von Minden," cried Roger.
+
+Ernest obeyed hurriedly. But the visitor shot his arms even more
+hurriedly into the air.
+
+"Don't shoot!" he cried. "My gun's strapped on Peter. I came to make
+apologies. Search Peter and me."
+
+"I certainly will," said Roger, starting to suit action to word, as
+Ernest came running back with his shot gun. But he was interrupted. Mrs.
+von Minden came slowly forth from her tent, the broom in her hand with
+which she had been sweeping the sand drifts from her bed and floor.
+
+"Gott im Himmel!" roared Crazy Dutch.
+
+"He cannot hear such as you." Madam's tone was grim, as she advanced
+majestically.
+
+She was a good foot taller than her husband, but he did not flinch, even
+at sight of the broom.
+
+"What are you doing here?" he took a threatening step toward her.
+
+"I was waiting for you, Otto."
+
+"Well, I don't want you. I finished with you a good many years ago.
+There are just two things in my life now and they are my work and my
+emperor."
+
+"Fudge!" exclaimed Mrs. von Minden, unexpectedly. "There's just two
+things in your life, just as there's always been, your work and your
+German cussedness. Otto, I want that strong box of yours. Give it to me
+and I'll go back to Phoenix."
+
+Crazy Dutch gave an ugly laugh. "I'm likely to do that! What do you want
+of it?"
+
+"If you won't let me take it, let me go through it. There is something
+in it I want."
+
+"And what is that?" queried her husband.
+
+"I don't know," replied Madam, very simply.
+
+"You don't know?" roared Crazy Dutch.
+
+"No, Otto, I don't know. The Yogis told me to come up and they told me
+that when I went through the papers I would recognize some that I
+wanted."
+
+Von Minden turned appealingly to Roger and Ernest. "Have you any idea
+what she's talking about?"
+
+Ernest shook his head.
+
+"Wouldn't you like to go into the engine house to talk this over?"
+suggested Roger. "You'd have privacy there."
+
+"Don't leave me alone with him," exclaimed Mrs. von Minden. "He's not
+safe."
+
+"All right," said Roger. "I've searched him and now I'm going through
+his pack, and I shall confiscate any weapon I find."
+
+"Don't you dare to give her my strong box," shouted Crazy Dutch.
+
+"I'll put the box back where I find it," replied Roger. "Come on, Ern,
+begin."
+
+It was a pitifully mean little pack, quite poverty stricken compared
+with Mrs. von Minden's. A woolen quilt and a Navajo, a coffee pot,
+frying pan and a small sack of sugar, a canteen, a flannel shirt and a
+pair of ragged socks, a gun, a small strong box, with a geological
+hammer, a barometer and a compass, comprised Peter's load.
+
+Roger took the gun into the living tent and Ernest remade the pack.
+During the search, Mrs. von Minden had not spoken, though she eyed the
+work with keenest interest.
+
+"Now," said Roger, "I will tell you both frankly that I don't care to
+have a family row carried on in this camp."
+
+"I'm not trying to row, certainly," exclaimed von Minden. "It's all this
+woman."
+
+"The woman is your wife, isn't she?" asked Ernest.
+
+"In name only. I tell you I finished with women, years ago."
+
+"But I haven't finished with you yet," commented his wife.
+
+"What can you do to me?" sneered Crazy Dutch.
+
+"I can do what They tell me. And They tell me to hang on to you like
+grim death until They bid me stop. I shall follow you and that strong
+box to the end of the earth, Otto!"
+
+"But why! But why! You've always been glad enough to be rid of me
+before."
+
+Mrs. von Minden, her pink sunbonnet pushed back to her shoulders, her
+eyes gleaming, took a menacing step toward her husband, and her voice
+rose hysterically.
+
+"I know you! I know you! With your sneaking ways and your secret
+letters. I know that you're a dirty German spy. I know what that box
+holds. But what I want out of it is my marriage certificate and whatever
+else They tell me. I can't read German and They can. I can't throw fear
+into your black heart but They can. And if I told you the way They have
+interpreted some of your acts to me, you would crawl on your hands and
+knees to me."
+
+Von Minden watched the woman with a stolid face. "Who are They?" he
+growled.
+
+"They are the spirits of the dead. The great ones of the Universe are
+talking to me now, Otto von Minden! They directed me here. The hand of
+Fate is in it. Listen! You have not long to live, Otto. And all that you
+have lived for will be dust and ashes. All the work that you have done
+will be cast to the four winds of Heaven, while this man," pointing to
+Roger, "will found your empire for you. You have planted in intrigue and
+you will die in shame. Otto, let me go through the strong box."
+
+"Clarissa," exclaimed Von Minden, with for the first time a note of pity
+in his voice, "you've gone crazy."
+
+His wife smiled sardonically. "I'm going to see what is in the strong
+box, if I follow you to China," and with this she turned on her heel and
+disappeared into her tent. Nor did she come out again that night.
+
+"Now, Mr. von Minden," said Roger sternly. "I tell you quite frankly,
+that you're not welcome here. If Miss Preble hadn't interceded for you,
+I'd hand you over to the authorities."
+
+Crazy Dutch nodded affably. "You're quite right. I deserve it. But I've
+had a touch of the sun and for a moment I was out of my head. In this
+lonely country we must bear with each other."
+
+"The way you bear with your wife, I suppose," suggested Ernest.
+
+Von Minden looked half apprehensively over his shoulder at his wife's
+tent, then he said in a confidential whisper, "Now _she_ is crazy and
+has been for years. Only she's crazy all the time so the only thing to
+do is to keep away from her. She was a very good, hard working woman,
+once."
+
+"So I should judge from what she tells us," Roger's voice was grim. "It
+strikes us that you treated her as if she were a horse and not a woman.
+But that's not our business. Why did you come back here, Von Minden?"
+
+"I came to apologize."
+
+"Well, I accept the apology. Now you had better go on about your
+business and I'll get your wife back to Phoenix, some way."
+
+Von Minden drew himself up. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Moore, I'm not in
+the habit of being spoken to in this manner. Apologize at once!"
+
+Roger turned red. "Why you infernal little shrimp--" he began.
+
+But Ernest interrupted. "Keep your temper, Rog. All this isn't worth
+seeing red for."
+
+"Of course it isn't," said the little German briskly. "Now I'm planning
+to spend the evening with the Prebles and then I'll go on into the
+range. Peter, my dear, I'll give you a drink now. We were out in all
+this storm, gentlemen, but we don't mind them, Peter and I. There is a
+beauty about them, these passions of the desert. How are the Prebles?"
+
+The two men started. "We were going up there," said Ernest. "Dick just
+went driving by at a gallop, without a word, toward Archer's Springs."
+
+Von Minden scowled, started to speak, was silent, then said: "What do
+you think was the matter?"
+
+"Let's go find out," urged Ernest.
+
+The three men, Peter trailing at the rear, started hurriedly along the
+half obliterated trail toward the ranch.
+
+The stillness after the day of warfare was heavenly. The violet of the
+sky had changed to the blue of larkspur, that now was shot with lacey
+streamers, rose pink from the setting sun. An oriole, balancing itself
+on Dick's line fence, poured forth a melody of transporting sweetness.
+
+"O, by Jove!" exclaimed Roger suddenly, "look at Dick's alfalfa!"
+
+The oriole fluttered away as they approached the fence. The field had
+not drifted badly. The draw to the north had prevented that. But the
+bright green shadow on the yellow sand of which Gustav had told them in
+the morning, was no more. A huge blight lay on the field with every
+tender plant blackened and dead.
+
+"Poor old Dick!" groaned Ernest. Then he added plaintively, "But he's no
+tenderfoot. He knows desert storms. Why did he attempt it?"
+
+"A storm like this, this time of year, is unheard of," said Von Minden.
+"Close to the mountain like this, Dick was choosing a good spot. See
+there are few drifts. Poor fellow!"
+
+There were actual tears in Ernest's blue eyes as he looked at the
+blackened field. "Let's get to the girls," he urged.
+
+At the corral gate they met Gustav.
+
+"What's the trouble, Gustav?" cried Roger.
+
+"Dick he vent to the field down to see how the alfalfa vas, then he came
+running like a mad man. He scolded Fraeulein Charley like it vas her
+fault, then he ran to the corral, hitched up and vent."
+
+"But didn't you try to stop him?" demanded Roger.
+
+"Not Fraeulein Charley. She just sat on the step and little Felicia on
+her lap and say nothing. But I vent to the corral to talk to Dick and he
+told me to go to hell. He vas a mad man, I tell you. Now I go milk."
+
+Charley, at the sound of voices, came out to the steps. "Hello, Uncle
+Otto," she called. The men looked up at her. Her tanned cheeks were
+flushed, her fine square shoulders were tense. But her voice was gay:
+
+"Have you and Mr. Moore had your duel?"
+
+"It's postponed," replied Crazy Dutch.
+
+Felicia scrambled past her sister and ran down to Roger: "Dick went away
+mad," she exclaimed. "He scolded Charley and me awful and made me cry. I
+hate to cry. It hurts my insides so."
+
+Charley had joined them now. "Poor Dick!" she said. "That alfalfa field
+was dearer to him than any of you know. He'll cool down by the time he
+reaches Archer's and brings back more seed. Why can't you all stay to
+supper here?"
+
+"It's too much trouble for you," protested Ernest, weakly.
+
+"You can all help," said Charley. "Please all stay." Something in the
+eagerness of her low voice touched Roger as it did the other men.
+
+"Of course, we're delighted to stay," he exclaimed, tossing Felicia to
+his shoulder. "Come along, chicken, we'll split some wood for sister."
+
+"And me, I must wash myself," said Crazy Dutch, "and give Peter some
+hay."
+
+"And me, I'll help get the supper," said Ernest.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE LONELY HUNTER
+
+
+As soon as Ernest and she were alone in the kitchen, Charley whispered:
+"How about Mrs. von Minden?"
+
+"Oh, they had a fine row. She wants his strong box. She said at first
+that she didn't know what she wanted but later confessed that it was her
+marriage certificate plus something the Yogis were to put her wise to."
+
+"Poor old soul!" exclaimed Charley softly. "What tragedy do you suppose
+is back of all this?"
+
+"I don't know. But none of us urged the poor old girl to come up here
+with us. He says he's going to spend the night with you, but if Dick
+isn't here--"
+
+"That's all right," said Charley. "He stays here often when Dick is
+gone. He and I are great friends. I shall say nothing at all about his
+wife, unless he does."
+
+"That's the best cue, I think," agreed Ernest; "I'm so darned sorry
+about the alfalfa, Charley."
+
+"Pioneer luck," replied the girl shaking her dark head. "I feel rather
+heartsick about it myself. If only Dick wouldn't go to pieces so! That's
+what worries me, because we may have many failures before the alfalfa
+catches and he is going to have such a hard time."
+
+"I can't see why you chose such a difficult part of the world to farm
+in," mused Ernest.
+
+"That's where the sport comes in," returned Charley with a smile.
+
+Whatever discomfort Dick's surly and erratic moods may have cost her
+Charley gave no sign that evening of having any thought save the comfort
+and entertainment of her guests. Before Felicia had been sent to bed and
+after the men, all smoking, had listened to Von Minden's dissertation on
+sand storms, Charley suggested that Peter be invited in and put through
+his paces.
+
+To the surprise and delight of the others, when Crazy Dutch went to the
+door and whistled, there was the sound of little hoof-beats on the
+porch, then Peter's gray head appeared enquiringly in the doorway.
+
+"Wipe your feet and come in, Peter," said Crazy Dutch, returning to his
+seat by the fire.
+
+The little donkey rubbed one hoof after the other on the straw mat
+before the sill, then advanced into the room. Felicia, who was in
+Roger's lap, trembled with excitement and pleasure.
+
+"Now, Peter dear, here is your pipe," pulling a corncob from his pocket;
+"sit down and smoke it like a gentleman."
+
+Peter took his pipe somewhat gingerly between his teeth and then with
+considerable difficulty backed his haunches down onto the box that Von
+Minden kicked over to him. There he sat gravely holding the empty pipe,
+his long ears moving slowly back and forth.
+
+"All right, sweetheart, there's a bit of sugar for you. Shake hands with
+the ladies and gentlemen."
+
+Like a great gray dog, Peter went from one to another, lifting his tiny
+hoof to be shaken. Felicia was afraid at first but ended by shaking the
+little unsteadily proffered hoof and kissing the little fellow's dusty
+forehead with a squeal of delight.
+
+"Now you give us each a good night kiss, liebchen," ordered Von Minden,
+and as he indicated each person in turn, Peter followed and touched each
+one on the back of the neck, with his velvet nose.
+
+"Now say good night," was the last order and Peter lifted his voice in a
+bray that shook the very rafters, after which he trotted out the door.
+
+Certainly Peter and his master had never played to a more enthusiastic
+audience. Felicia wanted to go out and ride him then and there and
+Charley had to use considerable persuasion to get the excited little
+girl off to bed. But after this was accomplished Roger asked:
+
+"Where did you get Peter? Will you sell him?"
+
+Crazy Dutch darted an ugly look at Roger.
+
+Charley cut in quickly. "Tell us where you found him, Uncle Otto. Mr.
+Moore was merely showing how much he admired Peter."
+
+"I thought he'd be so fine for Felicia," exclaimed Roger.
+
+Von Minden grunted. Then he lighted his pipe. "I have not always been as
+you see me now," he said. "I was a geologist of reputation and when my
+health demanded a hot climate, it was natural I should come here to look
+for mines for a great German company. I am lucky and I have brains and I
+have the greatest training in the world, German training, so I find
+several mines and then jealousies, jealousies--jealousies--" he fell to
+mumbling to himself.
+
+Charley prompted him. "So you decided to strike out for yourself, about
+five years ago."
+
+"Yes, I do so. By then, you see, I had gotten to understand the desert
+loneliness. I loved it and I sold myself to the desert, body and soul.
+All I asked was to wander about on her magnificent barren bosom. It
+seemed to me I was entirely happy. But one day I found a little young
+burro stuck in a crevice in a blind canyon. Evidently he had been
+abandoned by an Indian. Me, I climb down in the crevice and I tie his
+heels so he can't kick and with my geologist's pick and hammer I work so
+carefully all day till I get him out. Why such toil? Because I find when
+I look into Peter's deep eyes that I am lonely--lonely beyond the power
+of thought or word to describe. And Peter, from that day to this, has
+never left me, day or night."
+
+"You are in excellent health again, Mr. von Minden," said Ernest. "Don't
+you plan ever to return to the Vaterland?"
+
+"Yes! Yes!" cried Crazy Dutch, "but only when I can return with an
+empire in my hand for my Kaiser."
+
+"Hoch!" said Gustav softly, "Hoch!"
+
+"Hoch!" Roger and Ernest took up the exclamation with a laugh and a wave
+of their pipes, and Charley joined them, smiling. Von Minden looked
+deeply pleased.
+
+"Yes! Yes!" he cried. "You all are good children, properly educated,
+ready to understand Germany as the citizens of no other country. You all
+speak German? Yes! And you all know German literature and music to be
+the best. Yes, ah, these great universities and high schools, they are
+doing their work wonderfully."
+
+"If I fall down all together in getting my plant funded in this country,
+I'm going to Germany with it," said Roger abruptly.
+
+"No, you aren't!" cried Charley, quickly; "I love Germany too, but
+America comes first."
+
+Ernest rose with a sigh. "That may be, but with me, bed comes first."
+
+"You will not be cross the next time we meet, eh?" asked Crazy Dutch as
+the men made their adieux.
+
+"I'll try not to be!" replied Roger, not too enthusiastically.
+
+When they had crawled into their cots, an hour later, Roger said: "Ern,
+do you realize that we haven't a drop of crude oil for the absorber
+flow?"
+
+"Sure, I do," replied Ernest. "I've been wondering for days what we
+would do about it, but until I had a suggestion, I didn't want to bring
+the matter up."
+
+"How much money do you think the Dean can get for the laboratory
+equipment?" asked Roger.
+
+"Well, I hope at least two hundred dollars. But you know how those
+things go."
+
+"We'll have to save every cent of that for grub," mused Roger. "Dick
+told me that over on Snake Peak there is a mine that closed down four
+years ago and that their engine was an oil burner. He says there hasn't
+been a watchman there for a year. There's a chance that they have left
+some oil."
+
+"How'll you pay for it?" asked Ernest.
+
+"Pay for it!" grunted Roger. "Wait till I find it, will you? You and
+Gustav clean up after the storm to-morrow and go on with the absorber.
+I'll take a tramp up to Snake Peak."
+
+He was on his way before sun-up, the next morning, a canteen of water
+over his shoulder and a lunch in his pocket. He moved as rapidly as the
+heavy walking permitted, driven by a sense of impatience to which he
+gave no name. But subconsciously he realized that forever behind that
+beauty of the desert to which, like Von Minden, he felt he might gladly
+sell himself, loomed the menace of the desert's brutality which he was
+not equipped to fight and which he could overcome only by the
+extraordinary precision and swiftness of his work.
+
+The sun was not half an hour high when Roger reached the top of the
+mountain behind the ranch. Here he gazed eastward across the low ranges
+to a peak which dominated all the crests around it, a jagged, black and
+brown monster, its top crimson now in the morning glow.
+
+Roger stood breathing deeply, hat in hand, the sun turning his bronze
+hair red, his thin strong body erect against the morning sky. He could
+see no trail, so he determined to reach Snake Peak by a direct cross
+line. The peak would be lost to view when he reached the valley below so
+he sighted a lonely cedar on the crest of the opposite range and began
+to climb downward. It was stiff going. The prickly pear cactus and the
+ollas grew thick and the ground was covered with broken rock that made
+short work of his already well-worn shoes.
+
+When Roger reached the lonely cedar the sun was two hours high. He had
+thought to make it in twenty minutes. He dropped, trembling with
+weariness in the shadow of a little tree, drank deeply of the canteen
+and gave himself ten minutes of rest, lying flat on his back, his eyes
+on the magnificent expanse of the heavens.
+
+The ten minutes up, he crossed the narrow ridge and after a moment found
+a landmark on the opposite crest, a single black rock against a lavender
+outcropping. Again he plunged into the narrow valley below him falling,
+sliding and swearing, then scrambling and clambering with knee and elbow
+and broken nail, until after another hour's interval, he cast himself
+down on the lavender outcropping.
+
+Snake Peak was now just across the canyon and he could see clearly the
+gray white of the tailing dump that marked the mine. It was well after
+eleven when in a fury of impatience he reached his final goal.
+
+The loneliness of the untouched wilderness is not so great as that of
+the deserted habitation. Roger had not felt the desert's solitude until
+he dropped on a bench outside the cook house and began to examine the
+lost endeavor about him. There were bunk houses and office buildings,
+shaft and engine houses, aerial tramways and car tracks, all the many
+and costly appurtenances of desert mining. Sand lay thick over
+everything. The silence was complete save for the flopping of the torn
+canvas that had been fastened over a hoist.
+
+A sense of profound depression settled upon Roger. He dropped his head
+in his hands with a groan. A dream, vastly better financed than his own,
+had come to naught in the face of the distances and the difficulties of
+the desert. Was there any greater hell, he wondered than to be hounded
+by a creative desire for which there was no outlet; to have stored
+within one's brain gifts indispensable to humanity's best development,
+of which humanity would take heed only after the creator had been
+crucified by desperate handicaps and indifference.
+
+As Roger brooded, his eyes fell on the engine house and a carefully
+locked shed beside it. His face brightened. He got stiffly to his feet
+and plodded up to the window of the engine house, raised it and
+clambered within. A great engine shrouded with greasy canvas lay in the
+dusky room. It was a gas-producer type, in excellent condition. Roger
+went over it as tenderly and eagerly as a horseman goes over a
+thoroughbred racer. Then he went through the open door into the shed
+adjoining. It was full of oil drums, some of them empty but with a
+sufficient number filled to more than satisfy Roger's needs.
+
+He suddenly began to whistle cheerfully, went over the engine again and
+was still whistling when he climbed out of the window and sat down on
+the bench to eat his lunch. When he had finished eating he lighted his
+pipe and sat smoking at ease. Life was not so bad, by Jove! One could
+make the desert his if one had resourcefulness and courage. As soon as
+Dick's horses were rested after their return from Archer's Springs, they
+must start hauling oil. Of course, though, that beastly re-seeding would
+have to be done first. Roger's shoulders twitched impatiently and he
+started abruptly homeward.
+
+The sun had set, when weary beyond words, he reached the Sun Plant.
+
+"Well! Did you run across the Von Mindens?" was Ernest's greeting.
+
+"No! What's happened?"
+
+"We don't know. The old lady was so long coming out of her tent that
+toward noon I investigated, to find that she was no longer with us. I
+went up to Prebles' and Charley reported that two of the madam's burros
+were missing this morning as well as the pack ropes. We think that she
+hit out in the night and is trailing the old boy up in the ranges. He
+started off early, serene in the thought that she was down here. Charley
+didn't mention the burros to him."
+
+"Well, thank heaven for small favors!" exclaimed Roger. "She certainly
+got on my nerves."
+
+"Did you find oil?" asked Gustav.
+
+"Yes, I unearthed a fine cache of it. I wish you folks could see the
+outfit up there on Snake Peak," and he told them what he had found.
+
+"But you aren't going to annex that oil until you hear from the owners?"
+exclaimed Ernest.
+
+"You write to the owners, when we get it here, enclosing a check for the
+oil at market rates. I may have trouble, but I doubt it."
+
+They were sitting as usual before their tent smoking their good night
+pipes.
+
+"You will get into trouble, Rog," warned Ernest. "Impatience is all
+right and good driving power, but what's the use of laying yourself open
+to difficulties?"
+
+"Don't be an old maid, Ern, with your piffling German conscientiousness.
+I haven't the slightest notion of stealing. I'll pay for every drop of
+the oil--"
+
+"How vas the road?" asked Gustav.
+
+"No road at all," replied Roger. "I just plunged through across
+country."
+
+"Then, the horses, where--"
+
+"Lord, that's right!" interrupted Roger. "I noticed that there was a
+good enough road leading out of the mine to the south--toward Archer's
+Springs. But it's clear on the other side of the range and parallel to
+this trail, of course. No good to us at all. Don't tell me we've got to
+build a road to get that oil out. My lord, what a country!"
+
+"Vell," said Gustav, "if it is too hard to get it out, then you don't
+steal it, then you don't break the law, then you don't get arrested, so
+that is good."
+
+"Don't you think I won't get it out, if I have to pack it out in a
+canteen," said Roger. "High treason, arson, murder are nothing to stand
+between me and that cache of oil."
+
+"You'd better swipe two teams of horses, Rog, on one of your predatory
+expeditions," exclaimed Ernest. "Dick may need his own horses
+occasionally this spring."
+
+Roger rose and knocked the ashes out of his pipe. "I'd like to swipe
+that gas producer engine up there," he replied and went to bed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+GUSTAV
+
+
+It was late the next afternoon when Dick drove slowly along the trail.
+The three men were flat on their backs under the absorber, patching
+leaks, when they heard the squeak of the wagon and the soft tread of
+horses' hoofs in the sand. They made no attempt to greet him.
+
+The next morning, however, Roger plodded up to the ranch house to
+consult with Dick about the moving of the oil. Although it was close to
+eight o'clock, Dick was just finishing breakfast. He was cheerful and
+talkative.
+
+"Don't try to use horses," he urged. "There's old Rabbit Tail lives ten
+miles over the range. He's got a bunch of little wild burros and he does
+packing for the miners when there is any. He'll pack that oil for you."
+
+Roger brightened up, then shook his head. "I can't pay him. The
+Smithsonian folks aren't coming up to the scratch and I've got to finish
+this job without funds. I've about twenty-five dollars in hand and two
+hundred more in sight. I thought perhaps I could exchange work with you.
+Help you to re-seed and then to increase your irrigating capacity here."
+
+"Gosh, that's hard luck!" exclaimed Dick. "Did you hear that, Charley,
+about Roger's money?"
+
+Charley, who had been busy in the kitchen, came in now with a fresh cup
+of coffee for Roger in one hand and an extra chair in the other. Had
+Roger's mind been less concentrated on the problem in hand he might have
+noted the fine ease with which she swung the chair up to the table for
+him before either he or Dick could proffer help. Charley was so slender
+that one did not easily recognize the splendid strength she sometimes
+displayed.
+
+"Yes, I heard," said Charley with a look of sympathy at the restless
+fire in Roger's deep gray eyes. "I guess we're all up against it and
+will have to cultivate patience. Perhaps Rabbit Tail will trust you,
+Roger."
+
+"I call him Roger dear, and he likes it. Why don't you too, Charley?"
+interrupted Felicia, coming in from the porch where she had been
+building an adobe doll house.
+
+The abstracted look left Roger's face for a moment. "Yes, why don't you,
+Charley?" he asked with a grin that made his face look bright.
+
+Charley laughed. "If it will make you look human, like that," she
+exclaimed, "I will call you anything you wish, Roger dear!"
+
+Roger's grin faded to an expression that was curiously tense. Dick, who
+had been giving only half attention to this exchange, now said: "Rabbit
+Tail won't trust you. He's had too many dealings with the whites, poor
+devil. We'll have to break a trail to the mine and use our team. Just
+let me get that alfalfa in again, Roger, and I'll help you out."
+
+"I can pay you up in days' work as far as the use of your time and team
+go," said Roger. "What I'll always be in your debt for is the advice
+and backing you give me."
+
+Dick grunted. "I'm glad my four years' hell down here is of value to
+some one. I'll let you know when I've finished re-seeding."
+
+"I want to help on that," insisted Roger. "Our international debt is
+getting too one-sided."
+
+"Well, I'll be mighty grateful to you," sighed Dick. "I'll take your
+help on the re-seeding, but I'll be still more appreciative if you'll
+take a look at my gasoline engine to-morrow morning. I've spun that fly
+wheel until my hope of salvation's gone. And I've got to wet that field
+down."
+
+"I'll get at it now," said Roger.
+
+With Felicia trailing at his heels, Roger made his way to the shed
+beside the spring. The engine and pump were both old. Roger tinkered for
+a half hour, Felicia standing by to hand him the wrench or the oil can
+on demand.
+
+"Do you love me, Roger?" the child asked, as Roger tugged at a rusty oil
+cup screw.
+
+"I certainly do. Do you love me?"
+
+"Yes. Do you love Charley?"
+
+"Well, I'm fond of Charley. I've known her a long time, you know."
+
+"But you aren't fonder of her than you are of me?" insisted Felicia.
+
+"Certainly not! You're my best sweetheart. Now the oil can, Felicia."
+
+The little girl stared at Roger, with speculative eyes. "Charley says
+you're very interesting. What is an interesting man, Roger?"
+
+"One who knows how to start a gas engine, chicken," exclaimed Charley,
+coming into the shed. "Mercy, Felicia, are you always as personal as
+this?"
+
+"Felicia is nothing if not feminine." Roger tugged at the fly wheel and
+grinned at Charley who made a little grimace.
+
+"Roger likes it!" exclaimed Felicia. "He belongs to me, Charley. He
+likes me bettern you, he says so."
+
+"Well, it is like this, Charley--" began Roger elaborately.
+
+Charley cut him off with a wave of her hand. "Nothing can explain away
+that blow, Roger." Then she went on, soberly. "Do you suppose the old
+lemon will pull us through our first crop?"
+
+"I don't know, Charley. One never does about a gasoline engine. There's
+always more life in an old one though than one realizes. If this does
+fail you, however, I'll be in running shape in two months' time with my
+solar engine. Don't forget that."
+
+"When do you expect to make your first actual test?" asked Charley.
+
+"Well, the engine will be here almost any time now. If the Dean has done
+a good construction job, I ought to be able to make a tentative
+connection in six weeks' time."
+
+"How do you mean a good job?" asked Charley.
+
+"Well, this is the first full size fifty horse power engine that we've
+built. You see, I've had no money and we've worked from models, though I
+did build one ten horse power engine. That worries me a little, but I'm
+sure that any defects that appear will be easily remedied. Now then,
+this old mule ought to begin to kick!"
+
+Roger turned the fly wheel again and an obstinate Put! Put! Put! came
+from the engine, then a long pause, during which the audience of three
+waited anxiously, then a steady Put! Put! Put! Put! Put! that promised
+to last as long as did the gasoline.
+
+"If the old thing could just realize all that depends on its behaving
+itself!" exclaimed Charley. "Roger, let's throw in the pump, I really
+believe it's going to run!"
+
+And run it did, during the entire day, with only three stops for repair.
+Roger worked until late afternoon with Dick and the next day Gustav took
+his place. The damage done by the dust storm to the absorber was now
+completely remedied and Roger and Ernest began work on a shallow
+concrete trough on which the condenser was to be erected. By the time
+this was completed, Dick's second sowing was finished and he announced
+himself ready for road building.
+
+At first, Roger felt violently resentful at the thought of having to
+build a road. It seemed to him that after all his years of patient
+persistency, fate at the last was playing him a scurvy trick. She had
+brought his goal within sight, only to beset it with delays and
+difficulties whose very paltriness it seemed to him he could not endure.
+And a feverish little flame of impatience began to glow within him that
+was not to be extinguished for many months. However when, pick in hand,
+he actually began with the others to break the road, a sudden elation
+swept over him. After all, primitive as this work might be, it was
+empire building of the most fundamental sort. And, in spite of his
+anxieties and impatience, Roger did his share of the road building with
+right good will.
+
+They began work in the range back of the ranch, taking advantage of
+draw and canyon whenever possible, even when this demanded a long
+detour. Sometimes, the canyon bottoms were astonishingly level. At other
+times boulders and crevices would block them until they had made free
+use of dynamite. They had all sorts of minor mishaps. Dick was not an
+expert either in road grading or blasting, although he was far ahead of
+the Sun Planters in his information about both.
+
+In running the road up the side of Snake Peak he used too heavy a charge
+and brought down a land slide which it took them a day to clear. On a
+previous day he had blasted too close to the wagon and a bowlder had
+smashed the rear axle. He took extraordinarily narrow chances with the
+steepness of grade but in spite of the Sun Planters' prophecies they did
+not lose either horses or wagon down canyon or mountain side. Ernest,
+however, slipped on top of one of the finished sections and rolled two
+hundred feet before he could stop himself.
+
+When, after two weeks' steady labor, Dick pronounced the road good
+enough, the others looked at him aghast. "You'll break your wagon and
+your horses' necks, to say nothing of losing the oil!" protested Ernest.
+
+Dick only laughed. "This is a boulevard compared with some of the desert
+routes I've taken. With just a few drums of oil lashed on at a time,
+we'll make it."
+
+And make it he did, though nearly another week was consumed in the
+doing, and four drums of the oil were lost in different draws and
+canyons. After the road was finished, the transporting of the oil was
+turned over to Ernest and Dick while Roger and Gustav began the
+erecting of the condenser. Ernest was now quite reconciled to the use of
+the oil for Hackett had received a telegram from the owner in San
+Francisco that the deal was more than satisfactory to him.
+
+Roger and Gustav worked well together. The self-controlled German,
+evidently accustomed to hard grind and overwork in an office job, was
+not in the least ruffled by Roger's impatient ways. And he distinctly
+enjoyed the vim and imagination that were characteristic of Roger's work
+even when it involved the seemingly simple task of cutting and threading
+condenser pipe. For cutting and threading condenser pipe so that it
+shall be leak proof is not a simple job at all.
+
+April came to the desert with a noon temperature of a hundred degrees in
+the shade. Imperceptibly the daily breeze stiffened to a noon gale.
+There were no sand storms however for six weeks and the second alfalfa
+crop caught toe hold and grew, an amazing patch of green on the thirsty
+yellow sand.
+
+The ranch house engine misbehaved, regularly, but Roger developed what
+Charley called actual genius for tinkering and somehow the five acres
+were watered. When the morning stillness was broken by the first uneven
+Put! Put! of the engine, the Sun Planters would pause in their work and
+listen intently. If, after due patience, the Put! Put! developed into a
+steady throb, they resumed work. But if after a spasm or two, silence
+reigned again, Roger would pull his hat over his eyes and start for the
+ranch, and eventually that day, water would be given the parching
+fields. In the meantime, Dick began to prepare a second five-acre patch
+for late sowing.
+
+Early in the month Roger received a check from the Dean for one hundred
+and sixty dollars. He resolved to put all but a few dollars of this into
+a supply of food and with Charley's help, he made a list that Gustav
+filled at Hackett's. There was provision for over three months in this
+list and Roger felt sure that this period of time would see the
+completion of the plant.
+
+A curt letter had come to Roger from the Smithsonian Institution saying
+merely that his case was being investigated and that in due time a
+report and decision would reach him. With this, Roger was obliged to be
+content. He had little faith, however, that the Institution would go on
+with Austin's undertaking and he resolved to push ahead with all speed,
+taking advantage of what was left of the golden opportunity Austin had
+offered him.
+
+Late in April, the engine reached Archer's Springs. Hackett, who was
+properly equipped for heavy freighting, as poor willing Dick was not,
+undertook to haul the engine to the camp. He was entirely willing, he
+told Roger, to wait for his pay.
+
+"No great loss," he said, "if I don't get it. But I got confidence in
+you and though your idea do seem awful nutty, if anything comes of it, I
+ain't going to have it said I done something to set back our community
+here. We got a great state and a great county and I'm here to promote
+'em both."
+
+So the dismantled engine was landed, without too great difficulty, in
+the waiting engine house and as soon as the condenser was finished, the
+three men began to set up this child of Roger's heart and brain. But
+after the heavy work was done Roger would let no one attempt adjusting
+the parts but himself. He set Ernest and Gustav to digging the oil pit
+for the storing of the sun-heated oil and spent his days and part of his
+nights in the engine house.
+
+As the weeks slipped into May, many were the surmises as to what had
+become of the Von Mindens. The madam's tent stood just as she had left
+it and the burros she had left behind ranged about the desert, near the
+Preble corral, coming home each night for the good feed Dick gave them.
+
+Almost every day Felicia came to the plant. Her love for Roger and
+Roger's for her was an accepted thing now between the two households.
+Only Charley could draw the child away from the abstracted, hard-driven
+young engineer and Dick showed his innate generosity in that though he
+adored the little girl he did not harbor a grudge because Felicia so
+frankly declared her preference for Roger.
+
+After the condenser was finished Felicia took a deep interest in helping
+Roger to find leaks in the system. Roger taught her to squirt oil from
+an oil can over the different points and to interpret bubbles rising
+from the resulting oil flow as leaks. It was the quaintest sight in the
+world to see the slender little figure in blue overalls, brown head
+running over with short curls, crawling like a little lizard over the
+greasy pipes while Roger followed with pipe wrench, cold chisel and peen
+hammer. After Roger began work on the engine, Felicia became a sort of
+plumber's assistant and a clever one, at that.
+
+Sometimes Charley came late in the afternoon to take Felicia home. She
+would perch on the edge of the work bench and talk to Roger about the
+work in a voice and with an unself-conscious manner so like her small
+sister's that Roger, his restless mind on the problems of his work,
+often confused the two girls in his thoughts and answered or directed
+them indiscriminately. And Charley would chuckle as she watched him.
+
+The day in May that the men began a test for oil leaks in the absorber
+dawned with a promise of ferocious heat. Felicia appeared as usual but
+admitted that she had come over Charley's protest.
+
+"We'll have to leave off work at eleven, and not begin again until three
+as Dick suggested, if this heat keeps up," observed Ernest.
+
+"Then we'll begin work at dawn," said Roger, with a sigh. "Every minute
+counts, old man."
+
+About nine o'clock Charley came panting down the trail.
+
+"Felicia must come home at once," she cried. "There's a big sand storm
+coming. Dick is getting the stock under cover as fast as he can."
+
+The men dropped their tools hurriedly and looked up the valley. A great
+gray cloud was approaching so rapidly that as they gazed they caught the
+sound of its increasing roar. The sky, which had been sapphire of an
+unusual translucence that morning, turned all in a moment to a sullen
+red gray. There was a dry rattle of lizards and horned toads scuttling
+into the roots of grease wood and cactus.
+
+"You mustn't try to go home, Charley," exclaimed Roger.
+
+"But I must! Dick and his alfalfa! He _can't_ be alone!"
+
+But Dick was destined to spend the day in solitude. With a very Niagara
+of sound the sand storm struck the camp. Charley and Felicia ran for
+the living tent where the men shortly joined them. They closed the flaps
+and settled to a day of discomfort. The engine house would have been
+more comfortable than the tent but it was too cumbered with machinery
+now to be used as a sitting room. There was no work that could be done
+indoors. The heat was stifling, a hundred and six the thermometer over
+the washstand trunk reported. The tent rocked and bellied, bellied and
+flapped with reverberations like drum-beats. Felicia was frightened at
+first and hid her head in Charley's lap. Charley herself was
+white-lipped, less, Ernest thought, from fear of the storm than from
+that vague apprehension about Dick that never seemed to leave her.
+
+For a time Roger sat scowling with impatience, then Felicia's fear moved
+him and calling the child to him he began to tell her of the old
+swimming pool. The others listened and laughed and when Felicia begged
+for more, Gustav told a charming tale of his own Bavarian childhood. And
+he and Ernest sang together some tender folk songs which Felicia
+insisted on learning. While Gustav and Ernest undertook this pleasant
+task Charley and Roger talked.
+
+At Charley's request, Roger brought out his blue prints and explained
+the plant to her. He felt his impatience lifting as he talked.
+Explaining his work always seemed to increase his critical vision. New
+ideas came flooding, and he pulled out his note book, feeling that after
+all the day was not entirely wasted.
+
+So, in spite of the bitter taste of alkali in their mouths and its sting
+in their eyes, in spite of the breathless burning heat, the morning
+passed cheerfully. They even managed to satisfy their hunger with canned
+beef and canned brown bread. They had washed down the last of the
+unsavory lunch with the tepid, nauseously alkaline water from the olla
+when a gust of wind of tremendous proportions tore open the door flap
+and filled the room with a blinding swirl of sand. At the same moment
+there was a fearful crash from without, followed by the sound of
+breaking glass. Leaving Charley to refasten the door flap, the three men
+bolted toward the absorber.
+
+The sand cloud was so dense that they could distinguish little until in
+actual contact with the edge of the trough. Then the trouble was
+obvious. A part of the sheet iron roof had blown off the engine house,
+and lay in a great twisted heap on the absorber. Roger immediately
+crawled under the trough. The heavy metal had pierced the floor of the
+absorber and oil was pouring out in a thin but steady stream. He pawed
+his way out hurriedly.
+
+"Go shut the oil off, Ernest," he shouted, "and get pails to catch that
+oil. Why the devil did some one leave the valve open? Gustav, give me a
+hand with this mess. Why didn't we have sense enough to fasten it
+securely? If we don't move it, it may blow the length of the trough."
+
+Roger plunged hastily up among the panes of broken glass, Gustav
+following. After a moment of effort the guilty mass of sheet iron was
+shoved over onto the sand. Just at the last a particularly vicious blast
+of wind twisted it violently against Gustav's bare arm.
+
+"Du lieber Gott!" he roared. "Be careful yet!"
+
+"Now let's cover the engine," shouted Roger, giving no heed to Gustav's
+cry.
+
+"Hell mit the engine! Look!" Gustav thrust his left hand in Roger's
+face. The sleeve was dripping blood. Roger seized Gustav's arm tightly
+above the elbow. "Come over to the tent, Gustav," he said.
+
+Stumbling blindly through the sand drifts the two men reached the tent,
+where just as they crept inside the flap, Gustav fainted. Charley ran
+forward and before Roger could protest had helped lift Gustav to his
+cot.
+
+"I don't think it's so bad. He never can stand the sight of blood," said
+Roger.
+
+They stripped back the sleeve as Roger spoke. A gash several inches long
+in Gustav's upper arm had laid bare the bone. Felicia began to cry.
+
+"I've got a first aid kit, somewhere," said Roger, running to dig wildly
+through the trunks, emerging in a moment with a black box, from which he
+produced a tourniquet. They applied this quickly.
+
+"Now, is there some alcohol here?" asked Charley. "We will wash it off
+with that until we can boil some water. Felicia, you go put all the
+things back nicely in the boys' trunks, and don't pay any attention to
+us."
+
+Felicia was quickly absorbed in this altogether fascinating task, while
+Charley's skillful fingers made a temporary bandage for Gustav's arm. He
+was conscious now and offered a sick protest against Charley's
+suggestion:
+
+"Let's cut this shirt off him, Roger. It's saturated with blood. I'll
+sew it up for him later."
+
+Gustav sat up and before he could do more, Roger and Charley had
+removed his shirt. To their surprise they found he was wearing two, the
+second shirt having a particularly huge pocket, full of papers that were
+blood saturated.
+
+"Don't touch that, don't!" cried Gustav. Then catching sight of the
+blood stains, he fainted again.
+
+"Who'd think old Gustav was such a perfect lady," chuckled Roger. "Here,
+let's get him cleaned up now before he comes to, again."
+
+They pulled off the second shirt, and put on one of Roger's fresh ones.
+Then while Charley gave Gustav some water, Roger took the papers from
+the bloody pockets of the second shirt.
+
+"I'll wipe these off before the blood sets," he said. Then his eye
+caught a memorandum in German "Low pressure engine--new detail. Moore."
+Roger quickly opened the paper. It was about six inches square and was a
+copy of a detail of one of Roger's patent drawings.
+
+"I'll be damned!" muttered Roger, his face flushing darkly.
+
+He ran through other sheets. There were more drawings and some carefully
+written notes on Roger's general scheme for heat utilization. He was
+reading these very deliberately when Ernest came in.
+
+"Whew, what a country!" began Ernest, then he stopped with a gasp.
+
+Gustav, who was sitting up again, groaned weakly.
+
+"I vas a chicken-fool, eh, Miss Charley?"
+
+Roger crossed to the bed with a stride. "Look here, Schmidt," he said,
+"the sooner you get your things together and get out of here, the better
+I'll like it."
+
+Gustav stood up. His jaw dropped. Then his eye fell on the papers in
+Roger's hand.
+
+"I told you not to take off the shirt from me!" he cried.
+
+"What's the matter, Rog?" asked Ernest.
+
+"Matter? Matter? Why, this fellow is a thief. He's been stealing my
+ideas. Go on now! Get out of here!"
+
+Ernest took the blood-stained papers and glanced at them hurriedly.
+
+"Hold on! Be cool, Roger! Give Gustav a chance to explain."
+
+"Explain! Explain what? Just how he stole these? Tear those papers up,
+Ernest, and take this Dutchman out of my sight. Get him out, I tell
+you."
+
+Ernest hesitated. In all the years he had known Roger he never had seen
+him in a passion like this. Felicia flew over to Charley who stood with
+wide troubled eyes on Roger's distorted face. The child was white and
+trembling.
+
+"Ernest!" thundered Roger.
+
+With a glance at Gustav, Ernest began to tear up the papers.
+
+"Roger! Please! Bitte! I can explain," began Gustav.
+
+"Don't speak to me. I've heard vague stories of how German manufacturers
+get their ideas. This, I know: in the morning, you'll start for Archer's
+Springs, you skunk!"
+
+"Oh, Rog!" protested Ernest.
+
+"How dare you protest, Ernest?" Roger turned on his friend furiously.
+"You know what that engine means to me. You know the difficulty of
+patent protection and now this dirty hound--"
+
+"Here! That I von't take from any man," cried Gustav. "You vas acting
+like a fool, Roger."
+
+Roger lunged forward with his right fist swinging. But before Ernest
+could interfere, Charley had caught the clenched fist with both her
+hands, and was clinging to it with all her fine strength.
+
+"Oh, Roger!" she cried. "Oh, Roger! Roger!"
+
+Roger dropped his arm and stared at her for a moment. Her eyes, so like
+Felicia's, so unlike them, returned his furious gaze, unflinching.
+Suddenly, he grew pale and without a word, turned on his heel and left
+the tent.
+
+He made his way to the engine house. Ernest had covered the engine with
+a tent fly, but Roger did not even glance at the idol of his heart. He
+made his way back where the roof still offered some protection from the
+storm and sat down on an empty box. An hour, then another slipped by,
+the sand sifting heavily on Roger as he crouched motionless, his head in
+his hands.
+
+At the end of the first hour, the storm had lessened perceptibly and by
+the time the second had passed, the westering sun was flashing through
+the dusty windows. Voices outside did not rouse Roger, but when Charley
+slipped in through the sagging door, he looked up. The girl returned his
+look soberly and sat down on a pile of adobe brick near him.
+
+Roger looked at her curiously. No one, excepting his mother, had ever
+before checked one of his flights of fury, midway. Sometimes, as in the
+episode with young Hallock, he had been able to check himself, but this
+was not frequent.
+
+"Why did you do that? Why did you interfere?" he asked abruptly.
+
+"I couldn't stand by and see you make a mess of your life," replied
+Charley, "just as things seemed to be going well."
+
+"Going well!" repeated Roger sardonically. "Why, I've been sitting here
+for hours, bringing myself to the realization of the fact that my life
+is a hopeless mess. I can't trust any one. I can't get help. I can't do
+it all alone. I'm going to quit this game and get a job."
+
+"Roger," said Charley slowly, "do you want to know what's the matter
+with you, aside from your temper? You're completely work- and
+self-centered. You don't take human beings into your calculations at
+all. And you won't be a real success until you get to studying and
+liking people as well as you do machinery. If you'd given about a tenth
+of the thought to Gustav that you have, say, to stopping the leaks in
+the condenser, and then if you'd used the same patience with him to-day
+that you would to a big leak in the pipes, you'd be farther ahead on
+your job and a good deal bigger man. Roger, the more I see of you the
+more I'm convinced that your failure is a good deal less the result of
+other people's indifference than it is of your own temperamental
+peculiarities and weaknesses."
+
+Roger's face flushed again. "What business have you got talking this way
+to me?" he blurted out, angrily.
+
+"Every business in the world," returned Charley serenely. "I like you,
+and your work is very important. Anything I can do to help get it
+across, I'm going to do, regardless of your feelings. I have an idea
+that no one has really helped you since your mother died--that is, with
+your temper."
+
+The anger died out of Roger's eyes. Once again he seemed to feel that
+faint and heavenly touch upon his forehead. It did not seem to him
+possible that what this girl said of him was true. And yet there was in
+the depths of her steady brown eyes a sort of ageless wisdom that made
+him feel awkward and immature. An ageless wisdom, with the sweetness and
+purity of the child Felicia's gaze. Lovely drooping lips that were
+Felicia's, and yet were, because of their sad patience, not Felicia's,
+but belonged to a woman who reminded him of his mother.
+
+Roger continued to stare at Charley as if he never had seen her before.
+After a moment he said in a half-whisper, "By Jove, I believe you _are_
+a friend to me--with nerve enough to tell me the truth as you see it,
+which Ernest never had. And he's been my only friend. Perhaps you're
+right, perhaps part of the fault has been with myself. O Lord, Charley!
+I do need some one to tell me the truth, I certainly do."
+
+Charley put out her hand to lay it on Roger's shoulder.
+
+"Poor child!" she said, softly.
+
+In a moment, Roger was a little boy again, back at his mother's side. "O
+God!" he whispered, and throwing himself forward on his knees, buried
+his head in Charley's lap. She laid her hand on his head with the touch
+that had been his mother's. "Poor lonely child," she said again. And for
+the first time in nearly ten years, Roger burst into tears.
+
+Charley, smoothing his heavy black hair, said nothing more until Roger
+sheepishly raised his head and pulled out a very dirty handkerchief.
+
+Then she said in a very matter-of-fact voice, "By the way, as soon as
+the storm let up a little, I had Ernest take Gustav up to the ranch. I
+can take care of him up there and I didn't want Dick to be alone any
+longer."
+
+"Where's Felicia?" asked Roger.
+
+"She's asleep in the tent, I must wake her up and take her home now. The
+storm is over."
+
+"Leave her with me a little while," said Roger. "I'll bring her home."
+
+"All right, come up for supper. Ernest and Dick will help me get it."
+
+Roger nodded and Charley started along the drifted trail to the ranch
+while Roger went to the tent. Felicia slept on while he shaved and put
+the tent in order. Then he stooped over the cot and raised her.
+
+"Suppertime, little sweetheart," he said.
+
+Felicia woke with a start. "Don't be cross, Roger," she exclaimed after
+blinking at him for an instant.
+
+"I couldn't be cross with you, Felicia," Roger lifted her in his arms
+and held her against his heart.
+
+"Never, Roger?"
+
+"Never, Felicia. You must never be afraid of me, even when I scold other
+people. Because I love you very much, Felicia."
+
+The child threw her arms around Roger's neck and they both looked off to
+the ranch house, where the windows glowed red in the sunset. There was
+something infinitely soothing to Roger in Felicia's embrace and he held
+her until she wriggled impatiently and announced that she was hungry.
+
+"We'll head for supper," he said, and putting her down he took her hand
+and they started through the sand for the ranch and Charley. Gustav was
+waiting for them at the edge of the corral.
+
+"Felicia, you run on up to the house and tell Charley I'll be there in a
+minute," said Roger.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+DEATH IN THE DESERT
+
+
+"Don't scold Gustav," cried Felicia.
+
+"I won't," replied Roger, grimly, and the child sped up the path to the
+porch.
+
+"Roger! I did not mean nodings to hurt you! Vy, you ver like my own son.
+I vas having a plan to help you. Please, Roger, listen--Bitte sehr!"
+
+Roger was a little pale and his lips were stiff but he had himself well
+in hand.
+
+"Look here, Gustav, you know you sneaked on me, don't you?"
+
+"Yes, but it vas to help you. I vas an inventor, Roger. I haf many
+ideas."
+
+"Oh! That was it, was it?" He looked at Gustav's sweaty face, usually so
+placid, now distorted with pain and anxiety. "Well, all right, old man!
+I guess I was a bit hasty. But I want you to give me your word of honor
+to take no more notes and under no circumstances to give any one any
+information about my work."
+
+Gustav's face cleared as if by magic. He shook Roger's proffered hand
+heartily. "I promise. Absolute, I promise. Thank you; thank you much,
+Roger."
+
+"Right-o--come on now, let's go to supper," and the two swung up the
+trail, and into the adobe, where, after a glance at their faces, their
+waiting friends greeted them hilariously.
+
+"The alfalfa has come through, Roger," shouted Dick. "I guess the worst
+is over for me, all right. I'll take an order right now for five tons of
+alfalfa from you, Charley."
+
+"Better let Felicia order," replied Charley. "I understand that Mr. von
+Minden is going to find a burro for her, the exact twin of Peter."
+
+"And he's going to learn to do everything Peter does," added Felicia,
+"and Ernest says I must name him Re-peater. Please let's have supper."
+
+Gustav made a poor fist at eating. His arm gave him a great deal of pain
+and it was finally decided that Ernest should take the patient team and
+that night drive Gustav to the doctor. They made the start immediately
+after supper and did not return until the third day following. Gustav
+was one-armed for some time but managed to make himself indispensable,
+nevertheless.
+
+As summer advanced, a new working schedule that precluded labor in the
+middle of the day was inaugurated. The more intense the heat grew, the
+more intense, it seemed to Roger, grew the weird beauty of the desert.
+The midnight stars seemed hardly to have blossomed before dawn turned
+the desert world to a delicate transparent yellow, deepening at the
+zenith to blue and on the desert floor to orange. As the sun rose, the
+yellow changed suddenly to scarlet and for a few moments earth and sky
+quivered in a lambent red fire. When the sun had shot clear of the
+mountains, details of landscape and contrasts of color were accented.
+Clear black of peaks, crimson of canyons, purple of rifts in the
+ranges, bright moss green of cactus dots on the yellow desert floor. And
+always to the west that far melting loveliness of blue and gold and
+black that was the River Range. And always the quivering, parching air
+that burned against the body like a furnace blast.
+
+Ernest felt the heat more than Roger did and lost weight. But though he
+complained a great deal he stuck to his work manfully.
+
+After Ernest and Gustav had returned from Archer's Springs and the
+ravages caused by the desert storm had been repaired, Roger started on a
+hunt into the ranges for more window glass. He dared spend his money for
+nothing but food.
+
+He outfitted for a three day trip, carrying a blanket, the two-gallon
+canteen, beans, canned pears and a batch of baking powder biscuits. Dick
+gave him minute directions as to the location of different mines and of
+springs, and Roger started off confidently.
+
+There was very little glass left in the Goodloe mines where Roger had
+located the oil. But Dick knew of mines some ten miles north along the
+backbone of the ranges and these Roger had as an objective when he left
+the camp in the yellow dawn.
+
+He reached the Goodloe district by mid-morning. There was no trail to
+the north but he jogged along all the afternoon by compass and sun,
+keeping to the top of the ridge whenever possible. During all this time
+he saw no sign of human habitation. Indeed the only living beings he
+beheld that day were two buzzards circling meditatively over a distant
+peak and a lonely coyote skulking against the sky on a neighboring
+ridge. By six o'clock he was tired beyond expression and he had lost
+all idea of the number of miles he had covered, so tortuous had been the
+seemingly direct line of the ridge.
+
+Roger was in no wise discomfitted or discouraged, however. He made his
+camp in a little sandy draw on the side of the ridge which was full of
+stunted cedars. He cut up one cedar for his fire and drew on the others
+for sufficient twigs to cushion his blanket bed, then in spite of the
+heat he slept the sleep that belongs to the open.
+
+He was on his way at daylight, whistling cheerfully into the vast
+distances that unrolled about him. Mid-morning came, and then noon. Half
+the time allotted for the trip had gone, and still there was no sign of
+deserted mines.
+
+Roger smoked a long pipe after his lunch, chewing impatiently on his
+pipestem and swearing under his breath from time to time. He was tempted
+violently to keep on to the north, but remembering Dick's repeated
+warnings as to the danger of running out of water he finally won his own
+consent to turning back. He determined, however, to make the return trip
+on the neighboring range, to the east.
+
+He hoisted his pack and started heavily down into the valley that
+separated him from the next range. It was a good two miles of tooth and
+nail climbing and the canyon was filled with afternoon shadows when
+Roger reached the foot-wall of the east range. The heat was almost
+intolerable.
+
+As he paused here, far above his head a donkey brayed. Roger started
+quickly upward and for an hour was led by the brayings that grew louder
+as he neared the top. As he crawled around the last brown rock heap
+that crowned the ridge, he almost stepped on a man beside whom stood a
+little gray burro.
+
+"Peter!" said Roger. Then, "I say, Von Minden!"
+
+He stooped over the quiet form at his feet. The little German was lying
+on his face, his iron-gray head resting on his arm. His blue overalls
+and faded red sweater were covered with a light sifting of dust. His
+pack lay beside him, unopened.
+
+Roger turned him over, and as he did so Peter backed off. Von Minden was
+dead. He had been dead a long time Roger thought, as shuddering, he
+looked down on the bearded, distorted face. Roger took off his own pack
+and went over the body carefully. There was no sign whatever of any
+violence. He made a careful survey of the immediate surroundings, but
+there was no trace of Mrs. von Minden to be found.
+
+Peter watched Roger's every move, moving his long ears back and forth
+enquiringly.
+
+There was nothing whatever in Von Minden's pockets, except a jack knife.
+There was neither food in his pack nor water in his canteen. The one
+sack contained only a few ore samples. The dispatch box was not to be
+found.
+
+It was impossible to dig a grave on that peak of solid rock. Moreover,
+Roger had an idea that the authorities--if there were authorities in the
+desert world--ought to find the body as he had found it. He cut down
+several of the stunted cedars and piled them over the pathetic heap,
+under the blanket. On these he heaped stones, as heavy as he could lift
+until he felt sure that neither coyote, nor yet the buzzards that
+circled meditatively above could disturb the mound.
+
+The sun was setting when he had finished.
+
+"There Peter," said he, "you did your bit, keeping the beasts away. And
+now I've done mine, so we'll move on."
+
+Roger stood for a moment looking from Peter to the mound, then at the
+wide sweep of the ranges about. The whole world was spread before him in
+utter silence; range beyond range, desert beyond desert into a violet
+distance so great that the fancy staggered in contemplating it. For the
+first time a feeling of utter desolation swept over Roger.
+
+What a death! What a burial! Moved by the impulse that is the heritage
+of the ages, Roger took off his hat and bowed his head.
+
+"O God!" he said softly. "Receive this man's soul and give him peace.
+Amen!"
+
+Then he turned south along the range. He had gone a hundred yards when
+he remembered Peter and turned back. The little fellow was standing,
+head drooping, ears flopping beside the grave. Roger whistled but Peter
+gave no heed, and finally Roger was compelled to go back, tie the lead
+rope to Peter's bridle and fairly pull him along the trail.
+
+Roger did not pause until he had put a peak between himself and that
+lonely grave. Then, when the moon was sailing high, he made camp by a
+great bowlder. He turned Peter loose, a little fearfully at first, but
+the wise little burro made no attempt to turn back. When Roger was
+seated cross-legged by the fire eating bacon and beans, Peter dropped
+his nose over Roger's shoulder with a sigh.
+
+"Hungry, old Peter?" asked Roger. "I haven't got much, but by Jove, you
+can have half of that," and he scooped half of the contents of his plate
+on a nearby stone. Peter ate it gravely, after which Roger poured a cup
+of his precious water into the frying pan for the little donkey's
+benefit. Then while Peter seemed to doze with his nose dropped almost to
+the ground, Roger sat long in the hot night, smoking and wrapped in
+thought.
+
+Since the death of his father, Roger had had no contact with the Grim
+Reaper, and the tragic discovery of the afternoon had shaken him. Yet as
+he sat looking out over the impenetrable calm and mystery of the ranges
+that lifted their noble peaks to the sailing moon, it seemed to him that
+death in the desert was a clean and normal part of life. If his Sun
+Plant were finished, if the best of him, his dreams, were made permanent
+in concrete and steel, what more happy ending could he ask than to lie
+at last asleep on a desert peak: these peaks still unsmirched by the
+hand of man; still fresh from the hand of God.
+
+It was with this thought that Roger finally fell asleep while the moon
+sank behind the far horizon, the night wind rose and Peter searched for
+herbage in the rock crevices.
+
+The next day was a long one. Roger found no trace of a trail and by
+mid-afternoon, the last of the water was gone. When this fact was
+established, the heat seemed worse and Dick's many stories of men who
+had thirsted to death in the ranges began to haunt Roger. He noticed
+that Peter's little legs were hourly more unsteady and his heart ached
+for the little chap. He ate sparingly that evening, giving Peter the
+larger share. The food was like dry sawdust in his parched mouth. He
+slept uneasily, waking from dreams of running water to toss for an hour
+before sleep came again.
+
+With the first streak of dawn he was up and on. Going was slow, for now
+the real torture of desert thirst was on him and he knew that unless he
+found water that day, buzzards would be circling over him on the morrow.
+By ten o'clock his tongue was swelling and he seemed to have ceased to
+sweat, and Peter leaned panting against the rocks in the shade of which
+Roger paused to rest. After a half hour, Roger rose to his feet. The
+morning had been breathless but as he rose, a little hot gust of air
+blew up from the canyon below.
+
+Instantly Peter raised his head and sniffed. The gust increased to a
+breeze. With ears lapped forward the burro tottered to the canyon edge
+and began feebly to pick his way downward.
+
+Roger watched him for a moment. Then, "I don't know what you've
+discovered, old man," he said thickly, "but what's good enough for you,
+is good enough for me," and he followed weakly after him.
+
+There was considerable rolling and scrambling done by both Peter and
+Roger before they reached bottom. When Roger finally scrambled panting
+to his feet, face burning, ears ringing, he found that they were in a
+narrow valley thick grown with scrub oak. Peter had rolled the last ten
+feet, and when he brought up against a barrel cactus, he could not rise
+until Roger had pottered over and pulled weakly on his bridle. Then he
+walked shakily across the canyon, Roger close behind him. A little pool
+reflecting the sky and the fern-like leaves of the mesquite that
+bordered it lay at the base of the great brown rock.
+
+Roger, as he drank, had vague recollections of warnings he had read
+about the dangers of over-drinking after water famine. But he was
+developing an implicit faith in Peter's wisdom and Peter was drinking
+till his thin ribs swelled. When he had entirely slaked his thirst,
+Roger rested for a bit, then looked about him. A trail led along the
+canyon from the spring, westward. Roger filled the canteen, then he and
+Peter took the trail. It led perhaps a quarter of a mile to a deserted
+mine, a mine of vast workings and huge ramshackle sheds that were
+innocent of either windows or doors. The engine house had been nailed
+up, but Roger's strength and spirits had been much revived by the water.
+He rested for awhile, then wrenched off some boards and went in, Peter
+struggling to follow, then giving the idea up and standing at rest in
+the shade. A complete ore separator plant was installed within. At the
+fore end of the shed was a gas producer engine in perfect condition as
+far as Roger could tell, except for the sand that had sifted over it. It
+was of a type with which he was not familiar and he spent a half hour in
+thoughtfully examining it, and making notes on a scrap of paper
+concerning it. He was absorbed in a new idea when he closed up the shed
+and whistled to Peter who had found some old alfalfa hay in a manger
+under a shed and was just finishing it off.
+
+There was a trail still leading westward out of the camp, and Roger,
+with a blind faith that his luck had turned, followed it to the opposite
+canyon wall, and here, where it evidently once had been a fair mountain
+road, followed it on up to the top of the range. It was late afternoon
+when this was accomplished. The ridge where Roger now found himself was
+high and barren. At first it seemed to him that the trail ended here
+where the winds had swept unhampered by man so long. But Peter was
+untroubled. He crossed the ridge nimbly, picked up a range trail on the
+opposite side and started to descend.
+
+His new master followed with a chuckle that increased to a laugh as he
+descried far to the north on the west range, the faint outlines of
+buildings, with the trail faintly marked along valley and mountainside
+toward it. Just at dusk they reached it. It was the Goodloe mine! In
+spite of utter fatigue and hunger, Roger would not stop now. In high
+spirits he took the familiar road toward home.
+
+It was nine o'clock when he passed the Preble ranch house, silent and
+lightless, but with the horses munching in the corral. He stopped to
+pick up a measure of oats for Peter, then he began the last lap of his
+journey. There was a bright fire glowing at the Sun Plant. As he neared
+it, he gave a shout. There was an answering shout and Ernest and Gustav
+came rushing through the desert to meet him.
+
+They had been consumed with anxiety about him. Dick had said that they
+must start on the hunt for him at dawn. Ernest had lighted the fire with
+the hope that it might help him.
+
+Gustav took Roger's pack and Ernest threw a helping arm about him. They
+led him straight to the cook tent where they had kept the coffee pot
+warm, and seated him at the table where a place was set for him. Their
+joy and relief almost unmanned Roger.
+
+"My dear chaps," he insisted, "I was in no such great danger!"
+
+"In no danger! You should have heard what Dick and Charley said," cried
+Ernest.
+
+"Well, it's all right now," said Roger. "I've wasted a lot of time but
+I've located some rich loot, believe me."
+
+"Where'd you pick up the burro?" asked Ernest. "He looks just like
+Peter."
+
+"It is Peter," replied Roger. "Gustav, give him those oats in my coffee
+pot and let me eat, then I'll tell you all about it."
+
+It was scarcely dawn and Roger was still fast asleep, when Ernest met
+Dick at the corral with the news of Roger's safe return and of the
+tragedy of poor Crazy Dutch. Dick was much upset at hearing of Von
+Minden's death.
+
+"He was a poor old loon, but mighty good-hearted," he said, "and I swear
+I don't know what we'd have done sometimes without him--especially
+Charley. She's going to be all broken up over this. I'll tell her, then
+I'll come down and talk to Roger."
+
+"Roger thought we ought to notify the folks at Archer's Springs right
+away," said Ernest.
+
+"Shucks! That's not necessary. When some of us go in we can notify the
+sheriff. Dutch had a bum heart and had run out of food and water. Not a
+bad death, poor old chap."
+
+When Dick came down to the camp, and they all had talked a little sadly
+of Von Minden's lonely death, Ernest asked suddenly:
+
+"Did you find any window glass, Rog?"
+
+Roger gave him a blank look. "By Jove, no! I was so excited over Von
+Minden and that new type engine and a hunch I got, that I forgot all
+about it. Well, I'll just have to start out again."
+
+"By the way," Ernest went on, "I went into town while you were gone to
+get the mail. There was just one letter. It was from Elsa. She's on her
+way down here. She's due on Sunday."
+
+Roger looked from Dick to Ernest. "What the devil shall we do with her?"
+
+"Well, she'll have to outfit and grubstake herself. She knows that, and
+she knows we're broke. I think this is a cooked up job of hers and
+mother's just to help us out. And gee!--but I'll be glad to see old
+Elschen!"
+
+"So'll I, old man. But Ernest, this is no place nor circumstances for an
+Old Home week. I'm sweating to finish this plant against almost
+impossible odds."
+
+"Don't I know it? Have I failed you any?"
+
+"You have been absolutely O. K. and we'll try to give Elsa a good time."
+
+"It will be a perfect godsend to Charley," said Dick. "She almost cried
+when Gustav told us."
+
+"Then that's settled," said Ernest with a sigh.
+
+"Just as soon as it can be managed, we'll have to give Von Minden a
+decent burial, Roger," said Dick. "I won't be using the horses to-morrow
+and you'll be in good trim by then, won't you, Rog?"
+
+"Yes," replied Roger, and if he smothered a sigh for another day lost
+from his work, no one noticed it.
+
+Roger spent the remainder of the day in the engine house, going over his
+engine, shaking his head, muttering to himself like an old man, finally
+straightening his shoulders stubbornly and whistling through his teeth.
+
+After an early supper, the three went up to the ranch. Felicia, who was
+wiping the dishes for Charley, hurled herself at Roger, dishcloth and
+all.
+
+"Oh!" she shrieked. "You must never leave me like this again, Roger. I
+worried so about you that my stomach ached all the time you were gone."
+
+Charley laughed with the rest, but quickly sobered. "I'm so glad you
+were able to take care of poor Uncle Otto," she said. "I shall miss him
+so. None of you knew him as I did." There was a pause, then Charley went
+on, "Just think of Ernest's sister coming! I remember her vaguely. She's
+like you, isn't she, Ernest?"
+
+"Not a bit," said Roger. "She's full of pep and very good looking."
+
+"Well, what do you know about that?" asked Ernest, looking at Roger
+wonderingly.
+
+"She's going to stay with us, isn't she? Please say yes," cried Charley.
+
+"Oh, no, don't have her here. She wouldn't like to be here all the
+time," begged Felicia. Then she blushed and retreated behind Roger's
+chair. She refused half tearfully to explain her statement when Dick
+urged her, at first jokingly, then in a commanding manner.
+
+"Tell me, Felicia, don't you like it here?" drawing her to his side.
+
+"Oh, let her alone, Dicky," begged Charley. "Why insist on a child's
+reason for anything?"
+
+"But I want to know! Tell me, Felicia, don't you like it here?"
+
+"Yes," said Felicia, with trembling lips, "I like it here, 'cept when
+you get sick and are so awful cross with me and Charley and make Charley
+cry. I wouldn't want Elsa to see you that way."
+
+Dick turned purple. "Oh, well," cut in Roger, quickly, "Elsa'll have
+three men's crossness to put up with down at our camp, Felicia. Just
+think of that! And if it should happen that we'd all get cross at once,
+probably we'd blow the roof of the engine house off again."
+
+"That's why we want Elsa to stay with us," said Ernest. "You see when
+men are cross, the only thing that cures them is having a nice girl
+around to make them ashamed of themselves."
+
+"Sometimes already, if it gets too much vhen I make myself mad," added
+Gustav, "maybe ve get a squaw to come by our camp to vip us bad boys for
+Fraeulein Elsa, eh?"
+
+"If all the men in the world get cross, like you, Dicky," asked Felicia,
+wonderingly, "why do ladies marry them?"
+
+"They don't, chicken! No one's married me."
+
+"Maybe Elsa will. Unless Gustav gets her," suggested Felicia.
+
+"Maybe Roger, he gets her, eh?" asked Gustav.
+
+"Oh, no!" in sudden alarm, crossing over to Roger's knee to look up into
+his face with a depth of love in her brown eyes that tightened his
+throat as he lifted her into his lap. "Roger's going to marry me. Only
+Roger, if ever you're as cross to me as you were to Gustav, I shall just
+walk out of the house and never, never come back."
+
+It was Roger's turn to blush and he did so thoroughly, while Dick burst
+into a roar of laughter in which the other men joined. Under its cover,
+Charley hustled Felicia off to bed.
+
+At dawn the next day Roger and Dick started on their melancholy errand.
+The climbing was in many instances too precipitous for the horses and
+they made many detours. It was late in the afternoon, on a detour across
+a wide canyon that they came upon the end of the Von Minden drama. The
+canyon was really a part of the desert floor and was deep with sand.
+Roger it was, who first noted footprints.
+
+"Look, Dick!" he called. "An Indian must have been here! Look at the
+naked footprints!"
+
+Dick rode up beside him. "I wonder!" he said.
+
+Both men glanced about them. "Yonder are some clothes, let's pick up
+this trail," suggested Dick.
+
+"By Jove, it's Mrs. von Minden's pink wrapper!" cried Roger, "and over
+there are her shoes."
+
+"Rog, we've got to brace ourselves," Dick pulled up his horse. "When
+folks thirst to death in the desert, they often strip off their clothes
+and run around in a big circle."
+
+Roger bit his dry lips. "All right, Dick, come on," he muttered.
+
+The foot marks swung in a wide circle. It was a mile farther on that
+they found the madam, stark naked, her gaunt face turned to the sky. She
+too had been dead for many days.
+
+"I don't see why the buzzards didn't get her. Her burro wasn't Peter, he
+deserted her," murmured Dick. "Look, Rog, under her head."
+
+It was the dispatch box, lightly sifted over with sand as was the body.
+
+"What do you suppose happened?" asked Roger.
+
+"She obviously thirsted to death. But she got the box first. Do you
+suppose she killed him, to get it?"
+
+"Perhaps she found him dead and took it," suggested Roger.
+
+"Well, we'll never know. Let's gather up what we can of her clothes and
+bury her. Poor old devil. Her story's ended," said Dick.
+
+They dug Clarissa von Minden's grave and put her in it, then Dick pulled
+a prayer book from his pocket.
+
+"Charley made me bring it," he explained. "I'm glad of it, now. Somehow
+it seems worse to chuck a woman away without a minister to help, than it
+does a man. I guess she did some tall suffering, from first to last, eh
+Rog?"
+
+Roger nodded. Dick read the burial service reverently and they finished
+this gruesome job. Roger tied the little black metal box to his saddle
+and they started on their way. They made camp in the mountains that
+evening, not far from the peak that sheltered Von Minden. They had ample
+firewood for they camped near a clump of cedars and they went hastily
+through the contents of the dispatch box, by the light of the flames.
+
+There was no marriage certificate. The entire box was filled with notes
+in German in a microscopic hand. Roger read excerpts of it. Von Minden
+seemed to have made an exhaustive study of the resources of this section
+of the desert and of the north of Mexico.
+
+"He had some sort of a huge irrigation scheme in his head," Roger said.
+"He's got some letters copied in here and a lot of stuff. We ought to
+turn this over to a German consul, somewhere and let him notify the
+proper relations."
+
+"That a good idea," agreed Dick. "He used to tell Charley and me
+strange things when he was off his head. Once he said he was charting
+this region for the Kaiser. The poor old lunatic."
+
+"His ideas were not so crazy as they might be," protested Roger. "I've
+some dreams myself for this country, you know."
+
+"What are they, Rog?" asked Dick. "I know in only the vaguest way."
+
+"If I can irrigate your twenty-five acres with my little plant, don't
+you see that I have proven that I am able to tap unlimited cheap power.
+The possibilities of this country with cheap power are staggering. I
+don't blame Von Minden for calling it a kingdom. That's just what it
+might be, with the mountains of the west range and the Rockies to the
+east forming natural boundaries. It seems as if a kingdom really could
+be self-supporting in here. If only I can harness the sun to a cheap
+apparatus that any one can buy and operate! Why all these ranges would
+be studded with going mines. Every valley would be green with growing
+crops. I hardly dare let my imagination go on it. Our little old U. S.
+has got a wonderful unborn commonwealth down here."
+
+"Well, your dreaming is a lot more practical than his, anyhow," said
+Dick. "More power to your elbow, old man, I say."
+
+"I won't forget what you people have done for me!" Roger returned the
+papers to the dispatch box.
+
+They found the crude grave intact, the next morning. They were able with
+the aid of the pick to make a shallow trough in the rock. They built
+this up with stone and the last chapter of the Von Minden story was
+ended. They reached home at dusk.
+
+Ernest and Roger sat before the tent alone that night while Gustav wrote
+a letter in the cook house. The heat did not seem to have lessened much
+with the going down of the sun. The stars low-hung over the engine house
+seemed to glow with fire and the darkness was like a hot blanket over
+the sand. Ernest was unusually silent. He sat with his pipe unlighted,
+staring at the stars so long that Roger said, at last:
+
+"Homesick, Ern?"
+
+Ernest grunted. "What did you say? Eh--no--I don't think so. Say, Roger,
+old man, she's refused me."
+
+"She? Who? What are you talking about, Ernest?"
+
+"About Charley. Who else would it be?"
+
+Roger nearly fell off the box on which he was sitting. "Proposed to
+Charley? Why, you weren't in love with her, were you, Ernest?"
+
+"You great nut! Why else should I propose to her? Just because you don't
+admire her is no reason that other men are wooden headed."
+
+"I never said I didn't admire her," exclaimed Roger.
+
+"You did. You said you didn't care for big women."
+
+"Did I? Well, I guess I don't. But I never think of her as a woman.
+She's just like a fine young fellow that you want for a friend."
+
+Ernest grunted. "I wouldn't have a temperament like yours for real
+money, Roger."
+
+"I don't see that yours is giving you much joy right now, old chap."
+
+"Never you mind," returned Ernest. "I'd rather suffer as I am suffering
+than never have loved her."
+
+Roger, who had helped his friend to recover from a good many
+heart-breaks patted him on the shoulder. "Awfully sorry, old Ern."
+
+"I know what you're thinking," said Ernest, "but this one is different,
+just as she's different. I'll never get over this. You realize that
+she's different, don't you, you wooden image?"
+
+Roger answered thoughtfully. "Yes, Charley is different. I really like
+her very much. But she's like a younger brother, so clean-cut and direct
+and--" His voice trailed away to nothing as suddenly he thought of
+Charley's hand on his head, that memorable afternoon in the engine
+house. Indeed, he wondered if the thought of that touch would ever leave
+him. He believed that it would become as much a part of his memory as
+his mother's gentle touch.
+
+Finally, Ernest said, "If it weren't for you and the help I can give
+you, I'd go home."
+
+"You _are_ hard hit, old man! Maybe it'll be easier when Elsa comes."
+
+"Yes, I think it will," replied Ernest. "I thought I'd go in to-morrow
+and hang around Archer's till she gets here. You'll be tinkering on the
+engine and won't miss me. Suppose we can fix up Mrs. von Minden's tent
+for her, instead of her buying a new one."
+
+"Good idea! But, by Jove, the thought of going to Archer's Springs for
+mental distraction is either funny or pathetic! I don't know which. I
+hope I can have a test of the plant on Monday."
+
+"So do I," replied Ernest. "Guess I'll go to bed. Gustav's blown out his
+bug."
+
+"I'm with you," agreed Roger, and was asleep long before Ernest ceased
+to toss in the hot silence of the tent.
+
+It was late Sunday afternoon when dust on the south trail announced the
+coming of Elsa and Ernest. Gustav and Roger had given the entire morning
+to putting the camp in order. Gustav had achieved his _chef-d'oeuvre_
+in a huge "welcome" made of yucca stalks outlined over the living tent
+door. Roger had given Peter to Felicia and about two o'clock she
+appeared, riding the little burro whose face she explained she had
+washed with soap and water for the occasion. Charley and Dick followed
+not long after.
+
+For the first time Roger realized that Charley's isolation had meant
+more to her than she allowed any of them to suspect. She nearly wept as
+she begged that Elsa be permitted to stay with them and went over the
+living tent and the cook tent with a critical eye. When the cloud of
+dust appeared upon the horizon Roger saw her whiten under her tan.
+
+"Suppose she doesn't like me," she exclaimed suddenly to the three men.
+"Suppose she finds me rough and stupid after all these years of
+hardship. Oh, what would I do! The first woman after so long!"
+
+"Well," Dick's voice was angry, "if she doesn't like you she's a fool,
+that's all."
+
+Tears had sprung to Gustav's eyes. "She vill love you on sight," he said
+slowly.
+
+"You wait!" cried Roger. "You two girls were made to be friends."
+
+Charley gave a nervous glance at her khaki clothing. The men did not
+know that the day before she had routed out a white frock, the remnant
+of her college days and after much debate with herself, had rejected it.
+It was of a bygone date and fashion. It had been worn by a
+happy-go-lucky college girl, who had little in common with the mature,
+sunburned, wind-blown woman who looked back at Charley from the mirror.
+
+The horses plodded slowly through the sand. Dick pulled up before the
+living tent.
+
+"She's come! Here she is!" shouted Ernest, as if the watching group in
+the burning western sun could doubt its eyes. Roger lifted Elsa down
+from the wheel.
+
+"Never knew I could be so glad to see you, Elsa," he said. "And you're
+prettier than ever even if your nose is peeling. Look! Here's Charley
+Preble and Felicia and Dick and Gustav."
+
+Elsa, freshly burned, but with her silk traveling suit smart in spite of
+the dust, shook hands all round.
+
+She turned back from Gustav to Charley again, and looked at her with
+frank interest. "You know, Ernest never told me what to wear, so I
+didn't bring a bit of khaki. Wasn't I foolish? It looks just right down
+here."
+
+"I've some extra skirts you can wear till you can send back for some,"
+said Charley. "Let's go into the living tent out of this heat while the
+boys unload."
+
+They went alone, for Felicia, after standing in an agony of indecision
+for a moment or two, decided in favor of the tantalizing packages in the
+wagon box. The girls were not in the tent long. When they came out, they
+had their arms about each other.
+
+"Elsa's going up to the house with me and get a bath and change her
+clothes. We'll be down for supper," said Charley.
+
+There was a flush of happiness on her face that made Dick say, "I hope
+you stay forever, Elsa! Come along! I'll take the team up and your
+trunk. What do you want done with the cot and things, Ernest?"
+
+"Never mind those," said Elsa, serenely. "I'm going to stay with
+Charley."
+
+The men looked at each other speechlessly. As the wagon rattled off,
+Roger said to Ernest:
+
+"They were in that tent less than five minutes. What do you suppose
+happened?"
+
+Ernest shook his head. "I've given up trying to understand women. Look
+at that cot and the lumber--a whole darned outfit, and I nearly killed
+the horses getting the mess up in one load because Elsa insisted she'd
+have to have it to-night. Women!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+DICK'S SICKNESS
+
+
+All day Monday, Roger and his two helpers sweated to prepare for the
+plant's first trial. Roger would let no one touch the engine but
+himself, but Ernest and Gustav puttered with the condenser and the pump
+and at dawn started the oil circulating through the absorber. All day
+long the burning desert sun poured its heat through the glass into the
+oil which caught and imprisoned it for Roger's purpose, until the
+storage pit was full. Roger had set the time of trial as nine o'clock in
+the evening in order to prove the night as well as the day power of his
+plant. The Prebles appeared shortly before the hour.
+
+"Everything O. K.?" asked Dick, with a creditable effort at being
+off-hand.
+
+"One never knows till afterward," replied Roger. "Come into the engine
+house. No room for you, Peter, old man."
+
+There were three "bugs" lighted over the engine. Ernest and Gustav were
+both smoking violently. Dick was chewing gum. Elsa and Charley said
+nothing but watched every movement on the part of the men.
+
+"Come here, Felicia," said Roger, biting at his cold pipe. "You see this
+little valve? All right. Now, as I've told you many times, I hope that
+when you turn this, that the sun which shone to-day will turn the big
+fly wheel round. When I give the wheel a twist, you turn the valve clear
+over."
+
+"Yes, Roger," replied Felicia, her little fingers quivering as she
+grasped the valve.
+
+"Now!" exclaimed Roger, tugging at the fly-wheel.
+
+There was a moment's breathless silence. Then very slowly and sedately,
+the fly wheel began to revolve, gathered speed and shortly was chugging
+away steadily. A little cheer rose from Roger's audience. He grinned.
+
+"Now Ern, let's throw in the pump." A belt, connecting the engine with
+the pump outside, was quickly slipped in place. The engine slowed down.
+But a moment later the sound of water pouring over the condenser pipes
+was heard above the chugging of the engine and pump.
+
+Gustav and Ernest fell on each other's necks. "It works!" squealed
+Felicia. "It works and I helped make it, I did." Peter, his head as far
+in at one of the windows as a very short neck would carry it, brayed.
+Roger watched the pressure gauge and scratched his head thoughtfully.
+
+Charley and Felicia slipped outside to inspect the pump, and Charley
+called: "Does anybody smell anything?" At the same moment Felicia
+shrieked.
+
+"Oh! oh, Roger! There's a terrible leak out here!"
+
+Roger shut off the engine and followed by the others, he darted to the
+condenser. The odor of sulphur dioxide filled the night.
+
+"By Jove, it's big enough to lose my charge!" groaned Roger. "Bring
+bugs, everybody."
+
+Felicia, "bug" and oil can in hand, was running over the pipes at the
+top before the others had arrived.
+
+"Here it is, Roger! Oh, an awful one. There!"
+
+The leak was in a pipe joint at the top of the stack. The odor grew
+almost unbearable. For half an hour the men wrestled with it, turn
+about, and at last succeeded in stopping it. Other minor leaks occurred
+but all were located and controlled. Finally Roger announced all safe
+and lighted his pipe. In the flash of the match, his face showed tense
+and dripping with sweat, his eyes bloodshot from the gas fumes.
+
+"Darn the leaks!" exclaimed Elsa.
+
+"Well, it's what we'll have to expect as long as I can't afford to buy
+bent pipe or an acetylene welding outfit," said Roger. "But after all,
+the leaks are the least of my troubles."
+
+"What is troubling you?" asked Charley quickly.
+
+"There isn't as much power there as my calculations had indicated there
+would be."
+
+"I told you that you were running pretty close on your absorption area,"
+exclaimed Ernest. "You see your temperature readings have been lower
+right along down here than that table we had up in the laboratory for
+this region."
+
+"But I don't want to increase the absorption area in order to get more
+power. It's a clumsy solution. It makes the plant too large and too high
+priced. The solution to the problem lies in making that engine more
+efficient." Roger sighed.
+
+"Now don't change your engine design, Roger!" cried Ernest. "That is a
+peach and has been for years."
+
+"Yes, I know," replied Roger. "But there's a possibility that you and
+the Dean and I have been too complacent about that engine."
+
+"Gee, but you're a regular pessimist, Rog!" exclaimed Dick.
+
+"No, I'm not. No inventor is. I'm just open minded. And don't think I'm
+blue, either. If I weren't so heckled and worried by the time and money
+element I'd be having the time of my life. Wouldn't I, Felicia, honey?"
+
+There was no answer. Felicia, with the oil can hugged tight against her
+middy, was curled up on the work bench, fast asleep.
+
+"Well, it seems to me I'd better take my family home," said Dick.
+"Where's the rest of my harem? Elsa! Charley! Come with papa."
+
+By eleven o'clock the camp was quiet. Roger prowled about the condenser
+a bit, covered the engine with canvas and then went to bed. It had been
+a hard day and none of the three men were wakened by the smell of
+sulphur dioxide that began to hang over the camp at midnight. The dawn
+wind blew most of it away, but when Gustav rose to get breakfast, he
+sniffed suspiciously and called Roger. They traced a leak in the lower
+tier. Half the charge had evaporated during the night.
+
+"At least two weeks before we get more and a chunk out of the precious
+grub money," groaned Ernest at breakfast.
+
+"Patience! Patience!" exclaimed Gustav. "I'll start to Archer's Spring
+mit the empty drums to-morrow."
+
+Roger, who had been bolting his breakfast in silence, suddenly set down
+his coffee cup. Patience! He had told Charley that he was a patient man.
+Yet every muscle of his body at the moment was twitching with
+impatience. He acknowledged this to himself, then said aloud:
+
+"No use getting nervous, boys, I'm not. You get the new charge, Gustav.
+I'll leave that in your hands and think no more about it. I'm going over
+my heat tables again."
+
+"I'll help you check over," said Ernest.
+
+"If you don't mind I'd rather grind for a few days on it alone. I can
+think better that way. Then I'll go over the results with you."
+
+"All right," returned Ernest, with his usual good nature. "Gustav and
+I'll offer our services to Dick to-day on his new field. Do increase
+your absorbing area, Roger!"
+
+Roger shook his head. "That's an awkward and expensive solution. The
+answer's in the engine!"
+
+He began to figure on an old envelope. When this was covered, he
+continued his calculations on the margin of an old newspaper spread over
+the work house table. Long after Gustav and Ernest had gone about their
+day's business Elsa found him here, sweating in the stifling glare from
+the sun and sand, hair disheveled, shirt open at the throat. Elsa looked
+almost cool in comparison in her soft white blouse and one of Charley's
+khaki skirts.
+
+"Well, Roger," she exclaimed, "hasn't your cook the decency to wash the
+breakfast dishes for you?"
+
+"It does look rotten, doesn't it?" said Roger, staring vaguely around
+the kitchen. "But the cook seems to be on a strike and I forgot to clean
+things up."
+
+"If you'll get out of the way, I'll do it." Elsa began to roll up her
+sleeves.
+
+"It's too hot now. Wait until late afternoon," suggested Roger, glancing
+from his papers out to the yellow waves of heat dancing from sand to
+deep blue of sky.
+
+"I can stand the heat if Charley can," returned Elsa. "She's baking
+bread and cookies. The thermometer on the porch says 112 deg.. I should
+judge that it was about 190 deg. in her kitchen. Rog, do you know that she's
+a highly educated girl? Why do you suppose she's throwing her life away
+down here, cut off from everything?"
+
+Roger looked up from his figures with a little sigh of resignation.
+
+"What did you say, Elsa?"
+
+Elsa smiled but repeated her inquiry.
+
+"She's not wasting her life," replied Roger. "This is really a superb
+country and she takes to pioneering like a fine boy. This is about the
+last big adventure there is in America, this desert pioneering."
+
+"Like a boy!" sniffed Elsa. "Roger, you're hopeless! She's just the most
+womanly woman I ever met--and one of the saddest. She's got some trouble
+on her mind."
+
+"Aw shucks, Elsa! Don't try to make Charley out temperamental. She's not
+and that's why she's such a pal to us fellows. Wholesome and clean-cut
+and direct, that's Charley."
+
+"Oh, well, have it your own way, stupid! Only, go on over to the living
+tent while I clean up here." This with a curious glance at Roger's
+preoccupied eyes; those fine, steady, clear-seeing eyes, that saw so
+much and so little of life.
+
+"Just one thing more, Roger," she said. He paused in the doorway and
+looked at her with a smile. "Yes, ma'am."
+
+"Ernest told me on the way out about your money troubles. I don't want
+you to worry about the cost of keeping me. I can pay my way. I had to
+come against Papa's wishes, of course, but I had my own little chunk of
+savings and Mamma had a little. And I just made up my mind I was going
+to get away from home for a while if it was the last act of my life. And
+I know I can do lots of things to make you all comfortable."
+
+"I'm as glad as I can be to have you here, Elsa. And after all you folks
+have done for me, it makes me sick not to be able to do everything for
+you. But I swear I'm right up against it. Some day I'll make it all up
+to you and Ern. See if I don't. If you can keep homesick old Ern bucked
+up you'll be doing your bit. Your father need have had no fear. Ern'll
+be back in the University when this is done contented to teach the rest
+of his life."
+
+"I know it. And how about you, Roger?"
+
+"Me? Oh, I've struck my gait down here. I'm going to follow heat
+problems round the world, see if I don't."
+
+He looked off over the desert with a glow in his face that the girl
+never had seen there before. She gave a wistful little sigh, and began
+to unroll the kitchen apron she had brought under her arm.
+
+"Run along while I try to make the place fit for white people to live
+in," she said.
+
+It was a comfort to have a woman about the camp. The three men testified
+to this at supper time as they ate the meal she had prepared in an
+immaculate kitchen. That evening after Roger had taken Elsa back up to
+the ranch, Ernest decided he would accompany Gustav into Archer's to get
+some khaki for Elsa and to endeavor to locate some sulphur dioxide by
+telegraph. Elsa announced that although she would sleep and take
+breakfast at the ranch she would spend the day at the Plant as
+housekeeper.
+
+It was perhaps four o'clock the next afternoon, that Roger, at work in
+the engine house, saw Felicia half running, half plodding through the
+sand. Elsa, sewing in the living tent, saw her at the same time.
+
+"What can they mean by letting her come out in this awful heat?" she
+called to Roger.
+
+Roger made no reply but shouted to Felicia, "Don't run, child! It's too
+hot!"
+
+Felicia's answer was to quicken her pace. With a sudden sense of
+apprehension Roger went to meet her. Felicia was sobbing when he reached
+her. He lifted her in his arms.
+
+"What is it, sweetheart?"
+
+Felicia was almost beyond words. "Dicky--he's--sick again! And--he
+yelled at me--and slapped me, and he knocked Charley over with his fist.
+And I ran away--to you--"
+
+Roger's lips stiffened. Elsa had joined them and as he set Felicia down,
+he said hurriedly, "Take her into the tent. Cool her down gradually.
+Keep her there till I come."
+
+And he set off as fast as he dared in the burning sun. As he neared the
+ranch house, he could hear Dick's incoherent shouts and as he ran up the
+trail, Dick appeared on the porch.
+
+"Get out of here, Roger!" he roared, thickly.
+
+Roger ran up the steps. "Where's Charley?"
+
+Dick planted himself belligerently in the doorway, "Get out!" Roger
+moved slowly toward him. A heavy odor of cologne enveloped Dick. A quick
+surmise flashed over Roger.
+
+"Felicia needs Charley, Dick, I've got to fetch her."
+
+"Get out!" repeated Dick sullenly. He gave a lunge toward Roger and
+Roger met him with a quick undercut on the jaw that laid Dick flat. He
+dragged him down the trail to the seed and tool shack, where he turned
+the heavy button on the door. Then he ran into the house.
+
+Charley lay on the floor, her hair in disorder about her. Roger, with an
+oath, stooped over her, then ran for a cup of water and bathed her face.
+In a moment she opened her eyes. Roger's own eyes were black with
+excitement but he met her puzzled gaze with a twisted smile.
+
+"There you are, Charley! Where are you hurt?"
+
+She did not answer but struggled to rise and Roger putting an arm under
+her shoulder helped her to her feet where she leaned dizzily against
+him, for a moment, shoulder to shoulder.
+
+"Where's Felicia, Roger?"
+
+"Safe with Elsa at the Plant. Sit down here on the couch, Charley. Where
+did Dick strike you?"
+
+"He--he--where is he, Roger?" clinging suddenly to Roger's hand as he
+laid her back on the couch.
+
+"Locked in the tool house. Charley, you _must_ tell me what happened so
+I can help you."
+
+"Why--he--he pushed me backward and I must have hit something when I
+fell. The back of my head is very sore and my head aches terribly--and
+I'm a little sick at my stomach."
+
+"Let me see your head," said Roger peremptorily. He parted the mass of
+bronze brown hair, wondering even in his anger and pity at its softness
+and thickness. It was not difficult to locate the great lump at the base
+of the skull.
+
+"He might have killed you if it hadn't been for your hair. The skin
+isn't broken. Be still, Charley, till I get a basin of water and a
+towel."
+
+He was back in a moment and sitting down on the edge of the couch, he
+attempted to bathe the swelling. But Charley groaned in agony at the
+first touch, so he gave that up and bathed her face and wrist awkwardly
+but very gently.
+
+"I guess it's my turn to say 'Poor Child,'" Roger murmured.
+
+The quick tears sprang to Charley's eyes. At this moment Dick gave an
+incoherent shout. Charley gripped Roger's hand.
+
+"It's all right," he said. "He can't get out, the whelp!"
+
+"Roger! Don't hurt him. Promise me you won't hurt him!"
+
+"Hurt him!" Roger burst forth. "How can you be so foolish! He ought to
+be beaten within an inch of his life. He's gotten drunk on cologne!"
+
+"Roger, he's never been this bad before. He's been growing slowly better
+all these years. He never struck me before."
+
+"And you've been living with a drunkard all these years who might have
+killed you. You knew this, yet you let little Felicia come to you. How
+could you do it?" Roger paced up and down the floor.
+
+Charley looked at him piteously, but he went on, his voice growing
+louder.
+
+"You must know that a periodic drunkard is the worst kind and almost
+never cured. I thought you were unafraid of truth, but you've been
+living just like a sentimental woman, after all."
+
+Charley raised her hands and dropped them as if in despair. "I promised
+mother I'd never leave him. And he's put up a fight. Oh, you'll never
+know what a fight! And I love him. He's a dear when he's not drinking."
+
+Dick roared again and Roger stared at Charley's sick white face.
+
+"Promise me you won't hurt him, Roger."
+
+"How can I promise when I know if I get another glimpse of him I'll
+break every bone in his carcass?"
+
+Again Charley dropped her hands with that despairing gesture. "Then how
+can I help fearing your dreadful temper as much as I do Dick's drinking?
+What difference is there?"
+
+Roger jumped as if she had struck him. "You can't mean that! You're sick
+and unstrung and don't know what you're saying. I'll go after Ern."
+
+"I have to mean it," insisted Charley wearily, "after seeing you that
+time with Gustav."
+
+"I'm not like Dick!" shouted Roger. "I wouldn't touch a woman or a
+child!"
+
+"How do you know you wouldn't?" asked Charley.
+
+A sudden burning recollection of the little boy who had struck his
+mother's hand from his shoulder flashed through Roger's mind. He groaned
+and dropped his head. Charley did not speak and for some moments Roger
+did not move. Then he came over to the couch and said quietly:
+
+"I'll not hurt Dick. Where did he get the cologne, Charley?"
+
+"He must have found it in Elsa's room. I didn't know she had it, or I'd
+have put it away. And now, every one will know! Oh, Roger, must they all
+know?"
+
+"I don't see how it can be helped. But you can be sure none of us will
+say more than has to be said. Charley, I'm going to get Peter and take
+you down to the Plant for the night. You need absolute rest and quiet
+and you can't get it so near Dick."
+
+"And Dick?"
+
+"Dick must fend for himself in the tool shack. I'll put a canteen of
+water and a blanket in there and by morning he'll be ready for
+conversation."
+
+"But he won't be. Drink makes him terribly sick. His stomach is very
+bad. That's why I always say it's stomach trouble. He ought to be taken
+care of to-night."
+
+"He'll stay where he is and by himself," said Roger, grimly. "When I
+have a temper fit the next time, you can do the same by me. Lord, I'm
+glad Elsa is here! You lie quiet while I go milk."
+
+When he had put the milk away he found that Charley had braided her hair
+but was still very white and shaken. Dick's shouts and curses floated in
+at the open door. Roger tied the little bundle of night things she had
+made up to the saddle and helped her to mount. She swayed dizzily and he
+put a strong, steadying arm about her. They made their way very slowly
+and Roger heaved a sigh of relief when they were finally beyond ear
+shot of poor Dick.
+
+Elsa met them a short distance from the camp. "Hello, Charley," she
+said. "Felicia has just fallen asleep."
+
+Roger nodded and at the living-tent door, helped Charley from the
+saddle. "Get this patient to sleep too, Elsa, if you can."
+
+Elsa's eyes filled with tears as she looked at Charley. "You poor dear,"
+she said, "come and let me take care of you."
+
+One touch of a woman's sympathy, after her starved years, was too much
+for Charley. She burst into deep drawn sobs. Elsa, motioning Roger away,
+put her arm about the girl and led her into the tent.
+
+Roger paced up and down in the sand for a while, listening to the low
+despairing sobs from the tent. Then he unsaddled Peter and put a huge
+bottle of water to heat. He had heard somewhere that women took great
+comfort in a cup of tea.
+
+Roger passed rather a restless night. He had put Elsa's cot which she
+never had used, in the living tent so that Elsa could be close to her
+two patients, and himself put in the night in Gustav's shack which was
+built against the kitchen tent.
+
+It was early July and the summer's heat was at its height. Three times
+between midnight and dawn Roger scratched a match and looked at the
+thermometer. It never registered below 118 deg.. Even the night wind did not
+rise. The silence of the desert was complete as though torridity had
+overwhelmed every other aspect of nature. The stars were magnificent and
+for an hour or so, hoping to find the air outside cooler, Roger put a
+blanket on the work bench near the condenser and lay there, his face to
+the sky.
+
+He wanted to keep his mind fastened lucidly on his engine problem, but
+he found it impossible to put away the events of the day. Dick's bestial
+voice, Charley's white, proud face, little Felicia's clinging arms,
+Charley's sobs from the living tent and her bitter words concerning his
+temper. These words he pondered unwillingly for some time, following
+with his eye the constellations of the Great Bear. Finally he rolled on
+his face with a groan. Perhaps she was right. God knew though that he'd
+fought the red demon within him. After a time he rolled back. Felicia
+had not wakened for her supper. She had slept straight through. It was a
+great pity, he thought, that she should have seen Dick drunk, that she
+should have seen him knock Charley down. He wondered if there were any
+way he could make her forget it. Then with a deep flush in the starlight
+he wished to God she had not seen him lose his temper like a fool.
+Felicia! tender, high strung little Felicia!
+
+At last when the stars were growing dim, Roger fell asleep. He rose at
+sunrise, and went up to the ranch. Dick was lying on the adobe floor of
+the tent house, evidently very sick and very cross.
+
+"How'd I come in here? Send Charley to me!" he snarled.
+
+"I will, like thunder, you drunken bum! You did your best to beat up
+both of your sisters. I'm going to keep them at the Sun Plant until some
+new arrangement can be made. The best I can do for you is to leave this
+door open. Fend for yourself, hang you!" And Roger walked off to do the
+milking.
+
+When he had finished milking he glanced in at the open door of the tool
+house. Dick lay where Roger had left him, staring with eyes of feverish
+agony at the roof above his head. Roger, without a word, went back to
+the plant. To his relief, Felicia appeared at the breakfast table, very
+hungry and quite herself. But Charley was not able to get up. It seemed
+as if the long years of strain had culminated in yesterday's events, and
+that Charley had no will-power left.
+
+The girl lay on Ernest's cot, the tent flap lifted beside her, with no
+apparent desire save to stare at the desert dancing in heat waves
+against the sky. What thoughts were passing behind those quiet brown
+eyes, no one knew.
+
+It was mid-morning when Roger went in to see her. He pulled a box up
+beside the cot. "Well, old dear," he said. "How is the head?"
+
+Charley smiled. "Sore and aching, but better than during the night. I am
+so tired and that's very unusual. I'm always so strong."
+
+Roger nodded. "It was a bad knock, to leave you senseless for half an
+hour. I suspect you ought to take pretty good care of yourself for
+several days. I've been talking with Elsa and she thinks you ought to
+stay here for a few days. And I do too. Don't worry about Dick. I saw
+him this morning and he'll be himself by sundown. And I've promised
+Elsa I won't see him again until after she does."
+
+Charley eyed Roger's long brown face as if taking in the full
+significance of all he had said. Then she gave a little sigh of relief.
+
+"If I could rest here in this peaceful tent, just for a day or two."
+
+"The tent's all right at night, but I've moved Gustav's cot into the
+engine house, and I'm going to help you over there. It's ten degrees
+cooler than here. Elsa and Felicia are established there and I won't
+disturb you for I'm drawing, which act is noiseless."
+
+In a dim corner of the adobe engine house in Gustav's cot Charley spent
+the day. Elsa, when she was not playing housekeeper sat beside her with
+her sewing and Felicia visited between the cot and Roger's drawing
+board.
+
+Once when Charley seemed to be in an uneasy sleep, Felicia asked Roger,
+"Is Charley very sick?"
+
+"Not really sick at all, chicken. She's just tired. She's worked too
+hard for you and Dick."
+
+Felicia stared at him with her innocent, speculative gaze so like
+Charley's, yet so unlike.
+
+"Can't we live here with you, instead of up at the ranch, Roger? I know
+Charley would like it better."
+
+"You can stay and make us a visit, anyhow. Then we'll see."
+
+At sunset, after the dishes were finished and Charley had moved back to
+the living tent for the night, Elsa went up to the ranch house. She was
+gone a long time. Charley was dozing and Felicia asleep. Roger prowled
+up and down the camp closely followed by Peter until he could bear the
+suspense no longer. A sudden fear that Dick might have discovered more
+liquor somewhere started him along the ranch trail. He met Elsa just as
+the afterglow disappeared and the parching night came down like a star
+dotted curtain. She came trudging through the sand as if she were tired.
+
+"It does seem as if I'd wilt with the heat," she exclaimed. "You
+needn't have worried about me, Roger. Dick came back with me till we saw
+you."
+
+"He did, huh! Then he's neither drunk nor dead?"
+
+"Rog! Don't say such awful things about the poor fellow."
+
+"Poor fellow! You didn't see Charley lying on the floor as I did. Well,
+what has he to say for himself?"
+
+"He's in an awful state of mind. He was trying to cook some supper when
+I got there. He'd succeeded in milking. When he saw me, he gasped. 'Is
+Charley sick?' and dropped the kettle of water he was lifting."
+
+"I told him just what you had seen and what an exhausted state Charley's
+nerves seemed to be in. He just stood and took it looking like a sick
+cat. When I had finished he asked what you had said and I told him and
+he sort of groaned, 'You women should have let Roger beat me to death.
+Why did you interfere?' Poor Dick!"
+
+Elsa drew a long breath and was silent for a moment before she began
+again. "He's in a most awful frame of mind. He's like a man who knows he
+has fits of insanity and feels perfectly helpless to prevent them. He
+cried and cried while he told me how he had fought drink. I never knew
+any one could suffer so. He's much more to be pitied than Charley."
+
+"Huh! Women!" grunted Roger. "Why, he's just the usual thing in drunks,
+you little ninny. What's he going to do?"
+
+"Well, I want Charley to give him one more chance."
+
+"I thought so! Well, he doesn't get it."
+
+"But, Roger, you can't prevent it. And he's not going into Archer's
+Springs again. He's going to let us do his errands. That's where the
+trouble has been."
+
+"Except when he drinks cologne."
+
+"What makes you so hard, Roger?"
+
+"I saw Charley lying where Dick had knocked her down. And I felt little
+Felicia almost in convulsions from fear. Let him keep out of my sight
+until I can forget that."
+
+"Of course, all I can do is to advise, anyhow," said Elsa. "Dick is
+coming down in the morning and take his medicine. He insists on it. He's
+a fine man, Roger, in many ways."
+
+"You've not seen him drunk," returned Roger. "Commend me to a woman
+every time for sentimentality."
+
+"There are other weaknesses men have than drunkenness that their
+sentimentality helps women to endure, aren't there, Roger?" asked Elsa
+quietly. Roger dropped Elsa's arm and left her without a word.
+
+He was at work in the engine house, the next morning when Dick came
+slowly down the trail and was led by Elsa into the living tent. Then she
+went off to the cook tent with Felicia. Roger, working with strained
+concentration on his engine, heard on the one side the low murmur of
+Dick's and Charley's voices and on the other Felicia's occasional happy
+laugh above Elsa's little songs. After perhaps an hour, Dick came out
+and went to the cook tent and in a moment Felicia came flying into the
+engine house and threw her arms around Roger.
+
+"I won't stay where Dicky is," she panted. "I won't!"
+
+The child was trembling violently. Roger sat down and held her to his
+heart.
+
+"Dick won't hurt you, honey, now. It's only when he's sick."
+
+Felicia shuddered. "He slapped me and he knocked Charley over with his
+fist and in the night I dream about it. I am going to live with you. You
+won't get mad again like you did with Gustav, will you, Roger?"
+
+Roger bowed his forehead on the soft bronze brown head that rested so
+confidently on his breast.
+
+"You do love poor old Roger, don't you, sweetheart?" he asked, brokenly.
+
+As if she sensed some secret pain, Felicia turned and put her arms about
+him and kissed him softly on the lips. "I love you as much as I do
+Charley. Don't send me back to Dicky, dearest Roger."
+
+"I won't." Roger's lips tightened grimly.
+
+Charley came out to lunch that noon, looking much stronger.
+
+"I'm so grateful to you, Roger and Elsa," she said, "and after I've
+helped with the dishes, if you'll loan me Peter, we'll go home."
+
+Roger dropped his knife and fork, then looked at Felicia. "Felicia, you
+know Roger's trunk? Well, if you'll run to the living tent and open the
+trunk and take all the things out of it, at the very bottom you'll find
+some Christmas cake Elsa made last year. Then put all the things back
+carefully and bring the cake here."
+
+Felicia gave an ecstatic "Oh, Roger!" and disappeared. Roger turned to
+Charley.
+
+"I'm going to say one more thing. Do you realize fully that in living
+with Dick you jeopardize both yours and Felicia's lives?"
+
+"Oh, no, Roger! He never touched us before. It was the poison in that
+cologne."
+
+Roger shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"How can you be so hard?" pleaded Charley. "Dick's my own flesh and
+blood. It might have been I instead of Dick with this appetite. You're
+hard, Roger."
+
+"I'm not hard. I'm disappointed. I didn't think you were a
+sentimentalist."
+
+"I wonder," exclaimed Elsa, "how women will ever get time to vote when
+it takes all their time to make men endurable to live with. My word! I'm
+glad I haven't one of the critters!"
+
+She said this with such heartfelt sincerity that Charley laughed and
+Roger joined her. By the time Felicia came running back with the
+Christmas cake, the atmosphere was considerably lighter.
+
+"We're going home, Felicia! Aren't you glad I'm well again?" said
+Charley. "And haven't the Sun Planters been kind?"
+
+Felicia whitened under her tan.
+
+"Oh, but, Charley, I'm not going. I don't have to, do I, Roger? I'm so
+afraid of Dicky. He slapped me twice, Charley, and he knocked you over
+with his fist. Oh, let me stay with Roger!"
+
+Charley gasped. "Oh, Felicia! Felicia! Oh, my little Felicia!"
+
+Roger spoke quickly. "Why not let her stay for a little visit, Charley?
+I'll finish Elsa's tent this afternoon and she can share that with Elsa,
+till her nerves become normal."
+
+"But I'm going up to stay with Charley," said Elsa; "that's part of the
+cure."
+
+"Then let her stay alone. She'll be safe and happy with me," replied
+Roger. "Dick deserves punishment."
+
+Charley looked at Roger, then at Felicia. "I think that's a good idea,"
+she said, slowly.
+
+And so when Ernest and Gustav came home that night, they found Felicia
+watching the camp fire beside Roger, and after she was asleep in her
+tent, they heard the whole story. Ernest was indignant at the thought of
+Elsa's staying on at the ranch.
+
+"I am going to be firm with her in the morning," he said.
+
+But Elsa's firmness was greater than Ernest's and shortly the two
+households had settled down and Dick was gradually reinstated in every
+one's good graces but Roger's. Felicia stayed on for a week, to the joy
+of the three camp mates who spoiled her outrageously. Then one Saturday
+evening Dick came down and he and Felicia had a long talk, at the end of
+which Felicia said good-by to Roger, Ernest and Gustav, and returned to
+the ranch, quite happily.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+DICKY'S LAST BOUT
+
+
+The fact that the engine had fallen below expectations brought the Sun
+Planters' food problem into prominence again. When Elsa had begun
+housekeeping for the men she had protested over the meagerness and the
+simplicity of the food supplies. But Roger had explained their situation
+frankly and Elsa had proceeded to make good German magic over the canned
+food of which the camp had been so weary.
+
+"The Lord knows," exclaimed Ernest at the breakfast table one morning,
+"how long we'll be tied up in this Hades. If Roger's begun puttering on
+the engine we may be here ten years."
+
+"This isn't Hades, Ern!" exclaimed Elsa. "I'm having the time of my
+life."
+
+"I notice that Dick's down here a good deal," said Ernest, slyly, "and I
+suppose that adds to the hilarity of the nations."
+
+"By the way," Elsa ignored her brother except for a blush, "what are we
+going to do about the food problem, Ern? All the cotton-tails and quail
+that Gustav shoots, won't keep us much longer."
+
+"Do you suppose Hackett would let us run a bill with him and take a
+mortgage on the outfit here as security? Of course, I haven't any right
+to give a mortgage but I'll explain the whole situation to him."
+Roger's voice had a desperate note in it.
+
+"Well, that is worth the try, eh?" said Gustav. "Me, I might borrow a
+little yet, from a friend in the East."
+
+"You'll do nothing of the kind, Gustav," exclaimed Roger. "You're far
+from home and you may need all your borrowing power for yourself--not
+but what I appreciate your offer, old man!"
+
+"I've got a little--my fare home and about a hundred beside," offered
+Elsa.
+
+"Keep it, old girl," Roger's voice was husky. "By Jove, I may be poor in
+everything else, but I'm rich in friends. Ern, what do you think of my
+suggestion?"
+
+"Well, I hate debt worse than anything in the world. But we're in this
+thing up to our necks and I'm willing to try anything that's honest. If
+Hackett knows the whole story--"
+
+"He knows it now, I guess, but I'll give him all the details. I may as
+well go in to-day and get a yes or no at once."
+
+"I'll go," said Ernest. "I'd like to and you'd better not lose a day."
+
+Roger nodded in a relieved manner.
+
+"Listen! There goes the Lemon!" exclaimed Elsa. "I do hope she goes
+to-day."
+
+"Put! Put!" came over the desert. "Put! Put! Put!"
+
+"I guess she's launched and I've got a clear day for work." Roger rose
+as he spoke. "Dick's having a struggle to get enough water for that
+second five acres of his. He insists that he's going ahead with the next
+five, though."
+
+"Elsa, want to go into Archer's with me?" asked Ernest.
+
+"Sorry, Ern, but I'm going to help Charley can pumpkins to-day. She
+planted some for luck up by the engine house where the pump leaks, you
+remember, and the crop is wonderful."
+
+"Oh, well, if you prefer pumpkins to me and Archer's Springs, I've
+nothing to say," groaned Ernest.
+
+"I'll go," offered Gustav. "I haf letters and other things."
+
+Ernest accepted the offer with alacrity. He was beginning to recover
+some of his old spirits but he had not been himself since Charley's
+refusal. Roger had never known Ernest to take one of his affairs quite
+so hard before. He dreaded to be alone and was often moody: a rare state
+of mind for easy going Ernest.
+
+The two men made a quick and successful trip to Archer's, for Hackett
+agreed to sell them food to the sum of two hundred dollars. He didn't
+see how a mortgage could be given but he was willing to take Roger's
+personal note for ninety days. This Roger gave with some misgivings but
+with a sigh of relief that the day of starvation had been put off once
+more. Then he gave his whole mind to his engine problem.
+
+He was planning some changes in his engine that were fundamental and
+that were really the outcome of his early trip through the ranges in the
+search for window glass. He worked at his redesigning with a single
+minded passion that set him apart from the others. All of them except
+Felicia found him tense and at times irritable.
+
+As August came in, the beauty of the desert seemed to increase daily.
+The heat, whilst it added to one's sense of the desert's cruelty, added
+at the same time to the unreality and to the mystery of silence and of
+distances that are so large a part of the desert's fascination.
+
+The sand was alive with an uncanny, tiny life. Horned toads flopped
+unexpectedly across the trail. Lizards were everywhere, running over and
+under the tent floors and along the thatching of the condenser and the
+engine house. There were many rattlesnakes too, particularly dangerous
+at this time of year because, Dick said, they were shedding their skins
+and were blind, striking at any sound. There were Gila monsters now and
+again. There were many scorpions and centipedes, with once in a while a
+tarantula.
+
+Dick and Charley laid down certain laws of the summer desert. No one was
+to go to bed without examining the bedding for tarantulas or centipedes.
+No one was to dress without subjecting every article of apparel to the
+same scrutiny. No one was to go out at night without a "bug" for fear of
+the blind striking of a rattler. Every one must learn to kill a snake
+with a snake stick. And every one, even Felicia, must learn to treat
+snake bites.
+
+Elsa, clear-headed and matter of fact, was very little annoyed by all
+this gliding venomous summer life. But little Felicia's horror of it was
+difficult to control. It seemed to Roger that the child's nerves had
+been uneven ever since the "cologne affair," as Ernest called it. But he
+could not be sure of this, for Charley insisted that the little girl's
+fears of all that uncanny fraternity of the sand was exactly what hers
+had been four years before.
+
+August was slipping by, quietly enough when Gustav, returning one day
+from Archer's Springs, delivered to Roger a letter from Hampton of the
+Smithsonian saying that on the thirtieth day of August a representative
+of the Smithsonian would reach Archer's Springs on his way to Los
+Angeles; that he had but two days to spare but would be glad to give
+these days to the Moore experiment.
+
+Roger was in despair. "Two days!" he groaned. "Why, it takes two days to
+come up and back. Better stay away."
+
+"Don't be an idiot, Rog," exclaimed Ernest. "You get him here, and he'll
+stay for a day or so. How can he get away? The thing that bothers me is
+that darned engine of yours."
+
+"It doesn't bother me," replied Roger, with a quick gleam in his gray
+eyes and a sudden smile. "I've got a week before he gets here and by
+Jove, the old kettle's got to be ready!" He gave a sudden long sigh and
+looked off toward the distant line of the river range. "I thought it was
+queer of the Smithsonian to treat me as it did. Ern, this puts new life
+in me."
+
+If new life means redoubled effort, Roger had found it indeed. He gave
+himself as little sleep as possible during the week before the expected
+visit. All day and a larger part of the night he was at work in the
+engine house, till his eyes were bigger and his face gaunter than ever.
+Felicia was his little shadow. Her taste for mechanics made her seem
+more like a small boy than ever. And although Roger's tense nerves grew
+tenser and his impatience with the others was shown oftener and oftener,
+to Felicia he showed only the gentleness for which she loved him.
+
+Charley and Elsa were forming a real friendship. The isolation of the
+little desert community was almost complete. Since the death of Von
+Minden no one from the outer rim of the desert or of the world had been
+near either camp or ranch. Even the Indians who had been camping in the
+remote canyon where Felicia had visited them had found good hunting in
+some still more remote section and never had appeared in the camp. This
+isolation forced the friendship between the two young women to a quick
+growth. Charley was happier, Dick said, than he had seen her since her
+college days.
+
+Two days before the visitor was due, Roger announced that one day's work
+would make him ready for a test, so that, and he did not believe that he
+was over-confident, when Gustav arrived with the Smithsonian
+investigator, the plant would be in full action. He made this
+announcement at breakfast. Ernest and Gustav cheered.
+
+"I never thought you'd make it," said Gustav.
+
+"I _had_ to make it," replied Roger. "I have the conviction that if this
+man, whoever he is, sees the plant working, the thing will be done, and
+that if he doesn't find the wheels going round, I'm going to miss the
+chance of my life."
+
+"If the heat would just let up for a little while," sighed Ernest. "If
+he's a northerner, it may put him out of business."
+
+"Pshaw! they'll send an experienced man, never fear!" Roger poured
+himself another cup of coffee. "Hello! Here's a caller!"
+
+It was Qui-tha, riding a half-starved pony whose mangy sides were
+working in the early morning sun like a pair of bellows.
+
+He dismounted and grinned affably. "How! You give Qui-tha more strong
+medicine, maybe!"
+
+"Look here, Qui-tha, I'll give you all the strong medicine you want, if
+you'll stay and help me for a week," cried Ernest.
+
+Qui-tha shook his head. "No got time to work. Must go back to Injun camp
+take care of sick Injun. Qui-tha heap big medicine man, now."
+
+"All right!" Ernest shrugged his shoulders. "No work, no strong
+medicine."
+
+Qui-tha shrugged his shoulders and remounting, he started on up the
+trail to the ranch house. Elsa reported later in the day that Dick,
+having no peroxide, had promised to get some from Archer's Springs if
+Qui-tha would do a day's work for him. Qui-tha, she said, was giving the
+matter due consideration.
+
+Late that evening, while Roger and Gustav were working at the little
+forge, Ernest came out of the living tent where he had been writing
+letters.
+
+"Did you fellows hear a gun shot a little bit ago?" he asked. "You two
+are making such an infernal racket, I can't tell what it was."
+
+Roger and Gustav both stopped work and listened. The desert was
+breathlessly silent.
+
+"Are you sure?" asked Roger. "Did you think it might have been at the
+ranch?"
+
+"I couldn't tell. It may have been nothing at all but you folks here.
+But if I hear it again, I'm going up there."
+
+It was fifteen or twenty minutes later that Elsa's voice came from the
+trail.
+
+"Ernest! Roger! Gustav!"
+
+The three men started on a run to meet her. A dark figure in the
+starlight, she staggered exhausted toward them.
+
+"The Indian--had whiskey--he and Dick both drunk. The Indian shot
+Dick--in the leg and ran away."
+
+"Did he hurt you girls?" cried Roger.
+
+"Not a bit. But Dick's terrible. We've got him in his bedroom. But if
+his leg didn't prevent him he'd climb out of the window."
+
+As she spoke, she turned back toward the ranch with the men. "You go
+ahead. I'm all in and will follow slowly," she said.
+
+"Not with that Indian around in the desert," exclaimed Ernest. "Gustav,
+you come along with Elsa and Roger and I'll run for it."
+
+They could hear Dick's roars as they neared the adobe. When they burst
+breathlessly into the living room, Charley was standing by the door
+holding in place a chair which hung on the knob and against the door
+jamb made an effective bolt.
+
+"Is he armed?" asked Roger.
+
+"No," replied Charley. "There's the only gun in the house," pointing to
+the one on the table. "And Qui-tha had his with him as he ran out of the
+house."
+
+Roger turned to Ernest. "We could just leave him in there alone to wake
+up, if there wasn't danger of his bleeding to death. Come on, Ern.
+Remember he's as strong as a bear and be ready to jump him with me. Get
+some clean rags and water, Charley, and bring them in when we call. And
+keep Gustav out. He'll faint."
+
+They slid quickly into Dick's room, closing the door behind them. Dick
+lay on the bed, blood oozing through his pants leg below the knee. He
+seemed too sick to move, but Roger would take no chances.
+
+"Ern, you hold his hands above his head while I cut off that pants leg."
+
+The precautions were unnecessary. Dick lay muttering and limp while
+Roger uncovered a nasty wound that had plowed to the bone down Dick's
+skin.
+
+"Qui-tha must have been at close quarters when that happened," said
+Ernest. "You'll need help, Roger. Hand me that towel and I'll tie his
+hands."
+
+Roger handed Ernest the towel, then went out for the rags and water.
+Gustav and Elsa had arrived. He had hardly answered them that Dick's
+wound was not very serious when there was a sudden uproar. Dick had gone
+amuck again and even the girls had to be called into service to help
+with the bandaging while the men held him quiet.
+
+By the time the blood flow was staunched and the rude bandaging
+finished, Dick had subsided into a drunken stupor, from which, in spite
+of his evident pain, there seemed little danger of his rousing for some
+hours. Leaving Gustav to watch, the others withdrew to the living room.
+
+"What have you done with Felicia?" asked Roger.
+
+"She's slept through it all, thank heaven," replied Charley. "I ran into
+her room as soon as Qui-tha had clattered away and she was sound asleep.
+So I just locked the door. I'll go in now and attend to her."
+
+She picked up a candle and tiptoed into the bedroom. There was a
+moment's hush, then Charley rushed back into the living room.
+
+"She's not there! Felicia!" Her voice rising to a scream. "Felicia!
+Where are you?"
+
+Elsa ran wildly into the bedroom followed by the others. The little room
+was empty. Felicia's nightdress lay in a heap on the floor. The clothing
+she had taken off was gone. A quick search of the house, then of the
+outbuildings was made. To no avail. Some one gasped:
+
+"Qui-tha!"
+
+But Charley who had recovered her self control, vetoed this idea at
+once. "An Indian isn't like that! Roger, she climbed out of the window
+to run to you."
+
+"I'll go down there at once," replied Roger. "The rest of you keep on
+calling and searching around here."
+
+"Ride old Nell," Charley suggested, as Roger hurried away.
+
+But Felicia was not at the Sun Plant, nor did Roger's stentorian shouts
+raise any reply save faint howls from a coyote pack. With a sinking
+heart he rode back to the ranch and called in the others whose lights
+were flashing about the mountainside.
+
+"If she started for our camp," he said, "I don't see how she could have
+wandered away. She knows that trail so well."
+
+"But she has never taken it alone after dark." Elsa's voice was
+uncertain. "And she's so little! And it was so dark to-night, I kept
+wandering off the trail myself."
+
+"Let's not waste time surmising!" exclaimed Ernest, impatiently.
+
+"But we must use a little system," returned Roger. "Girls, you patrol
+the trail up and down between the Sun Plant and here. I've left a
+lighted 'bug' in the tent. You both carry 'bugs' and extra candles and
+keep calling. The moon will soon be rising, and that will help. Gustav,
+you make a big circle round the camp as far out as you can keep the tent
+light in sight. Ern, you follow the Archer's Springs trail a mile or so,
+then swing inside of Gustav's circle and cover all the arroyas and rock
+heaps you can. I'm going to take the mountain trail. Everybody get
+something for a tourniquet. At sun up, come back here. If you can find
+her, or even get her trail, fire three shots."
+
+Elsa gave a little sob, but Charley was tearless. As they started for
+their respective stations, she asked: "How about Dick?"
+
+Roger flushed a deep red. "Dick rots for all I care until we find
+Felicia."
+
+No one commented on this and shortly the desert was dotted with slow
+moving fingers of light. Roger, as he panted up and down the
+mountainside, knew that never would he forget the wistful melancholy of
+those thin calls that rose and fell all night, now in Gustav's, or
+Ernest's deep notes, now in the high treble tones of Elsa or Charlotte.
+"Felicia! Felicia! Felicia!" But Felicia did not answer.
+
+With the dawn, the wind rose, and there began that perpetual shifting
+and sifting of the sand which in a few hours more, Roger knew, would
+obliterate the little girl's trail, although it was only a summer wind
+which would die down by mid-morning.
+
+At sun up, a weary eyed, hoarse and hectic group gathered in the living
+room of the adobe.
+
+"Now," said Roger, "you girls get three or four hours' sleep, then one
+of you go down to the Plant and one of you stay here. We three men will
+take a day's water and grub supply and keep to the general beats we had
+last night. I can't believe, unless Qui-tha got her, that she wandered
+very far."
+
+"But I saw her after Qui-tha had gone. If a rattler struck her she--"
+Charley stopped.
+
+"How long does a person live after a rattler bite?" asked Ernest, with
+stiff lips.
+
+"A Mexican who worked for us three years ago lived twelve hours but he
+was unconscious most of the time," replied Charley.
+
+"Now, you girls go cook a little breakfast," said Gustav, hastily, "and
+ve vill do the chores, eh?"
+
+They ate a hasty meal in the kitchen a little later. No one talked.
+Charley patted Elsa's shoulder in a helpless way when Elsa now and again
+burst into tears. They had finished their preparation for the renewal of
+the search when Dick called from the bedroom. Charley went to him,
+closing the door after her. What she said the others did not know but
+there was silence in the bedroom for some moments after she came out.
+Then there was a confusion of sounds and Dick dragged himself on his
+hands and knees into the kitchen. He pulled himself up into the chair by
+the table. The others stood silently looking at him.
+
+"O God!" he groaned. "O God in Heaven!"
+
+Still no one spoke.
+
+"Hurry!" he shouted. "What are you waiting for? She may be dead now!
+Hurry, you fools!"
+
+"I'm going to stay here, Dick," said Elsa.
+
+"You'll not! To hell with me!" Dick paused and lifted a shaking hand to
+his eyes for a moment. "Rog, you go along the foot of the range and
+search every canyon. Watch every spot of shade. I've warned her so often
+about desert sun."
+
+Roger nodded and started off, Peter following him with a good supply of
+water and food on his back. Ernest and Gustav were to use the two
+horses.
+
+The sun rose higher and higher, crossed the zenith and traveled toward
+the River Range. Roger, with dogged thoroughness, followed the trail
+suggested by Dick. He was numb with fear. Remotely he recalled that
+somehow he had been expecting this to be a decisive day in his history
+but it was only a fleeting memory. Every sense that he possessed was
+concentrated on finding Felicia. At noon, he ate and drank something,
+then lay down in the shade of a canyon to sleep for an hour or so, with
+Peter standing like a little gray bodyguard beside him. At three he was
+plodding on his way again, around cactus thicket, up and down washouts,
+over rockheaps, talking to Peter when the silence became unendurable, or
+his voice refused to rise longer with Felicia's name. He could with
+difficulty urge his body on through the burning heat. What then of a
+tender little girl? In this summer sun of the desert a man without water
+for twenty-four hours would die. What of Felicia?
+
+By sun down he had covered several miles on either side of the ranch. He
+was covered with dust and his lips were cracking in spite of his free
+use of the canteen. He was tired to the very bones of him. The hot sand
+had blistered his feet. The cholla had torn his hands. When the sudden
+blackness of night descended, he determined to rest once more until the
+moon rose. He did not think that he was more than a mile from the ranch,
+but as there was still plenty of food and water, and as he was within
+ear-reach of possible gun-shots, there was no point in going home for
+the few hours' rest. He removed Peter's pack, gave him some oats and a
+mouthful of water, then started a tiny fire of greasewood twigs. It was
+very hot but Roger had seen several rattlers during the day and the idea
+of lying down in utter darkness did not appeal to him.
+
+Yet, he did not sleep after all. He sat, wide-eyed, feeding the tiny
+blaze, trying to develop some new theory on the little girl's sudden
+disappearance. He had been pondering this for an hour when there came
+the sound of footsteps stumbling through the sand. He jumped trembling
+to his feet.
+
+"Felicia! Oh, Felicia!" he cried.
+
+"No! No! It's Charley!" a hoarse voice answered and in a moment Charley
+appeared within the tiny circle of firelight. She was disheveled and
+pale, and evidently very, very tired, but still outwardly composed.
+
+"Sit down and rest," said Roger. "Here, I've been sitting on Peter's
+pack blanket. There's room for us both, I guess."
+
+Charley sank down with a grateful sigh and Roger, recalling his pipe,
+took it out, filled it and essayed several puffs, then established
+himself beside Charley.
+
+"I couldn't stay indoors," she said. "Dick made us all lie down for a
+few hours' sleep, but I couldn't sleep. I thought perhaps she might have
+gone up the trail that she took when she went to find the Indians. If
+the Indian went down toward your camp, she would try to go in the
+opposite direction. And then, I got to wondering if she stole down to
+the camp, while we were all occupied with Dick, and finding it all dark,
+she got confused and--And then I wonder--"
+
+Roger laid a quiet hand on the interlaced fingers with which Charley was
+clasping her knee.
+
+"Easy now, Charley, easy. Have you had your supper?" Charley turned to
+look at him. His own eyes filled at the glimpse he got of the misery in
+her deep eyes--Felicia's eyes.
+
+"Yes, I think I did," she answered.
+
+"That's fine! Now is any one staying down at the camp in case she
+wanders in there?"
+
+"Gustav's there."
+
+"All right! Good old Gustav. It seems to me your idea about the Indian
+trail is a good one. How did you come clear up here, when you were
+headed into the range."
+
+"My 'bug' went out and I'd lost my matches, so I wandered off the trail,
+I guess, till I saw your light."
+
+"My heavens, Charley. But it was a horrible risk you ran! You might
+have--"
+
+"Don't scold," said Charley drearily. "What does it matter?"
+
+"I won't scold," replied Roger with a gentle note in his voice that no
+one but Felicia had ever heard. "Now, I tell you what we'll do. We'll
+just rest here until the moon comes up. Then we'll try the Indian trail.
+Let's spread this blanket so you can lie down."
+
+"I don't want to lie down. I just want to sit here by you. She loved you
+so."
+
+"All right, Charley. I'll smoke and we'll buck each other up. How's
+Dick?"
+
+"I don't really know. He won't let any of us touch him. He must be in
+great pain."
+
+"I hope so," said Roger bitterly.
+
+Charley made no reply. The process of bucking each other up did not
+proceed with much enthusiasm. The two sat brooding over the tiny blaze.
+Now and again Peter returned from a short foraging expedition and
+thrusting a soft nose over one of their shoulders waited to have his
+forehead rubbed, then started off again.
+
+Roger noted that Charley's pallor had given way to flushed cheeks, and
+suddenly he was aware that he too was parched and feverish; that try as
+he would to think, clearly, he could do nothing but wonder, impatiently,
+when the moon would rise and to fight down the picture that rose
+constantly of tiny Felicia wandering in an endless desert. Measuring the
+depth of his love for the child by the immensity of his fear, he was
+astounded by its greatness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE GREAT DIVIDE
+
+
+The moon appeared at last and suddenly all the desert lay before them
+like molten silver. They rose, stiffly, and Charley helped Roger to
+replace the little pack on Peter. Roger led, Peter followed and Charley
+brought up in the rear. For hours, they toiled slowly up into the range,
+flashing their "bugs" into the shadows, stopping now and again to go
+over rock heap or cactus clump carefully, then on again, neither of them
+speaking, even to Peter, except to call at irregular intervals Felicia's
+name.
+
+Dawn found them high in the range, in a little canyon, sweet with a tiny
+spring about which grew mesquite and bear grass. The black ashes of old
+fires were there, but nothing else. Roger broke the silence of hours:
+
+"We're both going to get a sleep here, then I'm going to take you home.
+We're way out of the reach of gun sound. They might have found her, you
+know."
+
+They stood staring about them for a moment and listening. The
+unutterable silence of the desert was about them. Roger, eyes bloodshot,
+face unshaven, lips cracked, turned to Charley whose great eyes were
+sunk in her head, her lip colorless and drawn.
+
+"Come," he said. "I'll cook the bacon and you unpack the rest of the
+grub. We simply haven't strength to get home without rest and food."
+
+Charley had the remainder of the food ready for Roger when the bacon was
+cooked. They ate in silence, then Charley lay down on the pack blanket
+while Roger stretched out in a drift of sand beyond the spring. In utter
+weariness they both slept, unmindful of danger from snakes or vermin.
+
+It was mid-morning when Roger woke. He sat up with a start and a sudden
+clear picture in his eyes of a spot in the desert where he had not
+searched. About a mile from the ranch and perhaps an eighth of a mile
+west of the trail at the base of the range was a little stone monument.
+Roger had observed it but it was too small to shelter even Felicia's
+small frame in its shadows, so he had not troubled to make a close
+observation of the flat desert round about it. The picture which had
+awakened him was an extraordinarily vivid one of this monument. He
+resolved to examine it thoroughly on his way home.
+
+Roger rose stiffly. Charley was lying on her face, her head pillowed on
+her arm. He moved over and touched her on the shoulder.
+
+"Sorry, Charley," he said, "but we'd better start back."
+
+The girl sat up, slowly. "I wasn't asleep," she said. "I've just been
+napping off and on. I can't sleep until I know."
+
+"Perhaps we'll find her safe at home," Roger even managed a smile with
+his broken lips.
+
+"Let's not stop to eat again!" exclaimed Charley.
+
+Roger nodded. They reloaded Peter who was well gorged on spring water
+and the uncertain looking herbage that grew about its brim.
+
+The trail back was nearly all downward and they had covered it by noon.
+Roger told Charley of his strange awakening dream of which he made
+light, but when they sighted the little monument in the distance, they
+both hurried toward it.
+
+It was there that they found Felicia. On the west side of the monument
+the prospector had begun a hole and left it. It was not over a foot in
+depth nor over three feet square. Too small to show in the vast levels
+of the desert until one was upon it and protected from view from the
+mountain because of the monument, tiny as it was, it was not too small
+to hold her little body, huddled face downward, arms and legs cramped.
+
+Roger lifted her out and Charley, without a word, fainted. Roger groaned
+and covered his eyes for a moment, then he took the pack blanket and
+rolled the little body in it and left it while he turned to Charley. A
+part of the canteen of water poured gently over her face revived her. As
+soon as Roger saw that she was looking at him intelligently he said,
+sternly:
+
+"Charley, you've got to brace up until we can get home. You must help me
+get you and her back by keeping as much of a grip on yourself as you
+can. Remember this is desert noon and we can't temporize. You mount
+Peter. We'll leave the pack here. I'll carry Felicia."
+
+He took the shot gun from the pack and fired three shots into the air,
+followed by two more; the code that Ernest had suggested after the first
+night's hunt had led them to fear the worst. Then he lifted the little
+blanketed form across his breast and slowly led the way back to the
+ranch. He could not weep. He could not curse. He could only hope,
+blindly, that the volcano within him would not burst forth until his
+work was done.
+
+Ernest met him a short distance from the ranch house, and took the
+little body from his arms, without a word. Roger turned back to Charley.
+
+"I'm not coming up to the house just now," he said gruffly. "I'm afraid
+to see Dick."
+
+Elsa, hurrying up to help her friend, tears streaming down her tired,
+pretty face, heard this:
+
+"Don't try to see him, Rog, but you're not fit to go down to the camp
+yet. Lie down on the cot on the porch for a little while first."
+
+Roger who was dizzy and staggering caught Gustav's arm. The good fellow
+had come panting up, uncertain what to say or do to show his sympathy
+and pain.
+
+"Just for a few minutes then," panted Roger; "I don't want to see Dick
+for I'd kill him."
+
+"No--don't vorry. I von't let you," said Gustav. "Come, lieber freund,
+take the steps mit slowness."
+
+Roger dropped on the couch and Elsa and Charley went into the living
+room. Suddenly Dick shouted:
+
+"Snake bite! On the ankle there! O God Almighty!"
+
+Roger jumped to his feet and ran to the living-room door. Dick on an
+improvised crutch was staring down at the little form on the cot. Roger
+lunged for him with an oath, but Gustav caught Roger round the waist,
+and Charley, who had been sitting weakly in one of the camp chairs, her
+face bowed on the table, sprang forward, her eyes blazing.
+
+"Don't you dare bring your hellish temper into this room of death, Roger
+Moore!" she said. "Supposing Felicia had seen you in one of your temper
+frenzies, mightn't she have run away from you just as she did from
+Dick?"
+
+Roger stood as if paralyzed. Charley turned to Dick. "Fratricide!" she
+sobbed. "Murderer!" Then her voice rose hysterically. "Oh, why did I
+risk that little child to your weakness? Why? I killed her by it! I
+killed her!"
+
+Elsa ran to put her arm about Charley. "Come, dear, come into the
+bedroom and let me talk to you."
+
+Roger stood motionless for a moment, staring at the bedroom door which
+was closed in his face. Dick dropped into a chair with eyes closed,
+sweat pouring down his forehead and chin. Gustav gave Roger a tug and
+Roger allowed himself to be led back to the cot.
+
+Here he lay for a few moments glaring up at Gustav who perched himself
+watchfully on the cot edge. Then he said hoarsely: "Is that true,
+Gustav, what Charley said about me?"
+
+Gustav's honest face worked and his lips trembled. "Vell, you haf a bad
+temper, and she was a frightened little thing like a rabbit at a cross
+word."
+
+Roger groaned and closed his eyes. He lay for a long time so silent that
+Gustav was sure he was asleep. The house within was very silent. Elsa
+came out onto the porch and spoke to Gustav, softly and Roger opened his
+eyes.
+
+"It's all right, Gustav, old man," he said gently. "I won't touch Dick.
+Go on and do what Elsa wants and as soon as I've rested a bit, I'll help
+you."
+
+"You'll feel better if you have some food, Roger." Elsa came round to
+the side of the cot where Roger could see her. She was carrying a bowl
+of milk and a plate of bread, which she placed silently on a chair
+beside him, then she and Gustav disappeared toward the tool house where
+Ernest already had gone.
+
+Roger did feel better after he had cleaned the two dishes and he dozed a
+little.
+
+He was roused by the sound of sawing and hammering from the tool house.
+A moment after Charley flew out the door and down the trail to the door
+of the little adobe shack.
+
+"What are you all doing?" Roger heard her ask in a voice totally unlike
+her own, so shrill it was, and broken.
+
+"Don't come in, Charley," cried Elsa. "Roger, come here."
+
+Roger already was hurrying down the trail.
+
+"You must take Charley down to the Plant and keep her there for awhile,"
+Elsa said firmly, as Roger came up. "We'll tend to things here--she's
+reached her limit."
+
+"Wait till I get Peter," replied Roger. He was back shortly with the
+little burro and Charley's broad hat. When the trembling girl mounted he
+walked beside her with a steadying arm over her shoulders. Her
+helplessness suddenly made her seem very like Felicia to him.
+
+"We'll go right to the living tent," he said, quietly, "and you must try
+to rest while I get some supper."
+
+"No! No! Don't leave me. I'm not hungry. I can't rest! I killed her,
+Roger, I killed her!"
+
+"Nonsense! Booze killed her. Come, Charley, dismount, poor girl, and
+we'll turn old Peter loose," as they reached the camp.
+
+Charley dismounted, then stood staring levelly into Roger's eyes. "I let
+my love for Dick kill her. I hate him now. Oh, how I hate him!"
+
+"Don't talk about that," exclaimed Roger. "Charley, let's go into the
+living tent out of the sun."
+
+They sat down side by side on one of the trunks. Roger had a vague
+notion that Charley would find relief if she could weep. But he had no
+notion of how to make her do so. He took one of her feverish, trembling
+hands in his and began talking at random.
+
+"You are so like Felicia. You two always were getting confused in my
+mind and right now it's worse than ever. She loved me as much as I loved
+her. And now you'll have to try to be fond of me too, for her sake,
+Charley, and overlook my failings. You didn't kill her, my dear. She
+might have been bitten anywhere and at any time. Try to think of that.
+Why, you took wonderful care of her. Such care as never was on sea nor
+land, she used to say to me."
+
+Felicia's familiar little phrase was too much for Charley. Suddenly she
+ran over to one of the cots and dropping there burst into tears. Then
+Roger, wiping the sweat from his face, left her while he went out to
+boil the tea kettle. When he returned in about half an hour, he was able
+to persuade Charley to drink a cup of strong tea and eat a cracker. The
+sun had set by the time she had finished, and she asked him to walk with
+her up and down the sand before the door.
+
+How many hours he paced up and down in the hot darkness with Charley
+clinging to his arm, he could not tell. She did not cry again. Her
+agony of mind, like Roger's, was too deep for tears. She could only
+wring her hands and stumble back and forth like a hunted thing.
+
+It was Roger's first experience in trying to assuage the grief of any
+one else. He discovered resources within himself of which he never
+before had dreamed.
+
+"We were all to blame, Charley," he insisted again and again.
+
+"No, the fault was mine! Oh, little, lovely Felicia! Roger, you must
+know that though I wouldn't let you strike Dick, I hate him! I hate
+him!"
+
+"Good God, Charley! Let's not bring Dick in, to-night. We have our own
+private hell as he has his. Do you know that I'm realizing that what you
+said is right? That if Felicia had seen me again in one of my temper
+fits, it might have driven her away, just as this did. I'll never lose
+control of my temper again, Charley."
+
+She did not answer except to groan. After a time, Roger said, "I'm
+thinking about Dick's wound. If it isn't attended to, soon, gangrene may
+set in. You and I had better drive him into town to-morrow."
+
+"We'll not. He deserves to lose his leg!"
+
+"Perhaps he does. But we aren't the ones to say so. Come into the tent,
+Charley, you are staggering and so am I."
+
+Once more he led her into the tent where he lighted a "bug" and once
+more they sat down side by side on the trunk. Suddenly Roger put his arm
+about the girl and pulled her close against him, saying brokenly:
+
+"Oh, Charley! Charley! You are so like her! Lean against me, dear, as
+she would, and we'll try to weather this together." And Charley, with a
+tremulous sigh, laid her soft cheek against his rough, unshaven one.
+They sat there until the tent was filled with the lovely gray of the
+filtered moonlight. Then Roger persuaded Charley to lie down. But when
+she had done so she clung to his hand.
+
+"Stay with me, just a little bit longer," she whispered. Roger seated
+himself on the floor, clasping her hand closely. It was not long before
+Charley, still clinging to his hand, drifted off into uneasy slumber.
+Roger then leaned his tired head against the pillow and cramped as he
+was in his sitting posture, he dropped into a profound sleep.
+
+Thus Gustav found them at dawn. His face was tear-stained but he smiled
+a little with a look that was full of pity and understanding. He tried
+to tiptoe out without a sound but a board creaked and Charley sat up,
+stared at him, then exclaimed:
+
+"I must go up and dress her."
+
+Roger clambered to his feet. Gustav came over to the cot and took
+Charley's hand in both his own.
+
+"Miss Elsa haf dressed her, in the leedle vite dress and sash. And den,
+Miss Charley, you know how in so few hours Gott changes the bodies ve
+love so ve can't vish to haf them longer--so ve lay the little sister up
+on the mountain side last night, ven the moon came."
+
+Charley sat staring at him with horror in her eyes, then when he had
+ceased speaking, she lay back and closed her eyes and the two men left
+her.
+
+Later in the day, it was decided that Gustav must drive Dick, who was in
+great pain, into Archer's Springs to the doctor. Charley absolutely
+refused to see Dick or to offer any suggestions.
+
+Just as the wagon with Dick perching on the cot at the bottom was ready
+to start for the camp Ernest called:
+
+"Oh, Gustav, be sure to find out about the Smithsonian's visitor and
+wire to Washington the reason for our failure to meet him."
+
+Roger, who was standing in the living tent, caught his breath. Through
+his grief for Felicia merged realization that his great opportunity had
+come and gone. For the first time in three days he turned to the engine
+house.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+WASHINGTON
+
+
+After the wagon was a receding dust-cloud on the trail, Charley went
+back up to the adobe, where Elsa was to stay on with her, and Ernest to
+sleep at night.
+
+Outwardly life assumed its old routine. Gustav returned on the third day
+and reported that Dick was established at Doc Evans' house and that the
+Doc said "he'd have Dick about again in two or three weeks if no new
+complication set in." He also brought a letter from the Smithsonian man,
+Arlington, somewhat caustically deploring the fact that Roger had not
+been sufficiently interested to meet him and closing with the remark
+that he would not be in the neighborhood again for another six months.
+Gustav brought with him, too, the refilled drums of sulphur dioxide.
+
+Roger handed the letter, without comment, to Ernest and went back into
+the engine house. He did not go up to the ranch for supper that evening
+as he had been doing, but the following morning which was Sunday, he
+appeared for breakfast. He was looking haggard and old but he greeted
+his friends cheerfully.
+
+"Got any victuals for a broken down inventor?" he asked Charley.
+
+She smiled faintly as she set a place for Roger at the table.
+
+"You certainly look the part, Rog," said Ernest. "It's a good thing
+you've got friends with business heads."
+
+"With what?" exclaimed Roger.
+
+"Don't be cynical!" cried Elsa. "We sat up half the night working out a
+wonderful scheme for you. We--"
+
+"Yes," Ernest interrupted eagerly, "we all went over the situation and
+we've made up our minds to a mode of action. You are such an impractical
+old chump, Rog! It's ridiculous for you to waste your time trying to
+make an engine out of a junk pile while the main idea of your invention,
+the real selling part, is neglected." He stopped to butter a biscuit.
+
+Roger sipped his coffee and waited for Ernest to continue. "Now then,
+Elsa has a little money, enough to take me to Washington and back. It's
+her idea that I take that and go to see the Smithsonian people. There's
+not the slightest sense in your going. You're no salesman and I am. You
+remember it was I who landed Austin in the first place."
+
+"I remember," said Roger quietly.
+
+There was a long silence. Roger thought of the tiny food supply and of
+the months of experimentation that must go on before the Sun Plant would
+show efficiency.
+
+"I hate to see Elsa putting money into this thing," he said slowly, "but
+at most I can always take a job and pay her back."
+
+"Of course you can!" exclaimed Elsa.
+
+"I know I can get money from the Smithsonian," said Ernest, "and we'll
+repay her at once."
+
+Roger looked at Charley. "What do you advise?" he asked.
+
+"I wouldn't hesitate for an instant," she replied. "Elsa feels just as I
+would--that the work must be finished."
+
+"I know I can land the Smithsonian," reiterated Ernest, "and we'll repay
+Elsa at once."
+
+"You needn't hurry," exclaimed Elsa. "As long as I have no money, I
+can't go home!"
+
+Roger looked from Ernest to Elsa, then out the door across the desert to
+where the Sun Plant lay in the burning, quivering blue air.
+
+"We'll try it out, Ern," he said. "You know how grateful I am to you
+both."
+
+Ernest nodded. "Nobody's using the horses, so I'll drive in and leave
+the team at Hackett's. If Dick gets well before I come back he can drive
+himself out. Otherwise it will be waiting for me. Elsa, do you think you
+could fix up a clean collar and shirt for me?"
+
+"If she can't, I can," offered Charley.
+
+"Take anything you can find of mine," Roger's face was more cheerful
+than it had been for days. "I'll get the reports and drawings ready for
+you."
+
+So, by the united efforts of the two households, Ernest was made ready
+for a flying trip to civilization. He was so happy and excited over the
+trip that he really lifted some of the sadness that had hung so heavily
+over the ranch house. After his departure, Gustav slept at the ranch, in
+order to do the chores while Roger remained at the Plant.
+
+Ever since he had reached the desert Roger had been conducting heat
+tests and while he was able under perfectly controlled conditions to
+produce higher temperatures than those of the tables he had used for so
+many years, his average readings under the absorber glass were less
+than he had counted on. And so he was at work on a new type, low
+pressure engine, for which his average temperatures would produce ample
+heat.
+
+Ernest took little stock in his new idea. "It may take fifty years to
+work it out," he had said the day he left for Washington. "Increase your
+absorption area and let it go at that. Better men than you have spent
+their lives on the low pressure idea and failed."
+
+"I tell you," Roger had insisted, "that with a few changes of this
+present engine, I'll produce _the_ low pressure engine of to-day."
+
+"Well, go to it, old man! In the meantime, I'll fetch you some money so
+you can buy all the parts needed, and not have to continue your awful
+career of mountain brigand. The devilish thing about you inventors is
+that you putter so. My God, you drive me crazy! I do honestly believe
+that if it weren't for fear of starvation, you'd be puttering here for
+ten years."
+
+"You're getting to be nothing better than a common scold, Ern," returned
+Roger with a laugh. "I'll be glad to get you out of the camp. Run along
+now and do your little errand."
+
+With a routine established for caring for the two households, Roger bent
+all his splendid mind and energies on re-making the engine. Charley,
+coming to the camp one afternoon, as she or Elsa often did to cheer
+Roger's long day, watched him as he worked with infinite care to adjust
+a gauge he had taken apart.
+
+"One of the many things that break me up," she said, "is that you missed
+the visit from the Smithsonian man."
+
+"As it turns out," replied Roger, stoutly, "I didn't miss anything. I
+found when I got to work again that my safety device was inadequate and
+I've been all this time evolving a new one. If I'd run the engine as it
+was, I might have had a nasty blow-up and I've made one or two other
+changes, too, that are important."
+
+"The engine doesn't look so very different to me," said Charley.
+
+Roger chuckled. "Her whole insides have been made over really, by just a
+few changes. When Dean Erskine gets the new parts made and down here,
+I'll be O. K. I sent the design up to him when Ernest went in and some
+new parts ought to be here in a couple of weeks, now. I told Ern to have
+Hackett deliver them on arrival. It's too complicated to explain to you
+but I had another corking good idea the day that Dick went. I'm glad
+Arlington won't get here for six months."
+
+Charley's eyes filled with sudden tears. "You're a lamb, Roger," she
+murmured.
+
+"Where's Gustav?" asked Roger, quickly.
+
+"He's puttering with the Lemon. If you need him, I'll go up for him."
+
+"No, you won't. It seems to me that you need water on the alfalfa badly.
+The second field is getting pretty yellow."
+
+Charley sighed. "I know it! Roger, that well just isn't adequate. I've
+told Dick so fifty times. He should have begun work on a driven well,
+long ago, but he's simply hipped on the powers of this present well. I
+think that the old thing is going dry."
+
+"You do?" Roger's tone was startled. "Here, there's no hurry on this
+job. I'm just waiting really for the new parts. Let's go up and have a
+look at your whole water outfit."
+
+They set off forthwith, the Lemon starting on its uneasy way, just as
+they reached the pumping shed.
+
+"Something's wrong, certainly," exclaimed Roger, watching the stream of
+water that came from the pump. "There isn't half the usual stream there.
+Do you think the pump is all right, Gustav?"
+
+"The pump is new and goot. The vater is low. Sometime, no vater it come
+at all. Then I vait for it to fill again."
+
+"I don't understand it at all," said Charley. "There is plenty of water
+in this range. You see that old silver mine, up there?" pointing to an
+ancient dump on the mountainside back of the house. "Well, the lower
+level of that has a foot of water in it."
+
+"How does it seem, stagnant?" asked Roger.
+
+"I've never seen it," replied Charley. "Dick told me."
+
+Roger lighted his pipe and took a few meditative puffs. "Charley, are
+you and Dick entirely broke?" he asked.
+
+"We've got enough left of the turquoise money to grub stake us to the
+end of the year. Why, Roger?"
+
+"Well, I think you've got to have a decent gasoline engine here, at
+once, if you're going to save that first crop."
+
+"But I thought your plant--" Charley spoke carefully as if fearful of
+hurting Roger.
+
+"So did I," he returned, a little bitterly. "But I've thought a good
+many things in my life that haven't come true."
+
+"I'm very certain that this new engine of yours will do everything you
+expect of it." She smiled a little. "You remember poor old Mrs. von
+Minden said you were to found an empire."
+
+Roger grinned. "She didn't know engineers!"
+
+Charley's smile faded as she stood staring at the Lemon. "No, a new
+engine is out of the question. We--we have some bad debts that keep
+Hackett from giving us credit. We're counting on this first crop to
+clear part of that up."
+
+"Then," said Roger decidedly, "there's just one thing to be done. We'll
+move the Sun Plant up here, now, while I'm waiting to complete the
+engine."
+
+"The absorber and condenser! Oh, Roger man, the whole crop would be
+burned to a crisp while you did that! And only you and Gustav to do it,
+and the team is at Archer's."
+
+Roger bit his pipe stem. "There must be a way," he insisted, doggedly.
+"There's got to be."
+
+"Vy not make the vell, first," suggested Gustav who had been a silent
+auditor to the entire conversation. "If you don't get vater, a gut
+engine is no gut."
+
+"Who's going to dig it?" asked Roger. "If it takes as long to get to
+water up here as it did at the Plant, you and I would be at it till
+October. No! I'm going to get help. I don't know how I'm going to get
+it, but it's going to be done. I could keep twenty men busy here for a
+month."
+
+Charley sighed and Gustav shrugged his shoulders.
+
+Roger relighted his pipe and went into a brown study. Gustav waited
+patiently for several moments, then left to do the evening chores.
+Charley sat on an empty box beside the pump watching now the stream
+that flowed over the field and now Roger's half closed eyes. Finally he
+emptied his pipe and rose.
+
+"Didn't Elsa call supper?" he asked.
+
+"Some time ago." Charley rose too. "But I didn't want to interrupt. Have
+you solved your troubles?"
+
+"I don't know. But I've thought of something I'm going to try out.
+Wasn't that camp Felicia went to a permanent one?"
+
+"Yes, in a way. The Indians come there again and again. But they won't
+work, Roger."
+
+"Old Rabbit Tail works. Charley, take a little trip with me to-morrow.
+Let's see if my idea works."
+
+"I'd like to, Roger. I haven't been away from sight of this adobe hut
+but twice in a year. Once, the night we found you, and once, the night
+you and I--"
+
+"I know, poor old girl! Well, let's have a little picnic trip of our own
+to-morrow. We'll take Peter and some grub--get a dawn start and be back
+by sundown."
+
+"Oh, I'd love it!" cried Charley, looking like Felicia with the sudden
+flash of joy in her eyes. "I'll put up the best lunch ever. Come along,
+Roger, do! Elsa will take our heads off."
+
+Roger invited Elsa to accompany them on the mysterious trip, but Elsa
+refused to go.
+
+"Dick will be back any day now," she said, "and I'm going to be here
+when he comes."
+
+Charley made no reply to this but Roger frankly shrugged his shoulders.
+"I feel as if I never wanted to see him again. I'll be here at dawn,
+Charley. You can meet me at the corral, can't you, so's not to rout the
+others out too early?"
+
+Charley agreed and dawn was just unfolding over the desert when she tied
+the grub pack to Peter's saddle. She waited for some time, sitting on
+the rock, her back against the corral, before Roger came. He appeared at
+last, just as the first rays of the sun shot over the mountains.
+
+"Sorry to be late," he said, "but my gasoline's given out and I had to
+cook breakfast by hand, as it were, over some chips. Whew, it's going to
+be one hot day."
+
+"I don't care how hot it is," replied Charley, recklessly. "I feel as I
+were being taken to the county fair, and I was almost too excited to
+sleep. Come along! I know the trail well."
+
+It was a well beaten trail. The Indians had used it for countless
+generations in their search for pottery clay. It lifted zig-zag over the
+Coyote Range, giving at the crest this morning a superb view of distant
+peaks and of gold melting into blue infinities. It dropped zig-zag into
+canyons that were parched and cracked with late summer heat and lifted
+again to cross a peak whose top and sides had been blasted and left
+purple and gashed by an ancient volcano. Then once more it dropped
+gradually and gracefully into the canyon where the little spring
+mirrored the blue of the Arizona sky.
+
+There were half a dozen Indian sun shelters near the spring, each a mere
+cat's claw and yucca thatch, supported on cedar posts. To Roger's
+surprise and gratification the Indians were at home. It was still early
+and they were at breakfast. With Peter trailing like a dog, Charley and
+Roger stopped a short distance from the camp.
+
+Old Rabbit Tail, in his breech clout, squatted near a pot of simmering
+stew, now dipping in a long handled spoon and eating from it
+meditatively, now puffing at a yellow cigarette. Several squaws in dirty
+calico dresses, squatted near by awaiting their turn. Each shelter held
+a similar group, every one of which paused in breathless interest as the
+two whites approached.
+
+Roger strode directly up to the old chief. "Good morning, Rabbit Tail!"
+he said.
+
+Rabbit Tail grunted.
+
+"I came up to have a talk with you," Roger went on, pulling out his
+pipe. "Sit down, Charley, this is going to be a regular pow-wow."
+
+A tall Indian in the next shelter rose slowly and started quietly toward
+the back trail. "Hey! Qui-tha!" called Roger, sternly, "Come back here!
+I've something to say to you. The sheriff ought to have you. Call him,
+Rabbit Tail."
+
+Rabbit Tail spoke in Hualapai and Qui-tha came slowly up to the old
+chief's shelter and dropping down beside him, lighted a cigarette.
+Charley, sitting on a rock at a little distance, chin in hand, arm on
+knee, shivered slightly in the broiling sun. Roger, who had learned much
+about Indians from Qui-tha, jerked his thumb at Charley.
+
+"You know that white woman, Rabbit Tail?"
+
+"Four years!" replied the chief.
+
+"What kind of a woman is she--eh?"
+
+"Good woman. My squaw have papoose one time in her 'dobe. Charley take
+care her all same she her sister. Heap good white squaw, Charley."
+
+The squaw in question nodded and smiled at Charley, who smiled in
+return, a little sadly. Roger turned to Qui-tha.
+
+"How about her brother, Dick Preble? You like him?"
+
+Qui-tha, his brown face expressionless, nodded. "Yes! Most whites steal
+and lie. Dick he never steal or lie to Injun. Good man, except when
+drunk."
+
+"Exactly," Roger clutched his pipe bowl firmly. "Did you tell 'em about
+the little girl--eh?"
+
+Qui-tha looked up in honest surprise. "Tell what 'bout little girl?"
+
+Roger turned to Rabbit Tail. "You haven't heard about what Qui-tha did
+to little girl?"
+
+"Me no touch little girl," exclaimed Qui-tha, indignantly. "Have fight
+with Dick', no touch little girl. Like little girl, bring her home when
+she get lost up here."
+
+"You know how Dick is a devil when he gets drunk?"
+
+Qui-tha nodded.
+
+"You knew that, yet you brought him a bottle of whiskey and got drunk
+with him and shot him in the leg when you fought."
+
+The old chief turned inquiringly toward Qui-tha. Again Qui-tha nodded
+grimly.
+
+"And you knew that the infernal drunken row you kicked up that night
+frightened the little girl so that she ran away into the desert where a
+rattle snake bit her and she died--died all alone at night, in the
+desert."
+
+A look of complete horror rose in Qui-tha's eyes. "No!" he gasped.
+
+"Ai! Ai! Ai!" cried the squaw who had given Felicia the pottery. "Poor
+little papoose! She was sweet, like her," pointing to Charley.
+
+Then there was silence in the camp, all eyes turned on the old chief.
+Indians are great lovers of children. Their tenderness to them never
+fails, be they white or red or black.
+
+"Dick heap sick?" asked old Rabbit Tail, finally.
+
+"Yes, but he'll get well. He's at Doc Evans's house in Archer's."
+
+"Did you tell the sheriff?" continued the chief.
+
+"No," replied Roger. "Charley wouldn't let me."
+
+Rabbit Tail turned to Charley. "Why?" he queried, laconically
+
+Charley bit her lip. "The whites brought whiskey to the Indians in the
+first place," she said.
+
+There was another silence. Then Roger began again. "Dick has been sick a
+long time now and he can't work much when he gets back. You know his
+alfalfa field?"
+
+"Yes," said the chief.
+
+"Well, Dick has been away and his water pump is no good and the alfalfa
+is dying. If we don't get water on it it will die. If it dies, then
+Charley will have much trouble, bad trouble. They owe Hackett much money
+because of Dick's drinking. So they can't get food unless they pay that
+money. They can't pay that money unless they sell much alfalfa. See?"
+
+Qui-tha and Rabbit Tail both nodded.
+
+"Now, I know you Indians don't believe in work. But if I can dig a big
+well for Charley and move my engine up to the adobe, I can get plenty of
+water on the alfalfa. It would take twenty Indians one week to move my
+plant. Rabbit Tail, you supply gangs sometimes for government work. Get
+Charley a gang for one week."
+
+"You whites," said Rabbit Tail, "work heap hard for what you get--huh?
+If you live like Injun, no worry 'bout food, go out shoot 'em. No worry
+'bout bed. Sleep in sand, huh?"
+
+Roger nodded. "I think many times you're right, Rabbit Tail. But it's
+too late now. Whites have lived like this too many hundreds of years.
+They can't change to your ways any more than Indians can change to white
+ways."
+
+Again there was a long pause before Rabbit Tail began once more.
+
+"You know you whites kill many Injuns. Give Injun dirty sickness--kill
+Injun babies. Me--I see white take Injun baby by feet, smash head
+against rock. See Injun squaw belly cut out by white man. You know all
+that?"
+
+Roger nodded. "The whites have been rotten to the Indians. I don't blame
+you for hating us. But how about Charley and the little girl?"
+
+One of Qui-tha's squaws spoke. She had been educated at an Indian
+school.
+
+"Charley showed me how to cure my baby of sore scalp and how to take
+care of him when he had croup. She lets me stay with her when he is sick
+or I am."
+
+"She lets me use her sewing machine whenever I want it," spoke up a
+pretty young squaw in a red gingham dress.
+
+"When old Chachee die," an elderly Indian woman looked from Charley to
+Rabbit Tail, "she die in Charley's house. Charley help sickness in her
+chest better'n medicine man."
+
+Roger looked at Charley. He knew that she liked the Indians but she
+never had mentioned her good works to them.
+
+The educated squaw spoke again. "I hate most white women. They treat us
+as if we were servants. But Charley treats us as if we were human beings
+like herself. And Felicia was a beautiful child."
+
+"It's queer some of you have never been near Charley then, in her
+trouble," said Roger.
+
+"The men have been working for months on the government dam at Bitter
+Peak. We were with them and just got here three days ago. Of course,
+Qui-tha didn't tell what little he knew. If the men won't help Charley,
+we women will. We could carry water to the field."
+
+Qui-tha rose and walked over to Charley. "Qui-tha heap sorry. You give
+Qui-tha to sheriff."
+
+Charley shook her head. "What good would that do?"
+
+"All right then, Qui-tha go help one week, fix the alfalfa."
+
+Old Rabbit Tail lighted another cigarette. "We come Monday, bring
+fifteen men, one week," he said.
+
+"You know neither Roger nor I have any money, Rabbit Tail," explained
+Charley.
+
+"Money no pay for blood. You good to Injuns. Now Injuns good to you."
+
+Roger rose. "Thank you," he said simply. But Charley was too moved for
+words and as if she understood, one of the squaws put one hand on the
+girl's shoulder while she patted her cheek.
+
+They clambered back to the top of the trail, without a word until the
+camp was out of sight, then Roger said with a half smile,
+
+"You are some girl, Charley dear."
+
+"And you are some boy, Roger."
+
+"I? Why Charley, I'm just beginning to realize that I have gone through
+life with my eyes shut. The man with one idea misses most of life. I
+went up there with the intention of threatening a lot of savages. I've
+come away feeling as if I'd met a group of intelligent and kind hearted
+fellow humans."
+
+"It was wonderful of them, wasn't it!" exclaimed Charley. "I had no idea
+they felt under obligations, to me. I certainly didn't want them to."
+
+Roger nodded and looked at his watch. "It's only nine o'clock now. If it
+wasn't so frightfully hot and there were any place to go, I'd say let's
+continue our spree."
+
+"Just beyond that strip of desert there," Charley pointed into the
+valley to the east, "there are some wonderful Indian inscriptions on
+some rocks around a spring. I've never seen them, but I've always wanted
+to and I know the trail. Dick has shown it to me."
+
+"Let's try it," said Roger. "Peter, come on, you're getting fat and
+lazy. I believe it's about ten degrees hotter than usual."
+
+It was an hour's climb down into the valley. It lost its level look on
+near inspection. In every direction a fine, powderlike sand lay in long
+undulating ridges. Neither rock nor cactus was to be seen. A faint wind
+was stirring and tiny eddies of sand rose against the sky.
+
+"You see that peak, due east?" asked Charley. "Well, the spring is just
+at the foot of that in a little canyon. There's never any trail here at
+all, the sand drifts so."
+
+"I'm glad we're heading for a spring," exclaimed Roger. "I know I can
+empty the gallon canteen by myself."
+
+They started ahead, Roger leading, Peter following behind Charley. It
+was heavy slow walking. After perhaps an hour of it, during which
+conversation languished more and more, Charley said,
+
+"I don't feel as eager minded as I did about Indian writings, do you?"
+
+"Well," replied Roger, stopping to wipe the sand from his face and to
+grin at Charley. "I wasn't eager about the hieroglyphics to begin with.
+I haven't taken a girl for a walk for years and I thought this was my
+chance!"
+
+"How is your enthusiasm for that standing up?" chuckled Charley.
+
+Roger cleared his throat. "You see, it's like this--" he began, his eyes
+twinkling.
+
+Charley interrupted by catching his arm. "Look, Roger! There's a sand
+storm coming!"
+
+Roger looked up the desert to the north. The familiar gray veil of sand
+was plainly visible. "Lord!" he exclaimed. "We'd better start back at
+once."
+
+"No, we're within a mile of the spring, now," said Charley. "We'd better
+get there as fast as we can. I do hope Gustav and Elsa will be all
+right. That poor new field of alfalfa!"
+
+"Perhaps it won't be so bad in the other valley. Certainly this sand is
+going to try its best to suffocate us. Whew, there she comes!" as a
+cloud of sand enveloped them.
+
+They paused long enough to adjust their bandannas across their faces,
+then started hurriedly on, Roger holding Charley by the hand and
+catching Peter's lead rope firmly. In ten minutes the peak toward which
+they were heading was obscured.
+
+"Shall we stop or press on?" shouted Roger.
+
+"Let Peter lead!" cried Charley. "If he stops, we'll stop."
+
+Peter, shoved ahead of the little procession, did not hesitate. He
+dropped his head between his knees and moved very slowly, but none the
+less surely onward. The walking was almost incredibly difficult. The
+very desert underfoot seemed in motion. New ridges rose before their
+burning, half blinded eyes. The uproar was that of a hurricane roaring
+through a forest. Now Roger would stagger to his knees: now Charley. But
+Peter, lifting and planting his little feet gingerly and exactly, never
+stumbled. Panting, sweating, Roger after what seemed hours of this going
+halted Peter with some difficulty and putting his lips close to
+Charley's ear called, "Having a pleasant walk to the county fair, my
+dear?"
+
+"Of its kind, it's perfect!" shrieked Charley in return and not to be
+outdone.
+
+As if thoroughly disgusted by such persiflage, Peter brayed and started
+on without waiting to be urged. A moment later the footing became firmer
+and Peter led the way around a rock heap and buried his nose in a tiny
+pool that seemed thick with sand. Roger sighed with deep relief. He had
+seen the desert strike too often now to face her ugly moods with full
+equanimity.
+
+There was no real shelter from the storm here. But it was vastly better
+than the open desert. They found a hollowed rock facing the spring, just
+big enough for the two of them to crouch with their backs against it.
+Although the sand sifted in on them constantly, they were at least away
+from the fury of the wind. There was water a-plenty at hand and they
+could bide their time. Peter established himself with his forefeet in
+the water, his tail to the storm and appeared to go to sleep.
+
+For a time, Roger and Charley were glad to sit in silence, recovering
+their breath. But finally Roger stretched his cramped legs with a sigh.
+
+"Charley, I find desert life just a bit strenuous," he said.
+
+Charley wiped her face vigorously with her bandanna and nodded.
+
+"So do I. But I like it. I think I must like the constant fight and the
+awful beauty. There's nothing else here."
+
+"Have you anything in you but Anglo-Saxon blood?" asked Roger.
+
+"No," replied Charley.
+
+"That accounts for your loving it, I believe. The Anglo-Saxons are the
+trail makers for civilization. And by Jove, if any two people on earth
+are making trails it's you and Dick."
+
+"You're Anglo-Saxon yourself. What is your work but trail making?"
+
+"We aren't all trail makers!" Roger gave a half cynical chuckle. "You
+know I'm solving the labor question."
+
+"With old Rabbit Tail's gang?"
+
+"Hardly! Yet, by golly, Charley, I don't know but what I'm developing a
+typical labor situation down here. The Indian gang is working as a
+favor, you understand, and not from any necessity."
+
+Charley laughed. "If it weren't for you inventors, we all could revert
+comfortably to Rabbit Tail's philosophy."
+
+"It was to make that philosophy workable that started me inventing. That
+is, to give every man food and shelter with a minimum of work."
+
+Once fairly launched, Roger gave Charley a rapid picture of the strike
+and the burning of the factory. When he had finished the two sat long in
+silence watching the gray veil that roared before them.
+
+At last Charley shook her head. "It's a long trail from the old plow
+factory to the hieroglyphic spring, Roger."
+
+"A long way," agreed Roger, "and I have no idea whether I'm helping or
+hindering labor. I only know now that my job is to make deserts bloom.
+Let labor go hang!"
+
+Charley did not answer. She sat with her brown hands clasping her khaki
+knees, her hat pulled low over her eyes. Roger eyed her affectionately.
+It occurred to him that since Felicia's death, she had seemed more than
+ever like a fine intelligent boy. And yet he was honest enough to tell
+himself that there was infinitely more satisfaction in sitting in a
+hollowed rock with Charley than with any boy he had ever known.
+Suddenly Roger put his long arm across Charley's fine shoulders.
+
+"Charley, you old dear!" he said. "I am mighty fond of you! You're the
+best man I know."
+
+Charley said nothing for a moment. She reached up to clasp the hand that
+hung over her shoulder, then she turned to look into Roger's face and
+there was that in her eyes that held him speechless. There was in them
+Felicia's innocence and Felicia's eternal query. There was Charley's own
+sweetness and wistfulness, but back of these were burning depths of
+which Roger as yet had no understanding but they stirred him so
+profoundly that he paled beneath his tan.
+
+"I'm glad you're fond of me, Roger. I'm fond of you." Charley's voice
+was gentle.
+
+Roger's hand tightened on the girl's. "You are very beautiful," he said,
+a little breathlessly. "Even with your face all dust, and in khaki, you
+are beautiful."
+
+"I am glad," replied Charley with a smile that showed her white teeth.
+
+Roger did not speak again for a long time, but he did not release
+Charley's hand until she said, "Roger, the storm is going down."
+
+Then he rose and stood staring at her until, smiling again, she said,
+"If you'll push your friend Peter out of the spring, I'll see if I can
+get clean water for us."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+RABBIT TAIL'S GANG
+
+
+The dust storm died down almost as rapidly as it had risen. By four
+o'clock the three were on their way home across the strange sea of sand.
+They had reached the home range before Roger said to Charley,
+
+"By Jove, you never did show me the Indian writing! What do you mean by
+such subterfuge? Couldn't you think of any other way to entice a man for
+a stroll?"
+
+"There were inscriptions all around you!" exclaimed Charley. "You were
+leaning against the drawing of a horse, all the afternoon. Where were
+your eyes?"
+
+"That portion of them not blinded by sand was on you, my dear."
+
+"Tut! Tut! Don't try freshman blarney on me, Roger! I'm getting too old
+for it. Besides one man doesn't blarney another."
+
+Roger looked at Charley quickly. "Hum!" he said, "I'm not at all sure
+but what you're totally feminine and that I'm a fool."
+
+"Here's the home trail," said Charley. "I hope they haven't worried
+about us."
+
+Elsa was waiting supper for them and the look of relief on her face as
+they came in at the door told the story of the day's anxiety.
+
+"Gustav and I have been frantic!" she said. "You poor things! Where did
+the storm catch you?" Then without waiting for an answer she went on.
+"We kept the pump going off and on all day. In fact just as steadily as
+the Lemon would let us, which was not very steadily, you can be sure.
+But I'm so afraid that the second field is gone. The sand was not so bad
+this time but the heat was frightful. I don't see how anything green
+could stand up against those heat blasts. The thermometer here in the
+adobe was 118 deg. at five o'clock this afternoon."
+
+Charley pulled off her hat and sank into a chair. "Well," she sighed,
+"why worry! Seems to me I've had all the troubles known to women and I'm
+not going to let the mere loss of the family fortune ruin an otherwise
+perfect day."
+
+Elsa looked at the two sharply. But Charley went on serenely. "I've been
+drowned in sand. I've been bullied and baked and burned, I've been----"
+
+"Good gracious, Els, feed her! She's delirious with hunger!" said Roger.
+
+"Well, of course," exclaimed Elsa, "if the owner of that magnificent
+alfalfa crop----"
+
+She was interrupted by a cheerful call from Gustav who was in the
+corral.
+
+"Hello, Dick! Hello! How vas the leg?"
+
+Elsa set the coffee pot hastily on the table. The smile left Charley's
+face as Dick came slowly over the porch and paused just within the door.
+
+"Well," he said huskily, "the bad egg is back."
+
+"How's the leg?" asked Roger, stiffly.
+
+"All right except for a little lameness. I'll sit down though, if you
+don't mind."
+
+Dick sank wearily into a chair and there was a moment's silence. Roger
+could not have believed it possible for a human being to have changed as
+had Dick in less than a month. His ruddy brown hair was sprinkled
+with gray. He was thin, and his usually round face was sunken of cheek
+with heavy lines showing around his eyes and at the corners of the
+mouth.
+
+"Supper's just ready," said Elsa. "You must be hungry, Dick." Dick
+pulled himself slowly out of his chair.
+
+"Charley," he said, "and all the rest of you, I've just a few things I
+want to tell you before I try to pick up the old threads. Nothing you
+folks can say or do to show how you despise me can hurt me. I'm too low
+in my own opinion--At first, that afternoon Roger brought Felicia home,
+I made up my mind to kill myself. The only thing that kept me from it
+was realizing that Charley couldn't stand much more without losing her
+mind."
+
+He paused to look at Charley, but she only gazed at him silently in
+return and he went on.
+
+"When I went into Archer's Springs, I hadn't the slightest intention of
+ever coming back here. But lying there on the flat of my back, I came to
+the conclusion that the one way to help Charley endure what's happened
+would be to have it make a man of me. Then perhaps in the years to come,
+she would grow to think of Felicia as if she were thinking of the
+ordinary death of a lovely little child and not with the hell of remorse
+she's having now. As for me, I'll always have that remorse. That's
+common justice. But there's no reason why Charley should have it.
+
+"I guess that's about all, except this. For two weeks I've gone over
+every afternoon to the saloon and sat there for two or three hours. And
+the sight and smell of the booze for the first time in my life made me
+want to vomit."
+
+Dick paused again, trembling visibly and staring at Charley.
+
+"I'm sorry, Dick," she said, her lips stiff, yet quivering. "I'm going
+to try to care for you again. But I don't know whether I can or not.
+Every night when I go to bed I see first your face that night all red
+and bloated and distorted, then Felicia's, the way Roger and I found
+her. I--I've got lots to forget, Dick."
+
+"God knows you have, Charley. But you're going to give me one more
+trial, aren't you? Please, Charley!"
+
+"Try if you want to, Dick. I don't seem to care, one way or the other."
+
+Dick's head dropped to his chest. With a little inarticulate cry, Elsa
+ran across the room and pulling Dick's head over to rest on her soft
+breast, she kissed him on the forehead.
+
+"I care, Dicky!" she cried. "I care! It's my whole life whether you make
+good or not."
+
+Dick lifted his agonized face and stared into Elsa's tear wet eyes. A
+slow, twisted smile touched his lips.
+
+"Oh, Elsa! Oh, Elsa!" he breathed. "I think you've saved my soul alive!"
+He turned his face against her and Elsa, clasping the gray-touched head
+to her, looked at the others fiercely.
+
+"Now, who hurts Dick, hurts me!"
+
+Roger dropped his hand on Charley's shoulder. "Then look to it that he
+never hurts Charley again," he said sternly.
+
+There was a silence, broken by Gustav, who came into the kitchen with
+the milk pail.
+
+"Elsa, make me the pans ready!" he called.
+
+"Coming, Gustav," answered Elsa in her normal voice. "The rest of you
+sit down to supper. Gustav and I won't be a minute."
+
+"Better wash up, Roger," said Charley. "Dick, your room is ready for
+you!" and she disappeared into her own bedroom.
+
+When they finally sat down to the belated supper, Roger began at once to
+tell of the crop conditions and of the call on old Rabbit Tail.
+
+"Let's see, this is Friday and he promises the gang here on Monday. I
+think we'd better get busy to-morrow and make the drill connections on
+the old Lemon. What do you think of the whole scheme, Dick?"
+
+"I think it's perfect!" exclaimed Dick.
+
+"Perfect if my engine works," said Roger. "But even if it doesn't,
+you'll still have the old Lemon and a real well. So I'll have done you
+no harm."
+
+"Have you got to dismantle that condenser to move it?" asked Dick.
+
+"Pretty thoroughly, I'm afraid. But if the Indians are any good at
+all--"
+
+"If Rabbit Tail brings his pet gang," said Dick "there'll be four first
+class machinists in it, trained at Carlisle. Fellows who work only when
+they please, but Lord, they are wonders. I saw them put up an oil engine
+once that had been badly smashed en route. It was a poem, I tell you."
+
+"Heaven send them then!" exclaimed Roger. "If they put this thing over
+for us, I'll pay for it in cold cash as soon as I get it."
+
+"Rabbit Tail won't take money for this deal," said Charley.
+
+"The others will, but they won't ask for it." Dick filled his pipe, and
+pushed his coffee cup away with a little smile for Elsa.
+
+"My debts are getting so large now," mused Roger, "that I can begin to
+take a sort of pride in them. Gustav, as Dick's home now, will you come
+down to the Plant in the morning?"
+
+And at Gustav's nod Roger made his adieux and went home to bed.
+
+Monday dawned with the usual promise of merciless heat. It seemed as if
+the torrid days of late summer were harder to bear than July had been.
+Though there was an occasional dust storm, the air was quiet except for
+the little gusts of burning wind. These gusts were too transitory to
+carry a sand storm. But all day long, tall spirals of sand, like water
+spouts, whirled across the desert. One struck Dick's corral, during his
+absence, ripped off the roof of the tool house and overturned the
+watering trough. Several days later, one brought up against the
+condenser and after knocking off the thatch, collapsed, deluging the
+apparatus with sand. There was something uncanny about these gigantic
+figures, whirling suddenly across the desert, now viciously ripping up a
+cholla or a Joshua tree, now collapsing ridiculously against a rock.
+
+It was now too, that thunderstorms were occasionally heard in the
+distant western ranges, though rain seemed forever denied to the desert
+valleys. But on the Sunday noon before Rabbit Tail's gang was to arrive,
+the impossible happened. Roger and Gustav were eating their monotonous
+lunch of corned beef and canned brown bread when a curious roar broke
+the desert silence. As the two men looked at each other questioningly,
+there was a deafening crash and a huge deluge of water smashed down on
+the cook tent. The sun-baked canvas was like a sieve and in a moment
+both men were saturated.
+
+"A cloud burst!" exclaimed Roger, grinning fatuously at the delicious
+sensation of wet clothing and skin.
+
+"Gott, vat a country!" cried Gustav.
+
+Roger's grin disappeared. "The living tent, by Jove!" Heedless of the
+blinding torrent, he dashed to the tent where all the morning he had
+been sorting and checking drawings and notes. He stopped in the doorway
+appalled. Everything in the tent was dripping. Drawings, instruments,
+camera, open trunks and bedding were flooded. The patient work of months
+must be done over.
+
+"Hang this infernal desert!" roared Roger. "This is the last straw!"
+
+He stood glowering at the wreckage, water pouring over his head and
+shoulders, when, as suddenly as it had begun, the rain ceased. Roger
+looked out the door. Every grain of sand, every cactus spine bore a tiny
+rainbow. The whole desert floor was a mosaic of opals. The sky was of a
+blue too deep, too brilliant for the eye to endure. As Roger stood with
+mouth agape he was thrilled by a sensation he had not before
+experienced. The desert, ordinarily entirely odorless, gave forth a
+scent. Just for a moment a pungent perfume for which he could find no
+adjectives swept softly to his nostrils and was gone. Roger stood a
+moment longer as if transfixed. Then he smiled and turning into the
+tent, he began to repair the damage done.
+
+Promptly at eight o'clock on Monday morning, Roger and Dick, at work on
+the Lemon, were greeted by a pleasant
+
+"How! Boss!"
+
+Standing by the corral in various attitudes of ease, all of them smoking
+cigarettes, were the members of Rabbit Tail's gang. They were lean,
+powerful fellows, most of them young. They were dressed almost with the
+similarity of a uniform, black trousers, blue flannel shirts, girdled
+with a twist of bright colored silk, a bandanna twisted and tied filet
+wise about the head. Most of them wore their black hair waist long, but
+there were four men with short hair and Roger wondered if these were not
+the machinists of whom Dick had spoken.
+
+"Any of you men ever drill a well?" asked Roger. Two of the older men
+promptly nodded. "All right, Dick, here you are. Rabbit Tail, how many
+burros did you bring? Thirty. By Jove, that's fine! Now three of you
+must start clearing this space between the corral and pump house. See, I
+have it all pegged out. But, Rabbit Tail, I want all the mechanics down
+at the Plant."
+
+The old Indian nodded, then said, "Where's Charley? You tell her come
+out here."
+
+"She's up at the house," said Dick. "There she is, on the porch with the
+squaw. Oh, Charley! Come here!"
+
+Charley came rapidly down the trail. Old Rabbit Tail shook hands with
+her solemnly. "Here is the gang. Old Rabbit Tail keep promise, see? I
+tell all these men why we come. See? They glad do this for white squaw
+good to Injuns. You say 'How' to them."
+
+Charley's fine eyes deepened with unshed tears. "I am so grateful to all
+of you!" she exclaimed. "I want to shake hands with each of you," and
+she went down the line, the strangers among the Indians looking at her
+with frank curiosity and interest.
+
+This little ceremony having been completed to Rabbit Tail's obvious
+satisfaction, the old chief set his men at the tasks designated at the
+Ranch and then with the rest of the gang and the string of burros, he
+followed Roger down to the Plant.
+
+That was a mad week. The Indians showed a willingness to work that Roger
+had never seen equaled by white men. They were as curious about the Sun
+Plant as children and deeply interested in Roger's explanation of it.
+Their general intelligence Roger found to be high above that of the
+average gang of whites. He never before had had the thrill of working
+with a crowd of mechanics who combined skill, intelligence and interest
+to this degree. The four machinists proved to be all that Dick had said
+and more. In all his life, Roger had never had so deeply satisfying a
+seven days. This, in spite of the fact that he worked like his men from
+daylight until dark, stopping only to eat the bountiful meals that the
+girls, with the Indian women, prepared at the ranch. This, in spite of
+ferocious heat and almost insuperable mechanical difficulties owing to
+the lack of lifting and trucking facilities.
+
+For the first four days of the week, Dick was quite despondent about the
+water problem. But on Friday afternoon, as Roger was superintending the
+reerection of the condenser, he heard a wild shout and beheld Dick and
+his four helpers laughing and slapping each other's backs, knee deep all
+of them in a stream that gushed into the ditch from the new well.
+
+"My luck has turned!" roared Dick. "My luck has turned! Look at it! Look
+at it! It will water fifty acres. I'll bet there won't be an inch of
+water left in the range. Wow!" and he plunged full length into the
+little crystal stream, his helpers following suit with a shout.
+
+It was the signal for a general recess. And the men, including Roger,
+took a ducking and returned to work steaming but unspeakably
+rejuvenated. The sudden appearance of the water seemed to Roger like a
+happy omen for the whole endeavor and it would have been difficult to
+tell who was the most enthusiastic for the rest of the day, Roger or
+Dick.
+
+Rabbit Tail's week was a full seven days. At five o'clock Sunday
+afternoon, the absorber was finished. The old tool shed stood remade,
+roughly to be sure, but securely, into an engine house. The condenser
+was half finished, the engine was standing in its new home, dismantled
+in parts but quite ready for Roger to adjust when the new parts should
+arrive.
+
+When the old iron triangle called supper, Rabbit Tail sauntered up to
+Roger.
+
+"Good job, Boss, huh?"
+
+"Fine! The best ever! Rabbit Tail, the country is missing some wonderful
+mechanics and engineers in not getting you Indians interested in
+civilization."
+
+The old chief grinned and shrugged his shoulders. "To-night, we go," he
+said.
+
+"Let me keep Jo and the other three machinists," pleaded Roger. "I'm
+sure they'll be interested in finishing the condenser for me."
+
+"Ask 'em," grunted Rabbit Tail.
+
+"Come along," said Roger and he strode over to the bench where the four
+Indians were fitting together the condenser pipe. They looked up and
+grinned affably at Roger.
+
+"Rabbit Tail says you fellows may stay and help me finish this
+condenser, if you will. I know I can find the money to pay you for it.
+How about it?"
+
+Jo, the spokesman, was a tall thin Indian, with a fine brow and
+intelligent eyes.
+
+"No, I guess we'll go on back to camp, Mr. Moore," he said.
+
+"But I thought you were interested in what I am trying to put over,"
+exclaimed Roger.
+
+"So we are. It's always interesting to learn what you whites are trying
+to do. You work so fearfully hard that we Indians are always curious to
+find out the idea back of the work. But as for helping you do the
+work--well, it's like this, you folks are always mighty interested in
+what we Indians do--making blankets or pottery or building hogans or
+making ceremonial altars. But I don't notice any of you really wanting
+to help us."
+
+Roger cast a bewildered look about him but the other bronzed faces
+betokened full acquiescence with Jo's words.
+
+"But why did you learn your trades so well?" he asked, finally.
+
+"Interested in the idea--and it helps us compete with the whites, when
+necessary!"
+
+"Then you really don't care about my finishing the plant?"
+
+"Why should we?" returned Jo.
+
+Roger sighed and scratched his head. "Then why did you come at all?"
+
+"The chief asked us and we knew Charley. She's been kind to me and I
+wanted to help her out."
+
+"If the whole gang of you would give me just two more days we could
+finish in good shape," pleaded Roger.
+
+"You can get along," replied Jo. "We've done what we promised."
+
+"Yes, you have, and a bully job. But--well, I'm floored. I just can't
+get your point of view." Roger's voice was rueful.
+
+Jo laughed. "And we can't get yours."
+
+There was an extra good supper that night and formal thanks on the part
+of Charley. Then, in the moonlight, the whole picturesque caravan moved
+off up the mountain trail.
+
+Charley, returning to the living room, said, "Well, children, I'm
+cheerful in spite of the fact that there's not two days' food left in
+the house."
+
+"I've got a little credit still at Hackett's," said Roger. "I think
+Gustav had better go in to Archer's in the morning. I think my freight
+must be there from the Dean and we should be hearing from Ernest."
+
+Dick, smoking in the doorway, nodded, then repeated the remark that he
+had made on the average of once an hour ever since Friday. "There isn't
+a well like mine in a radius of a hundred miles."
+
+Gustav brought back two weeks' food supply, the freight from the Dean
+and letters from Ernest. They were very noncommittal but cheerful. He
+had cleared up the misunderstanding with the Smithsonian Institution,
+but as yet had no money and did not know when he could get back.
+
+"Well," said Roger, "we've got grub for a week or so. I'm not quite sure
+whose grub it is. These two camps seem to me to have become helplessly
+entangled."
+
+"Who cares!" said Elsa.
+
+"Not you, young woman," returned Charley, dryly. She still seemed
+indifferent to Dick but there was no mistaking her warm enthusiasm over
+Elsa as a sister.
+
+"I'm going to cut the first five acres to-morrow," said Dick. "That will
+solve the most pressing problems. The second field is dead. I'm going to
+plow it under. But I should worry. That's the best well in a radius of a
+hundred miles."
+
+"Well, I'll assemble my engine." Roger tamped down the tobacco in his
+pipe. "The Lord send that it goes together right."
+
+"Amen to that," said Charley, while the others nodded.
+
+Another two weeks passed in unremitting industry, but by the second
+Saturday night, Roger with a sigh of unutterable satisfaction announced
+himself ready for a test of the plant on Monday. It was mid-September
+now, and it seemed as if the heat were a little less intense. The
+nights, at any rate, were not so parching. In spite of the sadness that
+would not lift, the little community was experiencing some of the
+contentment that comes from hard work and sympathetic companionship.
+
+Roger was finding that the regular, well cooked meals and the home life
+of the adobe was making a great difference in his mental as well as his
+physical condition. In spite of the nerve strain of the past months, he
+was beginning to feel that life never had been so much worth while as
+now.
+
+On the Sunday afternoon before the test of the rebuilt plant, Ernest,
+driven by Hackett, jogged up to the corral.
+
+After the noisy and excited greetings and after Ernest's delight over
+the moving of the plant had been expressed, Ernest slapped Roger on the
+back. They all were talking at once, on the adobe porch.
+
+"Here, put your eye on that, you emaciated desert blister!"
+
+Ernest pulled a bill case carefully from his inner breast pocket and
+carefully extracted a check which he handed to Roger. It was for five
+thousand dollars. Roger stared at it stupidly.
+
+"Browning! Who on earth is he?" he ejaculated.
+
+"Smithsonian! I had the check made out to me. It was simpler. But I'm
+going to make it payable to you, right now."
+
+He sat down at the table, pulled out his fountain pen and, signing the
+check, handed it over to Roger. The room was silent for a moment then,
+"Ernest," faltered Roger, his thin tanned face working. "I can't tell
+you--why old man, if I'd had a brother he couldn't have done for me what
+you have done. It's wonderful! How did you do it, Ern?"
+
+Ernest beamed. "There's more where that came from. They're crazy about
+your whole scheme."
+
+Roger stood staring at his friend, lost in admiration. "You are a
+genius, Ernest! Your talents as a salesman are lost on a college
+professor."
+
+"Don't you think it! When I'm made President of the University, it will
+be because of my talents as a salesman."
+
+Everybody laughed. "Ernest, do tell us how you did it," urged Elsa.
+
+"Wait a minute!" cried Roger. "What shall I do with the check?" holding
+it as if it were alive and dangerous to the touch.
+
+"Put it in your pocket, you chump! Then have a talk with Hackett. He has
+a connection with a bank at Los Angeles and he does a lot of banking for
+the miners south of Archer's Springs. He'll take care of it for you."
+
+"I can't carry it in the pocket of my shirt, I perspire so!" protested
+Roger. "Why not shift it to Hackett right now?"
+
+"So be it!" returned Ernest, wearily. "Must I hold your hand while you
+do it! Say, did you move my clothes up here?"
+
+"Our living tent is just the other side of the old tool house," replied
+Roger. "Come along, old man, and get rid of your store clothes. You look
+like a tenderfoot."
+
+"Farewell to decency again!" groaned Ernest.
+
+"When you come back, supper will be ready," called Elsa.
+
+Hackett was sitting in the shade of the engine house and Roger reached
+an understanding with him very quickly. He undertook to act not only as
+Roger's banker but as his purchasing agent as well, and Roger undertook
+to furnish him with a list of tools and machinery before his return to
+Archer's Springs at dawn.
+
+Gustav was waiting impatiently during the interview, and when Roger said
+with a sigh:
+
+"Well, I guess that covers everything, Mr. Hackett," Gustav put in
+quickly:
+
+"Did Ernest tell you there is var in Europe. The Vaterland, England,
+France, Belgium. Mein Gott, you should see the papers they brought."
+
+"Good heavens! War! You don't mean it! Not a real one," cried Roger.
+
+"Yes, more or less real! Of course, Germany will be in Paris any time
+now, and that will end it," said Ernest.
+
+"But what is it all about? War! I can't believe it." Roger looked over
+the breathless, shimmering desert to the far calm blue of the River
+Range.
+
+"Nobody knows exactly who started it or why," said Hackett. "Looks to me
+though as if Germany was trying to hog Belgium."
+
+"Belgium deserves to be hogged," exclaimed Ernest, who had changed his
+clothes, "after her Congo history."
+
+"But if it is var, I must get back to the Vaterland," cried Gustav.
+
+"Oh, as to that," returned Ernest, "I saw Werner in New York and he said
+for you to stay here till you heard from him. He plans to be down this
+way, this fall."
+
+Gustav grinned. "That vas good. I don't vant to go, sure."
+
+"Were you in New York?" asked Roger vaguely. "War in Europe! I can't
+realize it."
+
+"Why try?" suggested Ernest. "It'll be over before you succeed. What's a
+war in Europe to us, anyhow? Let's go in to supper."
+
+War was indeed a vague and shadowy affair to the little desert
+community: quite overshadowed by the importance of Ernest's successful
+trip. Roger did brood a good deal for a day or so over the disclosures
+in the bundle of newspapers, then the excitement of the testing of the
+plant swallowed everything else in life.
+
+There was no ceremony about this test. The memory of that other trial,
+with little Felicia as the central figure, was too fresh and too
+poignant. Just before the girls called breakfast on Monday morning,
+there sounded a soft chug, chug from the new engine house. It was so
+very soft that at first Charley thought she must be mistaken. Then she
+slipped out to see. Roger, his hot face tense and eager, was standing
+before his engine watching the perfect mechanism play.
+
+"Look at her, Charley! Look at her! Isn't she a dream? Ernest, look at
+that indicator--does she do any work? Has she power? Why man, she could
+pull the waters of the Yangtse Kiang up through the bowels of the earth
+and throw 'em on Dick's alfalfa fields!"
+
+Ernest stood staring at the engine, round eyed, his mouth open! "Man,
+what have you been putting over on me! Why, Rog, the old girl is
+practically noiseless. Throw in the pump, will you?"
+
+Dick promptly threw in the pump, but almost immediately roared. "Hey,
+slow her down! Slow her down! She's going to pull the pump up by the
+roots."
+
+"Rog, let's see your drawings a minute, you old sly boots, you!" said
+Ernest.
+
+"You will laugh at me and tell me to increase the absorber area, will
+you!" exclaimed Roger. "Why, old man, I've developed _the_ low
+temperature, high speed engine! It's the one the world has been looking
+for for years!"
+
+In all the years Ernest had known his chum, he never had heard him
+express such enthusiasm as this, over his own work. Ernest's eyes were
+still staring, his mouth still open.
+
+"I believe you have, Rog! I believe you have! Lord, I wish I'd known
+this when I went East."
+
+"No more sweating down to Hackett's for gasoline, eh?" exclaimed Dick.
+
+Roger grinned. "Day before yesterday's sun is turning the wheels just
+now. Come on in to breakfast, folks. We can leave her to herself for a
+while."
+
+Then, as Elsa and Dick followed Ernest up the trail, Roger lingered to
+wipe a gauge tenderly with a bit of waste. As he did so, he noticed
+that Charley was standing in the doorway, her eyes fastened wistfully on
+the whirring fly wheel. She looked very like Felicia in her blue denim
+blouse and skirt and once more that old confusion of personalities
+flashed over Roger.
+
+"It's--it's like Felicia's own engine, somehow," said Charley. "She did
+love to help you so. I wish she knew."
+
+"Charley, dear girl--we miss her so, don't we!" Roger half whispered.
+
+Charley's lips quivered and Roger, hastily wiping his hands, took one of
+hers and carried it to his lips. "You are so like her!" he said. "So
+like her!"
+
+Then, they turned slowly and joined the others at breakfast.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE RIVER RANGE
+
+
+Late in the afternoon, after the men had carried on many and
+increasingly satisfactory tests on the Plant, Charley joined Roger on
+the porch. The others were with Dick in the alfalfa fields. They sat in
+silence for a time, then Charley said,
+
+"Roger, has it struck you that Ernest has been unlike himself since his
+return?"
+
+Roger pulled at his pipe and nodded. "He's putting up a good front, but
+the dear old boy does hate this desert life. It was a twist for him to
+come back to it."
+
+"It's more than that, Roger. He's uneasy and irritable. That's
+absolutely abnormal for Ernest, isn't it?" Then without waiting for an
+answer, she went on. "Roger, has Ernest given you any details of his
+interviews with the people in Washington?"
+
+"Sure he has, at least all I wanted. He said he explained everything to
+the Big Boss down there and that after they had spent hours together and
+had gotten Dean Erskine on the long distance, he got the money. It was
+the mistake of some underling, turning me down, after Austin's death.
+The head of the Institution had supposed I had been taken care of."
+
+"Oh!" murmured Charley. She looked at Roger's face, so lined and tanned
+and now for the first time in months wearing an expression of relaxed
+contentment. She bit her lips and with an evident effort began again.
+
+"Don't think I'm intruding, Roger, will you, but I do want to ask you
+one more question."
+
+"You can ask me anything on earth, dear old Charley," replied Roger.
+
+"Well then, have you a clear understanding of the terms on which the
+Smithsonian let you have this money?"
+
+"Yes, on the same terms we had with Austin."
+
+"Do you know that, or do you just take it for granted?"
+
+Roger hesitated. "Why--well, in a way, I just take it for granted. That
+was what Ern and I talked over before he left. He's better than I at
+that sort of thing. He has my power of attorney and signed up the
+papers. I haven't gone over this since he got back, I've been so busy."
+
+"You won't think I'm impertinent or nosey, will you, Roger, if I ask you
+one more question?" Charley's voice had tones in it like Felicia's and
+Roger was very gentle as he answered:
+
+"Nothing pleases me more than to have you show interest in my work,
+Charley."
+
+"Well then, let's have a look at those papers."
+
+Roger looked at her curiously. "You think Ernest is as careless as I? He
+isn't, and you know I'm careless only because I have such confidence in
+him."
+
+Charley nodded. "I know. Just put it down to female curiosity."
+
+Roger laughed and went lazily over to the living tent, returning shortly
+with a tin document box. This he unlocked and ran rapidly, then again
+carefully, through the papers it contained.
+
+"Ern must have them," he said finally. "Come to think of it, he just
+spoke of them but didn't give them back to me. They must be in his box."
+
+"To which you have no access?"
+
+Roger shook his head, still eyeing Charley with undisguised curiosity.
+
+Charley drew a long breath. "Roger, there's something about this deal I
+don't like. Ernest is so queer, and Elsa is worried and absentminded.
+And every time I try to say anything about Ernest's salesmanship she
+takes my head off. And you know what good friends she and Ernest are
+normally. They never row each other. But now they're always quarreling
+in undertones. I would think Ernest was sore about Elsa and Dick's
+engagement if Ernest hadn't told me before her and Dick that he thought
+Elsa was foolish but that he washed his hands of the matter."
+
+"Nevertheless that's probably what the worry is about," said Roger.
+
+"No, it's not," very decidedly. "This noon they were at it again, in the
+kitchen, while I was in my bedroom. I tried not to hear them but all of
+a sudden Ernest shouted, 'I don't see why I told you! You've done
+nothing but nag me, ever since. Werner's all right and what difference
+does it make whether I got the money from him or the Smithsonian?' I
+went right out and told them what I had overheard and asked them to be
+more careful. Ernest merely said they were talking of a family matter
+and Elsa burst into tears and walked away."
+
+Roger laid his pipe down with a scowl. "Pshaw, Charley, you're foolish!
+What could be Ernest's object in deceiving me? He's as honest as
+daylight. He knew I was desperate and wouldn't care where he got the
+money as long as there were no strings to it."
+
+Charley flushed painfully. "I don't blame you for feeling that way.
+That's why I wanted to see the papers in the matter."
+
+"And why should Werner," asked Roger, "put money into a thing he never
+saw, when--Oh rot, Charley! I thought you had a mind like a nice
+fellow--above such hen rubbish."
+
+"My mind is feminine through and through," returned Charley. "I knew
+you'd scold me. But promise me one thing--that you'll ask Ernest to let
+you see the contracts."
+
+"I'll do that, of course. I should have done it before. That's being
+only businesslike."
+
+The opportunity for the request came at the breakfast table but in a
+manner different from what Roger had planned.
+
+"Somebody ought to take Mrs. von Minden's tent down," said Charley. "It
+looks stark lonely now at the dismantled plant."
+
+"By the way," exclaimed Ernest, "Roger, we never sent that poor fellow's
+papers to a German Consul. But it's just as well. When I saw Werner in
+New York it turned out that he knew Von Minden. He said he'd forward his
+papers to the proper persons."
+
+"How on earth did he know Crazy Dutch?" asked Roger.
+
+"Just what I asked him. He says that a part of his work in this country
+is to keep an eye on all the resources of America, particularly of the
+Southwest. They like to keep in touch with the Germans coming to this
+country and help them to a profitable living. Seems that Von Minden
+really was quite an engineering pioneer before he went bug."
+
+"You never did say, Ern," Roger's voice was casual, "how you happened to
+run on Werner."
+
+"Didn't run on him at all," replied Ernest irritably. "I went up to see
+him on my way home. He told us to call on him if we ever were in New
+York. And I wasn't coming back to this God forsaken hole without seeing
+Broadway. Where is the mysterious black box, Rog?"
+
+"I'd rather send the papers to a German Consul, Ern. Now that they're in
+a state of war, over there, it might be more regular."
+
+"I promised Werner he should have them. Don't be a stick in the mud,
+Rog, and try to put anything regular over on me after all your
+high-handed predatory methods down here."
+
+Roger flushed. "I haven't taken a thing that won't be paid for to the
+last dollar."
+
+"Well, I'm not going to quarrel with you about Von Minden's box. I
+invited Werner down here to inspect the plant and you can fight it out
+with him. He'll fall dead when he sees the new engine."
+
+"I'm not sure that I want him down here," Roger scowled, thoughtfully.
+"I have no patents as yet and I had an unpleasant experience with Von
+Minden, another with Gustav and I'm not altogether crazy about trying
+out a third German."
+
+Gustav gulped his coffee and walked out of the room.
+
+Ernest suddenly flushed deeply, but said nothing.
+
+"I thought you were keen about Germans," said Elsa.
+
+"I always have been, and I still am. And yet, ever since I've heard
+about this war--I don't know. I feel uneasy. Hang it! Germany had no
+business hogging across Belgium as she did. It was a dirty trick, just
+like the one, by Jove, Von Minden tried to play on me! Gustav, another
+German, take notice, tried to steal from me, too!"
+
+There was an awkward silence, then Ernest said a little belligerently:
+"Germany must fulfill her destiny, no matter who suffers."
+
+"What is her destiny?" asked Charley, curiously.
+
+"To rule the world. The Vaterland is superman. It's coming into its own,
+now!"
+
+"Superman fiddlesticks!" exclaimed Charley.
+
+"Seems to me you picked up a lot of silly rot on this trip East, Ern,"
+said Roger. "Who is this Werner, anyhow? I'll have you remember, old
+man, when it comes to a choice, I'm all American, as I believe you are,
+eh?"
+
+Slowly Ernest's face darkened. Slowly he rose from his chair. No one had
+ever before seen the look of passion in Ernest's beautiful eyes that now
+blazed there.
+
+"There's not a drop of blood in my veins, thank God, that's not German.
+I say to you 'Deutschland ueber alles,' and all that Ernest Wolf can do
+to bring it about, shall be done."
+
+"And I tell you," Elsa cried suddenly, as she crossed the room to face
+Ernest, "that I am all American and I hate Germany and all her works. I
+think you've acted like a fool, Ernest."
+
+"Be quiet, Elsa!" roared Ernest, in exactly his father's voice.
+
+"I'll not be quiet! I'm an American girl, not a German Fraeulein. I say
+that you've got to cut out all this superman stuff and tell Roger where
+you got that money."
+
+"Do you suppose I'm afraid to tell him? I was just waiting for Werner to
+come to satisfy Roger," shouted Ernest. He turned to Roger. "I got that
+money from Werner. Your Solar Heat Device is sold to the German
+Government."
+
+There was a sudden hush in the room. Roger sat hunched in his chair.
+Charley and Elsa glanced at each other apprehensively.
+
+Dick cleared his throat and spoke for the first time. "Easy, now Roger!"
+
+Roger did not seem to hear him. "How do you mean, you've sold me to the
+German government?"
+
+"What I say. The Smithsonian people turned me down cold and when I told
+my troubles to Werner, he offered to help me out. Germany's crazy to
+develop this neck of the woods. And crazier still to get fellows like
+you and me to using their influence among the educators and scientists
+of this country in favor of German culture."
+
+Roger's face was like stone. "How do you mean, sold my device to the
+German government?" he repeated.
+
+"What I say!" roared Ernest. "I sold it for fifty thousand dollars. I've
+checks for the rest here in my pocket, but I knew you'd get your back
+up, so I was waiting for Werner. Now listen, Roger, you've the chance of
+a lifetime. You've often said you were going to Germany if this country
+failed you, and it did."
+
+Roger looked around the room in a dazed way, then back at Ernest. "You
+sold my invention--the work of my life--without my knowledge or
+permission? Ernest, it can't be true. Why, you're my best friend!"
+
+"Certainly I am."
+
+"And you sold it to a stranger. Sold me out. Why I'd as soon you sold a
+child of mine. Damn it, are you Germans born crooked?" He rose slowly.
+"You picked my brains and sold the contents. You sneaked on me! And I
+thought you were my friend! You've lied to me ever since you came home.
+Why did you lie----" his voice rising now uncontrollably. "Why did you
+lie, you skunk?"
+
+Ernest's face turned purple. He leaned across the table and struck Roger
+in the mouth.
+
+"No one can say that to me!" he shouted.
+
+Roger rushed around the table and seized Ernest by the throat. "Now I'm
+going to kill you," he said between his teeth.
+
+Dick, shouting for Gustav, fought to break Roger's hold. Gustav came
+rushing over the porch.
+
+When Roger next was fully conscious of himself he was climbing from the
+desert up onto a broad mesa. The sun was sinking behind the mountains
+into which the mesa merged. When he reached the crest of the mesa, Roger
+paused, shaken and breathless. There was the scramble of little
+footsteps behind him and Roger turned to look. Peter, packless and
+breathing hard, was following him. Roger drew his shirt sleeves across
+his eyes. He knew that Gustav and Dick had pulled him away from Ernest.
+How much he had injured Ernest he did not know, nor, for the present,
+did he care. He recalled that, with Ernest motionless on the floor, the
+others had united in denouncing him, that Charley had turned on him with
+furious eyes. Then he had fled. Not toward Archer's Springs where he was
+known. But with a vague idea of crossing the Colorado into California,
+he had turned westward.
+
+He was fleeing not from fear nor from cowardice. He was fleeing because
+with the discovery of Ernest's duplicity, the entire edifice of his life
+had tumbled into ruins. A great loathing of the desert, of the work he
+had attempted there, but most of all, a red hate for Ernest, carried him
+across the many burning miles of desert to the foothills of the River
+Range. A blind desire to get away from it all, to lose himself forever,
+to forget all that he had ever been or known, but above everything to
+get away from Ernest was for the time being the motive force of his
+existence.
+
+He was carrying a bag of grub and his two gallon canteen which still was
+heavy with water. For a moment Roger considered some method of
+transferring his burden to the burro's little back. But Peter was so
+small, so winded, that he gave up the idea and trudged on to the west.
+Peter fell in after him and two scarcely discernible specks on the
+immense floor of the mesa they moved toward the black mountain top
+lifting before them. There was no sound save that of their own
+footsteps. There was no verdure here except the martial figures of the
+great cacti, those soldiers of the waste, that guard the eternal
+solitudes. There was no wind. Only a breathless sense of brooding in the
+remote wonder of the sky. The desert is a hard country; a country to try
+out the mettle of a man and leave it all dross or pure gold.
+
+It was starlight when Roger and Peter reached the top of the range.
+Beyond dimly lay another range.
+
+Roger resolved to camp for the night in the valley below. Peter was
+reluctant to go farther. In fact for the last hour, Roger had been
+obliged to lead him. The way down was very precipitous and they had not
+covered a third of it when Roger slipped and fell. He did not lose his
+grip on the lead rope and at the sudden jerk the little burro pitched
+forward after Roger. But Peter got his balance immediately and threw
+himself back on his shoulders, bracing his feet against the roots of a
+giant cactus and stood fast.
+
+Roger dangled helplessly over a black drop for a few seconds, then with
+the aid of the lead rope he crawled up to the root of another cactus
+where he lay for a moment. Then he started on downward, zig-zagging
+carefully this time as one should descend a trailless mountain.
+
+Roger slept fitfully in the sand at the bottom of the valley, waking and
+rising at the first peep of dawn. Peter had fared rather well. There
+were grass tufts growing at the roots of the great cacti, around about.
+Roger ate a cold breakfast. He found a rough hollow in a rock, where he
+gave Peter a small drink of water, then he started on. But, although he
+cursed the little burro roundly, Peter again was reluctant to move
+westward, and Roger had again to take hold of the lead rope.
+
+All day long, he continued the march westward. This range was like the
+Coyote Range, though there were more passes through the ridges, so that
+had he been able to find a trail, he could have moved rapidly. But the
+way underfoot was inconceivably rough and by noon Roger's shoes were cut
+and his feet bruised and bleeding. But he never for a moment considered
+turning back. He was through--through with the old work which had
+brought him only disappointment, through with the old affections which
+had only played him false. Even Peter who had come with him voluntarily
+was now trying to turn back.
+
+It was late afternoon when they reached a low mountain shoulder. As they
+breasted its crest, Peter raised his tail and brayed, starting forward
+at a trot. Roger followed to the mountain edge. The valley of the
+Colorado lay before him, a narrow valley here, with a range of mountains
+on the opposite side lifting brilliant peaks against the afternoon sky.
+The valley was sandy and the river looked shallow and slow moving, with
+arrow-weed growing along its edge.
+
+Peter led the way down. Roger had been fortunate in the time he chose
+for his crossing. The river was at its lowest level, sliding lazily over
+the sand. As Roger descended the mountain he found water marks where at
+flood, the river had filled the valley and gnawed deep into the vitals
+of the range. He followed the burro across the sand to the water's edge.
+Peter buried his nose in the stream, then rolled himself joyfully in the
+moist sand, snorting and blowing. Roger stood staring at the little
+fellow. Then as Peter began to crop the coarse grass which grew in
+sparse clumps among the straight stalks of the arrow-weed, Roger
+gathered together some bits of drift wood for his supper fire.
+
+He fried some bacon, made coffee, and seated himself in the sand. Peter
+dropped his soft nose over Roger's shoulders, and ate the bacon rinds
+one by one, then crowding still closer, tried to nibble at the cracker
+Roger was devouring.
+
+"Hang you, Pete, get round on the other side of the fire!" exclaimed
+Roger.
+
+It was the first time he had spoken in several hours and the sound of
+his own voice startled him. Peter trotted obediently around and stood
+opposite, head drooping as if in thought. Strangely small and gray he
+looked; strangely wise as if the same weathering of the centuries that
+had worn the mountain peaks into shapes of brooding significance had
+worn his little gray head into the semblance of Wise Patience, itself.
+
+When Roger had finished his meal, and packed, he walked slowly up and
+down the river bank. But nowhere could he see a better place for
+crossing than at the spot where he had built his fire. Here a small
+island amid stream made the crossing seem possible. He found a
+cottonwood log to which he tied his food pack and canteen as well as his
+clothes which he took off and rolled up. He fastened Peter to a clump of
+arrow-weed, then waded out into the stream, pushing the log before him.
+
+The water was very cold and the current much swifter than Roger had
+anticipated but he was an excellent swimmer and though the current
+carried him well down stream, he made a safe landing on the island with
+all his goods and chattels. Then he went back for Peter. He could not
+bear the thought of going on alone.
+
+The lead rope was long. Roger pulled the reluctant Peter to the water's
+edge, plunged in and was swimming violently in the current before the
+rope stretched taut and he realized that Peter was braced, stiff-legged
+on the bank. Roger swam back and climbed out of the water.
+
+"Come, Peter," he said gently. "I'll swim beside you so you needn't be
+afraid."
+
+Peter moved his long ears back and forth.
+
+"Come! Come! Don't make me beat you. Come, Peter."
+
+Peter did not stir. Roger picked up a bit of driftwood and belaboured
+Peter's gray sides, but the beating might have been a sand flea hopping
+on him for all it appeared to move Peter.
+
+"Darn you, Peter!" shouted Roger. "Have you quit me too? I tell you, you
+shall not! Come now, I'm too tired to argue."
+
+He plunged once more into the water, once more swam into the current,
+whistling Peter's call as he did so. But to no avail. When he reached
+the bank this time he was angry. He roared at Peter and kicked at him
+with his bare toes. But he kicked him only once. Peter's ribs were
+strong and none too well covered.
+
+Peter looked at Roger's thin white body and his brown angry face, moved
+his ears, breathed hard and snorted.
+
+Roger roared again. "All right, sir! All right, sir! If you won't come
+with me, neither shall you go back to the Germans and their
+sympathizers. I'll fix you, young fellow!"
+
+He led Peter up to a mesquite tree and with trembling fingers tied the
+little gray head as high as he could pull it.
+
+"There," he said, "you can stay there till the buzzards get you" and
+without a backward glance he swam once more across to the island.
+
+Here he dressed and lay for a time resting in the sand. The sun had sunk
+behind the ranges. The night shadows in the valley were cool. Partly
+because of this, partly from sheer nervous and physical exhaustion,
+Roger shivered. Finally when twilight had settled in the valley, he sat
+up and gazed across the river. It was too dark to see Peter. There was
+only the murmur of the river in all that barren solitude. Then suddenly
+Peter brayed. It was not the usual ridiculous hee haw of the burro but a
+strange blending of whinny and scream. Roger shuddered and told himself
+that he would keep Peter company just a little longer, then move on.
+
+The desert night came on quickly and completely. The great desert stars
+had pricked out before the last light had left the mountain tops. An
+hour passed, then two. Roger was too weary to build a fire, too wretched
+to sleep. He sat huddled in the sand, his head against a great
+cottonwood log, his face toward the river. A dim red edge began to show
+over the ranges. It lifted into a crescent, then into a half circle.
+Suddenly the little valley was flooded with white light and the moon
+sailed free over the sliding river.
+
+Roger stared eagerly toward the mesquite tree. Peter stood unmoving, his
+little gray head turned upward, his sturdy neck seeming unusually long
+and thin, stretched thus unnaturally. It seemed curious to Roger that
+the burro did not kick nor lunge. But Peter's patience, won by who knows
+what beaten and burdened ancestry, did not desert him. He did not tug at
+his rope but he brayed again, as if he were giving an eerie shriek of
+warning.
+
+Roger bit his nails nervously, then hollowed out a bed in the sand and
+lying down tried to sleep. The stars glowed down on him quietly. From
+where he lay he could see Peter. The little gray head must be tired. How
+Felicia had loved the little burro. Used to wash his face and brush his
+foolish mane. Felicia! Little lost Felicia! Roger groaned and sat up.
+
+His moment of reckoning had arrived, as it arrives once to every man.
+
+First he thought of Felicia. He recalled that first day on the train
+when she had sat in his lap so long and he had felt the whisper of fate
+in their meeting. He came down through the desert days with her. How
+pitifully few there were of them, after all! And he lived them over, one
+by one. He recalled her loveliness, her childish curiosity, her love of
+his work. He thought of her affection and of her timidity, her shrinking
+fear of a rough word. And suddenly he groaned and said aloud:
+
+"Thank God in His mercy that she didn't see me when I throttled Ernest!"
+
+Ernest! The friend of his boyhood and his young manhood. Generous,
+sweet-tempered, easy going Ernest! How patiently he had endured Roger's
+temper! How loyally he had devoted himself to Roger's experiments. How
+utterly he had given himself to their friendship. Why had he betrayed
+Roger at the last? What had happened? Roger's brain seemed on fire as he
+turned over in his mind the events that had led to Tuesday's tragedy.
+Charley had come to him and had said:--
+
+Well--no matter what she had said. Long before she had told him that his
+life failure was due to his selfish indifference to other people. He
+remembered that he had not believed her. But now the words seemed seared
+into his brain.
+
+Roger took a long drink, then as methodically as he could he examined
+his own temperament. First, he tried to consider himself as if he were
+Ernest looking at Roger. What had Roger ever done for Ernest? He had
+been a constant spur to Ernest mentally, forcing him into new fields of
+research and experiment, but only after all, for Roger's own purposes,
+or Roger's own ideas. What return had Roger ever made for the exquisite
+hospitality of Ernest's home and the tenderness of Ernest's mother?
+None! None whatever! What return even in kindness had Roger ever made
+for Ernest's untiring efforts to promote the solar device. Once more
+Roger whispered huskily:
+
+"None! None at all! Less than nothing!"
+
+So Ernest must see him as a brain devoid of any human qualities save
+that of quick temper. Thank heaven, Felicia never had seen him angry but
+once! But Charley had seen every red hate that had swept him since he
+had come to the desert. What would he not give if this were not so! More
+than any one in the world, he suddenly thought, he wanted Charley's
+good opinion. And how must she see him? Impatient, ugly tempered,
+selfish,--excepting toward Felicia. Thank God, she had seen how he had
+loved that little child.
+
+And so, here he was at thirty, a failure. It was better to acknowledge
+it now: to admit that the fault was his; to go on into some mining camp
+and lose himself than to drag on making a fool of himself at the Sun
+Plant. He would rest a little longer, then start on in the moonlight.
+
+Once more Roger stretched himself out on his bed of sand. As he did so,
+Peter brayed again. Roger jumped to his feet, the cold sweat starting
+from his forehead. Felicia's little burro! What devil could have entered
+into him that he could treat a dumb brute so! He tore off his clothing
+and jumped into the water. It was not easy to breast the current, he was
+so tired. But he made the bank and staggering up to the mesquite tree,
+he untied Peter.
+
+"There, old man," he said gently, "go back to your friends."
+
+Then he turned to cross the river. He was carried far below his camp
+this time and for some minutes after he landed he lay naked and
+exhausted before he could urge himself back to the cottonwood log and
+climb into his clothing.
+
+He was in a state now of utter despair. No grief, no anger can bring to
+the human mind the depth of suffering that self-loathing can. Roger lay
+with his forehead pillowed on his arm, for the first time in his life
+facing his own weaknesses. Just in the degree that his brain was
+clearer, his mind more honest, his nerves more highly strung than other
+men's, just in that degree did he suffer more.
+
+Perhaps, after a time, he slipped into a half doze. But it seemed to him
+that the touch on his forehead was his mother's. No, it was Felicia's or
+was it Charley's? Again Charley and Felicia merged in his mind. Felicia
+was looking at him with adoring eyes. Thank God once more that she could
+never grow up to know the truth about him. But she had grown up and was
+stooping over him with a gentle hand on his forehead as if she
+understood him and forgave him a thousand times over.
+
+It was Charley, of course, Charley with the great heart and the seeing
+mind. What an awful thing for him to have brought another failure to the
+valley! Charley had had a sad life. Perhaps she had had dreams of her
+own, before she merged her destiny with Dick's. Dick was a poor
+weakling. But Felicia's death had saved him. Dick was a man now. If
+Felicia had seen him attack Ernest, she would have run away to her
+death, just as she had for Dick's frenzy. Potentially, he was a murderer
+too. But now he was a failure and as far as his red devil was concerned,
+Felicia had died in vain.
+
+Roger's heart seemed to stop beating with the horror of this thought.
+Try as he would he could not get away from the idea that potentially he
+shared Dick's guilt. And Felicia had been sacrificed in vain. Suddenly
+he clenched his fists. No, by heaven, this should not be!
+
+Roger pulled himself to his knees beside the cottonwood log and lifted
+his ravished face to the stars.
+
+"Listen, God!" he shouted. "It was not in vain! I'm going back! I'm
+going back to Felicia and Charley and prove myself a man. I don't know
+why Ernest did it. But that doesn't matter. I'm going back. Listen to
+me, God!"
+
+Half kneeling, half crouching, with the sinking moon touching his
+burning eyes, his trembling lips, Roger watched the great compassionate
+desert stars as if waiting for an answer. And as he waited, the answer
+came. Roger whispered as if in reply.
+
+"Yes! Yes! I love her! I love her! I love her! Oh, Charley, my darling!
+I'm coming back to you and show you that Felicia did not die in vain!"
+
+Then he slipped down into the sand and fell asleep as deeply, as sweetly
+as a child, and the quiet stars looked down upon the dark slender figure
+with infinite understanding.
+
+The first rays of the sun roused Roger. He lay for a time blinking and
+trying to account for the peace and happiness of which he was conscious
+from the instant he opened his eyes. After a moment, memory spoke and he
+jumped to his feet and stretched himself. Then he gave a sudden shout.
+
+"Oh, I say, old Peter! You are a good scout! Waiting for me, are you?
+Hang it! I couldn't blame you if you were just waiting to kick my brains
+out. Just hold on till I get some breakfast and I'll be with you."
+
+At Roger's shout, Peter left off his desultory browsing, lifted his tail
+and brayed, an honest old fashioned bray that set Roger at his breakfast
+getting with a broad grin.
+
+The sun was not an hour high when the two started on the home trail.
+Peter scorned the lead rope now but led the way nimbly, finding a far
+easier trail than Roger had dragged him over the day before. Roger was
+tired and stiff. He was dirty and unshaven. But he was happy; happy as
+he had never dreamed of being; too happy, too utterly brain weary to
+think. He only knew that he was going home to Charley.
+
+They reached the mesa that evening, at sundown. With all the desire in
+the world, Roger could not go on. So he made camp in a little draw and
+lay down to sleep. He did not waken until morning.
+
+It was well toward supper time when Roger reached the ranch. There was
+no one to be seen. Roger turned Peter into the corral and fed him, then
+went into the living tent, shaved and changed his clothing. Charley,
+Elsa and Dick were at supper when Roger entered and with a quick sense
+of remorse he saw that each face turned toward him wore a look of
+startled anxiety. He paused in the doorway, the lamp glow disclosing the
+lines of exhaustion around his mouth.
+
+"Hello," he said, huskily, "I've come back to you people, if you'll have
+me!"
+
+Elsa was the first to rush to him. "Oh, Roger, did you really want to
+come back?" she cried.
+
+Roger stooped and kissed her cheek. "Want to come back? Why, I've almost
+died of impatience getting back."
+
+Dick shoved Elsa gently aside. "I'm sure things can be fixed up, Roger,"
+he said. "Ernest isn't--"
+
+Roger interrupted by placing both hands on Dick's shoulders. "Old man,"
+he said. "The important thing to me now is for you to understand how I
+feel about you, how I understand what you've been through and how I
+need your help, just because of what you've been through."
+
+There was a sudden silence. Charley, her great eyes on Roger's face, did
+not move. Dick cleared his throat.
+
+"Why--why--Roger!--My God--do you mean it? That you don't hate me any
+more? Don't bluff me, Roger! I've been in too lonely a hell. What's
+happened to you, Rog?"
+
+"I've come to," replied Roger, dropping his hands from Dick's shoulders
+and crossing the room to stand before Charley.
+
+She had risen and was standing quietly behind her chair. Roger, with his
+eyes on hers, lifted both her hands against his breast.
+
+"Charley!" he said, huskily, "Oh, Charley! Charley!" and then, his voice
+and his will failed him and he bowed his head on her shoulder.
+
+Charley freed one hand and laid it on his head. "Poor child!" she
+murmured. "Poor old Roger!"
+
+Elsa sniffed in a manner peculiarly like a sob, and Roger raised his
+head with a sheepish laugh.
+
+"I guess I'm about all in," he said.
+
+"You're hungry and tired out," exclaimed Charley. "Sit down, Roger and
+have some supper."
+
+There was a little flurry of bringing fresh plates and an extra chair
+and the interrupted meal was begun again.
+
+"Where on earth did you go, Roger?" asked Elsa. "We saw you start
+straight across the valley."
+
+"I got as far as the river. I didn't do Ernest any real damage, did I?"
+Roger looked at Dick inquiringly.
+
+"I guess not. He seems to have worked around, as usual. He and Gustav
+went into Archer's Springs yesterday."
+
+There was a moment's pause, then Elsa said, "What do you intend to do,
+Roger?"
+
+Roger laid down his knife and fork, dejectedly. "I don't know! How could
+a man like Ernest do such a rotten trick!"
+
+"He refused to make us any explanation whatever," said Dick. "As far as
+I'm concerned, I'm through with him unless he comes across with a
+satisfactory statement. I don't like the look of the whole thing."
+
+"Elsa agrees with Dick and me," Charley looked at Elsa's troubled face
+sympathetically, "that Ernest's got to be kept in Coventry until
+something drastic is done. We were all hoping and believing that you'd
+come back to see the matter through."
+
+Roger finished his second cup of coffee in deep thought. "I'll have to
+have a talk with Ernest," he said, finally.
+
+"Hackett brought in the new pump yesterday morning," said Dick. "He
+brought a bunch of newspapers. We've been floored by their contents."
+
+"Yes," exclaimed Charley, "the war news is unbelievable."
+
+"They've sacked Louvain!" cried Elsa.
+
+"Who sacked Louvain? It sounds like the Dark Ages!" asked Roger.
+
+"The Germans!" Elsa, evidently controlling her voice with difficulty
+went on, "They've shot old women and children as hostages. Hostages! Why
+that word belongs to the Dark Ages. It's unbelievable! And the
+library--all those priceless things are burned."
+
+"Good God!" exclaimed Roger. Then, "What does Ernest say to this?"
+
+"None of us have talked to him since you left," said Charley.
+
+"But whether it's a war of offense or defense, there's no excuse for
+that sort of thing. I thought German culture--" Roger paused and Elsa
+cut in excitedly--
+
+"Culture! I tell you they never were cultured, the Germans. Look at
+Professor Rosenthal and Dad and Ernest. How deep is their so-called
+culture? Bah! Petty tyrants in their homes and bloody savages, I'll bet,
+if they run amuck."
+
+"Keep your hair on, Elsa, old dear." Dick patted the excited girl on the
+shoulder.
+
+"Some one's coming up the trail," exclaimed Charley.
+
+There was a footstep on the porch as she spoke and Ernest appeared in
+the doorway. His face was sullen and he made no pretense of a greeting.
+
+"I came up to say that Mr. Werner will be here to-morrow and it will be
+necessary for you to see both him and me, Roger, and settle this
+miserable affair. We'll come up as soon as Werner arrives, probably late
+in the afternoon."
+
+Ernest turned abruptly on his heel. Roger sprang to his feet. Charley
+laid a quick hand on his arm. Roger gave her a glance. "It's all right,
+Charley. Don't worry! Hold on, Ernest. We'll have this thing out right
+now."
+
+Ernest turned back slowly. "There's nothing to have out. A man has a
+right to his own political opinion. And as for the Werner matter, you
+insulted me for doing you a favor and I'm through with you."
+
+"Favor!" gasped Roger. "Why Ernest, you're crazy! You lied to me and
+sneaked on me and it wasn't to do me a favor, at all. It was for
+Germany. That's what gets all our goats. For _Germany_!"
+
+"Well, what's the matter with Germany? You've worshiped at her shrine
+all these years, haven't you? And now in her hour of need, you turn
+against her," sneered Ernest.
+
+Roger looked from Charley to Dick in utter bewilderment. "Germany's hour
+of need! The hour of need of a horde of vandals.--Where's your common
+sense, Ern?"
+
+"It's a Dutchman's logic, Roger, that's all!" cried Elsa. "You're just
+beginning to recognize it! Lord, I was brought up on it!"
+
+"Oh, dry up, Elsa! You were always a disloyal minx," growled Ernest.
+"Now, you folks are welcome to think what you please. I'm not like
+Roger, ready to murder a man who has a different political opinion from
+me. I'm going to see that Werner's given a square deal, then I'm going
+to quit the whole bunch of you."
+
+"Look here, Ern, you've got to straighten this business out," insisted
+Roger. "Crazy Dutch and Werner and Gustav and you! It's a dirty deal,
+somehow. Just why did you turn on your best friend, Ernest?"
+
+"Turn on my best friend! I like that from you, with your devil's
+temper. And you've turned nasty nice all of a sudden, about where you
+get your money, after robbing all the mines around here."
+
+"You know I've sent a list of everything I've taken from each mine to
+each mine owner and asked him to send a bill!" shouted Roger.
+
+"Huh! That may be, but when it comes to giving Mr. Werner a chance at
+the Solar Plant, I recalled all that and didn't suppose you'd be
+finicky."
+
+Roger's drawn face burned. Felicia's clock on the mantel ticked and
+Charley's deep eyes did not leave Roger's clenched fists. He ground his
+teeth, then drew a long breath.
+
+"That was a rotten thing to say to me, Ern, but I guess I deserved part
+of it. Of course, the contract with Werner's got to be broken, and I
+want you to chew on this. You've got to choose between Werner and me.
+Our friendship ends unless you drop Germany."
+
+"Oh, hell!" grunted Ernest and he turned and disappeared into the night.
+
+Elsa shrugged her shoulders and began to gather up the dishes. Charley
+followed her example mechanically. Roger and Dick lighted their pipes
+and stood with their backs to the empty fireplace, and no one spoke
+until the dishes were finished and the girls were seated with their
+sewing.
+
+Then, "By Jove," said Dick. "I don't know what to suggest."
+
+"Neither do I," echoed Roger. "But this much I know. The main point is
+to save Ernest. The Solar Plant is secondary. He's got to do what's
+right in this."
+
+"You'll never get away with it, Roger," exclaimed Dick. "Ernest really
+believes in this superman stuff. He's a German."
+
+"He's got to do what's right," repeated Roger, this time with a tired
+break in his voice. "I feel as if I'd never believe in a man again
+unless he does. What can I do, Elsa?"
+
+Elsa shook her head. "I don't know. If you people will think back you'll
+realize you've all been raised on adulation of Germany. Ernest is merely
+the logical product of his ancestry and environment."
+
+"How did you escape the poison, Elsa?" asked Charley.
+
+"Overstuffed," she replied. "And I'm not alone. There's any number of us
+American children of German parents who've been fed up on the
+'Vaterland' stuff."
+
+"Elsa," asked Dick, suddenly, "is Ernest a spy?"
+
+The girl turned crimson. Roger interrupted quickly: "Oh, I say, Dick,
+give Ernest first chance to answer that question."
+
+"No, I'll answer it," replied Elsa. "He wasn't up to the time he came to
+the desert, I'm sure. He was just wonderfully prepared soil, ready for
+the planting of any sort of seed. What Mr. Werner did to him, I don't
+know."
+
+"Do you think Werner is a spy?" asked Charley.
+
+"Probably, of an exalted order. As I look back now, he's been using Papa
+and all the rest of the silly Turnverein, any way he wants to. How much
+they know we never shall know. My heavens, what a dirty place the world
+is!"
+
+No one replied to this comment. Roger sighed deeply and a pitying
+glance passed between the two girls as he dropped his head dejectedly on
+his hands.
+
+"Well, let's postpone more talk until morning," said Dick. "Elsa, going
+to help me put the menagerie to bed?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," replied Elsa with alacrity, adding, as she followed Dick to the
+door, "Don't you think Roger'd better sleep here, to-night? With Gustav
+in the living tent--"
+
+Charley nodded. "I'll make up the cot on the porch." She eyed Roger's
+drooping head with tear-dimmed eyes, as the others went out.
+
+Roger lifted his worn face and gave Charley a long look. She was
+recovering some of her tone. Her eyes were bright and though the
+deepened sadness of her mouth would never lessen, the despondency that
+had marked her face when in repose ever since Felicia's death was gone.
+As Roger watched her, it seemed to him that if Charley as well as Ernest
+failed him, the blackness of the pit would indeed close around him. He
+rose suddenly and crossed the room to kneel beside her. He clasped her
+hands against his heart, and said slowly:
+
+"Charley, look in my face and tell me that you realize I am a changed
+man! That you need never fear my temper again!"
+
+Charley caught her lower lip which would tremble, between her teeth, and
+steady, wise, brown eyes gazed long into deep-set, wearied, blue eyes.
+
+"What happened, Roger?" Charley asked, at last.
+
+"I fully recognized my devil, for the first time, and fought him to a
+finish. I'm going to have many a tough struggle but you'll never see
+again nor will any one else, the thing little Felicia was so afraid of.
+You understand and believe me, don't you?"
+
+Charley nodded, not trusting her quivering lips to words.
+
+Roger dropped her hands and took her face in a tender clasp.
+
+"Charley, it's a poor, broken, futile thing just now, my life, but so
+help me, God, it will not always be so. And whatever it is or will be,
+it belongs to you. Will you take it, Charley?"
+
+There was a long pause during which Felicia's old enemy, the alarm
+clock, ticked loudly. Then Charley smiled and said uncertainly:
+
+"While I'm taking my own share of you, I think I'll take Felicia's too.
+Then I'll have all of you!"
+
+"Charley! Oh, Charley! My dearest love! My dearest!" Roger jumped up,
+pulled Charley to her feet and clasping the slender body in his arms
+laid his lips hungrily to hers. He kissed her eyes, her hair. "Charley!
+Charley! I'm a selfish brute, but you'll never know what you're doing
+for me. You ought to have a man worth ten of me but I'm going to have
+you just the same. Now I can bear even Ernest's failure. Do you really
+love me, my darling?"
+
+"Curiously enough, I do!" replied Charley with the old whimsical lift of
+her eyebrows. "Oh, you dear old single-track thinking machine, you!"
+
+Roger held her off and looked at her wonderingly. "You mean--Oh,
+Charley, I have been a fool in every possible way, haven't I?"
+
+Charley laughed, with her cheek against Roger's, her arm about his neck.
+Roger held her closer still. "Well," he said huskily, "I'm through with
+one kind of foolishness! Charley, will you ride into Archer's Springs
+to-morrow and marry me?"
+
+The girl laughed outright. "I certainly won't! Let me go, Roger. Here
+come Elsa and Dick."
+
+Elsa entered the room, her head on one side, her eyes bright and
+questioning.
+
+"Well, Rog?" she exclaimed breathlessly.
+
+"Yes, Elsa," he replied. "By Jove, I can't believe it myself but Charley
+says she'll marry me."
+
+"Thank the Lord for that!" sighed Elsa.
+
+"You're not good enough for her, Roger," said Dick, coming across the
+room with right hand outstretched but a grim face. "But when I think
+about Elsa taking me--"
+
+He did not finish the sentence but Roger nodded understandingly and the
+two men, regarding each other seriously over a long hand clasp, laid at
+that moment the foundation of a close friendship that was to last them
+to the end of their lives.
+
+"Poor old Ernest!" Roger broke the silence with a sigh.
+
+"Try not to think about him to-night, Roger," Charley laid a gentle hand
+on his arm. "You are so fearfully tired, I'm going to fix the porch
+couch and you must go to bed at once."
+
+Roger was glad to stretch out on the cot and close his weary eyes. But
+he could not sleep. The thrilling joy of Charley's welcome, the burning
+soft touch of her lips on his and with this, the sick sense of loss in
+the constantly recurring thought of Ernest combined to make sleep long
+in coming. He heard Dick, then Elsa call good night. He heard the
+subdued clatter of Charley in the kitchen making her breakfast
+preparations, and after a few minutes the sound of Felicia's alarm
+clock being wound for the night.
+
+"Charley!" he called softly.
+
+In a moment Charley's lovely head was outlined against the lamplight as
+she paused in the door.
+
+"Haven't you been asleep, Roger dear?"
+
+"Charley, how could Ernest have done it? I can't sleep for thinking
+about it."
+
+Charley came over to his cot and sitting down on the edge of it, lifted
+Roger's hot hand against her cheek. "You must realize that he thinks he
+loves the 'Vaterland' and that he is doing the best thing for the world
+in placing loyalty to Germany first."
+
+"Then he should be shot as a traitor," said Roger. "I can't believe that
+he thinks so crooked. Why, he's got a mind that's as pellucid as that
+spring Peter found in Lost Canyon."
+
+Charley smoothed his hair back from his forehead. "Poor old Roger! You
+may have been selfish toward your friends, but you certainly loved them.
+Try to go to sleep now, dearest. You'll need a clear head if you're
+going to save Ernest and the Solar Plant. Aren't the stars beautiful? I
+never lose my awe of their nearness in the desert."
+
+"They were wonderful over in the River Canyon," said Roger, relaxing
+with a long breath at Charley's touch on his forehead, while he clung
+closely to her other hand. "Do you really love me, Charley, my
+sweetheart?"
+
+Suddenly the girl slipped to her knees beside the cot and buried her
+face against his on the pillows. "Oh, Roger! Roger! Just as much and
+more than Felicia did and for nearly as long."
+
+"And I you," replied Roger, brokenly, "only I was such a self-centered
+fool I didn't know it. Don't kneel there, Charley, you're tired and must
+go to bed."
+
+"Oh, Roger! Roger! I've wanted you so! And the years have been so hard!
+Never leave me, dear! Don't make me go now! Let me watch here beside you
+till you sleep, just as you did for me that night Felicia died."
+
+"I'll never leave you, you darling! Even my work shall never drive me
+from you. We'll put things through together from now on. Oh, Charley! I
+don't deserve it!"
+
+"I know you don't!" this with a chuckle that was half a sob, "but
+somehow even old Peter can't bear to be separated from you."
+
+"Bless his old gray head! Charley, let me tell you about Peter and the
+river." Roger began eagerly but before his story was half finished his
+sentences were broken and finally ended abruptly. Roger was fast asleep.
+Charley, with a soft kiss on his hair, rose from the cramped position on
+her knees and went into the house. In a short time the adobe was in
+darkness and Peter, with a wisp of alfalfa on which he chewed
+meditatively, hanging from his mouth, leaned his gray head on the corral
+bars and eyed the stars unblinkingly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+THE BLACK BOX
+
+
+Roger was awakened the next morning by the sound of Dick uncrating the
+new pump. He rose at once feeling quite himself. He had his belated
+breakfast alone, with Charley hovering in attendance.
+
+"Ernest and Gustav are down at the old camp as usual," she reported.
+"What are you going to do to-day, Roger?"
+
+"I want to go through Von Minden's papers. If I'd done a thorough job on
+that in the beginning, all the trouble might have been obviated."
+
+"I don't know about that," said Charley. "It couldn't have been foreseen
+that Ernest would get in touch with Werner."
+
+"Will you help me?" asked Roger. "I want to get through before Werner
+comes."
+
+"Are you feeling fairly calm for the interview, dear?" Charley smoothed
+Roger's hair back, caressingly.
+
+"Calm!" Roger suddenly caught the girl to him in a passionate embrace.
+"Calm! I don't want to be calm when I think of you and all you are to
+me. Oh, my darling, my darling!"
+
+With Dick and Elsa's help, the Von Minden papers had been thoroughly
+gone over by mid-afternoon.
+
+It was well on toward four o'clock before Ernest appeared with his
+unwelcome guest. Dick had descried a dust-cloud on the Archer's Springs
+trail about three o'clock and they all had seen a buckboard with two
+figures in it drive into the Sun Camp.
+
+"Werner must have come," said Roger, only half succeeding in keeping his
+voice casual.
+
+Dick nodded. "Hackett was telling me that he'd finally made up his mind
+to get a tin Lizzy. These old-time cowboys do certainly hate to give up
+their horses, don't they? But when the Chinaman said that he was going
+to buy a jitney for the miners, poor Hackett had to give in. Of course,
+he'll still have to use his horses and the pack-train for mountain
+work."
+
+Roger grunted absentmindedly and stored Von Minden's box in the kitchen,
+as Hackett drove Werner and Ernest up to the corral.
+
+Herr Werner, badly sunburned and dusty, seemed unfeignedly glad to have
+reached the ranch. He greeted Elsa and Charley effusively, shook hands
+with Dick and showed Roger a mixture of cordiality and deference in
+manner that was irreproachable.
+
+Left alone in the living room with Roger and Ernest, he came to the
+point at once:
+
+"Wolf tells me, Mr. Moore, that you have been much angered at his
+selling the solar device to me."
+
+"I certainly have been and I haven't the least idea of letting the thing
+go through," replied Roger. "A considerable part of the money you
+advanced has been spent but I shall spend no more of it and my friend
+Preble can arrange a loan that will cover what has been spent."
+
+"You know, of course," Werner took an audible sip of lemonade, "that a
+bargain is a bargain and that the contract Wolf signed is binding."
+
+"Ordinarily, yes," said Roger, "but I have an idea that before I'm
+through with you, you'll be glad to let go."
+
+"For heaven's sake, Roger!" cried Ernest irritably, throwing his
+cigarette in the fireplace, and taking a quick turn up and down the
+room, "don't start a row."
+
+"If you mean not to lose my temper, I can promise that," returned Roger,
+"but Germany can never have my solar apparatus."
+
+"How're you going to help yourself?" asked Ernest, with an ugly edge to
+his voice.
+
+"There are ways! Mr. Werner, Von Minden was a part of Germany's great
+system, was he not, for exploiting America? He was one of your agents
+and his job was to outline the desert empire Germany plans to take over.
+But being German, like Ernest's father who never will take the human
+element into consideration, you didn't count on the desert's sending
+your poor tool crazy, so he blabbed. Gustav is your watch-dog and spy,
+keeping you in touch at present with all my doings. Your own activities,
+outside of these minor ones, I imagine, center round the banking and
+educational interests of America. You've seen to it that our high
+schools and universities produce students that admire Germany. I must
+say that you have been highly successful up to now. But the superman
+stuff is a bit thick, Mr. Werner. It makes our American gorge rise in
+our throats."
+
+Roger fingered his cold pipe, swallowed several times, looked out the
+open door where he could see Charley at the bars, rubbing Peter's head,
+then went on:
+
+"What you've done to Ernest is obvious. He's the sweetest tempered, most
+easily influenced chap in the world. You caught him in New York after
+he'd failed with the Smithsonian--probably after some spy in the
+Smithsonian had put you wise, and fed him up with the superman idea and
+he, poor mut, fell for it."
+
+"Roger!" shouted Ernest. "You can't talk about me as if I were
+feeble-minded."
+
+"But hang it, Ern, you have been!" exclaimed Roger. Then, with a little
+break in his voice, "I tell you, you've been thinking and speaking
+treason and I won't have it! I won't have it!"
+
+"Come! Come! Mr. Moore!" said Werner; "supposing what you've surmised
+should turn out to be true. Might is right in this world."
+
+"You can't draw me into a discussion of ethics, Mr. Werner. Ernest and
+I'll have that out afterward. I'm just telling you this, that Germany
+can't have my solar device and it can't have Ernest. There's enough
+evidence in that tin dispatch box of Von Minden's, Mr. Werner, almost to
+persuade Congress to declare war on your super-fatherland. There's
+enough evidence in that box to make headlines in every American paper
+for a month. What it would do to pro-German sentiment in this country is
+a caution."
+
+Werner's sunburned face went purple. "Gott im Himmel!" he roared. "Did
+the fool keep my letters?"
+
+"No, but he copied them into his journal, with all sorts of other data
+of vital interest to the American public. We had a very pleasant morning
+reading his journal. My great regret is that I've so neglected that
+document box."
+
+With surprising quickness for a stout man, Werner pulled a revolver from
+his hip pocket, and pointed it at Roger.
+
+"I want that box, Moore!" he roared.
+
+Quick as a cat, Ernest crossed the room, and with a twist of Werner's
+wrist disarmed him.
+
+"None of that!" he said.
+
+"Keep your shirt on, Mr. Werner!" said Roger. "You're going to need it,
+take my word for that!"
+
+Werner bit his nails for a moment. "Very well, sir. Give me back the box
+and I'll turn back the contract."
+
+"Not on your life! You turn back the contract and I'll give you a week
+to get out of the country before I turn the box over to the Department
+of Justice. Just one week, mind you, no more!"
+
+"Look here, Rog, you can't do that! It would be a dirty trick! Why, it's
+blackmail!" Ernest dropped the revolver on the table with a thud.
+
+"Good God, Ernest! Blackmail! Toward a man who is a spy--a man who plots
+against the physical and moral fiber of your country! Blackmail! Come
+out of your trance. There are some things that can't be done, Ern!
+Life's full of forbidden trails. My temper was one of them and poor old
+Dick's drinking was another. And the one most impossible of all for a
+real man to take is the one you're headed toward--a real man can't be
+renegade to his country."
+
+Werner, chewing nervously at his thumb knuckle, eyed Roger blackly. Then
+he turned abruptly to Ernest.
+
+"And you!" he roared. "A fine German you are, you milk sop! A beautiful
+muddle you've made of this. Von Minden's letters here for months and
+what use have they come to? There'd have been an Iron Cross in this for
+you, had you shown sense."
+
+Ernest gave a sudden short laugh. "An Iron Cross would have been a
+wonderful reward for breaking up a man's life friendship. An Iron Cross!
+My word! Where's your sense of humor, Werner?"
+
+"Come, Werner, the contract!" urged Roger.
+
+"Damn you!" shrieked the German, jerking a heavy envelope from his inner
+pocket and throwing it in Roger's face. Roger caught it and after
+examining the contents, put it into his own pocket with a nod.
+
+"Now, Mr. Werner," he said, "if you'll just annex Gustav, and plan to
+leave at sun down, Hackett will drive you in with Preble's team. I hate
+to lose Gustav. He was born to be a white man, poor devil."
+
+Werner cleared his throat and spoke sneeringly: "And how do I know
+you'll live up to your bargain, Moore?"
+
+"Oh, I'm an American! I promise to hold the papers a week and a promise
+isn't a scrap of paper in America. After the week's up, you won't enjoy
+the climate, I can assure you of that. I'll send you a check for the
+amount I've spent, next week, with the amount still untouched."
+
+"Roger!" shouted Ernest, "Don't be a fool! It's the chance of your life
+you're throwing down!"
+
+"Come with me, Wolf," cried Werner, "Come with me! I'll give you
+opportunities that you never dreamed of. You don't belong to this nation
+of thick-headed numb-skulls. You're a German. You know all that Moore
+knows about using solar heat. Come and help the Vaterland. Let this man
+rot. Bah! He belongs to a nation of swine!"
+
+There was silence in the adobe living room. Roger's face turned a slow
+purple and sweat stood on his forehead. But by a supreme effort he kept
+his clenched fists in his pockets and his eyes riveted on Ernest's.
+
+"Choose, Ernest," he said, suddenly.
+
+Ernest seemed scarcely to hear him. The sullenness that his face had
+worn constantly for many days changed slowly to a look of anger that
+distorted his features until his expression was demoniacal.
+
+He clutched the revolver and leaned across the table with a hoarse
+whisper:
+
+"By God, if you insult America again, I'll shoot you! It's one thing to
+admire Germany. It's another to sling mud at America."
+
+"What, you too, you hybrid!" shrieked Werner. "You play Germany into the
+hands of this swine; this monkey-headed inventor; this letter thief,
+this----"
+
+With an inarticulate roar, Ernest pulled the trigger just as Roger
+knocked the revolver upward. The bullet lodged in the ceiling. But
+Werner had had enough. While Roger clung to the roaring Ernest, he
+rushed down the trail to the corral, where Hackett began at once to
+hitch Dick's team to the buckboard.
+
+"Let go of me, Roger! Let me get at him!" howled Ernest.
+
+Dick came running up the trail. "It's all right, Dick, don't bother!"
+called Roger. "Leave us alone a little while longer. What's the matter,
+Ernest? Be quiet, man! Let's talk like men and not row like a couple of
+dogs."
+
+Roger eased Ernest into a chair and Ernest ceased to struggle, but
+stared at Roger gloomily.
+
+"Well, what are you going to do about it?" he asked sullenly.
+
+"I'm going to make you see the error of your ways." Roger smiled grimly.
+"Use your common sense, Ernest. What could Germany give you, except
+money? All your life ties are here."
+
+"Wonderful ties!" sneered Ernest. "Charley has turned me down, my father
+has turned me out and you've beaten me up."
+
+Roger concealed a grin. "Poor old chap!" he murmured. "So a woman's at
+the bottom of it all, eh?"
+
+"I don't know why her refusing me affected me so," said Ernest, as if to
+himself. "But I felt as if nothing mattered. And then to have the Sun
+Plant a failure and my father's attitude! O pshaw, what's the use? Let
+me alone, Roger. I'm going to pack up and get out of here."
+
+"Ernest," said Roger, "if you don't stay by while we straighten this
+out, I'll never get over it and no more will you. We've loved each other
+too long, Ern. Our lives have become interwoven. If we break now we'll
+go lame all our days. You know that, don't you, old man? You folks have
+all done so much for me. I've got to keep your friendship in order to
+pay up some of my indebtedness, eh, Ernie?"
+
+Ernest drew a long breath and suddenly dropped his head into his hands
+and burst into tears.
+
+"And now I'm crying!" he said. "Now I'm crying! There's no limit to my
+weakness."
+
+Roger, still with a little twisted grin, lighted a cigarette. "A peach
+of a superman you are, eh, Ern?"
+
+Ernest did not answer and Roger walked up and down the room, waiting.
+Finally Ernest lifted his flushed face and took the cigarette which
+Roger offered him, and began to speak, rapidly:
+
+"I was desperate, after the Smithsonian turned me down. Seems that they
+didn't like the look of things Austin did and that's why they dropped
+you. Werner looked me up. I found out later that Gustav had kept him
+informed, and that Werner had got Austin just as they got me. I honestly
+thought I was doing a great thing for you and the world, Rog. Werner
+showed me a list of names of people in this country that're helping
+Germany that would make your eyes start. And he was always praising
+America."
+
+"Ernest, has Werner any drawings of the plant?" asked Roger.
+
+"No, he hasn't."
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Yes, because that's the first thing he asked me for, this afternoon.
+All our stuff that Austin had, his widow burned with his other papers.
+She said he told her to if anything happened to him. And you know I
+brought yours back, as I promised. What Gustav may have sent him I don't
+know, but evidently not satisfactory drawings or he wouldn't have been
+so keen to get more!"
+
+"I wonder about the new engine," mused Roger. "Well, I have little fear
+of that. Gustav isn't enough of an engineer to guess what he doesn't
+see. He couldn't make a drawing of the idea of that engine to save his
+neck. And Dean Erskine's got the only plan I ever finished of it."
+
+"I'm sure you're safe on that," insisted Ernest.
+
+"I think I am," agreed Roger, "and now, Ernest, I want to know how I can
+square up with you for my attack on you the other night."
+
+Ernest looked up at Roger and the sullen look which even his tears had
+not washed out lifted a little.
+
+"You mean--?" he asked.
+
+"I mean that I had no business attacking you as I did. It was a rotten
+trick and I'm ashamed and sorry. My temper has been a brutal thing and
+you've always put up with it. If we can clear this thing up, I'm going
+to do better by you, Ern."
+
+There was a curious look in Ernest's beautiful eyes. "Do you know, I
+hoped for twenty years you'd get to see yourself in that light," he
+spoke thoughtfully. "What you've just said does away with any resentment
+I may have had about your temper, Roger. As for the other thing--" He
+paused.
+
+"Ern, how could you do it?" asked Roger huskily.
+
+"Before heaven, Roger, I did it solely for love of you. And you know I
+was brought up on admiration of Germany. I honestly thought that we
+could make you see it as I do. I've been seeing for days what a skunk
+trick it must have looked to you, but this obstinate streak in me
+wouldn't let me give up until Werner slanged America. Rog, I'll make it
+up to you somehow so you'll trust me again! See if I don't!"
+
+"I'll trust you fast enough, old man, if you'll assure me that you're
+through with this superman stuff. Are you an American or a German,
+Ern?"
+
+With a smile of extraordinary sweetness, Ernest put a hand on Roger's
+shoulder and said in a voice of utter sincerity, "I'm whatever you are,
+Roger. Thy country shall be my country and thy God, my God. After all,
+what is a man's country but the place of his loves and his friendships?
+And America has all of mine, Roger, all of mine."
+
+The two men stood in silence after this until Roger said, brokenly,
+"Thank you, Ernest, you've made a new man of me."
+
+"And now," said Ernest, briskly, "being considerably worse in debt than
+ever, the question before the house is whom do we do next?"
+
+"I don't know! I swear I don't," Roger sighed, as he took one of
+Ernest's cigarettes.
+
+Ernest gave a scornful laugh. "He doesn't know! the poor little woolly
+lamb! He doesn't know! with a plant such as is now established in the
+Prebles' backyard! Why, man, I could sell that to an Egyptian mummy."
+
+Roger laughed and at the sound Dick called in through the open door,
+
+"For the love of heaven, put us out of our misery! What's happened?
+We've been sweating blood!"
+
+Both men hurried out to the porch. Seated in a solemn row on the steps
+were Charley, Dick and Elsa.
+
+Ernest looked at Roger pleadingly. "You tell them, Rog. I want to attend
+to something in the tent."
+
+Roger sat down beside Charley and told the story. When it was finished,
+Dick said, "Are you sure he's not German, Roger?"
+
+"Certainly he's not any longer!" exclaimed Elsa. "The strongest thing in
+Ernest's life is his love for Roger. He'll never give any woman what
+he's given Roger. That love has saved Ernest and will keep him safe. Oh,
+I'm so thankful! So thankful!"
+
+"Don't cry, Elsa! I've had all the emotion I can stand in one day,"
+cried Roger.
+
+"I wouldn't waste a tear on either of you," returned Elsa, stoutly as
+she wiped her eyes. "Come along, Dicky belovedest. You're the only one
+who treats me with respect. I'm going to cook you the most perfect
+biscuits ever invented for supper."
+
+Ernest came into supper that night and after the first moment of
+embarrassment, the meal resolved itself into a frank discussion of ways
+and means, quite as if nothing had happened. Roger flatly refused to
+take Dick's possible loan.
+
+"You keep that for a rainy day fall back," he said. "You and Elsa aren't
+going to have smooth sledding for a long time yet."
+
+"How about you and Charley?" returned Dick. "Don't forget you've got a
+woman to provide for now!"
+
+"Thanks for reminding me," smiled Roger. "She's an extravagant minx too
+and accustomed to luxury."
+
+"Well, something will turn up, see if it doesn't," said Ernest. "In the
+meantime, there's considerable work to be done before Roger can claim
+that he's irrigating twenty-five acres of alfalfa. I'll guarantee that
+something will turn up before he's able to do that."
+
+"Looks to me as if I were going to cash in pretty heavily on this
+business," said Dick. "Well, I'll supply you alfalfa for the rest of
+your lives."
+
+"Thank you for nothing," returned Charley, sweetly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+PAPA WOLF
+
+
+October came in with a decided diminution of heat and with an accented
+brilliancy in sky and sand. The work of getting the remainder of the
+twenty-five acres into alfalfa went on rapidly. And in spite of the
+money uncertainty, there was the lift of hopefulness and happiness in
+the atmosphere of the ranch.
+
+The alfalfa grew amazingly. One morning Elsa electrified the ranch by
+announcing that the second field now in blossom was full of wild bees.
+No one believed her. Every one decamped at once to the field. It was
+quite true. Far and wide swept the burning barrens of the desert. But
+close about corral and pumping plant crowded the unbelievable verdure of
+alfalfa with the fringed green lines of cottonwoods on its borders
+silhouetted against the sullen yellow sand. And wild bees, drunk with
+rapturous surprise, buzzed thick in the heavy blossoms. Whence they came
+no one could guess. Dick was willing to wager that there was nothing
+else within a hundred miles on which a bee might feed.
+
+It was early morning. Roger and Charley allowed the others to drift back
+to their various occupations while they remained to watch the field.
+Seated side by side on a rock heap, Roger's arm around Charley's
+shoulders, they listened to the humming of the bees.
+
+"If you weren't here, it would make me homesick," said Roger. "I can
+shut my eyes and see the old Preble farm and my mother in her phlox bed,
+calling to me to drive the bees away. I wonder if a fellow ever gets
+over his heartache for his mother."
+
+"Not the right kind of a fellow for the right kind of a mother," replied
+Charley, lifting Roger's hand against her cheek. "The price we pay for
+any kind of love is pain."
+
+"I hope when yours and my time comes to go we can go together," said
+Roger, "and that we won't have to start until our work is done. Queer
+how life's values shift. When I came down here, the thing I wanted most
+in life was to make a success of heat engineering. I thought it was
+impossible for me to reach an equal degree of desire about anything
+else. And now, while I want just as much as ever to go on with my
+profession, successfully, I want a thousand times more to be your
+husband and to be the right kind of a husband. I never have pipe-dreamed
+much about marriage, though I've done my share of flirting in my day.
+But for the first time in my life I realize that Bobby Burns knew what
+human life is in its innermost essence when he said:
+
+    "'To make a happy fireside clime for wean and wife,
+    That's the true purpose and sublime, of human life!'"
+
+Charley did not speak but she turned and looked into Roger's blue eyes
+with her own bespeaking a depth of feeling that was beyond words. Roger,
+looking at the splendid brow above the brown eyes, kissed it reverently
+and then gazing at the beautiful curving mouth, he crushed his lips to
+Charley's. Then again they sat watching the bees in the alfalfa.
+
+Charley noted before Roger the sound of hoof beats and looking round,
+beheld Hackett's two seated buckboard crawling slowly toward them.
+
+"Who on earth now!" exclaimed Roger. "It can't be--yes, by Jove it is
+Dean Erskine--and--and Mamma and Papa Wolf! Oh, Elsa and Dick are going
+to have real trouble now!"
+
+They hurried round to the corral, and shouted to the others so that the
+whole ranch was present to welcome the travelers. Ernest was first,
+lifting his mother bodily to the ground and kissing her a dozen times
+before Elsa had a chance.
+
+"Guess I can pull off a surprise party when I try!" he shouted. "Here,
+Papa, this is Charley. Don't you remember the little roly-poly who used
+to play in the swimming pool? And Dick--who tried to boss us."
+
+"Come up to the house! I know you're half dead," said Charley, leading
+the way as she spoke.
+
+"I don't want to go into any house till I've seen the Plant," exclaimed
+Dean Erskine, wiping the sand from his face.
+
+"Not a Plant for me, but coffee and some shade and a little breeze,
+maybe," cried Papa Wolf.
+
+"Better have some breakfast first, Dean," suggested Roger. "There's a
+long story goes with seeing the plant."
+
+"There's a long story goes with a number of things here I would
+suspect," grunted Papa Wolf, mounting the steps to the porch.
+
+"Now, Papa, don't try to talk until you've eaten," called Mamma
+anxiously, from Ernest's arm. "Oh, but children, this is very pleasant,"
+as the party entered the living room. "How do you keep it so cool and
+how have you endured this dreadful heat?"
+
+"Heat!" laughed Elsa, "why, Mamma, this is our cool fall weather we're
+having now. You should have been here in the good old summer time."
+
+"God forbid, if it was warmer than this yet. Papa, take off your coat,
+and you too, Dean." Mamma lifted her dusty little black hat from a very
+flushed forehead. "These boys look cool in their flannel shirts and you
+so hot in your coats. And see what a nice fine place and a nice clock
+and a--"
+
+"Hold, Mamma! Hold! You needn't talk every minute," interrupted Papa
+Wolf. "I promised to say nothing until we all have eaten. So now, enjoy
+your breakfast."
+
+But Papa and probably the Dean were the only persons who really enjoyed
+the meal. Elsa was plainly rattled and Dick whose worn face recently had
+looked much less haggard had settled again into lines of suffering.
+Except in looking after the guests' comfort, he had nothing to say.
+Charley and Roger were apprehensive as to the outcome of what was
+plainly to be a family row. Ernest, who talked a great deal, seemed
+excited and uneasy.
+
+When the coffee pot had been emptied and pipes and cigars lighted, Dean
+Erskine rose. He was small and thin and his Van Dyke beard was nearly
+white but he still gave the impression of tremendous nervous energy.
+
+"Now, I'm ready for the Plant, Roger," he said energetically.
+
+"No! No! The Plant can wait!" protested Papa. "You know all about why we
+have come, Dean, and I want you to stay and lend your good sense to the
+interview."
+
+"But my dear Wolf, it will be very unpleasant for me," exclaimed the
+Dean.
+
+"And for me!" added Roger.
+
+"For you, Roger! Why you're the cause of all our troubles and the Dean
+has backed you in all! Come now, don't be a coward. See it through! I
+must take my two children back with me. That is settled."
+
+"Is that what brought you down here, Papa?" inquired Elsa.
+
+"Ernest's letter brought me down here. It's the only letter he has
+written me since he left my roof. But it was most important."
+
+"You see, it was this way," Ernest cleared his throat, nervously, but
+his blue eyes were steady. "You told me not to communicate with you, but
+I've written regularly to Mother. So, of course, it amounted to the same
+thing. Naturally, I've tried not to write you about our worries. But
+finally, I made up my mind, Papa, that you needed to learn one or two
+things that I had learned down here. I knew there was no use in my
+asking you to come, so I merely wrote you of Elsa's engagement."
+
+Ernest turned to his sister and Dick, who sat side by side on the
+living-room cot.
+
+"I'm not going to apologize to you two. Mamma and Papa had to know
+sometime or other. And I wanted Papa down here."
+
+"You should have let me write, Ernest. I might have given myself a fair
+show, I think." Dick's voice was bitter.
+
+"I did you no harm in the long run, Dick, old man," said Ernest,
+eagerly. "Just bear with me for a while."
+
+"Ernie, you always were an old butter-in," cried Elsa angrily. "As if I
+weren't perfectly capable of managing my own affairs. Now you've ruined
+everything. Papa, I am going to marry Dick. Mamma, you will love him."
+
+"Wait, Elsa, wait," exclaimed Ernest.
+
+But Papa could not wait. "Marry a Preble!" he roared. "Marry a drunkard,
+the son of a drunkard! Oh, don't try to hush me, Mamma! You know you're
+just as anxious about the matter as I am. I had the Dean look Dick
+Preble up. His record in college was that of a drunken rounder. His
+father drank the old farm up, you remember that, Roger."
+
+"I remember folks said so, but all I know and all I want to know about
+Dick is what he is now. He's a new man and a mighty fine one."
+
+"Impossible! His father--"
+
+Dick jumped to his feet, but Charley spoke first. "Leave our father
+absolutely out of this, Mr. Wolf, if you please. He's not here to defend
+himself. Dick is."
+
+"Impossible!" roared Papa Wolf.
+
+Charley crossed the room swiftly and standing in all the dignity of her
+good height and her quiet beauty, she looked down on Papa Wolf.
+
+"I am telling you," she did not raise her voice, "not to include my
+father or my mother in this conversation. My brother and I stand on our
+own reputations and no one else's."
+
+Papa Wolf swallowed two or three times. "But inheritance," he said
+feebly.
+
+"Nobody inherits the drink habit," returned Charley, disdainfully. "You
+can inherit a weak will but not a habit. Dick drank because he thought
+he was going to die and he went the pace, thinking like other fool men
+that he was living life to the full, in that way. By the time he had
+been cured of his illness, he had the drink appetite. But he's cured of
+that now."
+
+"How do you know?" asked Papa Wolf, belligerently.
+
+"Because I know," replied Charley, shortly, returning to her chair,
+while Dick and Elsa stared at her, astonishment and gratitude both
+struggling in their faces.
+
+"Well, do I want my daughter to marry a man who's been a bum, eh? Do you
+think I, Karl Wolf--"
+
+"Hold on, Mr. Wolf," interrupted Dick. "I never was a bum. Drink was my
+failing. I've always, with Charley's help, paid my own way. I have a
+real business down here now. Elsa loves the desert life and she loves
+me. I can take care of her and make her happy, I know."
+
+"You know, huh! Yet you remember Elsa's home. All its luxury?"
+
+"Yes, I remember Elsa's home and I remember that Elsa and her mother
+were high class, unpaid servants in that home."
+
+Papa Wolf jumped to his feet. Ernest laid a hand on his arm.
+
+"Wait now, Papa. You've got the top layer off your chest. Now I'm going
+to tell you the inside story of what has happened in this desert in the
+seven or eight months. Light your pipe, Papa. It's going to be a long
+story."
+
+"Pipe! Pipe! I will not light my pipe!"
+
+"Why not? Nobody's married yet. You've got days and weeks if you wish to
+argue about that and you'll be liking Dick better all the time you're
+arguing. Now Elsa's marriage isn't the important matter you've to decide
+down here, at all. Light your pipe. Papa dear! You always did give me
+good advice, except about coming down here. Here, take a fresh box of
+matches."
+
+Papa Wolf, established once more, Ernest took a turn or two up and down
+the room, coming finally to a stop before the empty fire place. Roger,
+looking at his chum closely, realized suddenly that Ernest had aged in
+the past few months. There were lines around his eyes and his lips.
+Ernest looked from his father to his mother with a little smile.
+
+"Roger and I, in spite of our thirty years, were unsophisticated kids
+when we came into this country. I think we're grown up now. I think
+we're pretty certain to go a straight and decent trail to the end. But
+that I came mighty near to going a forbidden trail as Roger calls it, is
+your fault, Papa--and yours, Dean Erskine."
+
+He paused and although the Dean and Ernest's father looked at each other
+in amazement, neither interrupted and the younger man went on.
+
+"I never saw death until I came down here--I never knew love. I never
+knew real work. But here I have learned all three. We have lived here
+with an intensity as great as the heat. The--the primal passions have
+shaken us, Papa--and burned us clean--You know some creeds speak of
+Christ's hours between the Last Supper and His death as the passion of
+the cross. Sometimes I feel as if I could call my months down here my
+passion of the desert."
+
+Again Ernest paused, and those who had lived with him through these
+months of passion--passion of joy, of fear, of sorrow, of love, of
+personal grief and of world pain, listened with astonishment that
+jovial, easy-going Ernest should have felt as deeply as they.
+
+"Mrs. von Minden died first. Roger and Dick found her dead up in a
+remote canyon. She had thirsted to death. I wrote Elsa of her but not of
+her death. That would have set you to worrying about me, Muetterchen. She
+had the little black box with her that I wrote Elsa she had demanded
+from her husband. Whether she found in it what she wanted no one will
+ever know. But her death ended one of those strange, feverish life
+dramas that this trackless desert is always turning up. Next they found
+Von Minden, alone except for Peter. (You must meet Peter, Papa.) He
+probably died of heart failure. We don't know how she got the box away
+from him. Maybe she poisoned him. And next Felicia,--Felicia was exactly
+as Charley was, Mamma, when she used to come to play with us in the
+pool."
+
+Ernest looked at Charley--"I've got to talk about her, Charley, to make
+them understand."
+
+Charley moistened her lips, but nodded and Dick put his hand over his
+eyes.
+
+"She was like Charley too in that she was the kind of a girl that decent
+men instinctively love--not with one of these headlong, unreasoning
+loves, you understand. But with the kind of a deep-seated adoration for
+beauty and goodness and brain that gets a man where he lives and never
+leaves him. That's the way I got to caring for Charley and that's the
+way, in embryo, we all loved Felicia.
+
+"In the meantime, you understand we were all working like the very devil
+to get the plant up and the alfalfa in. I wrote home of that. How
+difficult the work here in the desert was is beyond description. And,
+what made it more difficult, after the Smithsonian turned Roger down, he
+got to working against time, and though he never said much, he gave an
+atmosphere of desperate hurry and worry to the camp, that simply got us
+all strung up to the breaking point. At intervals, too, he lost that
+famous temper of his. These tempers upset Felicia terribly."
+
+Roger filled his pipe with fingers that trembled a little. But Ernest
+was staring out the door now, with eyes that saw nothing.
+
+"Dick varied the monotony two or three times by getting drunk. He is an
+ugly whelp when he's drunk. Once he knocked Charley down and Felicia saw
+it and Roger and he mixed up over it and Elsa finally straightened it
+out, and we let him out of Coventry. But the next time he got drunk,
+Felicia, in her fright, ran away into the desert and was killed by a
+rattler. Charley and Roger found her. It nearly killed us all. But it
+cured Dick of drinking--that's one reason why I'm telling you. Don't
+cry, Muetterchen."
+
+"But you have Charley, Ernie! You have Charley!" sobbed his mother.
+
+"No, I haven't Charley. Roger has Charley. None of us deserved her, but
+Roger is nearer fit than the rest."
+
+"Don't, Ernest!" pleaded Charley.
+
+"I must, Charley. You'll see in a few moments what I'm getting at. Well,
+Papa, in the meantime, there was no money and it looked as if there
+would be no food. Roger's plant didn't work out as we'd planned. I wrote
+home the difficulties even of hanging a door. You can picture Roger
+trying to build a new engine out of wire and a string he had tramped ten
+miles into the ranges to find and steal. The alfalfa was dying for lack
+of water and there was no adequate pumping system even if we'd had
+adequate water.
+
+"It was at this point that I decided to go to Washington, Papa, and try
+the Smithsonian. You would have been the one, naturally, for me to turn
+to, but even if I'd had the inclination, which I hadn't, Roger
+absolutely wouldn't stand for the suggestion. So I went to Washington,
+all sort of strung up, you understand, and in bad mental trim because
+of--of everything. And in Washington I got a good swift kick. So I went
+to New York and spent the rest of Elsa's good money on Broadway. It
+didn't take me very far but when I went broke, I looked up your friend
+Werner. This is the point where you come in too, Dean Erskine.
+
+"Now I had been brought up at home, naturally, to worship all things
+German. I liked to think of myself not as an American but as a German.
+At school, this home influence should have been counteracted if America
+expects to make real citizens. But it wasn't. The High School taught us
+German and no other modern language. In college, all things mental
+centered on the German idea in the majority of the departments. And
+your department was the worst of all, Dean. You are a Germanophile
+yourself and you taught your students to be.
+
+"So behold me, calling on Werner and finding that Werner among other
+activities has been the head of an organized effort on the part of the
+German government for twenty years to Germanize America--through
+schools, churches, singing societies--oh, countless ways. And he was
+deeply worried about our British sympathies. And he wanted my influence
+in the college and elsewhere and he wanted Roger's big mechanical brain
+for Germany and so he offered me fifty thousand dollars for the Sun
+Plant and I took it."
+
+"Fine! Wonderful!" exclaimed Papa Wolf.
+
+"So I thought," said Ernest dryly, "but Roger and the others here
+thought differently. In fact when Roger found out about Werner, he tried
+to kill me, and then went away into the mountains with Peter for three
+days."
+
+"Oh, Ernie! Oh, Roger!" moaned Mamma Wolf.
+
+Papa Wolf's lips tightened. "But why, Roger?" he demanded.
+
+"Wait, Roger! I'm telling the story. Rog tried to kill me for selling
+out secretly the idea that was bone of his bone. He tried to kill me
+because I sold it to a government that has gone through Belgium like a
+Hunnish horde, and because I claimed to admire it for that. Well, he
+didn't kill me and I was very sore and decided to go to Germany to live.
+Then Werner came down to settle details with Roger, and Roger told him
+what was in the black box and made him give back the contract."
+
+"The black box! What black box?" asked Dean Erskine.
+
+"The Von Mindens' black box. When I brought back word that Werner wanted
+it, Roger and Charley read the contents. It developed that Von Minden
+was one of a group working for the German government with the idea of
+making Arizona and New Mexico into German colonies. Gustav--you remember
+my writing of Gustav--was Werner's spy, keeping Werner informed of our
+every move and what he could about Von Minden."
+
+"I don't believe a word of it! Not a word! It's all British influence,"
+exclaimed Papa Wolf stoutly.
+
+"You'll have to believe it, because it's true," returned Ernest. "Roger
+was angry and threw Werner and Gustav out of the camp and made me choose
+between him and Werner. I chose Roger, because the time had come in my
+life when I'd got to make a tremendous decision. It's one you've got to
+make, Papa, and so has the Dean. I wanted you to make it my way. That's
+why I got you down here to see the things that I'd been up against."
+
+"You don't intend to ask us to break our neutrality, surely, Ernest,"
+protested Dean Erskine.
+
+"I'll develop your job in just a moment, Dean. Papa, what I want is that
+you repudiate Werner and all his works, and undertake to finance Roger's
+project."
+
+"My heavens, Ern!" cried Roger.
+
+"Tut! Tut! Rog--you be quiet. Dean, your job is to sell the Plant to my
+father, after you've both made your decision."
+
+"I cannot understand your talking to me in this manner, Ernest,"
+shouted Papa Wolf, pounding on the table till the belated breakfast
+dishes rattled.
+
+"I'll explain," said Ernest, imperturbably. "There's love of human
+beings. There's love of work. There's love of country. They make up a
+man's life. I had the first two and I thought that they were enough. But
+lately, I've discovered differently and I think a good many people in
+this country are finding out the same thing. I never gave the matter any
+thought until the Werner episode. Then I began to examine this thing
+called patriotism and I found that it was the very wellspring of a man's
+usefulness as a citizen. Without it family pride is a travesty. Without
+it, the impulse to build up sane and humane and lasting governments is
+lacking. Without it, a man may be ever so learned, ever so rich, yet he
+lacks any real place in community life. Patriotism is to a man's
+community life what religion is to his moral life.
+
+"Now I intend to lead a full, normal man's life. I want to love a
+country, and I couldn't see, when I got down to brass tacks, why that
+country should be Germany. This is the land that bred me and fed me.
+Actually I'm a physical part of the soil of America. What do I care how
+cultured Germany may or may not be? Here in America are the hills and
+valleys, the rivers and mountains that I know and care for. Here is the
+kind of government I like. Here is the place of my profession. I
+wouldn't marry a German fraeulein for anything. A slangy, athletic,
+bossy, saucy, well-educated American girl for mine! All the people that
+I love are here in America. You folks and all the relatives are here.
+Roger is here, Charley is here and up there on an American mountainside
+lies little Felicia. Papa, I am an American, not a German."
+
+Again there was full silence in the room. Then Dean Erskine cleared his
+throat. "Ernest, I want to thank you very much. I, too, am an American."
+
+Papa Wolf blew his nose and walked slowly out of the house. There was no
+one in the room who had not been moved deeply by the something poignant
+in Ernest's face, even though his voice was so sedulously casual. Before
+any one else had opportunity to speak however, Papa Wolf was back.
+
+"I don't believe a word about Werner," he said to Ernest. "But I am
+surprised, Ernest, after your upbringing that you should have deceived
+Roger as you did."
+
+"But are you an American, Papa?" persisted Ernest.
+
+"You numb-skull!" shouted his father. "I have been an American longer
+than you have hairs to your head. It's my land, even if I am sentimental
+about Germany."
+
+Once more he marched out the door.
+
+"Come, Dean, and see the Plant," said Roger. The Dean rose with alacrity
+and bumped into Papa Wolf, who came in again shaking his head.
+
+"I don't see, Ernie, how you could have treated Roger so. Of course, I
+think he's crazy and all his works. But I've always loved him, though I
+was and am very mad at him for bringing you down here. I don't see how
+you could have done it."
+
+"I thought I owed it to Germany and that it would help him. You forget
+my German superman upbringing."
+
+"I'll look at the Plant, of course," said Papa Wolf, "just to see what
+you have wasted your life blood on. But not one cent of money, boys."
+
+"I don't want your money, sir," exclaimed Roger, proudly.
+
+"You don't eh! Then we're all satisfied," returned Ernest's father,
+following the Dean out of the door.
+
+The last place inspected was the engine house. Ernest made a simple
+explanation of the machinery while the Dean went over the engine almost
+as lovingly and keenly as Roger would have. Then Roger led the Dean back
+to the porch for a talk.
+
+"So this is the result of all your years of work, eh, Ernie?" said Papa
+Wolf. "Do you mean to say that you made that machine out of your own
+head?"
+
+"I only helped Roger," replied Ernest, "but it means a lot to me.
+Father, this solar work of ours will be recorded in history as the
+beginning of a new harnessing of energy."
+
+The older man looked at his son with interest. "You should have taken
+the trouble to explain all this to me, years ago, my son."
+
+"I know it," replied Ernest. "Well, anyhow, I've done my bit down here.
+When you go back I'll go back with you. I'm a teacher, not a pioneer."
+
+Papa Wolf seized both of Ernest's hand. "No! Really! Ernest, you really
+will go on with the professorship! Then I am satisfied. But we must not
+let this work be in vain. This child of your mind, Ernest, it must be
+recorded. It will help you in your professorship, eh?"
+
+Ernest nodded. "It's really a great thing, father. Roger has a wonderful
+mind."
+
+"He's got a good mind, yes, but I'm asking you where would he have been
+all these years without my boy? O Ernie! Ernie! You've taken ten years
+off me! Now, you let me think. I'll sit and watch this engine of yours.
+You go along about your work, Ernie." And Ernest, a tired look in his
+eyes, went along as he was bidden.
+
+It was dinner time before the tour of inspection was done. Mamma Wolf
+spent the morning, after a nap, helping the girls to prepare a huge
+dinner. She and Elsa wept a little on each other's necks, and Mamma Wolf
+promised to take Dick to her heart and love him as another son. And
+somehow Elsa put full faith in Ernest's bringing his father around.
+
+No one talked business or politics at dinner. There were many details of
+the camp life to be told and many stories of the Von Mindens that
+invariably brought Papa Wolf to the verge of apoplexy with laughter.
+Ernest never had been more charming than he was now. And by some magic
+of his own, he drew Dick out to tell the story of his turquoise mining.
+Like almost any story of desert endeavor it was full of drama, of quiet
+heroism, and of weird humor. Papa and Mamma Wolf hung breathless on
+every word of it.
+
+"Himmel!" exclaimed Papa at the end, "if I were thirty years younger,
+I'd like just such adventuring!" The others looked at one another and
+smiled.
+
+When the long dinner hour was over, Papa Wolf lighted his meerschaum.
+"And now let's look at that engine again. You should come and see it,
+Mamma. Run by sunshine and almost as silent as the sun and powerful like
+it. Wonderful! Wonderful!"
+
+"You've hardly looked at the alfalfa, Papa," said Ernest.
+
+"Plenty of time for that. One thing at a time. Come along, Dean. If you
+should explain that engine through to me two or three times more, I'll
+understand it. Ernest and Roger, they never thought to take old Papa to
+see the working model at the University. They thought because I was a
+fool about the working drawings, I knew nothing. Come on, Dean! Come
+along."
+
+Seated on two up-ended boxes before the engine, the two gray headed men
+spent the afternoon. The Dean could have been enticed away to examine
+the alfalfa and the pumping system. But not Papa. He went out at
+intervals to look at the absorber and to read the thermometer at the oil
+storage pit, then back to the engine.
+
+"And this is what Ernie has been working on for all these years. And I
+never could get it through my old head."
+
+"Ernest and Roger too," the Dean would suggest.
+
+"Of course, Roger. But you know Ernest and his fine mind. Observe now,
+Dean, out there the parching, cruel sun, that strikes and kills. Here
+Ernest's magic, this silent machine that catches that sun and turns its
+death kiss into life. And out there, where the honey bees buzz, the
+magic made vital. My boy's brain did such miracles and I never knew it
+until now. I even forbade him the house when he insisted on giving birth
+to his idea."
+
+The others drifted in and out and at last the supper hour came and once
+more the clan gathered at the familiar table.
+
+"Why, Papa, I haven't seen you with such appetite or with such spirits
+since last Christmas," said Mamma.
+
+"You haven't seen me with such cause. And how mad I was when I came--eh,
+Mamma!"
+
+"You know, Papa," said Ernest, "we never could have put over the Plant
+if it hadn't been for the Prebles. I swear Charley has fed us and Dick
+has guided us and had faith in us when it seemed as if the whole world
+outside had turned us down."
+
+"Is it so?" exclaimed Papa as if realizing that fact for the first time.
+"So you stood by my boy, eh, Dick? Well, that's good! My boy has stood
+by you and so will I. Now listen, boys. Why can't I do a little
+adventuring, eh? Let's make this a thousand acre Plant. And the Dean
+says that this engine will put every other low temperature, high speed
+engine off the market. Why not build some and sell them, eh?"
+
+"But Mr. Wolf," said Roger. "I haven't felt as if you ought to put money
+in. If anything should go wrong and you should lose by it, I'd never
+forgive myself."
+
+Papa Wolf put his hand on Roger's knee. "Roger, I've known you since you
+were born and I loved your father. He died a disappointed man. When I
+think of the things Ernie said this morning I realize that perhaps if
+I'd been a better patriot I wouldn't have let a man so valuable to the
+community die a disappointed man. Now you're an even more valuable man
+than your father was, and so is Ernest. Shall I wait for outsiders to do
+for my son and your father's son? Or shall I help you organize so as to
+develop this hot country for America? And again I did my only son an
+unkindness in not understanding his work--almost a fatal unkindness.
+Suppose he had left us for Germany. Shall I not make it up to him? And
+lastly, my son treated you dishonorably. Shall he and I not together try
+to make it up?"
+
+Roger's tense face worked.
+
+"Now, don't speak! I know how you feel," cried Papa. "Now I have more
+than enough tucked away for Mamma and me. And I have two friends, one in
+the brewery, one in the bank. We can organize a company. We have Dick's
+ranch and the turquoise mine and Ernest's and your plant. We can get
+plenty of money. I'll make all those Maennerchors come down here. We'll
+irrigate this whole desert. We'll open up mines--we'll--"
+
+He got up to pace the floor. "Why there's an empire here for Uncle Sam
+that the Reclamation Service can't handle. We'll do it."
+
+"Roger has talked of Asia Minor," said Dick, with twinkling eyes.
+
+"Well, we'll tackle that later," replied Papa dreamily. "America is a
+good field. Dean, are you coming in with us?"
+
+"Thanks," returned the Dean. "But Ernest and I have another job,
+fighting _furor Teutonicus_ up at the university. But I'll be on hand
+for such advice as I can give."
+
+"I think," Papa went on after a brisk nod, "we'll spend a month or so
+down here, Mamma and I. Ernest, you can go on up and open the house and
+we'll be back after Christmas. If all works well, I'll have to spend a
+part of each year down here. Dick, can't you get those Indians you talk
+of to build Mamma and Ernie and me a little house, near by? Then you
+and Elsa can have this and Charley and Roger must build them a little
+nest somewhere. And we all are fixed, see!"
+
+There was a little pause, then Elsa ran across the room and threw
+herself in her father's arms. "Oh, Papa! Papa! I never knew what a saint
+you were until now."
+
+Papa Wolf smoothed Elsa's hair tenderly. "I still think you are a fool,
+Elschen. But if your mother and I are down here to watch closely--the
+very first time, sir," he glared at Dick, "that I find--"
+
+"You won't have to do anything, Mr. Wolf," said Dick. "I'll cut my
+throat."
+
+"Don't talk silly," exclaimed Papa. "Just try to be a good boy and we'll
+help. Of course, I think Elsa is a fool but I thought Ernest was one and
+now look!"
+
+The Dean slipped out, unobserved and a moment later Charley whispered to
+Roger,
+
+"Let's get out and let Dick have his chance to clear everything up."
+
+And so Roger and Charley found themselves alone, under the stars.
+
+"I just can't realize it, at all, can you, Roger dearest?" asked
+Charley.
+
+Roger did not answer for a moment. They were standing beside the corral,
+looking toward the shadowy mountainside where lay Felicia's grave.
+
+"I wish I could believe she saw and knew everything," he said, brokenly.
+Then as Charley said nothing, he turned and took her in his arms with a
+sudden passion that found expression in hot kisses and half broken
+sentences.
+
+"Oh, Charley! Charley! After all I'm not a failure. I am--Darling, you
+do love me, you are sure of that--! How beautiful you are! How
+beautiful! You are as lovely as the desert. God, Charley, but I'm
+happy!"
+
+Charley, clinging to him speechlessly, finally raised her head, and
+looked with Roger across the desert night of silence and blue, while the
+rich sense of space, of mystery, of heaven very near and life's
+bitternesses far away touched them both at once. And Peter, a wisp of
+cat's claw hanging from his mouth, rubbed his patient head
+affectionately against Roger's arm.
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Forbidden Trail, by Honore Willsie
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FORBIDDEN TRAIL ***
+
+***** This file should be named 22284.txt or 22284.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/2/2/2/8/22284/
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/22284.zip b/22284.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ac80a4f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/22284.zip
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4885cca
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #22284 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/22284)