"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?