The Forbidden Trail

"Come here, Felicia," said Roger, biting at his cold pipe. "You see this little valve? All right. Now, as I've told you many times, I hope that when you turn this, that the sun which shone to-day will turn the big fly wheel round. When I give the wheel a twist, you turn the valve clear over."

"Yes, Roger," replied Felicia, her little fingers quivering as she grasped the valve.

"Now!" exclaimed Roger, tugging at the fly-wheel.

There was a moment's breathless silence. Then very slowly and sedately, the fly wheel began to revolve, gathered speed and shortly was chugging away steadily. A little cheer rose from Roger's audience. He grinned.

"Now Ern, let's throw in the pump." A belt, connecting the engine with the pump outside, was quickly slipped in place. The engine slowed down. But a moment later the sound of water pouring over the condenser pipes was heard above the chugging of the engine and pump.

Gustav and Ernest fell on each other's necks. "It works!" squealed Felicia. "It works and I helped make it, I did." Peter, his head as far in at one of the windows as a very short neck would carry it, brayed. Roger watched the pressure gauge and scratched his head thoughtfully.

Charley and Felicia slipped outside to inspect the pump, and Charley called: "Does anybody smell anything?" At the same moment Felicia shrieked.

"Oh! oh, Roger! There's a terrible leak out here!"

Roger shut off the engine and followed by the others, he darted to the condenser. The odor of sulphur dioxide filled the night.

"By Jove, it's big enough to lose my charge!" groaned Roger. "Bring bugs, everybody."

Felicia, "bug" and oil can in hand, was running over the pipes at the top before the others had arrived.

"Here it is, Roger! Oh, an awful one. There!"

The leak was in a pipe joint at the top of the stack. The odor grew almost unbearable. For half an hour the men wrestled with it, turn about, and at last succeeded in stopping it. Other minor leaks occurred but all were located and controlled. Finally Roger announced all safe and lighted his pipe. In the flash of the match, his face showed tense and dripping with sweat, his eyes bloodshot from the gas fumes.

"Darn the leaks!" exclaimed Elsa.

"Well, it's what we'll have to expect as long as I can't afford to buy bent pipe or an acetylene welding outfit," said Roger. "But after all, the leaks are the least of my troubles."

"What is troubling you?" asked Charley quickly.

"There isn't as much power there as my calculations had indicated there would be."

"I told you that you were running pretty close on your absorption area," exclaimed Ernest. "You see your temperature readings have been lower right along down here than that table we had up in the laboratory for this region."

"But I don't want to increase the absorption area in order to get more power. It's a clumsy solution. It makes the plant too large and too high priced. The solution to the problem lies in making that engine more efficient." Roger sighed.

"Now don't change your engine design, Roger!" cried Ernest. "That is a peach and has been for years."

"Yes, I know," replied Roger. "But there's a possibility that you and the Dean and I have been too complacent about that engine."

"Gee, but you're a regular pessimist, Rog!" exclaimed Dick.

"No, I'm not. No inventor is. I'm just open minded. And don't think I'm blue, either. If I weren't so heckled and worried by the time and money element I'd be having the time of my life. Wouldn't I, Felicia, honey?"

There was no answer. Felicia, with the oil can hugged tight against her middy, was curled up on the work bench, fast asleep.

"Well, it seems to me I'd better take my family home," said Dick. "Where's the rest of my harem? Elsa! Charley! Come with papa."

By eleven o'clock the camp was quiet. Roger prowled about the condenser a bit, covered the engine with canvas and then went to bed. It had been a hard day and none of the three men were wakened by the smell of sulphur dioxide that began to hang over the camp at midnight. The dawn wind blew most of it away, but when Gustav rose to get breakfast, he sniffed suspiciously and called Roger. They traced a leak in the lower tier. Half the charge had evaporated during the night.

"At least two weeks before we get more and a chunk out of the precious grub money," groaned Ernest at breakfast.

"Patience! Patience!" exclaimed Gustav. "I'll start to Archer's Spring mit the empty drums to-morrow."

Roger, who had been bolting his breakfast in silence, suddenly set down his coffee cup. Patience! He had told Charley that he was a patient man. Yet every muscle of his body at the moment was twitching with impatience. He acknowledged this to himself, then said aloud:

"No use getting nervous, boys, I'm not. You get the new charge, Gustav. I'll leave that in your hands and think no more about it. I'm going over my heat tables again."

"I'll help you check over," said Ernest.

"If you don't mind I'd rather grind for a few days on it alone. I can think better that way. Then I'll go over the results with you."

"All right," returned Ernest, with his usual good nature. "Gustav and I'll offer our services to Dick to-day on his new field. Do increase your absorbing area, Roger!"

Roger shook his head. "That's an awkward and expensive solution. The answer's in the engine!"

He began to figure on an old envelope. When this was covered, he continued his calculations on the margin of an old newspaper spread over the work house table. Long after Gustav and Ernest had gone about their day's business Elsa found him here, sweating in the stifling glare from the sun and sand, hair disheveled, shirt open at the throat. Elsa looked almost cool in comparison in her soft white blouse and one of Charley's khaki skirts.

"Well, Roger," she exclaimed, "hasn't your cook the decency to wash the breakfast dishes for you?"

"It does look rotten, doesn't it?" said Roger, staring vaguely around the kitchen. "But the cook seems to be on a strike and I forgot to clean things up."

"If you'll get out of the way, I'll do it." Elsa began to roll up her sleeves.

"It's too hot now. Wait until late afternoon," suggested Roger, glancing from his papers out to the yellow waves of heat dancing from sand to deep blue of sky.

"I can stand the heat if Charley can," returned Elsa. "She's baking bread and cookies. The thermometer on the porch says 112°. I should judge that it was about 190° in her kitchen. Rog, do you know that she's a highly educated girl? Why do you suppose she's throwing her life away down here, cut off from everything?"

Roger looked up from his figures with a little sigh of resignation.

"What did you say, Elsa?"

Elsa smiled but repeated her inquiry.

"She's not wasting her life," replied Roger. "This is really a superb country and she takes to pioneering like a fine boy. This is about the last big adventure there is in America, this desert pioneering."

"Like a boy!" sniffed Elsa. "Roger, you're hopeless! She's just the most womanly woman I ever met—and one of the saddest. She's got some trouble on her mind."

"Aw shucks, Elsa! Don't try to make Charley out temperamental. She's not and that's why she's such a pal to us fellows. Wholesome and clean-cut and direct, that's Charley."

"Oh, well, have it your own way, stupid! Only, go on over to the living tent while I clean up here." This with a curious glance at Roger's preoccupied eyes; those fine, steady, clear-seeing eyes, that saw so much and so little of life.

"Just one thing more, Roger," she said. He paused in the doorway and looked at her with a smile. "Yes, ma'am."

"Ernest told me on the way out about your money troubles. I don't want you to worry about the cost of keeping me. I can pay my way. I had to come against Papa's wishes, of course, but I had my own little chunk of savings and Mamma had a little. And I just made up my mind I was going to get away from home for a while if it was the last act of my life. And I know I can do lots of things to make you all comfortable."

"I'm as glad as I can be to have you here, Elsa. And after all you folks have done for me, it makes me sick not to be able to do everything for you. But I swear I'm right up against it. Some day I'll make it all up to you and Ern. See if I don't. If you can keep homesick old Ern bucked up you'll be doing your bit. Your father need have had no fear. Ern'll be back in the University when this is done contented to teach the rest of his life."

"I know it. And how about you, Roger?"

"Me? Oh, I've struck my gait down here. I'm going to follow heat problems round the world, see if I don't."

He looked off over the desert with a glow in his face that the girl never had seen there before. She gave a wistful little sigh, and began to unroll the kitchen apron she had brought under her arm.

"Run along while I try to make the place fit for white people to live in," she said.

It was a comfort to have a woman about the camp. The three men testified to this at supper time as they ate the meal she had prepared in an immaculate kitchen. That evening after Roger had taken Elsa back up to the ranch, Ernest decided he would accompany Gustav into Archer's to get some khaki for Elsa and to endeavor to locate some sulphur dioxide by telegraph. Elsa announced that although she would sleep and take breakfast at the ranch she would spend the day at the Plant as housekeeper.

It was perhaps four o'clock the next afternoon, that Roger, at work in the engine house, saw Felicia half running, half plodding through the sand. Elsa, sewing in the living tent, saw her at the same time.

"What can they mean by letting her come out in this awful heat?" she called to Roger.

Roger made no reply but shouted to Felicia, "Don't run, child! It's too hot!"

Felicia's answer was to quicken her pace. With a sudden sense of apprehension Roger went to meet her. Felicia was sobbing when he reached her. He lifted her in his arms.

"What is it, sweetheart?"

Felicia was almost beyond words. "Dicky—he's—sick again! And—he yelled at me—and slapped me, and he knocked Charley over with his fist. And I ran away—to you—"

Roger's lips stiffened. Elsa had joined them and as he set Felicia down, he said hurriedly, "Take her into the tent. Cool her down gradually. Keep her there till I come."

And he set off as fast as he dared in the burning sun. As he neared the ranch house, he could hear Dick's incoherent shouts and as he ran up the trail, Dick appeared on the porch.

"Get out of here, Roger!" he roared, thickly.

Roger ran up the steps. "Where's Charley?"

Dick planted himself belligerently in the doorway, "Get out!" Roger moved slowly toward him. A heavy odor of cologne enveloped Dick. A quick surmise flashed over Roger.

"Felicia needs Charley, Dick, I've got to fetch her."

"Get out!" repeated Dick sullenly. He gave a lunge toward Roger and Roger met him with a quick undercut on the jaw that laid Dick flat. He dragged him down the trail to the seed and tool shack, where he turned the heavy button on the door. Then he ran into the house.

Charley lay on the floor, her hair in disorder about her. Roger, with an oath, stooped over her, then ran for a cup of water and bathed her face. In a moment she opened her eyes. Roger's own eyes were black with excitement but he met her puzzled gaze with a twisted smile.

"There you are, Charley! Where are you hurt?"

She did not answer but struggled to rise and Roger putting an arm under her shoulder helped her to her feet where she leaned dizzily against him, for a moment, shoulder to shoulder.

"Where's Felicia, Roger?"

"Safe with Elsa at the Plant. Sit down here on the couch, Charley. Where did Dick strike you?"

"He—he—where is he, Roger?" clinging suddenly to Roger's hand as he laid her back on the couch.

"Locked in the tool house. Charley, you must tell me what happened so I can help you."

"Why—he—he pushed me backward and I must have hit something when I fell. The back of my head is very sore and my head aches terribly—and I'm a little sick at my stomach."

"Let me see your head," said Roger peremptorily. He parted the mass of bronze brown hair, wondering even in his anger and pity at its softness and thickness. It was not difficult to locate the great lump at the base of the skull.

"He might have killed you if it hadn't been for your hair. The skin isn't broken. Be still, Charley, till I get a basin of water and a towel."

He was back in a moment and sitting down on the edge of the couch, he attempted to bathe the swelling. But Charley groaned in agony at the first touch, so he gave that up and bathed her face and wrist awkwardly but very gently.

"I guess it's my turn to say 'Poor Child,'" Roger murmured.

The quick tears sprang to Charley's eyes. At this moment Dick gave an incoherent shout. Charley gripped Roger's hand.

"It's all right," he said. "He can't get out, the whelp!"

"Roger! Don't hurt him. Promise me you won't hurt him!"

"Hurt him!" Roger burst forth. "How can you be so foolish! He ought to be beaten within an inch of his life. He's gotten drunk on cologne!"

"Roger, he's never been this bad before. He's been growing slowly better all these years. He never struck me before."

"And you've been living with a drunkard all these years who might have killed you. You knew this, yet you let little Felicia come to you. How could you do it?" Roger paced up and down the floor.

Charley looked at him piteously, but he went on, his voice growing louder.

"You must know that a periodic drunkard is the worst kind and almost never cured. I thought you were unafraid of truth, but you've been living just like a sentimental woman, after all."

Charley raised her hands and dropped them as if in despair. "I promised mother I'd never leave him. And he's put up a fight. Oh, you'll never know what a fight! And I love him. He's a dear when he's not drinking."

Dick roared again and Roger stared at Charley's sick white face.

"Promise me you won't hurt him, Roger."

"How can I promise when I know if I get another glimpse of him I'll break every bone in his carcass?"

Again Charley dropped her hands with that despairing gesture. "Then how can I help fearing your dreadful temper as much as I do Dick's drinking? What difference is there?"

Roger jumped as if she had struck him. "You can't mean that! You're sick and unstrung and don't know what you're saying. I'll go after Ern."

"I have to mean it," insisted Charley wearily, "after seeing you that time with Gustav."

"I'm not like Dick!" shouted Roger. "I wouldn't touch a woman or a child!"

"How do you know you wouldn't?" asked Charley.

A sudden burning recollection of the little boy who had struck his mother's hand from his shoulder flashed through Roger's mind. He groaned and dropped his head. Charley did not speak and for some moments Roger did not move. Then he came over to the couch and said quietly:

"I'll not hurt Dick. Where did he get the cologne, Charley?"

"He must have found it in Elsa's room. I didn't know she had it, or I'd have put it away. And now, every one will know! Oh, Roger, must they all know?"

"I don't see how it can be helped. But you can be sure none of us will say more than has to be said. Charley, I'm going to get Peter and take you down to the Plant for the night. You need absolute rest and quiet and you can't get it so near Dick."

"And Dick?"

"Dick must fend for himself in the tool shack. I'll put a canteen of water and a blanket in there and by morning he'll be ready for conversation."

"But he won't be. Drink makes him terribly sick. His stomach is very bad. That's why I always say it's stomach trouble. He ought to be taken care of to-night."

"He'll stay where he is and by himself," said Roger, grimly. "When I have a temper fit the next time, you can do the same by me. Lord, I'm glad Elsa is here! You lie quiet while I go milk."

When he had put the milk away he found that Charley had braided her hair but was still very white and shaken. Dick's shouts and curses floated in at the open door. Roger tied the little bundle of night things she had made up to the saddle and helped her to mount. She swayed dizzily and he put a strong, steadying arm about her. They made their way very slowly and Roger heaved a sigh of relief when they were finally beyond ear shot of poor Dick.

Elsa met them a short distance from the camp. "Hello, Charley," she said. "Felicia has just fallen asleep."

Roger nodded and at the living-tent door, helped Charley from the saddle. "Get this patient to sleep too, Elsa, if you can."

Elsa's eyes filled with tears as she looked at Charley. "You poor dear," she said, "come and let me take care of you."

One touch of a woman's sympathy, after her starved years, was too much for Charley. She burst into deep drawn sobs. Elsa, motioning Roger away, put her arm about the girl and led her into the tent.

Roger paced up and down in the sand for a while, listening to the low despairing sobs from the tent. Then he unsaddled Peter and put a huge bottle of water to heat. He had heard somewhere that women took great comfort in a cup of tea.

Roger passed rather a restless night. He had put Elsa's cot which she never had used, in the living tent so that Elsa could be close to her two patients, and himself put in the night in Gustav's shack which was built against the kitchen tent.

It was early July and the summer's heat was at its height. Three times between midnight and dawn Roger scratched a match and looked at the thermometer. It never registered below 118°. Even the night wind did not rise. The silence of the desert was complete as though torridity had overwhelmed every other aspect of nature. The stars were magnificent and for an hour or so, hoping to find the air outside cooler, Roger put a blanket on the work bench near the condenser and lay there, his face to the sky.

He wanted to keep his mind fastened lucidly on his engine problem, but he found it impossible to put away the events of the day. Dick's bestial voice, Charley's white, proud face, little Felicia's clinging arms, Charley's sobs from the living tent and her bitter words concerning his temper. These words he pondered unwillingly for some time, following with his eye the constellations of the Great Bear. Finally he rolled on his face with a groan. Perhaps she was right. God knew though that he'd fought the red demon within him. After a time he rolled back. Felicia had not wakened for her supper. She had slept straight through. It was a great pity, he thought, that she should have seen Dick drunk, that she should have seen him knock Charley down. He wondered if there were any way he could make her forget it. Then with a deep flush in the starlight he wished to God she had not seen him lose his temper like a fool. Felicia! tender, high strung little Felicia!

At last when the stars were growing dim, Roger fell asleep. He rose at sunrise, and went up to the ranch. Dick was lying on the adobe floor of the tent house, evidently very sick and very cross.

"How'd I come in here? Send Charley to me!" he snarled.

"I will, like thunder, you drunken bum! You did your best to beat up both of your sisters. I'm going to keep them at the Sun Plant until some new arrangement can be made. The best I can do for you is to leave this door open. Fend for yourself, hang you!" And Roger walked off to do the milking.

When he had finished milking he glanced in at the open door of the tool house. Dick lay where Roger had left him, staring with eyes of feverish agony at the roof above his head. Roger, without a word, went back to the plant. To his relief, Felicia appeared at the breakfast table, very hungry and quite herself. But Charley was not able to get up. It seemed as if the long years of strain had culminated in yesterday's events, and that Charley had no will-power left.

The girl lay on Ernest's cot, the tent flap lifted beside her, with no apparent desire save to stare at the desert dancing in heat waves against the sky. What thoughts were passing behind those quiet brown eyes, no one knew.

It was mid-morning when Roger went in to see her. He pulled a box up beside the cot. "Well, old dear," he said. "How is the head?"

Charley smiled. "Sore and aching, but better than during the night. I am so tired and that's very unusual. I'm always so strong."

Roger nodded. "It was a bad knock, to leave you senseless for half an hour. I suspect you ought to take pretty good care of yourself for several days. I've been talking with Elsa and she thinks you ought to stay here for a few days. And I do too. Don't worry about Dick. I saw him this morning and he'll be himself by sundown. And I've promised Elsa I won't see him again until after she does."

Charley eyed Roger's long brown face as if taking in the full significance of all he had said. Then she gave a little sigh of relief.

"If I could rest here in this peaceful tent, just for a day or two."

"The tent's all right at night, but I've moved Gustav's cot into the engine house, and I'm going to help you over there. It's ten degrees cooler than here. Elsa and Felicia are established there and I won't disturb you for I'm drawing, which act is noiseless."

In a dim corner of the adobe engine house in Gustav's cot Charley spent the day. Elsa, when she was not playing housekeeper sat beside her with her sewing and Felicia visited between the cot and Roger's drawing board.

Once when Charley seemed to be in an uneasy sleep, Felicia asked Roger, "Is Charley very sick?"

"Not really sick at all, chicken. She's just tired. She's worked too hard for you and Dick."

Felicia stared at him with her innocent, speculative gaze so like Charley's, yet so unlike.

"Can't we live here with you, instead of up at the ranch, Roger? I know Charley would like it better."

"You can stay and make us a visit, anyhow. Then we'll see."

At sunset, after the dishes were finished and Charley had moved back to the living tent for the night, Elsa went up to the ranch house. She was gone a long time. Charley was dozing and Felicia asleep. Roger prowled up and down the camp closely followed by Peter until he could bear the suspense no longer. A sudden fear that Dick might have discovered more liquor somewhere started him along the ranch trail. He met Elsa just as the afterglow disappeared and the parching night came down like a star dotted curtain. She came trudging through the sand as if she were tired.

"It does seem as if I'd wilt with the heat," she exclaimed. "You needn't have worried about me, Roger. Dick came back with me till we saw you."

"He did, huh! Then he's neither drunk nor dead?"

"Rog! Don't say such awful things about the poor fellow."

"Poor fellow! You didn't see Charley lying on the floor as I did. Well, what has he to say for himself?"

"He's in an awful state of mind. He was trying to cook some supper when I got there. He'd succeeded in milking. When he saw me, he gasped. 'Is Charley sick?' and dropped the kettle of water he was lifting."

"I told him just what you had seen and what an exhausted state Charley's nerves seemed to be in. He just stood and took it looking like a sick cat. When I had finished he asked what you had said and I told him and he sort of groaned, 'You women should have let Roger beat me to death. Why did you interfere?' Poor Dick!"

Elsa drew a long breath and was silent for a moment before she began again. "He's in a most awful frame of mind. He's like a man who knows he has fits of insanity and feels perfectly helpless to prevent them. He cried and cried while he told me how he had fought drink. I never knew any one could suffer so. He's much more to be pitied than Charley."

"Huh! Women!" grunted Roger. "Why, he's just the usual thing in drunks, you little ninny. What's he going to do?"

"Well, I want Charley to give him one more chance."

"I thought so! Well, he doesn't get it."

"But, Roger, you can't prevent it. And he's not going into Archer's Springs again. He's going to let us do his errands. That's where the trouble has been."

"Except when he drinks cologne."

"What makes you so hard, Roger?"

"I saw Charley lying where Dick had knocked her down. And I felt little Felicia almost in convulsions from fear. Let him keep out of my sight until I can forget that."

"Of course, all I can do is to advise, anyhow," said Elsa. "Dick is coming down in the morning and take his medicine. He insists on it. He's a fine man, Roger, in many ways."

"You've not seen him drunk," returned Roger. "Commend me to a woman every time for sentimentality."

"There are other weaknesses men have than drunkenness that their sentimentality helps women to endure, aren't there, Roger?" asked Elsa quietly. Roger dropped Elsa's arm and left her without a word.

He was at work in the engine house, the next morning when Dick came slowly down the trail and was led by Elsa into the living tent. Then she went off to the cook tent with Felicia. Roger, working with strained concentration on his engine, heard on the one side the low murmur of Dick's and Charley's voices and on the other Felicia's occasional happy laugh above Elsa's little songs. After perhaps an hour, Dick came out and went to the cook tent and in a moment Felicia came flying into the engine house and threw her arms around Roger.

"I won't stay where Dicky is," she panted. "I won't!"

The child was trembling violently. Roger sat down and held her to his heart.

"Dick won't hurt you, honey, now. It's only when he's sick."

Felicia shuddered. "He slapped me and he knocked Charley over with his fist and in the night I dream about it. I am going to live with you. You won't get mad again like you did with Gustav, will you, Roger?"

Roger bowed his forehead on the soft bronze brown head that rested so confidently on his breast.

"You do love poor old Roger, don't you, sweetheart?" he asked, brokenly.

As if she sensed some secret pain, Felicia turned and put her arms about him and kissed him softly on the lips. "I love you as much as I do Charley. Don't send me back to Dicky, dearest Roger."

"I won't." Roger's lips tightened grimly.

Charley came out to lunch that noon, looking much stronger.

"I'm so grateful to you, Roger and Elsa," she said, "and after I've helped with the dishes, if you'll loan me Peter, we'll go home."

Roger dropped his knife and fork, then looked at Felicia. "Felicia, you know Roger's trunk? Well, if you'll run to the living tent and open the trunk and take all the things out of it, at the very bottom you'll find some Christmas cake Elsa made last year. Then put all the things back carefully and bring the cake here."

Felicia gave an ecstatic "Oh, Roger!" and disappeared. Roger turned to Charley.

"I'm going to say one more thing. Do you realize fully that in living with Dick you jeopardize both yours and Felicia's lives?"

"Oh, no, Roger! He never touched us before. It was the poison in that cologne."

Roger shrugged his shoulders.

"How can you be so hard?" pleaded Charley. "Dick's my own flesh and blood. It might have been I instead of Dick with this appetite. You're hard, Roger."

"I'm not hard. I'm disappointed. I didn't think you were a sentimentalist."

"I wonder," exclaimed Elsa, "how women will ever get time to vote when it takes all their time to make men endurable to live with. My word! I'm glad I haven't one of the critters!"

She said this with such heartfelt sincerity that Charley laughed and Roger joined her. By the time Felicia came running back with the Christmas cake, the atmosphere was considerably lighter.

"We're going home, Felicia! Aren't you glad I'm well again?" said Charley. "And haven't the Sun Planters been kind?"

Felicia whitened under her tan.

"Oh, but, Charley, I'm not going. I don't have to, do I, Roger? I'm so afraid of Dicky. He slapped me twice, Charley, and he knocked you over with his fist. Oh, let me stay with Roger!"

Charley gasped. "Oh, Felicia! Felicia! Oh, my little Felicia!"

Roger spoke quickly. "Why not let her stay for a little visit, Charley? I'll finish Elsa's tent this afternoon and she can share that with Elsa, till her nerves become normal."

"But I'm going up to stay with Charley," said Elsa; "that's part of the cure."

"Then let her stay alone. She'll be safe and happy with me," replied Roger. "Dick deserves punishment."

Charley looked at Roger, then at Felicia. "I think that's a good idea," she said, slowly.

And so when Ernest and Gustav came home that night, they found Felicia watching the camp fire beside Roger, and after she was asleep in her tent, they heard the whole story. Ernest was indignant at the thought of Elsa's staying on at the ranch.

"I am going to be firm with her in the morning," he said.

But Elsa's firmness was greater than Ernest's and shortly the two households had settled down and Dick was gradually reinstated in every one's good graces but Roger's. Felicia stayed on for a week, to the joy of the three camp mates who spoiled her outrageously. Then one Saturday evening Dick came down and he and Felicia had a long talk, at the end of which Felicia said good-by to Roger, Ernest and Gustav, and returned to the ranch, quite happily.

"Do you suppose Hackett would let us run a bill with him and take a mortgage on the outfit here as security? Of course, I haven't any right to give a mortgage but I'll explain the whole situation to him." Roger's voice had a desperate note in it.

"Well, that is worth the try, eh?" said Gustav. "Me, I might borrow a little yet, from a friend in the East."

"You'll do nothing of the kind, Gustav," exclaimed Roger. "You're far from home and you may need all your borrowing power for yourself—not but what I appreciate your offer, old man!"

"I've got a little—my fare home and about a hundred beside," offered Elsa.

"Keep it, old girl," Roger's voice was husky. "By Jove, I may be poor in everything else, but I'm rich in friends. Ern, what do you think of my suggestion?"

"Well, I hate debt worse than anything in the world. But we're in this thing up to our necks and I'm willing to try anything that's honest. If Hackett knows the whole story—"

"He knows it now, I guess, but I'll give him all the details. I may as well go in to-day and get a yes or no at once."

"I'll go," said Ernest. "I'd like to and you'd better not lose a day."

Roger nodded in a relieved manner.

"Listen! There goes the Lemon!" exclaimed Elsa. "I do hope she goes to-day."

"Put! Put!" came over the desert. "Put! Put! Put!"

"I guess she's launched and I've got a clear day for work." Roger rose as he spoke. "Dick's having a struggle to get enough water for that second five acres of his. He insists that he's going ahead with the next five, though."

"Elsa, want to go into Archer's with me?" asked Ernest.

"Sorry, Ern, but I'm going to help Charley can pumpkins to-day. She planted some for luck up by the engine house where the pump leaks, you remember, and the crop is wonderful."

"Oh, well, if you prefer pumpkins to me and Archer's Springs, I've nothing to say," groaned Ernest.

"I'll go," offered Gustav. "I haf letters and other things."

Ernest accepted the offer with alacrity. He was beginning to recover some of his old spirits but he had not been himself since Charley's refusal. Roger had never known Ernest to take one of his affairs quite so hard before. He dreaded to be alone and was often moody: a rare state of mind for easy going Ernest.

The two men made a quick and successful trip to Archer's, for Hackett agreed to sell them food to the sum of two hundred dollars. He didn't see how a mortgage could be given but he was willing to take Roger's personal note for ninety days. This Roger gave with some misgivings but with a sigh of relief that the day of starvation had been put off once more. Then he gave his whole mind to his engine problem.

He was planning some changes in his engine that were fundamental and that were really the outcome of his early trip through the ranges in the search for window glass. He worked at his redesigning with a single minded passion that set him apart from the others. All of them except Felicia found him tense and at times irritable.

As August came in, the beauty of the desert seemed to increase daily. The heat, whilst it added to one's sense of the desert's cruelty, added at the same time to the unreality and to the mystery of silence and of distances that are so large a part of the desert's fascination.

The sand was alive with an uncanny, tiny life. Horned toads flopped unexpectedly across the trail. Lizards were everywhere, running over and under the tent floors and along the thatching of the condenser and the engine house. There were many rattlesnakes too, particularly dangerous at this time of year because, Dick said, they were shedding their skins and were blind, striking at any sound. There were Gila monsters now and again. There were many scorpions and centipedes, with once in a while a tarantula.

Dick and Charley laid down certain laws of the summer desert. No one was to go to bed without examining the bedding for tarantulas or centipedes. No one was to dress without subjecting every article of apparel to the same scrutiny. No one was to go out at night without a "bug" for fear of the blind striking of a rattler. Every one must learn to kill a snake with a snake stick. And every one, even Felicia, must learn to treat snake bites.

Elsa, clear-headed and matter of fact, was very little annoyed by all this gliding venomous summer life. But little Felicia's horror of it was difficult to control. It seemed to Roger that the child's nerves had been uneven ever since the "cologne affair," as Ernest called it. But he could not be sure of this, for Charley insisted that the little girl's fears of all that uncanny fraternity of the sand was exactly what hers had been four years before.

August was slipping by, quietly enough when Gustav, returning one day from Archer's Springs, delivered to Roger a letter from Hampton of the Smithsonian saying that on the thirtieth day of August a representative of the Smithsonian would reach Archer's Springs on his way to Los Angeles; that he had but two days to spare but would be glad to give these days to the Moore experiment.

Roger was in despair. "Two days!" he groaned. "Why, it takes two days to come up and back. Better stay away."

"Don't be an idiot, Rog," exclaimed Ernest. "You get him here, and he'll stay for a day or so. How can he get away? The thing that bothers me is that darned engine of yours."

"It doesn't bother me," replied Roger, with a quick gleam in his gray eyes and a sudden smile. "I've got a week before he gets here and by Jove, the old kettle's got to be ready!" He gave a sudden long sigh and looked off toward the distant line of the river range. "I thought it was queer of the Smithsonian to treat me as it did. Ern, this puts new life in me."

If new life means redoubled effort, Roger had found it indeed. He gave himself as little sleep as possible during the week before the expected visit. All day and a larger part of the night he was at work in the engine house, till his eyes were bigger and his face gaunter than ever. Felicia was his little shadow. Her taste for mechanics made her seem more like a small boy than ever. And although Roger's tense nerves grew tenser and his impatience with the others was shown oftener and oftener, to Felicia he showed only the gentleness for which she loved him.

Charley and Elsa were forming a real friendship. The isolation of the little desert community was almost complete. Since the death of Von Minden no one from the outer rim of the desert or of the world had been near either camp or ranch. Even the Indians who had been camping in the remote canyon where Felicia had visited them had found good hunting in some still more remote section and never had appeared in the camp. This isolation forced the friendship between the two young women to a quick growth. Charley was happier, Dick said, than he had seen her since her college days.

Two days before the visitor was due, Roger announced that one day's work would make him ready for a test, so that, and he did not believe that he was over-confident, when Gustav arrived with the Smithsonian investigator, the plant would be in full action. He made this announcement at breakfast. Ernest and Gustav cheered.

"I never thought you'd make it," said Gustav.

"I had to make it," replied Roger. "I have the conviction that if this man, whoever he is, sees the plant working, the thing will be done, and that if he doesn't find the wheels going round, I'm going to miss the chance of my life."

"If the heat would just let up for a little while," sighed Ernest. "If he's a northerner, it may put him out of business."

"Pshaw! they'll send an experienced man, never fear!" Roger poured himself another cup of coffee. "Hello! Here's a caller!"

It was Qui-tha, riding a half-starved pony whose mangy sides were working in the early morning sun like a pair of bellows.

He dismounted and grinned affably. "How! You give Qui-tha more strong medicine, maybe!"

"Look here, Qui-tha, I'll give you all the strong medicine you want, if you'll stay and help me for a week," cried Ernest.

Qui-tha shook his head. "No got time to work. Must go back to Injun camp take care of sick Injun. Qui-tha heap big medicine man, now."

"All right!" Ernest shrugged his shoulders. "No work, no strong medicine."

Qui-tha shrugged his shoulders and remounting, he started on up the trail to the ranch house. Elsa reported later in the day that Dick, having no peroxide, had promised to get some from Archer's Springs if Qui-tha would do a day's work for him. Qui-tha, she said, was giving the matter due consideration.

Late that evening, while Roger and Gustav were working at the little forge, Ernest came out of the living tent where he had been writing letters.

"Did you fellows hear a gun shot a little bit ago?" he asked. "You two are making such an infernal racket, I can't tell what it was."

Roger and Gustav both stopped work and listened. The desert was breathlessly silent.

"Are you sure?" asked Roger. "Did you think it might have been at the ranch?"

"I couldn't tell. It may have been nothing at all but you folks here. But if I hear it again, I'm going up there."

It was fifteen or twenty minutes later that Elsa's voice came from the trail.

"Ernest! Roger! Gustav!"

The three men started on a run to meet her. A dark figure in the starlight, she staggered exhausted toward them.

"The Indian—had whiskey—he and Dick both drunk. The Indian shot Dick—in the leg and ran away."

"Did he hurt you girls?" cried Roger.

"Not a bit. But Dick's terrible. We've got him in his bedroom. But if his leg didn't prevent him he'd climb out of the window."

As she spoke, she turned back toward the ranch with the men. "You go ahead. I'm all in and will follow slowly," she said.

"Not with that Indian around in the desert," exclaimed Ernest. "Gustav, you come along with Elsa and Roger and I'll run for it."

They could hear Dick's roars as they neared the adobe. When they burst breathlessly into the living room, Charley was standing by the door holding in place a chair which hung on the knob and against the door jamb made an effective bolt.

"Is he armed?" asked Roger.

"No," replied Charley. "There's the only gun in the house," pointing to the one on the table. "And Qui-tha had his with him as he ran out of the house."

Roger turned to Ernest. "We could just leave him in there alone to wake up, if there wasn't danger of his bleeding to death. Come on, Ern. Remember he's as strong as a bear and be ready to jump him with me. Get some clean rags and water, Charley, and bring them in when we call. And keep Gustav out. He'll faint."

They slid quickly into Dick's room, closing the door behind them. Dick lay on the bed, blood oozing through his pants leg below the knee. He seemed too sick to move, but Roger would take no chances.

"Ern, you hold his hands above his head while I cut off that pants leg."

The precautions were unnecessary. Dick lay muttering and limp while Roger uncovered a nasty wound that had plowed to the bone down Dick's skin.

"Qui-tha must have been at close quarters when that happened," said Ernest. "You'll need help, Roger. Hand me that towel and I'll tie his hands."

Roger handed Ernest the towel, then went out for the rags and water. Gustav and Elsa had arrived. He had hardly answered them that Dick's wound was not very serious when there was a sudden uproar. Dick had gone amuck again and even the girls had to be called into service to help with the bandaging while the men held him quiet.

By the time the blood flow was staunched and the rude bandaging finished, Dick had subsided into a drunken stupor, from which, in spite of his evident pain, there seemed little danger of his rousing for some hours. Leaving Gustav to watch, the others withdrew to the living room.

"What have you done with Felicia?" asked Roger.

"She's slept through it all, thank heaven," replied Charley. "I ran into her room as soon as Qui-tha had clattered away and she was sound asleep. So I just locked the door. I'll go in now and attend to her."

She picked up a candle and tiptoed into the bedroom. There was a moment's hush, then Charley rushed back into the living room.

"She's not there! Felicia!" Her voice rising to a scream. "Felicia! Where are you?"

Elsa ran wildly into the bedroom followed by the others. The little room was empty. Felicia's nightdress lay in a heap on the floor. The clothing she had taken off was gone. A quick search of the house, then of the outbuildings was made. To no avail. Some one gasped:

"Qui-tha!"

But Charley who had recovered her self control, vetoed this idea at once. "An Indian isn't like that! Roger, she climbed out of the window to run to you."

"I'll go down there at once," replied Roger. "The rest of you keep on calling and searching around here."

"Ride old Nell," Charley suggested, as Roger hurried away.

But Felicia was not at the Sun Plant, nor did Roger's stentorian shouts raise any reply save faint howls from a coyote pack. With a sinking heart he rode back to the ranch and called in the others whose lights were flashing about the mountainside.

"If she started for our camp," he said, "I don't see how she could have wandered away. She knows that trail so well."

"But she has never taken it alone after dark." Elsa's voice was uncertain. "And she's so little! And it was so dark to-night, I kept wandering off the trail myself."

"Let's not waste time surmising!" exclaimed Ernest, impatiently.

"But we must use a little system," returned Roger. "Girls, you patrol the trail up and down between the Sun Plant and here. I've left a lighted 'bug' in the tent. You both carry 'bugs' and extra candles and keep calling. The moon will soon be rising, and that will help. Gustav, you make a big circle round the camp as far out as you can keep the tent light in sight. Ern, you follow the Archer's Springs trail a mile or so, then swing inside of Gustav's circle and cover all the arroyas and rock heaps you can. I'm going to take the mountain trail. Everybody get something for a tourniquet. At sun up, come back here. If you can find her, or even get her trail, fire three shots."

Elsa gave a little sob, but Charley was tearless. As they started for their respective stations, she asked: "How about Dick?"

Roger flushed a deep red. "Dick rots for all I care until we find Felicia."

No one commented on this and shortly the desert was dotted with slow moving fingers of light. Roger, as he panted up and down the mountainside, knew that never would he forget the wistful melancholy of those thin calls that rose and fell all night, now in Gustav's, or Ernest's deep notes, now in the high treble tones of Elsa or Charlotte. "Felicia! Felicia! Felicia!" But Felicia did not answer.

With the dawn, the wind rose, and there began that perpetual shifting and sifting of the sand which in a few hours more, Roger knew, would obliterate the little girl's trail, although it was only a summer wind which would die down by mid-morning.

At sun up, a weary eyed, hoarse and hectic group gathered in the living room of the adobe.

"Now," said Roger, "you girls get three or four hours' sleep, then one of you go down to the Plant and one of you stay here. We three men will take a day's water and grub supply and keep to the general beats we had last night. I can't believe, unless Qui-tha got her, that she wandered very far."

"But I saw her after Qui-tha had gone. If a rattler struck her she—" Charley stopped.

"How long does a person live after a rattler bite?" asked Ernest, with stiff lips.

"A Mexican who worked for us three years ago lived twelve hours but he was unconscious most of the time," replied Charley.

"Now, you girls go cook a little breakfast," said Gustav, hastily, "and ve vill do the chores, eh?"

They ate a hasty meal in the kitchen a little later. No one talked. Charley patted Elsa's shoulder in a helpless way when Elsa now and again burst into tears. They had finished their preparation for the renewal of the search when Dick called from the bedroom. Charley went to him, closing the door after her. What she said the others did not know but there was silence in the bedroom for some moments after she came out. Then there was a confusion of sounds and Dick dragged himself on his hands and knees into the kitchen. He pulled himself up into the chair by the table. The others stood silently looking at him.

"O God!" he groaned. "O God in Heaven!"

Still no one spoke.

"Hurry!" he shouted. "What are you waiting for? She may be dead now! Hurry, you fools!"

"I'm going to stay here, Dick," said Elsa.

"You'll not! To hell with me!" Dick paused and lifted a shaking hand to his eyes for a moment. "Rog, you go along the foot of the range and search every canyon. Watch every spot of shade. I've warned her so often about desert sun."

Roger nodded and started off, Peter following him with a good supply of water and food on his back. Ernest and Gustav were to use the two horses.

The sun rose higher and higher, crossed the zenith and traveled toward the River Range. Roger, with dogged thoroughness, followed the trail suggested by Dick. He was numb with fear. Remotely he recalled that somehow he had been expecting this to be a decisive day in his history but it was only a fleeting memory. Every sense that he possessed was concentrated on finding Felicia. At noon, he ate and drank something, then lay down in the shade of a canyon to sleep for an hour or so, with Peter standing like a little gray bodyguard beside him. At three he was plodding on his way again, around cactus thicket, up and down washouts, over rockheaps, talking to Peter when the silence became unendurable, or his voice refused to rise longer with Felicia's name. He could with difficulty urge his body on through the burning heat. What then of a tender little girl? In this summer sun of the desert a man without water for twenty-four hours would die. What of Felicia?

By sun down he had covered several miles on either side of the ranch. He was covered with dust and his lips were cracking in spite of his free use of the canteen. He was tired to the very bones of him. The hot sand had blistered his feet. The cholla had torn his hands. When the sudden blackness of night descended, he determined to rest once more until the moon rose. He did not think that he was more than a mile from the ranch, but as there was still plenty of food and water, and as he was within ear-reach of possible gun-shots, there was no point in going home for the few hours' rest. He removed Peter's pack, gave him some oats and a mouthful of water, then started a tiny fire of greasewood twigs. It was very hot but Roger had seen several rattlers during the day and the idea of lying down in utter darkness did not appeal to him.

Yet, he did not sleep after all. He sat, wide-eyed, feeding the tiny blaze, trying to develop some new theory on the little girl's sudden disappearance. He had been pondering this for an hour when there came the sound of footsteps stumbling through the sand. He jumped trembling to his feet.

"Felicia! Oh, Felicia!" he cried.

"No! No! It's Charley!" a hoarse voice answered and in a moment Charley appeared within the tiny circle of firelight. She was disheveled and pale, and evidently very, very tired, but still outwardly composed.

"Sit down and rest," said Roger. "Here, I've been sitting on Peter's pack blanket. There's room for us both, I guess."

Charley sank down with a grateful sigh and Roger, recalling his pipe, took it out, filled it and essayed several puffs, then established himself beside Charley.

"I couldn't stay indoors," she said. "Dick made us all lie down for a few hours' sleep, but I couldn't sleep. I thought perhaps she might have gone up the trail that she took when she went to find the Indians. If the Indian went down toward your camp, she would try to go in the opposite direction. And then, I got to wondering if she stole down to the camp, while we were all occupied with Dick, and finding it all dark, she got confused and—And then I wonder—"

Roger laid a quiet hand on the interlaced fingers with which Charley was clasping her knee.

"Easy now, Charley, easy. Have you had your supper?" Charley turned to look at him. His own eyes filled at the glimpse he got of the misery in her deep eyes—Felicia's eyes.

"Yes, I think I did," she answered.

"That's fine! Now is any one staying down at the camp in case she wanders in there?"

"Gustav's there."

"All right! Good old Gustav. It seems to me your idea about the Indian trail is a good one. How did you come clear up here, when you were headed into the range."

"My 'bug' went out and I'd lost my matches, so I wandered off the trail, I guess, till I saw your light."

"My heavens, Charley. But it was a horrible risk you ran! You might have—"

"Don't scold," said Charley drearily. "What does it matter?"

"I won't scold," replied Roger with a gentle note in his voice that no one but Felicia had ever heard. "Now, I tell you what we'll do. We'll just rest here until the moon comes up. Then we'll try the Indian trail. Let's spread this blanket so you can lie down."

"I don't want to lie down. I just want to sit here by you. She loved you so."

"All right, Charley. I'll smoke and we'll buck each other up. How's Dick?"

"I don't really know. He won't let any of us touch him. He must be in great pain."

"I hope so," said Roger bitterly.

Charley made no reply. The process of bucking each other up did not proceed with much enthusiasm. The two sat brooding over the tiny blaze. Now and again Peter returned from a short foraging expedition and thrusting a soft nose over one of their shoulders waited to have his forehead rubbed, then started off again.

Roger noted that Charley's pallor had given way to flushed cheeks, and suddenly he was aware that he too was parched and feverish; that try as he would to think, clearly, he could do nothing but wonder, impatiently, when the moon would rise and to fight down the picture that rose constantly of tiny Felicia wandering in an endless desert. Measuring the depth of his love for the child by the immensity of his fear, he was astounded by its greatness.