Читать книгу The Forbidden Trail - Honoré Morrow - Страница 9

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Roger, climbing the steps to the Science Building on the day that he was thirty years old, wondered if his working life was to end as it had begun within its ugly walls.

The building stood at the western edge of the campus. It was a Gothic, Jacobean, Victorian composite, four stories high, built of yellow sandstone, marble and brick. It boasted a round dome, rising from a Gothic main roof and a little pagoda-like tower on each of the mansard roofs that crowned the two wings. There had been a time when to Roger the Science Building had been beautiful. But he saw its ugliness now and laughed about it with Ernest.

On this December afternoon, Roger stayed late in the laboratory with twenty seniors who for some weeks had been carrying on strength tests of varying mixtures of concrete. The sun was low in the west and the corners of the huge old room were dark. But a red glow from the west window filled its center, turning the concrete briquettes piled on the table in the middle of the room to gold.

Roger stood by the table, examining the students' reports on the fractured briquettes. His black hair, with the sunset full upon it, was like molten bronze. Roger's face had changed in the years since his undergraduate days. His figure was the same, six feet of lean muscle; his eyes were as blue and his face as thin and intellectual as when as a small boy he had dreamed of an underground railway. But there had grown subtly into his face a look of grimness and unhappiness that robbed it of the youth it still should have retained.

A shock headed student came to the table with a briquette.

"How does the thesis go, Hallock?" asked Roger.

"Slow, just now, Mr. Moore."

"What's the trouble?"

"Oh, the best of the information is in German and I'm rotten at scientific German."

"You've taken the required work in German, haven't you, Hallock?"

"Squeezed through by a hair's breadth," the boy answered with a grin.

Roger grunted. "Neglected it, of course, when you've been told time and time again that a reading knowledge of scientific German is essential to research success. I wonder why an undergraduate has to be a fool?"

"I'm not a fool," contradicted Hallock flatly.

"Any man's a fool who's working his way through college and fails to get the most he can out of every course offered him. I know, because I worked my way through my last two years, neglected my German and had to make it up after I graduated. That thesis will make or mar you as far as your first job goes. Who'd you have your second year German with? If I were you, I'd take a semester of it over again."

"I'd rather never get a diploma than go back to old Rosenthal."

"Mr. Rosenthal," corrected Roger sharply. "Speak respectfully of an instructor."

"Aw," exclaimed Hallock, now evidently angry, "why should I speak respectfully of a beer-guzzling Dutchman who sneers at the girls in the class every time they recite?"

There was sudden silence in the room. Hallock was evidently relieving an accumulation of irritation. "If I had been Miss Anderson this morning I'd have slapped his fat face for him."

"Be careful, Hallock! I can't permit you to talk this way to me about a member of the faculty."

"Then you're no better than he!" shouted Hallock. "The damned Dutch run this college and I'm sick of it."

There was a sudden murmur of agreement from the highly edified audience now grouped behind Hallock. This was an old sore that had existed in Roger's own days under Rosenthal.

"Pshaw, I know all about Mr. Rosenthal's peccadillos, Hallock," he said. "But he's a teacher and scholar of the first water. Girls always take general remarks personally. Miss Anderson had better forget it, whatever it was. Girl hysteria, probably."

Hallock suddenly began to cry with rage. "Hysteria, damn you, don't you insult her too!" Then, as an angry sneer appeared on Roger's face, he unexpectedly leaned over the table and punched Roger on the nose.

Roger vaulted over the table and with a rapid clip laid Hallock flat. The boy was on his feet in a moment, crying, but game. The edified audience held the two apart.

"You don't know what the Dutch slob said! You don't know," sobbed Hallock.

Roger did not speak. In fact he could not. He stood white and trembling for some time, a scarlet trickle of blood running from one nostril. His struggle for control was so obvious that even Hallock perceived it and was silent. With the other lads he stood in embarrassment while the laboratory clock ticked and the end of the winter sunset filled the room.

It seemed to Roger that the fight was as difficult now as it had been years before, when he had struck his mother's soothing hand from his shoulder and later had kissed that same hand and had wept his heart out with his cheek upon it. In the brief moment as he stood with clenched fists and bowed head, waiting for the red mist to give way to his normal vision it seemed as if all his life passed in review before him tinged with the hot glare of his mental and spiritual tempests. Then, as many, many times before, he seemed to feel the gentle hand, that he had struck, laid softly on his forehead. He heaved a great sigh and looked up.

"The class is dismissed," he said. "Hallock, hold a snowball to your chin as you go home."

When the class had left the room, Roger washed his face at the sink in the corner, wiping his hands on a towel that was gray with age. Then, he dropped the towel and stood leaning against the table, head bowed, arms folded.

The gloaming increased. A cheerful whistle sounded in the hall and Ernest came in.

"Well, old top? Ready to go home?"

"Ern, do you know a girl named Anderson?"

"Yes, very pretty. Engaged to young Hallock, they say. What about her? Don't tell me you've begun to be interested again in petticoats."

"I had the deuce of a row with Hallock, just now," said Roger.

"Change your clothes as you tell me about it," suggested Ernest. "It's late."

Roger obediently started for the closet, talking from the door as he dressed. Ernest lighted his pipe and listened thoughtfully under the electric light he had turned on. He was a shorter man than Roger and stockily built. He was still very fair, with soft yellow hair already receding from a broad forehead. His eyes were beautiful, a deep violet, soft dreaming eyes that men as well as women trusted instinctively.

"I'm sure you've seen Miss Anderson," he said when Roger had finished. "She's a funny foolish little thing. Just the kind to attract an unsocialized grind like Hallock. I guess there was a good deal of a row in Rosenthal's class this morning. One of the seniors told me. Rosenthal said to Miss Anderson—say, Rog, you're not listening."

Roger picked up his hat. "I don't care what Rosenthal said. He always was a boor. The point with me is that I've lost my temper in the classroom for the last time. Come on, Ern."

They were crossing the snowy campus before Ernest spoke. Then he laid his hand on his friend's arm.

"The fool kid brought it on himself. I can see how he got worked up. You can be exasperating and he gave you what he'd like to have given Rosenthal. Nevertheless, no man can take a crack on the chin with a thank you, Roger."

Roger did not reply. They turned into River Street where the street lights flashed through the bare branches of the elms. An occasional sleigh jingled by. Lights glowed from pleasant windows where children were silhouetted against the curtains. Ernest stopped before the big, comfortable Wolf house.

"Come in to supper, Roger."

"I'll not be good company, Ern," but Roger's voice was wistful.

"Come along! Mother doesn't mind your grouches, and I guess the rest of us can endure one more."

Roger turned up the brick path that led to the door.

"Hello, boys!" Elsa called, as the front door slammed. "You're late!"

Elschen at twenty-nine was still very pretty in an unobtrusive way. Her yellow hair was thick and curly. Her eyes were like Ernest's and her skin was fair, with a velvety flush in her delicately rounded cheeks.

"Supper's ready," she went on. "Papa just came in. Don't keep him waiting, children."

Roger and Ernest went quickly into the dining room where Papa Wolf was just sitting down. He nodded to them over his spectacles, then helped himself to a slice of meat.

"Where's Mamma?" asked Ernest, passing the bread to Roger.

"Here, liebchen!" Mamma Wolf came in, carrying a steaming coffee pot. She set it down, then hurried round the table to kiss first Ernest, then Roger.

"You know Rog can't eat without you, Mütterchen," laughed Ernest.

"He doesn't get his manners from the Germans," snapped Elsa.

"Never mind! I've gotten the only home life I've known in eight years from them," returned Roger. He and Mamma Wolf exchanged an affectionate glance.

"Pass the biscuits, Elsa," said Papa Wolf.

"Going anywhere to-night, Elsa?" asked Ernest.

"Yes, we have choir practice every night from now to Christmas."

"The carols are beautiful!" exclaimed Mamma Wolf. "I heard them last night when I stopped by the church for Elsa. Ernest, pass your papa the preserves and put the cake where he can reach it. It's fresh, Papa, never fear. I only finished frosting it as you came in." Mamma Wolf looked at her husband a little anxiously.

"That Smithsonian man telephoned you again this afternoon, Ernest," said Elsa. "He wanted to call this evening and I told him to come along."

"I wonder what he wants," mused Roger. "He's been hanging round for a long time."

"Pass the biscuits, Ernest," from Papa Wolf. "The cake is very bad, Mamma."

"Oh, Papa, is it? And I took such trouble!" The distress in the gentle voice made Roger scowl.

"In America, Papa," Elsa's voice was mocking, "where you have lived for some forty years, it is not considered courteous to criticize the food at the table."

"Hush, Elschen! Papa can say what he wishes, always, to me. Is it not so, Karl?"

Papa Wolf pushed away his plate, wiped his mustache and leaned back in his chair with a smile and a sigh of repletion.

"You spoil us all, Mamma!" he exclaimed. "Elsa, Uncle Hugo comes to-night and we will have a little music. You will give up choir practice, just for once."

Ernest glanced at his sister apprehensively. She flushed resentfully. "But I must go, Papa!" she cried. "I take the salary the church pays me. I must sing well."

"Laughing and flirting with the new bass is not practice," returned Papa. "You stay at home to-night, Elschen."

Elsa glanced at Ernest, who shrugged his shoulders. Then she gave a long look at her father with eyes that were black with anger.

"Papa, I'm going to choir practice," she insisted.

Her father brought his fist down on the table. "Am I or am I not master in my own house?" he shouted. "Elsa, what you have needed was a German upbringing. You will stay at home to-night and make music with Hugo and me."

"Papa," said Elsa slowly, "I am twenty-nine years old and I can't endure this sort of thing much longer. Mother and I are just unpaid servants for—"

"Elsa! Bitte! Bitte sehr!" exclaimed Mother Wolf.

Elsa's dark look went to her mother, then to Roger, who was still scowling. Her lips trembled. She shrugged her shoulders and rising began to clear the table.

The three men went into the library and lighted their pipes. Papa Wolf, having with much difficulty persuaded his meerschaum to draw, parted his coat-tails and settled himself on the piano stool. Then he threw his head back while he touched a few quiet chords. He had a beautiful, massive head. Roger, ensconced in a deep Morris chair, thought, as he had thought many times before, that it was a head that should have belonged to an artist rather than to a dry goods merchant. The chords merged into a quiet melody. Ernest buried his head in the evening paper. Roger let his pipe go out and his face settled into lines that added ten years to his age.

The subdued clatter of dishes from the kitchen finally ceased and Elsa came through the room. Her father stopped her as she passed and put his arm about her waist.

"Sweetheart, don't be cross with me," he said. "It's just that Papa so loves to have his little girl with him."

Elsa put her hand on his gray head and looked down into his face but said nothing.

"Come now," he went on, "sing a little song of forgiveness with me."

Still with his arm about her he played with one hand and sang as he played:

"Du, du! liegst mir im Herzen!

Du, du! liegst mir im Sinn!

Du! du! machst mir viel Schmerzen

Weiss nicht wie gut ich dir bin."

There was a sudden ring at the doorbell and with a little laugh that was half a sob, Elsa hurried to let Uncle Hugo in. He was tall, thin and blonde, yet his resemblance to Mamma Wolf, his sister, was unmistakable.

"So! We make a little music to-night," he boomed in a rich bass, "and the audience is set," bowing ironically to Roger, still in the clouds, and Ernest, his head still in the paper. "Where is the Mütterchen?"

"Coming in a minute," called Mamma, from the dining room. "I can hear. Go ahead."

Elsa sat down at the piano. Papa Wolf opened his 'cello case. Uncle Hugo put his silver flute to his lips and played a tentative sweet note. In a moment the strains of Schubert's Serenade, exquisitely rendered, filled the quiet house. Roger relighted his pipe and let it go out. Whenever over her shoulder, Elsa cast a quick glance at him, his gaze was fastened intently on the ceiling.

For an hour the music continued without interruption. Then the doorbell rang again and Ernest went to answer it.

"Come into the den so we won't disturb the concert," Roger heard him say. "Rog, come in here, will you?"

Roger obediently made his way into a little room off the dining room, devoted to the men of the household. A short smooth-shaven, sandy-haired man was standing by the reading table. Roger and he shook hands.

"I've been talking to Dr. Austin a good deal about your solar heat apparatus, Rog," said Ernest, "and he's got a proposition to make. Let's sit down and talk it out."

He pushed a jar of tobacco toward Austin and the three men, eyeing one another with frank interest, settled themselves in the easy chairs which Ernest indicated with a nod.

"I think Ernest said that you represent the Smithsonian Institute," Roger said. "What do you want to do? Put my engine in your museum?" This with a short laugh.

Austin shook his head. "I see you are about as ignorant as the rest of the world as to the real nature of our work. Confess now!"

Ernest smiled. "I suppose I've been reading papers and reports from the Smithsonian for ten years, but until I met you, Mr. Austin, I was certainly vague about who or what the work represented. Go ahead and give Moore the explanation you gave me, will you?"

"Well," began Austin, "an Englishman named Smithson left his estate to his nephew named Hungerford with the stipulation that if Hungerford died without heirs, the state was to go to found the Smithsonian Institution in America. Hungerford obligingly died without issue. It was in 1835, I think, and after a great deal of red tape, about half a million dollars was turned over to the American Congress to go to work with.

"Of course, Congress did considerable false stepping but finally the Institution was organized with the avowed purpose of increasing and diffusing knowledge. Rather a large program, eh! It was proposed to carry this program out by stimulating talented men to make original researches by offering prizes, by appropriating every year a sum of money for particular researches and by every year publishing reports on the progress of difficult branches of knowledge.

"The original bequest has been increased until now the Institution has use of the income on a million dollars. You'll be surprised to know how much real work has been done by this very little advertised branch of our government. For example, out of the system of weather observation developed by the Institution grew the United States Weather Bureau. The United States Ethnological Research is all done by us—as witness the monumental studies of our American Indians. Powell's great explorations were fathered by the Smithsonian and so were Langley's experiments in flying machines as well as his studies of solar heat."

"My word!" exclaimed Roger, "so they were!"

"When I was in the northern part of the state, last summer, studying certain Indian mounds, I ran across one of your fellow instructors who mentioned your work in heat engineering. I've always been much interested in that line of research, so when I came West again I tried to get in touch with you."

"I'm not hard to reach, surely," said Roger.

"Oh, yes, you are," returned Austin.

"It was this way, Rog," Ernest's lazy, gentle voice interrupted. "I kept Dr. Austin away from you until I felt that there was some hope. I didn't want you to have another disappointment."

"As I got your idea from Mr. Wolf, it seems to me that the Smithsonian might be glad to back you in further experiments," said Austin.

Roger's thin face flushed as it was apt to do when his work was under discussion. "This is mighty kind of you, Dr. Austin, but my work has gone beyond the experimental stage. I'm ready to erect Solar Power Plants if I can find the money."

"Rog, you're not ready!" cried Ernest, with unusual vehemence. "You've no idea of the troubles you'll be up against when you try actually to erect a working plant, in a hot country."

"I'm not afraid," returned Roger shortly. "One thing is certain, I'm not going on experimenting any longer."

"My understanding of your device is, that it is practical only in tropical or semi-tropical climates," said Austin.

"This first device is, yes," answered Roger shortly. "If I can ever get this one launched, I shall take up other climates."

Austin eyed Roger keenly for a moment, then he said suddenly,

"Why don't you let me see your plans? We might possibly have something to say that would interest you."

"Oh, of course! I wish I had some of them here. And it's too late to go up to the laboratory to-night."

"Wait a moment, Roger! Wait a moment," exclaimed Ernest. "Praying that we'd get to this point to-night, I brought down a set of drawings." He unlocked a drawer of the table and pulled out a roll of paper.

Roger spread some of the sheets on the table and the black, the yellow and the sandy heads bent over them.

"This," began Roger, "is the general ground plan of a plant designed to produce about 50 horse power. This detail here, which looks like a design for a glassed-in hot bed for early cabbage, is the heat absorber. It consists of a trough lined with some insulating material, covered with two layers of ordinary window glass. Under this window glass I flow crude oil, which absorbs the sun's heat as it comes through the glass. I get some remarkable temperatures, right here in Eagle's Wing. Here is a month's thermometer readings during July."

Austin studied the table thoughtfully. "The heated oil is the fuel for a low pressure engine. What engine do you use?"

"One of my own design. Here are the drawings."

Austin bent over these with absorbed interest and for an hour Roger answered his questions. At the end of this time, Austin lighted his pipe, which had gone out, and took a turn or two up and down the room. Then he paused suddenly in front of Roger and said, "Why don't you go down into Arizona and put up a small pumping plant as an experiment for the Smithsonian? I know this is not the large way, the commercial way, but I am convinced that this is the careful, practical way. Your friend Wolf tells me that the most popular reason given by the business houses you've visited for turning you down has been that you've never actually erected a working plant. Why not try it for us? Then you'll be in a position to talk business."

Roger, his face a still deeper red, looked from Austin to Ernest and back again. He relighted his pipe with fingers that shook.

"How big a plant?" he asked huskily.

"Big enough to irrigate about twenty-five acres of desert for alfalfa. I'm convinced that when you actually undertake to put such a plant in operation, you'll realize that there are details to be remade that you never dreamed of, on paper."

Roger did not speak for a moment. Five years ago he would have refused such an offer as this, without hesitation. It was very different, this, from turning out say a thousand units in six months. Yet, so long had hope been deferred that Roger hesitated, not for lack of enthusiasm for Austin's offer, but because the sudden joy that rose within him made it difficult to speak. Finally he turned to Ernest, who was watching him with a look of inexpressible satisfaction in his beautiful eyes.

"Will you go with me, Ern?"

"The family will kick, but I'm going," answered Ernest.

"What are the terms, Dr. Austin?" asked Roger.

"We'll buy all machinery and apparatus and pay for labor and living up to ten thousand dollars."

Roger could not believe that his sterile years of endeavor and disappointment were to bring forth even this small fruit. He laid his pipe down, picked it up, then said, "I can't tell you what this opportunity means to me. It's—it's my work, you see, and—and—"

"That's all right," Austin spoke hastily. "When can you start? I know exactly the spot in Arizona that we would wish you to go to—Archer's Springs. Have you a map of Arizona?"

"Yes, some of the Geological Survey maps," said Ernest, opening up a chart case.

"Here's the spot." Austin put his pencil on the map. "It's about twenty miles north of the railroad, a mining country, but we've always believed that the valleys here could blossom if we could get water to them. The Reclamation Service never expects to get in there."

"I know that," said Roger eagerly, "and yet a cheap power would make an inland empire of that section."

"Have you ever seen it?" asked Austin.

"No, Chicago has been my uttermost limit of travel so far. But I've studied hot countries and their resources for ten years."

"My idea is," said Austin, "that we buy all our supplies at St. Louis. I'll go that far with you. You can buy the essentials for making camp at Archer's Springs and by the time you are ready for it, freight will have brought the rest. I believe there is an excellent trading store at Archer's Springs where you can buy a camp outfit. I'll wire down and find out."

"Jove, Rog, doesn't that sound great!" exclaimed Ernest.

"When shall we plan to start?" asked Roger.

"Why not at once, so as to get the plant running by Spring, when the real heat comes on?" Austin looked from one eager face to the other.

"We both are teaching, you know," said Ernest. "I thought next June—"

"Next June!" shouted Roger. "This is the first of December, Dr. Austin. We'll have found substitutes and be ready to travel immediately after the Christmas recess."

Ernest winced. "That's crowding things! But—well, you're the boss of the expedition, Rog. I'll be with you."

"Fine!" Austin rubbed his hands together. "We'll start our purchase list now, eh?"

The concert, which had proceeded during the evening without interruption, now stopped abruptly, just as the clock struck ten.

"How about deferring that until to-morrow?" asked Roger. "I've a number of lists in my desk at the Science Building that will help us."

"That's a good idea," Austin rose as he spoke. "Will you both take dinner with me at the hotel to-morrow evening and we can give the evening to this?"

"We'll be there," replied Roger, following Austin to the door. When he returned, Ernest was locking up the drawings. "Well, Ern, old boy, it's not big business, but thanks to you, it's a real start in that direction, anyhow. How can I thank you?"

"By helping me to break the news to the family. It's most deucedly short notice. We'll have some trouble in finding substitutes for our classroom work."

"I'm sure Benson and Ames will be only too glad of the chance," Roger spoke decidedly. "I thought of them this afternoon. I swear I was in earnest in saying I was through with teaching. And now this! It's like a double answer to prayer."

"Boys!" called Elsa, "the beer is waiting."

Ernest was well into his second stein and his third cheese sandwich before, in response to repeated kicks from Roger, he made his announcement. There was a moment's silence, broken by Elsa.

"Lucky dogs! Take me along!"

"But, Ernest, you cannot go," protested Papa Wolf. "Let Roger go if he wishes. I have nothing to say to that. But, my son, with the chance for a full professorship in a great university—no!"

Roger sighed. He was sorry for Ernest, but he never could understand his docile relationship to his father. Ernest came back, pluckily enough.

"I think I ought to go, Papa. It will be a fine experience and I will come back to teaching with a new interest."

"But why waste time? Why waste time?" cried his father. "You are nearly thirty. Instead of playing in the desert for a year, you should be marrying and starting a home."

"It won't be play, Mr. Wolf," said Roger. "It'll be bitter hard work, but it will add considerably to Ernest's reputation."

"Pah! Pah! Was ist's!" snorted the older man. "You are a good boy, Roger, but you are full of foolishness. You are bad for Ernest."

"Pshaw, Papa, don't talk like a goose," protested Elsa, her cheeks crimson. "All the initiative Ernest's got, Roger gave him. Why not let Ernest see a little of life before he settles down forever? Let him have just one adventure, for goodness sake."

"Will you be still, Elsa?" asked her father sternly.

"Hush, Elschen," whispered Mamma Wolf.

"Roger should be settling down and finding a wife for himself," Papa Wolf went on. "He'd soon get over his absentminded ways."

Ernest suddenly laughed. "Why, Papa, Roger looks on women about the way you look on inventors."

"Dry up, Ern," said Roger.

"What sort of a thing is it, this desert machine?" asked Uncle Hugo.

"It's a method of utilizing solar heat for power," replied Roger.

"Ah, yes, the big umbrella-like things. I've seen them in the pictures."

"Not at all," corrected Roger crossly.

Ernest spoke suddenly, very firmly but without raising his gentle voice. "I'm sorry to go against your wishes, Papa, but I'm going, just the same."

His father's mouth opened in astonishment. There was silence for a moment, broken by a sob from Mamma Wolf. Then Papa Wolf roared: "So that's it! You are of age. But disobedience I will not countenance. If you go, never again can you live in my house."

"Oh, Karl!" cried Mamma Wolf.

Elsa sniffed audibly. "What a tempest over a little thing! Uncle Hugo, have some more beer?"

"I must be going," said Hugo, taking the beer nevertheless.

"So must I," exclaimed Roger, rising hastily. "Then it's settled, Ernest?"

Ernest leaned over to take another sandwich. "It's settled. Don't cry, Mütterchen. I'll bring you home a horned toad and you can make me a bed and serve my meals in the garage."

Roger took Mamma Wolf's hand and kissed her cheek. "Good night, dear," he whispered.

Mamma Wolf smiled bravely and clung to his fingers for a moment. "You have made me sad, Roger, but I can't help loving you!"

Roger kissed her again. "I'm not going to let you be sad long. I'll bring Ernie back to you safe and sound. Well, I'm off to bed! Good night, Elsa!" and he was gone with a bang of the front door.

The days to Christmas flew by with unbelievable speed. Papa Wolf washed his hands of the whole adventure, as Elsa continued to call it, and refused to allow any mention of it in his hearing. This was Ernest's first insurrection, and his father seemed to have no tool but silence with which to combat it. Christmas eve and Christmas day were celebrated with all the usual beautiful German customs. It seemed to Roger that he enjoyed them more each year, and this year, with the novel sense of achievement in his heart, the joy of the day was unalloyed.

Although Papa Wolf was obdurate about the adventure, his big heart could not permit him to allow him to let Austin spend Christmas day in a hotel. When he learned that Austin had a wife and child in Washington, nothing would do but that the Smithsonian man should share in a home Christmas. Papa Wolf provided another guest also, a stranger named Adolph Werner. He was a German banker, traveling across America on business, and the Wolf family was instructed to treat him with great deference. Stout and bespectacled, he proved a delightful guest and Dr. Austin displayed a gift for comic songs that brought the house down.

The two guests discovered that they both had studied for several years in Munich and a great meeting of spirits followed, materially assisted by Papa Wolf, Uncle Hugo and a bowl of Glüh Wein. And when it was still further discovered that Werner's next stopping place was St. Louis, he was invited at once to join the Sun Planters, as Elsa had dubbed them. He accepted at once and on New Year's Day, with Elsa and her mother weeping and Papa Wolf blinking back tears but sternly refusing to say good-by, the party pulled out of the little Eagle's Wing station. Herr Werner proved to be a delightful traveling companion and he became so much interested in the details of the experiment that he insisted that he be invited to visit the plant; an invitation that was given most cordially by Roger.

Thanks to Dr. Austin's experienced presence, the purchases in St. Louis were made in record time and at the end of the second week in January, Roger and Ernest set forth alone for the desert country.

It was their first trip west of the Mississippi and both men were absorbed in watching the changes of scenery as the train whirled from one state to the next. Albuquerque was an hour behind when Ernest came into the smoking compartment where Roger was engaged in drawing on the back of an old envelope.

"Say, Rog, I know you aren't interested in the sex, but there's the most unusual little girl on the train. She's seven years old and traveling all alone. Her name is Felicia. She got in at Kansas City. They checked her through like a pup. She's going out to join her brother and sister on a mining claim near Archer's Springs."

Roger did not stop his pencil. "Seems as if we'd have neighbors," he said.

"I hope this is a sample of Archer's Springs girls!" said Ernest. "Honestly, Roger, she's a lovely kid. Come on back and see her. I'm going to take her out on the observation platform with me."

Roger grunted, and Ernest, with a grin, left him in peace. It was an hour later when Roger, having forgotten about the child, but wanting to ask Ernest a question, made his way to the observation platform. It was so exceedingly dusty that Ernest and his little friend had it to themselves.

"Here she is, little Felicia!" cried Ernest. "And here he is, big Roger!"

The little girl looked up at Roger. He returned the look with a surprised interest. He did not know much about little girls, but it seemed to him that she must be rather unusual. She had large brown eyes of astounding depth and softness. She was tall for her seven years, tall and graceful, in a short soiled blue gingham dress, and socks wrinkling down on stubby Oxford ties. Her hair was brown, curly and short. There were lovely curves in her scarlet drooping lips, and a fine arch in her head, above the ears.

She made a little curtsey and shook hands in the limp manner of childhood. Roger smiled at her, and sat down.

"Ernest, what was the size of the glass you and Dr. Austin were finally able to get?"

"Eight by twelve. Felicia, tell Mr. Moore where you're going."

"Out to live with Charley and Dick," said the child obediently.

"Have they been there long?" asked Roger, lighting his pipe.

"Ever since Mother died. They left me with Aunt May. But now I'm going out to be with Charley. Dear, dearest Charley, that's what Aunt May says."

"Charley must be your favorite brother," commented Roger, a trifle absentmindedly as he tried to define the disconcerting attraction Felicia had for him.

"Ho! How silly you are!" laughed the little girl. "Charley's my big only sister. Her whole name is Charlotte Emerson Preble and she looks just like me. Aunt May says so."

"Preble!" exclaimed both the men.

"Charley Preble!" Roger went on. "Ern, don't you remember the pretty little girl who used to play with us?"

"Of course I do. That's why Felicia has been puzzling us so. We were just kids, but seems to me Charley looked exactly as she does."

"Did sister Charley ever talk to you about Eagle's Wing?" asked Roger.

"I don't recollect Charley. She went out to take care of Dick when I was so little. Charley's awful good. She'll take such care of me as never was on sea or land. Aunt May says so. And I'll love her more than I do God."

"Was Dick sick? I remember him as a big, husky boy, don't you, Ern?"

Ernest shook his head. "I don't remember him. You were the one who used to go out to Prebles' to play."

"Dicky was sick," Felicia piped on. "Dicky's like Dad. He'll never amount to much, Aunt May says."

"Look at the queer kind of cactus we're beginning to pass, Felicia," interrupted Roger, hastily.

Felicia leaned against his knee. No little girl ever had done so before and Roger looked at her curiously.

"The desert's awful homely, isn't it?" she said.