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.