In spite of his weariness, Roger could not sleep. He scarcely had closed his eyes when the memory of Dick's curious ugliness made him open them and stare into the darkness. What in the world could induce a seemingly pleasant fellow like Dick to go off apparently without cause into a deep seated grouch?

Roger shook himself. What a fool he was to lie awake over a thing as trivial as this. All men were moody. Roger told himself that, excepting Ernest, every man he knew had unaccountable grouches. Then he closed his eyes and opened them again. Would Dick row Charley? It was unthinkable that a man should row a woman of her type. Roger had discovered that he admired his old time playmate very much. She was so calm, so clear headed and keen thinking. With all the dignity of her splendid boyish physique added to her splendid intelligence, it was very unpleasant to think of her having to submit to bullying.

Roger turned over with a sigh. After a time of tossing, moved by an unaccountable impulse, he crept out of bed and peered from the tent flap toward the ranch house. A faint speck of light flecked the darkness. He scratched a match and looked at his watch. It was half past two. He went back to bed, where he lay for a half hour, wondering what was going on at the ranch house.

This was an unusual proceeding for Roger. Like most only children Roger had grown up self-centered and more or less selfish. His work had tended to increase these characteristics. Not since his mother's death, with the single exception of his thoughtful affection for Mamma Wolf, had Roger spent so much of himself on another's problem as he now was spending on Charley's.

He rose again. The light still shone from the adobe. He slipped into his clothes and noiselessly left the tent. It was nipping cold and he walked as fast as the heavy sand permitted. As he neared the ranch, a second light appeared and moved down to the corral. A few minutes later Roger had reached the bars.

"Dick," he cried softly to the dark figure that was pulling the harness off one of the horses. "It's Roger! Anything the matter? I saw the light." The figure dropped the harness and ran over to the bar. As the "bug" light caught her face, Roger saw that it was Charley.

"Oh, Roger!" she exclaimed. "I'm so glad, so glad to see you!"

He vaulted over the bar.

"Hush," she said, "Dick's sick and I've just gotten him to sleep."

"Sick! That accounts for his grouch then! Why couldn't he say so! Shall I go for the doctor, Charley?"

"No! No! He's subject to these attacks. Did—did Ernest mind his being cross?" In the candlelight Charley looked anxiously into Roger's face.

"Not a bit. He just wondered about it because the change came on so suddenly. What is it? His stomach?"

"Yes, his stomach," replied Charley.

"Sure you don't want me to go for the doctor?"

Charley's voice trembled a little. "Very sure! But you can hang up the harness for me while I hold the light." Then, as Roger obeyed with alacrity, she asked: "What made you come up this hour of the night?"

"I couldn't sleep. Then I began to think about your brother's grouch. I got up and took a look in this direction and saw the light. I don't know just why I came. Restless, I guess!"

He tossed the lines over a peg and came back to take the lantern from Charley. As the light flashed on her face he saw that she looked very tired and that her lip was quivering. A wordless surprise swept over Roger. The feeling he had had that Charley was like an interesting boy whom he would wish to keep for a friend was rudely shocked by that quivering lip. Only a girl's lip could tremble so.

"Something is wrong," he said, anxiously. "Let me help you."

"You have helped me, more than you can know. Go home to bed now or you won't be fit for work to-morrow. And that work is just about the most important thing in this valley."

Roger could think of no adequate reply. He lowered the bars for Charley and put them up again. The two stood in silent contemplation of the desert night. The night wind was dying as dawn approached. Above and below was one perfect blending of dusky blue, with only the faint fleck of star silver to mark the sky from the earth. Roger's nerves quickened to the wonder of the night. He turned to Charley.

"I don't feel as if I'd ever lived before," he half whispered.

"I know," replied the girl. "I don't believe a person could be a real agnostic in the desert, do you?"

"No," said Roger, simply.

"You must go to bed," repeated Charley. "And you mustn't worry any more about me." She turned to run quickly up the trail to the adobe.

Roger started campward.

He was wakened later in the morning by the sound of conversation.

"I'm sorry, madam, but I'm no cook, and I dislike olive oil, anyhow. If you'll eat the pancakes as I fry 'em, in bacon fat, you're more than welcome to all you wish. But if you want olive oil used, you must fry them yourself."

"Where's the other young man?" asked Mrs. von Minden.

"Hey! Rog!" roared Ernest. "You're wanted."

Roger sat up on the edge of his cot with a yawn. As he did so, his eye fell on the unopened letters on the trunk.

Without waiting to dress he opened the one postmarked Washington. He read it through twice, then very deliberately rose and pulled on his clothing. His face was pale beneath the tan as he stepped out into the morning sun.

"Ernest, here's some bad news!" he called. "Come over to the tent a moment."

As Ernest hurried up, Roger said slowly, "Austin is dead and the Smithsonian Institute says it doesn't know anything about the deal with me."

Ernest dropped the pancake turner he was holding. "Good God!" He read the letter, then looked up into Roger's somber face. "Dropped dead in New York three weeks ago. Poor chap!"

Roger nodded. "But what was he up to? The writer of that letter says that although the Smithsonian was interested in a general way in our work, Austin had no authority to go ahead. Now, where did he get the money?"

"I suppose he was afraid some one else would get in on it while the Smithsonian was hesitating, so he funded up himself. I suppose they'd have paid him back. You remember his cursing out the delays and the red tape that hampered everything connected with the government. I thought he was hipped on the subject, but now—"

"What makes you think all that?" asked Roger.

"Well, don't you remember in St. Louis, when he was ordering stuff from the Condit Iron Works he said he'd pay the bill himself, to get the stuff started?"

Roger shook his head. "I don't remember. But I guess you're right. Lord, what a good scout he was to have so much faith in me! I wonder how much he spent on us, and whether his wife is provided for?"

"That won't be hard to find out. What we've got to worry about now is the situation with the Smithsonian. They can't realize how far we've gone."

"Yes, they do," replied Roger. "That letter from, what does he sign himself—Hampton?—is in reply to the report I sent Austin from Archer's Springs, two weeks ago. Why, they've got to go on with it!"

"If they won't, we are up against it," groaned Ernest. "I don't want to ask father for money, and you and the Dean have tried every one in the world."

"And who the devil wants you to ask your father for money for me?" Roger shouted. "Haven't we got practically all the material we need, bought and paid for? We don't need anything except food. We'll do the work ourselves."

Ernest's gentle voice interrupted. "But, Rog—"

"Don't but me," roared Roger. "I tell you nothing shall stop me now! If it takes twenty years, I'll go through with this. I'd rather cut my throat than not go on with it. I've waited for five years for this chance. The death of one man won't stop me, nor the indifference of some fool government clerk. This plant is going to be built."

"What I started to say," said Ernest quietly, "when you began your brain-storm, was that if you'd sell your laboratory equipment up home it would guarantee us food for six months. The Dean would attend to it for you."

Roger sat down on his cot, rather suddenly. "That's a good idea, Ern," he said, meekly.

Ernest picked up the pancake turner. "I'm with you to a finish in this, Roger. You don't have to jaw me, you know."

"Sorry, old man," muttered Roger.

"It's all right," replied Ernest. "I'll finish getting breakfast. We've got all day to talk this over. One idea occurs to me. Perhaps this man Hampton who signs this letter would be less cold to the project if he had details. Why don't you give him the whole story, both of the plant and of our relationship to Austin?"

"That's a good hunch," exclaimed Roger, immensely cheered up by the suggestion. "Well," with a sigh, "I might have known I was having too much luck."

"It's the old lady. She's a bird of ill omen. I knew it the minute I saw her, this morning. Come out as soon as you can, Rog. I don't dare to be alone with her."

Roger grinned, but did not hasten his shaving. Ernest could be facetious. After all, the building of the plant was not Ernest's dream. Roger was shocked by the news of Austin's death, but the shock was not due to grief. Austin simply represented opportunity to the young inventor. A sudden fear was clutching at his heart lest now the plant would never be completed. Roger had learned much since his arrival in the desert. He had begun to realize that the desert fights ferociously any attempt to subdue her. He knew now that it was going to take much longer than the outside margin he had allowed to build the plant. If a driven well failed, he must try out the Prebles'. Perhaps Dick's knowledge of irrigation would prove to be sketchy and that water supply too would prove inadequate. He believed still that his plans for the plant itself would not have to be changed.

"I heard every word you two said," Mrs. von Minden's voice rose suddenly. "You needn't worry at all. I'll concentrate for you immediately after breakfast."

"In that case, we are ruined," Roger muttered, smiling in spite of himself, as he dropped the tent flap behind him.

The lady visitor was sitting on a bench beside the table in the cook tent, contemplating a cup of coffee and a plate of crackers.

"Was it your idea, madam," said Ernest, attacking a pile of pancakes some ten inches high, "that your husband would find you in this camp?"

"So the Yogis say," replied Mrs. von Minden.

"Why don't you fry yourself some cakes, Mrs. von Minden?" asked Roger.

"Part of my creed is never to prepare food for myself if it is possible to get some one else to do it. A complete inertia is a vital step toward Nirvana."

Roger grunted. "Then you'll never find Nirvana in this camp, I can tell you."

"Good morning!" cried Felicia, appearing suddenly in the doorway.

"Dicky is sick," she announced, "and Charley sent me down here for the day. She said please for you not to come up because Dicky is so cross, she doesn't want any one around."

Ernest and Roger looked at each other.

"I think I'd better go up," said Roger.

"No, I'll go," insisted Ernest.

"Charley doesn't want you," cried Felicia. "She says so and she always means what she says."

"Oh, you've found that out, have you?" asked Ernest. "Well, have a flapjack; my cook is an artist."

"I've had breakfast, thank you," replied the little girl. "I'm going out and look at the things in the wagon."

"Go to it!" exclaimed Ernest. Then to Roger, "I see you've struck water at last. That news evidently impressed you less than other events, last night."

Roger nodded. "There's not much of it and it's vile to taste. But it'll take care of our camp wants and the engine. Charley suggested that if we didn't strike an adequate supply when we drove the well farther, we'd better set the plant up at their place. They'd be our first customers."

"Better not take her up till you've done a lot of experimenting down here," said Ernest, quickly.

"I don't expect to do much experimenting," replied Roger. "But I've started here and I'll keep on here, especially since this unexpected mix up."

Mrs. von Minden, who seemed to have been lost in thought ever since Felicia's appearance, now spoke suddenly, but with closed eyes.

"No, don't leave this spot. You are destined to great good luck here."

The two men looked at each other. Ernest shrugged his shoulders and Roger sighed and asked:

"Did the pump come?"

"Yes, and the hose and the pipe for the condenser. We brought that and the glass, the cement, more lumber, and the drum of sulphur dioxide. There are two more big loads down there."

Roger nodded. "I'll take my turn at it to-morrow. Did you see Schmidt?"

"Yes, and he suggested that if we'd tie Preble's team to our wagon, he'd drive a load back for us, so only you would need to come in."

"We can't afford to have Schmidt come out here now," sighed Roger.

"Let him come!" murmured the visitor, still with closed eyes. "He will be provided for. It's a great work and must go on."

Roger jerked himself to his feet. "Let's go outside, Ern," he exclaimed.

Madam opened her eyes for a moment to say, "Send the child in to wash the dishes!"

Ernest turned a chuckle into a hiccough and followed Roger over to the well. "Roger, it won't cost much to keep him for a week and that provides for getting Hackett's team back and stopping that expense."

Roger nodded. "Let's leave those dishes on the table till she does 'em or we have to get lunch."

"O. K.! There she goes into her tent. Rog, she's plain crazy. Well, what do we tackle to-day?"

"We'd better get the pump ready and then start to build the engine house. I want it big enough to include the laboratory."

"Right-o! Dick suggested we save lumber by making the engine house of adobe. He says the sand storms that'll blow next month will ruin our apparatus if we don't cover it well."

"Where'll we get the adobe?" asked Roger.

"He said that that layer of clay we struck about four feet down in the well is extra fine adobe and that he'll show us how to handle it. I wonder how long he'll be sick, poor chap! Was Dick ever sick this way before, Felicia?" he called.

"Lots of times!" the child called back. "Oh, Ernest, here's a little, little bundle that's so soft it can't be a machine. Can't I open it? It might be for me."

"Go ahead!" replied Ernest.

"If the adobe won't take too long, I like the idea," said Roger. "But with our new financial problem, we're working against time."

"Oh, isn't it awful. Nothing but dish cloths for Charley!" shrieked Felicia.

"She'll have all the small items in those wagons in a hard knot," exclaimed Roger. "Felicia! Come and help unpack the pump, there's a good girl!"

When the wagon had been unloaded, the two men began the installation of the pump. By noon they had not finished the job. Roger had infinite patience with machinery. Ernest practically none.

"You'd have kicked the face off any human being that acted as mulish as this pump, Rog," growled Ernest. "Hang the thing! Let's throw it away and get a good one."

Roger laughed. "And you'd have no end of patience with a pupil as onery as this pump, Ern. It's all right. We'll have it going in a moment."

And go she did, to the excited admiration of Felicia, who had been an attentive audience during the entire performance. Mrs. von Minden did not leave the confines of her tent until mid-afternoon, when she spent some time preparing herself a meal. After lunch, Ernest would have gone to offer his services at the adobe, had not Felicia protested to the point of tears, that Charley would be angry. Somewhat to their own amusement the two men gave in to the vehement small girl, and the ground work for the absorber being complete, they began to clear space for the engine house and consumer. Felicia with a kitchen knife and the pancake turner, toiled away after the two men all the afternoon.

About five o'clock Ernest took her home. He was gone some time and Roger had supper ready on his return. Ernest had fed the horses and milked for Charley, who said that Dick would be around on the morrow.

"Then I'll write my letter to-night and start in with the two teams at daylight," said Roger. "You finish grubbing off for the condenser, Ernest, and make a carpenter's bench. And try not to kill our visitor." But the visitor was invisible all the evening, nor had she appeared before Roger left the next morning. He was well on his way toward Archer's Springs by daylight. The wagons were empty and the horses fresh, so that he reached the railroad station by mid-afternoon and had the wagons loaded by dark ready for the return trip.

At the Chinese restaurant where he went for his supper he saw Schmidt.

"Well!" exclaimed the German. "You vas here at last, nicht wahr!"

Roger nodded. "I hear you are coming up for a visit."

"Visit? No! No! To stay. Ya! To stay!"

Roger shook his head. "Can't feed you, old man!" and then, before he knew it, he was telling the sympathetic German of the Smithsonian's dereliction.

"These American governments!" groaned Schmidt. "Vat a stupidness! In Germany such a foolishness is impossible. Vell, I come for a veek and bring my own grub. I haf a leetle money, enough to feed me. Vat I lack is vork—vork to keep me from going crazy with the heim-weh in this ocean of sand, and some one mit brain to talk to. The baggage-man—the storekeeper—the Chinaman—Gott! I know their every mind like a primer, so long have I talked to them."

There was to Roger something irresistibly likeable about Schmidt's sentimental, jovial face.

"Come ahead, then!" he said. "You'll have to bunk in the cook-tent, and bring your own bed with you, but we'll be delighted to have you with us."

Schmidt rubbed his stubby hands together. "I go at vonce and pack up," he exclaimed. "Ve vill drive by my place in the morning and pick me up," and he started for the door.

At five o'clock the next morning the two heavily laden wagons crawled out on the desert trail, campwards. It was slow going, particularly after they struck the deep sand which began ten miles out of the town. Gustav Schmidt was rather silent when they stopped at noon, to water and feed their horses and to eat the lunch the Chinaman had put up for them. He was heavily coated with dust and his face had burned badly.

Half way through the second sandwich he said: "Ve'll get even with that sun, eh? Ve harness him and make him pump vater on us and on this damn sand, eh? Gott, vat a country!"

"What's the matter with this country?" asked Roger, blowing the sand off a ripe olive. "It's exactly the kind of country I want to make solar power with and it's exactly the kind of country you want to cure your bad lungs. If you don't like it—"

"Vait! Vait!" interrupted Schmidt. "I know vat you vill say. If I don't like it, go back to Germany. Some day I do go back, but not yet. Ven I go, I try to take you and young Wolf mit me. This is the land of nature's opportunity. In the Fatherland, the government gif the opportunity. This is the land for the adventure, for the exploitation, nicht wahr? Germany the land for the thinker, like you? Nicht wahr?"

Roger shook his head. Nevertheless, his eyes were wistful. Many times during the afternoon he thought of Schmidt's remark. Roger's education and reading had long ago persuaded him that Germany was the land for the thinker, that there a man would not have to struggle for ten years to give birth to an idea such as his. He wondered why he never had cut loose and gone to the Fatherland. Some subconscious sense of obligation to his own country, he supposed. And yet, he thought bitterly what a fool he had been! Surely there could be no passion, not even the love for women, as deep-rooted, as overwhelming and as racially right as a man's desire to express his dreams. And that expression was denied him in his own country unless he put up a fight that depleted his creative force, surely by half.

He sighed heavily and yet his thoughts returned to the little new power plant with a vague heart warming as though already it spelled home to him.

Toward sundown, a curiously picturesque group passed them on the trail. Half a dozen squaws, with bare black heads and capes of red bandannas sewed together, were plodding toward town laden with ollas. Roger pulled up his team and called to them. Dick had told him to buy one of the great Indian water jars at his first opportunity.

"Will you sell me one?" he asked.

The oldest squaw nodded and held up a fine two gallon jar. It was just the color of the desert sand and was ornamented with swastikas and triangles in lines of vivid black.

"How much?" asked Roger.

"Eight bits," she said.

Roger dropped a dollar into her slender brown palm. The squaw flashed white teeth at him and a younger woman pressed forward holding up an olla no bigger than a teacup, a duplicate in design of the one he had just bought.

"I'll take that for Felicia," he murmured. "How much?"

"Two bits."

He tossed her the quarter. "You make 'em camp up there?" asked the old squaw.

"Yes," replied Roger. "Come and call on us, ladies."

"We bring 'em baskets, maybe," replied the squaw.

Roger nodded and started the horses on, looking back from time to time for pure pleasure in the beauty of those scarlet fluttering capes.

They reached the camp about ten o'clock and were vociferously welcomed by Ernest, who, before taking the horses up to the corral, insisted on showing them his day's work.

"Nothing doing on the carpenter's bench," he said, flashing the "lightning bug" toward the site of the engine house. "Look here. Dick came over right after breakfast and we were hard at this all day."

All the lumber in the camp had been requisitioned to make adobe molds. "We mixed the adobe with that clutter of broken hay that the glass came in," explained Ernest. "Dick says the Mexicans use stable scrapings, but I couldn't stomach that. You see you just peg the boards up in the sand, a foot apart and pack them full of the adobe. That'll be the thickness of the house. Then when the strips are dried, we'll cut them the length we want. Two days more work will give us all we need."

"Vat a country!" exclaimed Gustav.

Ernest and Roger laughed. "I take it Dick is O. K. again," said Roger.

"Quite himself. Said Charley was used up, but she came down late this afternoon with Felicia and she said she was feeling fine. Felicia made those little bricks yonder. Charley has put her into overalls. She's simply ravishing in them."

"And how is your guest?" asked Roger. "I've been telling Schmidt about her. He's heard of Von Minden at Archer's. And it seems she outfitted there. Claimed to have come up from Phoenix and said she had an engagement with us."

"Well, she was invisible, practically until noon to-day. Then she brought her rocking chair here where Dick and I were at work and concentrated on us all the afternoon."

"Concentrated? Vat iss concentrated?" asked Gustav.

"Well, she rocks in the chair, holding the pink umbrella till Dick lashed it to the chair back for her. She keeps her eyes closed and doesn't speak, though she did explain that she was talking to her mother, who is on the seventh plane, concerning the successful erection of the engine house. Dick seems quite smitten by her. He gazes on her and gazes as if fascinated, then he goes off behind the living tent and laughs."

"My God, what a country!" groaned Roger.

"I've got a bed fixed up for you in the cook tent, Schmidt," said Ernest. "You'll be safe if none of Mrs. von Minden's spirit friends bother you. She told me that she heard them playing the accordion in the cook tent last night."

"I love music," was Schmidt's response, and the three men went laughing to bed. Roger wakened in the night but once. Through the open tent flap he beheld Mrs. von Minden rocking silently in the starlight before her tent.

"She's going to get on my nerves," he murmured and fell asleep again.

Dawn was just breaking over the mountains the next morning when Roger entered the cook tent. He was greeted by Gustav, who was purple with the cold but grinning cheerfully, and the smell of coffee.

"It vas not so soft, sleeping on Frau Nature's heart in the desert, nicht wahr!" he exclaimed. "Coyotes vere eating the garbage last night mit gulps and snortings and I slept not. It vas not the music I had been promised. So I make the breakfast early."

"I didn't sleep well myself the first night or two," said Roger. "Desert silence makes a lot of noise to a town-bred man. Hey!"—going to the door—"Ern! You lazy Dutchman! The new cook'll leave if you don't get up for your breakfast."

Gustav and Roger were half through the meal when Ernest appeared. "Mud-pie making is hard work," he groaned, sliding stiffly onto the bench beside Roger.

"I certainly hate to make adobe brick when every day counts so," said Roger. "Let's use sheet iron."

"It'll be better to take Dick's advice," insisted Ernest. "He says the dust storms are frightful here and the heat worse. The adobe shelter will be grateful on many counts."

"Ve'll all vork hard," said Gustav, "and the 'dobe vill be up strong, before ve know it. Ven it is done, it is done good, and that is right. I vash the damn dishes. You go make the mud mixing. Then I come."

"We're going to hate to let that chap go when his visit's up," said Roger, as he and Ernest began work on the adobe.

"Maybe we won't have to let him go," replied Ernest. "You stir the mess up, Rog, and I'll put it into the molds. Dick is going on with his grading, but he'll be over in a day or so and show us how to begin the house building."

"The trouble with you is, Ern, that you're flighty-minded. You're tired of making a Sun Plant and all excitement over building a mud house."

"I wouldn't have a single track mind like yours for a million dollars," returned Ernest cheerfully.

Roger grinned and presently began to whistle as he worked. Mrs. von Minden proved to be an exceedingly unexacting guest. After it was evident to her that her hosts had not the slightest intention of doing special cooking for her she did her own. She ate only two meals a day, preparing one at mid-morning and one at sundown. The remainder of the day she spent within her tent, reading or rocking in her chair, concentrating on the camp work. She seldom talked and then only on the matter of what she called Yogi-ism.

Gustav took a violent dislike to her and refused to work if she looked at him. Roger declared that on the next trip to town he was going to telegraph Phoenix and see if she had not escaped from an insane asylum. But Ernest only laughed.

"Poor old soul! She's not crazy except on her religion. Let her alone. She's no expense and no trouble!"

"She gives me the willies," insisted Roger. "I never knew before that I had a temperament."

"Gosh, I could have broken that to you twenty-five years ago," said Ernest. "Only I supposed obvious facts were as plain to you as to other people. Here she comes for her afternoon's work, bless her, pink umbrella, pink nighty and all. What a lucky dog Von Minden is."

Roger chuckled and joined Gustav, who moved hastily to continue his brick making back of the lady's chair.

Working so, he was facing the ranch and presently he saw Charley cross the alfalfa field to join Dick. A moment later, the two figures were following the team across the field. Next Felicia flashed down the trail, a tiny dot of blue, and shortly he saw Dick lift her to one of the horse's backs. Roger's mind harked back to old days. He recalled Charley's father giving her and him just such a ride over the fertile corn fields of home. And he pondered for a moment on the thing called fate.

There was a little hand that clung to his as he and Charley scuffled up the dusty road to the farm. There was Dick's ruddy boyish face, sternly disapproving. There was a childish treble, "I shall love Charley. She'll take such care of me as never was on sea nor land. Aunt May says so." And finally there was the woman's voice. "Go home to bed now, or you won't be fit for work to-morrow. And that work is about the most important thing in this valley now."

And now, Charley drove a team over a desert field, while he—what was he doing after all? Roger rose abruptly and lighting his pipe began to stroll aimlessly around the camp. Was this dream that had worked itself into the very fiber of his nature worth while? The desert, shimmering in endless silence about him, seemed very far from that world of machinery that he had worshiped so long. Supposing that Charley did bring the desert to bearing. Supposing that he did harness the sun and start an empire to building in these barren wastes. To what avail?

Though his dream were the very foundation of their existence, men would fight here for the supremacy of riches, just as of old. And why not? Through the welter of cut-throat striving man had won his intelligence. Who was he to endeavor to lessen that competition?

How restless, how discontented he had been for nearly ten years! Was he not missing the best of life and was not happiness the real goal of living? And did not men get the only real joy from wife and child? Did any work that did not focus round these two bring real content?

A sudden swelling of his heart, a sudden rush of blood through his brain, a sudden thrill of his lean strong body that seemed to extend to the very heart of the desert, brought Roger to pause in his walking. He gazed for a long moment at the little blue figure astride the horse, and at the tall figure in khaki beside Dick.

The March afternoon was hot but with a clear tang that was as exhilarating as winter frost. The range back of the ranch house was brown where the sky line shone clear. But the gashed and eroded sides of the mountains were filled with drifts of purple clouds that melted now in soft blue billows into the sky, now in ragged streams of crimson into canyons black in the distance. The little sounds of the camp were as nothing. The pygmy figures in the alfalfa field were infinitesimal. A new sense of the immensity of the universe poured into Roger's soul with devastating force and for the first time in his life Roger realized his own lack of importance.

A moment of this and then the instinct that has lifted man above the brutes spoke in him again. He would not belong to life only through children. He would make himself immortal through his work, work by which men should live and think and have their being for ages to come.

With a long sigh, Roger tossed his black hair back from his face and returned to his brick making.