The fact that the engine had fallen below expectations brought the Sun Planters' food problem into prominence again. When Elsa had begun housekeeping for the men she had protested over the meagerness and the simplicity of the food supplies. But Roger had explained their situation frankly and Elsa had proceeded to make good German magic over the canned food of which the camp had been so weary.

"The Lord knows," exclaimed Ernest at the breakfast table one morning, "how long we'll be tied up in this Hades. If Roger's begun puttering on the engine we may be here ten years."

"This isn't Hades, Ern!" exclaimed Elsa. "I'm having the time of my life."

"I notice that Dick's down here a good deal," said Ernest, slyly, "and I suppose that adds to the hilarity of the nations."

"By the way," Elsa ignored her brother except for a blush, "what are we going to do about the food problem, Ern? All the cotton-tails and quail that Gustav shoots, won't keep us much longer."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Roger nodded in a relieved manner.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Ernest! Roger! Gustav!"

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

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

"Did he hurt you girls?" cried Roger.

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

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

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

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

"Is he armed?" asked Roger.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Qui-tha!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Still no one spoke.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Felicia! Oh, Felicia!" he cried.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Gustav's there."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I hope so," said Roger bitterly.

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

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