The dust storm died down almost as rapidly as it had risen. By four o'clock the three were on their way home across the strange sea of sand. They had reached the home range before Roger said to Charley,

"By Jove, you never did show me the Indian writing! What do you mean by such subterfuge? Couldn't you think of any other way to entice a man for a stroll?"

"There were inscriptions all around you!" exclaimed Charley. "You were leaning against the drawing of a horse, all the afternoon. Where were your eyes?"

"That portion of them not blinded by sand was on you, my dear."

"Tut! Tut! Don't try freshman blarney on me, Roger! I'm getting too old for it. Besides one man doesn't blarney another."

Roger looked at Charley quickly. "Hum!" he said, "I'm not at all sure but what you're totally feminine and that I'm a fool."

"Here's the home trail," said Charley. "I hope they haven't worried about us."

Elsa was waiting supper for them and the look of relief on her face as they came in at the door told the story of the day's anxiety.

"Gustav and I have been frantic!" she said. "You poor things! Where did the storm catch you?" Then without waiting for an answer she went on. "We kept the pump going off and on all day. In fact just as steadily as the Lemon would let us, which was not very steadily, you can be sure. But I'm so afraid that the second field is gone. The sand was not so bad this time but the heat was frightful. I don't see how anything green could stand up against those heat blasts. The thermometer here in the adobe was 118° at five o'clock this afternoon."

Charley pulled off her hat and sank into a chair. "Well," she sighed, "why worry! Seems to me I've had all the troubles known to women and I'm not going to let the mere loss of the family fortune ruin an otherwise perfect day."

Elsa looked at the two sharply. But Charley went on serenely. "I've been drowned in sand. I've been bullied and baked and burned, I've been——"

"Good gracious, Els, feed her! She's delirious with hunger!" said Roger.

"Well, of course," exclaimed Elsa, "if the owner of that magnificent alfalfa crop——"

She was interrupted by a cheerful call from Gustav who was in the corral.

"Hello, Dick! Hello! How vas the leg?"

Elsa set the coffee pot hastily on the table. The smile left Charley's face as Dick came slowly over the porch and paused just within the door.

"Well," he said huskily, "the bad egg is back."

"How's the leg?" asked Roger, stiffly.

"All right except for a little lameness. I'll sit down though, if you don't mind."

Dick sank wearily into a chair and there was a moment's silence. Roger could not have believed it possible for a human being to have changed as had Dick in less than a month. His ruddy brown hair was sprinkled with gray. He was thin, and his usually round face was sunken of cheek with heavy lines showing around his eyes and at the corners of the mouth.

"Supper's just ready," said Elsa. "You must be hungry, Dick." Dick pulled himself slowly out of his chair.

"Charley," he said, "and all the rest of you, I've just a few things I want to tell you before I try to pick up the old threads. Nothing you folks can say or do to show how you despise me can hurt me. I'm too low in my own opinion—At first, that afternoon Roger brought Felicia home, I made up my mind to kill myself. The only thing that kept me from it was realizing that Charley couldn't stand much more without losing her mind."

He paused to look at Charley, but she only gazed at him silently in return and he went on.

"When I went into Archer's Springs, I hadn't the slightest intention of ever coming back here. But lying there on the flat of my back, I came to the conclusion that the one way to help Charley endure what's happened would be to have it make a man of me. Then perhaps in the years to come, she would grow to think of Felicia as if she were thinking of the ordinary death of a lovely little child and not with the hell of remorse she's having now. As for me, I'll always have that remorse. That's common justice. But there's no reason why Charley should have it.

"I guess that's about all, except this. For two weeks I've gone over every afternoon to the saloon and sat there for two or three hours. And the sight and smell of the booze for the first time in my life made me want to vomit."

Dick paused again, trembling visibly and staring at Charley.

"I'm sorry, Dick," she said, her lips stiff, yet quivering. "I'm going to try to care for you again. But I don't know whether I can or not. Every night when I go to bed I see first your face that night all red and bloated and distorted, then Felicia's, the way Roger and I found her. I—I've got lots to forget, Dick."

"God knows you have, Charley. But you're going to give me one more trial, aren't you? Please, Charley!"

"Try if you want to, Dick. I don't seem to care, one way or the other."

Dick's head dropped to his chest. With a little inarticulate cry, Elsa ran across the room and pulling Dick's head over to rest on her soft breast, she kissed him on the forehead.

"I care, Dicky!" she cried. "I care! It's my whole life whether you make good or not."

Dick lifted his agonized face and stared into Elsa's tear wet eyes. A slow, twisted smile touched his lips.

"Oh, Elsa! Oh, Elsa!" he breathed. "I think you've saved my soul alive!" He turned his face against her and Elsa, clasping the gray-touched head to her, looked at the others fiercely.

"Now, who hurts Dick, hurts me!"

Roger dropped his hand on Charley's shoulder. "Then look to it that he never hurts Charley again," he said sternly.

There was a silence, broken by Gustav, who came into the kitchen with the milk pail.

"Elsa, make me the pans ready!" he called.

"Coming, Gustav," answered Elsa in her normal voice. "The rest of you sit down to supper. Gustav and I won't be a minute."

"Better wash up, Roger," said Charley. "Dick, your room is ready for you!" and she disappeared into her own bedroom.

When they finally sat down to the belated supper, Roger began at once to tell of the crop conditions and of the call on old Rabbit Tail.

"Let's see, this is Friday and he promises the gang here on Monday. I think we'd better get busy to-morrow and make the drill connections on the old Lemon. What do you think of the whole scheme, Dick?"

"I think it's perfect!" exclaimed Dick.

"Perfect if my engine works," said Roger. "But even if it doesn't, you'll still have the old Lemon and a real well. So I'll have done you no harm."

"Have you got to dismantle that condenser to move it?" asked Dick.

"Pretty thoroughly, I'm afraid. But if the Indians are any good at all—"

"If Rabbit Tail brings his pet gang," said Dick "there'll be four first class machinists in it, trained at Carlisle. Fellows who work only when they please, but Lord, they are wonders. I saw them put up an oil engine once that had been badly smashed en route. It was a poem, I tell you."

"Heaven send them then!" exclaimed Roger. "If they put this thing over for us, I'll pay for it in cold cash as soon as I get it."

"Rabbit Tail won't take money for this deal," said Charley.

"The others will, but they won't ask for it." Dick filled his pipe, and pushed his coffee cup away with a little smile for Elsa.

"My debts are getting so large now," mused Roger, "that I can begin to take a sort of pride in them. Gustav, as Dick's home now, will you come down to the Plant in the morning?"

And at Gustav's nod Roger made his adieux and went home to bed.

Monday dawned with the usual promise of merciless heat. It seemed as if the torrid days of late summer were harder to bear than July had been. Though there was an occasional dust storm, the air was quiet except for the little gusts of burning wind. These gusts were too transitory to carry a sand storm. But all day long, tall spirals of sand, like water spouts, whirled across the desert. One struck Dick's corral, during his absence, ripped off the roof of the tool house and overturned the watering trough. Several days later, one brought up against the condenser and after knocking off the thatch, collapsed, deluging the apparatus with sand. There was something uncanny about these gigantic figures, whirling suddenly across the desert, now viciously ripping up a cholla or a Joshua tree, now collapsing ridiculously against a rock.

It was now too, that thunderstorms were occasionally heard in the distant western ranges, though rain seemed forever denied to the desert valleys. But on the Sunday noon before Rabbit Tail's gang was to arrive, the impossible happened. Roger and Gustav were eating their monotonous lunch of corned beef and canned brown bread when a curious roar broke the desert silence. As the two men looked at each other questioningly, there was a deafening crash and a huge deluge of water smashed down on the cook tent. The sun-baked canvas was like a sieve and in a moment both men were saturated.

"A cloud burst!" exclaimed Roger, grinning fatuously at the delicious sensation of wet clothing and skin.

"Gott, vat a country!" cried Gustav.

Roger's grin disappeared. "The living tent, by Jove!" Heedless of the blinding torrent, he dashed to the tent where all the morning he had been sorting and checking drawings and notes. He stopped in the doorway appalled. Everything in the tent was dripping. Drawings, instruments, camera, open trunks and bedding were flooded. The patient work of months must be done over.

"Hang this infernal desert!" roared Roger. "This is the last straw!"

He stood glowering at the wreckage, water pouring over his head and shoulders, when, as suddenly as it had begun, the rain ceased. Roger looked out the door. Every grain of sand, every cactus spine bore a tiny rainbow. The whole desert floor was a mosaic of opals. The sky was of a blue too deep, too brilliant for the eye to endure. As Roger stood with mouth agape he was thrilled by a sensation he had not before experienced. The desert, ordinarily entirely odorless, gave forth a scent. Just for a moment a pungent perfume for which he could find no adjectives swept softly to his nostrils and was gone. Roger stood a moment longer as if transfixed. Then he smiled and turning into the tent, he began to repair the damage done.

Promptly at eight o'clock on Monday morning, Roger and Dick, at work on the Lemon, were greeted by a pleasant

"How! Boss!"

Standing by the corral in various attitudes of ease, all of them smoking cigarettes, were the members of Rabbit Tail's gang. They were lean, powerful fellows, most of them young. They were dressed almost with the similarity of a uniform, black trousers, blue flannel shirts, girdled with a twist of bright colored silk, a bandanna twisted and tied filet wise about the head. Most of them wore their black hair waist long, but there were four men with short hair and Roger wondered if these were not the machinists of whom Dick had spoken.

"Any of you men ever drill a well?" asked Roger. Two of the older men promptly nodded. "All right, Dick, here you are. Rabbit Tail, how many burros did you bring? Thirty. By Jove, that's fine! Now three of you must start clearing this space between the corral and pump house. See, I have it all pegged out. But, Rabbit Tail, I want all the mechanics down at the Plant."

The old Indian nodded, then said, "Where's Charley? You tell her come out here."

"She's up at the house," said Dick. "There she is, on the porch with the squaw. Oh, Charley! Come here!"

Charley came rapidly down the trail. Old Rabbit Tail shook hands with her solemnly. "Here is the gang. Old Rabbit Tail keep promise, see? I tell all these men why we come. See? They glad do this for white squaw good to Injuns. You say 'How' to them."

Charley's fine eyes deepened with unshed tears. "I am so grateful to all of you!" she exclaimed. "I want to shake hands with each of you," and she went down the line, the strangers among the Indians looking at her with frank curiosity and interest.

This little ceremony having been completed to Rabbit Tail's obvious satisfaction, the old chief set his men at the tasks designated at the Ranch and then with the rest of the gang and the string of burros, he followed Roger down to the Plant.

That was a mad week. The Indians showed a willingness to work that Roger had never seen equaled by white men. They were as curious about the Sun Plant as children and deeply interested in Roger's explanation of it. Their general intelligence Roger found to be high above that of the average gang of whites. He never before had had the thrill of working with a crowd of mechanics who combined skill, intelligence and interest to this degree. The four machinists proved to be all that Dick had said and more. In all his life, Roger had never had so deeply satisfying a seven days. This, in spite of the fact that he worked like his men from daylight until dark, stopping only to eat the bountiful meals that the girls, with the Indian women, prepared at the ranch. This, in spite of ferocious heat and almost insuperable mechanical difficulties owing to the lack of lifting and trucking facilities.

For the first four days of the week, Dick was quite despondent about the water problem. But on Friday afternoon, as Roger was superintending the reerection of the condenser, he heard a wild shout and beheld Dick and his four helpers laughing and slapping each other's backs, knee deep all of them in a stream that gushed into the ditch from the new well.

"My luck has turned!" roared Dick. "My luck has turned! Look at it! Look at it! It will water fifty acres. I'll bet there won't be an inch of water left in the range. Wow!" and he plunged full length into the little crystal stream, his helpers following suit with a shout.

It was the signal for a general recess. And the men, including Roger, took a ducking and returned to work steaming but unspeakably rejuvenated. The sudden appearance of the water seemed to Roger like a happy omen for the whole endeavor and it would have been difficult to tell who was the most enthusiastic for the rest of the day, Roger or Dick.

Rabbit Tail's week was a full seven days. At five o'clock Sunday afternoon, the absorber was finished. The old tool shed stood remade, roughly to be sure, but securely, into an engine house. The condenser was half finished, the engine was standing in its new home, dismantled in parts but quite ready for Roger to adjust when the new parts should arrive.

When the old iron triangle called supper, Rabbit Tail sauntered up to Roger.

"Good job, Boss, huh?"

"Fine! The best ever! Rabbit Tail, the country is missing some wonderful mechanics and engineers in not getting you Indians interested in civilization."

The old chief grinned and shrugged his shoulders. "To-night, we go," he said.

"Let me keep Jo and the other three machinists," pleaded Roger. "I'm sure they'll be interested in finishing the condenser for me."

"Ask 'em," grunted Rabbit Tail.

"Come along," said Roger and he strode over to the bench where the four Indians were fitting together the condenser pipe. They looked up and grinned affably at Roger.

"Rabbit Tail says you fellows may stay and help me finish this condenser, if you will. I know I can find the money to pay you for it. How about it?"

Jo, the spokesman, was a tall thin Indian, with a fine brow and intelligent eyes.

"No, I guess we'll go on back to camp, Mr. Moore," he said.

"But I thought you were interested in what I am trying to put over," exclaimed Roger.

"So we are. It's always interesting to learn what you whites are trying to do. You work so fearfully hard that we Indians are always curious to find out the idea back of the work. But as for helping you do the work—well, it's like this, you folks are always mighty interested in what we Indians do—making blankets or pottery or building hogans or making ceremonial altars. But I don't notice any of you really wanting to help us."

Roger cast a bewildered look about him but the other bronzed faces betokened full acquiescence with Jo's words.

"But why did you learn your trades so well?" he asked, finally.

"Interested in the idea—and it helps us compete with the whites, when necessary!"

"Then you really don't care about my finishing the plant?"

"Why should we?" returned Jo.

Roger sighed and scratched his head. "Then why did you come at all?"

"The chief asked us and we knew Charley. She's been kind to me and I wanted to help her out."

"If the whole gang of you would give me just two more days we could finish in good shape," pleaded Roger.

"You can get along," replied Jo. "We've done what we promised."

"Yes, you have, and a bully job. But—well, I'm floored. I just can't get your point of view." Roger's voice was rueful.

Jo laughed. "And we can't get yours."

There was an extra good supper that night and formal thanks on the part of Charley. Then, in the moonlight, the whole picturesque caravan moved off up the mountain trail.

Charley, returning to the living room, said, "Well, children, I'm cheerful in spite of the fact that there's not two days' food left in the house."

"I've got a little credit still at Hackett's," said Roger. "I think Gustav had better go in to Archer's in the morning. I think my freight must be there from the Dean and we should be hearing from Ernest."

Dick, smoking in the doorway, nodded, then repeated the remark that he had made on the average of once an hour ever since Friday. "There isn't a well like mine in a radius of a hundred miles."

Gustav brought back two weeks' food supply, the freight from the Dean and letters from Ernest. They were very noncommittal but cheerful. He had cleared up the misunderstanding with the Smithsonian Institution, but as yet had no money and did not know when he could get back.

"Well," said Roger, "we've got grub for a week or so. I'm not quite sure whose grub it is. These two camps seem to me to have become helplessly entangled."

"Who cares!" said Elsa.

"Not you, young woman," returned Charley, dryly. She still seemed indifferent to Dick but there was no mistaking her warm enthusiasm over Elsa as a sister.

"I'm going to cut the first five acres to-morrow," said Dick. "That will solve the most pressing problems. The second field is dead. I'm going to plow it under. But I should worry. That's the best well in a radius of a hundred miles."

"Well, I'll assemble my engine." Roger tamped down the tobacco in his pipe. "The Lord send that it goes together right."

"Amen to that," said Charley, while the others nodded.

Another two weeks passed in unremitting industry, but by the second Saturday night, Roger with a sigh of unutterable satisfaction announced himself ready for a test of the plant on Monday. It was mid-September now, and it seemed as if the heat were a little less intense. The nights, at any rate, were not so parching. In spite of the sadness that would not lift, the little community was experiencing some of the contentment that comes from hard work and sympathetic companionship.

Roger was finding that the regular, well cooked meals and the home life of the adobe was making a great difference in his mental as well as his physical condition. In spite of the nerve strain of the past months, he was beginning to feel that life never had been so much worth while as now.

On the Sunday afternoon before the test of the rebuilt plant, Ernest, driven by Hackett, jogged up to the corral.

After the noisy and excited greetings and after Ernest's delight over the moving of the plant had been expressed, Ernest slapped Roger on the back. They all were talking at once, on the adobe porch.

"Here, put your eye on that, you emaciated desert blister!"

Ernest pulled a bill case carefully from his inner breast pocket and carefully extracted a check which he handed to Roger. It was for five thousand dollars. Roger stared at it stupidly.

"Browning! Who on earth is he?" he ejaculated.

"Smithsonian! I had the check made out to me. It was simpler. But I'm going to make it payable to you, right now."

He sat down at the table, pulled out his fountain pen and, signing the check, handed it over to Roger. The room was silent for a moment then, "Ernest," faltered Roger, his thin tanned face working. "I can't tell you—why old man, if I'd had a brother he couldn't have done for me what you have done. It's wonderful! How did you do it, Ern?"

Ernest beamed. "There's more where that came from. They're crazy about your whole scheme."

Roger stood staring at his friend, lost in admiration. "You are a genius, Ernest! Your talents as a salesman are lost on a college professor."

"Don't you think it! When I'm made President of the University, it will be because of my talents as a salesman."

Everybody laughed. "Ernest, do tell us how you did it," urged Elsa.

"Wait a minute!" cried Roger. "What shall I do with the check?" holding it as if it were alive and dangerous to the touch.

"Put it in your pocket, you chump! Then have a talk with Hackett. He has a connection with a bank at Los Angeles and he does a lot of banking for the miners south of Archer's Springs. He'll take care of it for you."

"I can't carry it in the pocket of my shirt, I perspire so!" protested Roger. "Why not shift it to Hackett right now?"

"So be it!" returned Ernest, wearily. "Must I hold your hand while you do it! Say, did you move my clothes up here?"

"Our living tent is just the other side of the old tool house," replied Roger. "Come along, old man, and get rid of your store clothes. You look like a tenderfoot."

"Farewell to decency again!" groaned Ernest.

"When you come back, supper will be ready," called Elsa.

Hackett was sitting in the shade of the engine house and Roger reached an understanding with him very quickly. He undertook to act not only as Roger's banker but as his purchasing agent as well, and Roger undertook to furnish him with a list of tools and machinery before his return to Archer's Springs at dawn.

Gustav was waiting impatiently during the interview, and when Roger said with a sigh:

"Well, I guess that covers everything, Mr. Hackett," Gustav put in quickly:

"Did Ernest tell you there is var in Europe. The Vaterland, England, France, Belgium. Mein Gott, you should see the papers they brought."

"Good heavens! War! You don't mean it! Not a real one," cried Roger.

"Yes, more or less real! Of course, Germany will be in Paris any time now, and that will end it," said Ernest.

"But what is it all about? War! I can't believe it." Roger looked over the breathless, shimmering desert to the far calm blue of the River Range.

"Nobody knows exactly who started it or why," said Hackett. "Looks to me though as if Germany was trying to hog Belgium."

"Belgium deserves to be hogged," exclaimed Ernest, who had changed his clothes, "after her Congo history."

"But if it is var, I must get back to the Vaterland," cried Gustav.

"Oh, as to that," returned Ernest, "I saw Werner in New York and he said for you to stay here till you heard from him. He plans to be down this way, this fall."

Gustav grinned. "That vas good. I don't vant to go, sure."

"Were you in New York?" asked Roger vaguely. "War in Europe! I can't realize it."

"Why try?" suggested Ernest. "It'll be over before you succeed. What's a war in Europe to us, anyhow? Let's go in to supper."

War was indeed a vague and shadowy affair to the little desert community: quite overshadowed by the importance of Ernest's successful trip. Roger did brood a good deal for a day or so over the disclosures in the bundle of newspapers, then the excitement of the testing of the plant swallowed everything else in life.

There was no ceremony about this test. The memory of that other trial, with little Felicia as the central figure, was too fresh and too poignant. Just before the girls called breakfast on Monday morning, there sounded a soft chug, chug from the new engine house. It was so very soft that at first Charley thought she must be mistaken. Then she slipped out to see. Roger, his hot face tense and eager, was standing before his engine watching the perfect mechanism play.

"Look at her, Charley! Look at her! Isn't she a dream? Ernest, look at that indicator—does she do any work? Has she power? Why man, she could pull the waters of the Yangtse Kiang up through the bowels of the earth and throw 'em on Dick's alfalfa fields!"

Ernest stood staring at the engine, round eyed, his mouth open! "Man, what have you been putting over on me! Why, Rog, the old girl is practically noiseless. Throw in the pump, will you?"

Dick promptly threw in the pump, but almost immediately roared. "Hey, slow her down! Slow her down! She's going to pull the pump up by the roots."

"Rog, let's see your drawings a minute, you old sly boots, you!" said Ernest.

"You will laugh at me and tell me to increase the absorber area, will you!" exclaimed Roger. "Why, old man, I've developed the low temperature, high speed engine! It's the one the world has been looking for for years!"

In all the years Ernest had known his chum, he never had heard him express such enthusiasm as this, over his own work. Ernest's eyes were still staring, his mouth still open.

"I believe you have, Rog! I believe you have! Lord, I wish I'd known this when I went East."

"No more sweating down to Hackett's for gasoline, eh?" exclaimed Dick.

Roger grinned. "Day before yesterday's sun is turning the wheels just now. Come on in to breakfast, folks. We can leave her to herself for a while."

Then, as Elsa and Dick followed Ernest up the trail, Roger lingered to wipe a gauge tenderly with a bit of waste. As he did so, he noticed that Charley was standing in the doorway, her eyes fastened wistfully on the whirring fly wheel. She looked very like Felicia in her blue denim blouse and skirt and once more that old confusion of personalities flashed over Roger.

"It's—it's like Felicia's own engine, somehow," said Charley. "She did love to help you so. I wish she knew."

"Charley, dear girl—we miss her so, don't we!" Roger half whispered.

Charley's lips quivered and Roger, hastily wiping his hands, took one of hers and carried it to his lips. "You are so like her!" he said. "So like her!"

Then, they turned slowly and joined the others at breakfast.