October came in with a decided diminution of heat and with an accented brilliancy in sky and sand. The work of getting the remainder of the twenty-five acres into alfalfa went on rapidly. And in spite of the money uncertainty, there was the lift of hopefulness and happiness in the atmosphere of the ranch.

The alfalfa grew amazingly. One morning Elsa electrified the ranch by announcing that the second field now in blossom was full of wild bees. No one believed her. Every one decamped at once to the field. It was quite true. Far and wide swept the burning barrens of the desert. But close about corral and pumping plant crowded the unbelievable verdure of alfalfa with the fringed green lines of cottonwoods on its borders silhouetted against the sullen yellow sand. And wild bees, drunk with rapturous surprise, buzzed thick in the heavy blossoms. Whence they came no one could guess. Dick was willing to wager that there was nothing else within a hundred miles on which a bee might feed.

It was early morning. Roger and Charley allowed the others to drift back to their various occupations while they remained to watch the field. Seated side by side on a rock heap, Roger's arm around Charley's shoulders, they listened to the humming of the bees.

"If you weren't here, it would make me homesick," said Roger. "I can shut my eyes and see the old Preble farm and my mother in her phlox bed, calling to me to drive the bees away. I wonder if a fellow ever gets over his heartache for his mother."

"Not the right kind of a fellow for the right kind of a mother," replied Charley, lifting Roger's hand against her cheek. "The price we pay for any kind of love is pain."

"I hope when yours and my time comes to go we can go together," said Roger, "and that we won't have to start until our work is done. Queer how life's values shift. When I came down here, the thing I wanted most in life was to make a success of heat engineering. I thought it was impossible for me to reach an equal degree of desire about anything else. And now, while I want just as much as ever to go on with my profession, successfully, I want a thousand times more to be your husband and to be the right kind of a husband. I never have pipe-dreamed much about marriage, though I've done my share of flirting in my day. But for the first time in my life I realize that Bobby Burns knew what human life is in its innermost essence when he said:

"'To make a happy fireside clime for wean and wife,
That's the true purpose and sublime, of human life!'"

Charley did not speak but she turned and looked into Roger's blue eyes with her own bespeaking a depth of feeling that was beyond words. Roger, looking at the splendid brow above the brown eyes, kissed it reverently and then gazing at the beautiful curving mouth, he crushed his lips to Charley's. Then again they sat watching the bees in the alfalfa.

Charley noted before Roger the sound of hoof beats and looking round, beheld Hackett's two seated buckboard crawling slowly toward them.

"Who on earth now!" exclaimed Roger. "It can't be—yes, by Jove it is Dean Erskine—and—and Mamma and Papa Wolf! Oh, Elsa and Dick are going to have real trouble now!"

They hurried round to the corral, and shouted to the others so that the whole ranch was present to welcome the travelers. Ernest was first, lifting his mother bodily to the ground and kissing her a dozen times before Elsa had a chance.

"Guess I can pull off a surprise party when I try!" he shouted. "Here, Papa, this is Charley. Don't you remember the little roly-poly who used to play in the swimming pool? And Dick—who tried to boss us."

"Come up to the house! I know you're half dead," said Charley, leading the way as she spoke.

"I don't want to go into any house till I've seen the Plant," exclaimed Dean Erskine, wiping the sand from his face.

"Not a Plant for me, but coffee and some shade and a little breeze, maybe," cried Papa Wolf.

"Better have some breakfast first, Dean," suggested Roger. "There's a long story goes with seeing the plant."

"There's a long story goes with a number of things here I would suspect," grunted Papa Wolf, mounting the steps to the porch.

"Now, Papa, don't try to talk until you've eaten," called Mamma anxiously, from Ernest's arm. "Oh, but children, this is very pleasant," as the party entered the living room. "How do you keep it so cool and how have you endured this dreadful heat?"

"Heat!" laughed Elsa, "why, Mamma, this is our cool fall weather we're having now. You should have been here in the good old summer time."

"God forbid, if it was warmer than this yet. Papa, take off your coat, and you too, Dean." Mamma lifted her dusty little black hat from a very flushed forehead. "These boys look cool in their flannel shirts and you so hot in your coats. And see what a nice fine place and a nice clock and a—"

"Hold, Mamma! Hold! You needn't talk every minute," interrupted Papa Wolf. "I promised to say nothing until we all have eaten. So now, enjoy your breakfast."

But Papa and probably the Dean were the only persons who really enjoyed the meal. Elsa was plainly rattled and Dick whose worn face recently had looked much less haggard had settled again into lines of suffering. Except in looking after the guests' comfort, he had nothing to say. Charley and Roger were apprehensive as to the outcome of what was plainly to be a family row. Ernest, who talked a great deal, seemed excited and uneasy.

When the coffee pot had been emptied and pipes and cigars lighted, Dean Erskine rose. He was small and thin and his Van Dyke beard was nearly white but he still gave the impression of tremendous nervous energy.

"Now, I'm ready for the Plant, Roger," he said energetically.

"No! No! The Plant can wait!" protested Papa. "You know all about why we have come, Dean, and I want you to stay and lend your good sense to the interview."

"But my dear Wolf, it will be very unpleasant for me," exclaimed the Dean.

"And for me!" added Roger.

"For you, Roger! Why you're the cause of all our troubles and the Dean has backed you in all! Come now, don't be a coward. See it through! I must take my two children back with me. That is settled."

"Is that what brought you down here, Papa?" inquired Elsa.

"Ernest's letter brought me down here. It's the only letter he has written me since he left my roof. But it was most important."

"You see, it was this way," Ernest cleared his throat, nervously, but his blue eyes were steady. "You told me not to communicate with you, but I've written regularly to Mother. So, of course, it amounted to the same thing. Naturally, I've tried not to write you about our worries. But finally, I made up my mind, Papa, that you needed to learn one or two things that I had learned down here. I knew there was no use in my asking you to come, so I merely wrote you of Elsa's engagement."

Ernest turned to his sister and Dick, who sat side by side on the living-room cot.

"I'm not going to apologize to you two. Mamma and Papa had to know sometime or other. And I wanted Papa down here."

"You should have let me write, Ernest. I might have given myself a fair show, I think." Dick's voice was bitter.

"I did you no harm in the long run, Dick, old man," said Ernest, eagerly. "Just bear with me for a while."

"Ernie, you always were an old butter-in," cried Elsa angrily. "As if I weren't perfectly capable of managing my own affairs. Now you've ruined everything. Papa, I am going to marry Dick. Mamma, you will love him."

"Wait, Elsa, wait," exclaimed Ernest.

But Papa could not wait. "Marry a Preble!" he roared. "Marry a drunkard, the son of a drunkard! Oh, don't try to hush me, Mamma! You know you're just as anxious about the matter as I am. I had the Dean look Dick Preble up. His record in college was that of a drunken rounder. His father drank the old farm up, you remember that, Roger."

"I remember folks said so, but all I know and all I want to know about Dick is what he is now. He's a new man and a mighty fine one."

"Impossible! His father—"

Dick jumped to his feet, but Charley spoke first. "Leave our father absolutely out of this, Mr. Wolf, if you please. He's not here to defend himself. Dick is."

"Impossible!" roared Papa Wolf.

Charley crossed the room swiftly and standing in all the dignity of her good height and her quiet beauty, she looked down on Papa Wolf.

"I am telling you," she did not raise her voice, "not to include my father or my mother in this conversation. My brother and I stand on our own reputations and no one else's."

Papa Wolf swallowed two or three times. "But inheritance," he said feebly.

"Nobody inherits the drink habit," returned Charley, disdainfully. "You can inherit a weak will but not a habit. Dick drank because he thought he was going to die and he went the pace, thinking like other fool men that he was living life to the full, in that way. By the time he had been cured of his illness, he had the drink appetite. But he's cured of that now."

"How do you know?" asked Papa Wolf, belligerently.

"Because I know," replied Charley, shortly, returning to her chair, while Dick and Elsa stared at her, astonishment and gratitude both struggling in their faces.

"Well, do I want my daughter to marry a man who's been a bum, eh? Do you think I, Karl Wolf—"

"Hold on, Mr. Wolf," interrupted Dick. "I never was a bum. Drink was my failing. I've always, with Charley's help, paid my own way. I have a real business down here now. Elsa loves the desert life and she loves me. I can take care of her and make her happy, I know."

"You know, huh! Yet you remember Elsa's home. All its luxury?"

"Yes, I remember Elsa's home and I remember that Elsa and her mother were high class, unpaid servants in that home."

Papa Wolf jumped to his feet. Ernest laid a hand on his arm.

"Wait now, Papa. You've got the top layer off your chest. Now I'm going to tell you the inside story of what has happened in this desert in the seven or eight months. Light your pipe, Papa. It's going to be a long story."

"Pipe! Pipe! I will not light my pipe!"

"Why not? Nobody's married yet. You've got days and weeks if you wish to argue about that and you'll be liking Dick better all the time you're arguing. Now Elsa's marriage isn't the important matter you've to decide down here, at all. Light your pipe. Papa dear! You always did give me good advice, except about coming down here. Here, take a fresh box of matches."

Papa Wolf, established once more, Ernest took a turn or two up and down the room, coming finally to a stop before the empty fire place. Roger, looking at his chum closely, realized suddenly that Ernest had aged in the past few months. There were lines around his eyes and his lips. Ernest looked from his father to his mother with a little smile.

"Roger and I, in spite of our thirty years, were unsophisticated kids when we came into this country. I think we're grown up now. I think we're pretty certain to go a straight and decent trail to the end. But that I came mighty near to going a forbidden trail as Roger calls it, is your fault, Papa—and yours, Dean Erskine."

He paused and although the Dean and Ernest's father looked at each other in amazement, neither interrupted and the younger man went on.

"I never saw death until I came down here—I never knew love. I never knew real work. But here I have learned all three. We have lived here with an intensity as great as the heat. The—the primal passions have shaken us, Papa—and burned us clean—You know some creeds speak of Christ's hours between the Last Supper and His death as the passion of the cross. Sometimes I feel as if I could call my months down here my passion of the desert."

Again Ernest paused, and those who had lived with him through these months of passion—passion of joy, of fear, of sorrow, of love, of personal grief and of world pain, listened with astonishment that jovial, easy-going Ernest should have felt as deeply as they.

"Mrs. von Minden died first. Roger and Dick found her dead up in a remote canyon. She had thirsted to death. I wrote Elsa of her but not of her death. That would have set you to worrying about me, MÜtterchen. She had the little black box with her that I wrote Elsa she had demanded from her husband. Whether she found in it what she wanted no one will ever know. But her death ended one of those strange, feverish life dramas that this trackless desert is always turning up. Next they found Von Minden, alone except for Peter. (You must meet Peter, Papa.) He probably died of heart failure. We don't know how she got the box away from him. Maybe she poisoned him. And next Felicia,—Felicia was exactly as Charley was, Mamma, when she used to come to play with us in the pool."

Ernest looked at Charley—"I've got to talk about her, Charley, to make them understand."

Charley moistened her lips, but nodded and Dick put his hand over his eyes.

"She was like Charley too in that she was the kind of a girl that decent men instinctively love—not with one of these headlong, unreasoning loves, you understand. But with the kind of a deep-seated adoration for beauty and goodness and brain that gets a man where he lives and never leaves him. That's the way I got to caring for Charley and that's the way, in embryo, we all loved Felicia.

"In the meantime, you understand we were all working like the very devil to get the plant up and the alfalfa in. I wrote home of that. How difficult the work here in the desert was is beyond description. And, what made it more difficult, after the Smithsonian turned Roger down, he got to working against time, and though he never said much, he gave an atmosphere of desperate hurry and worry to the camp, that simply got us all strung up to the breaking point. At intervals, too, he lost that famous temper of his. These tempers upset Felicia terribly."

Roger filled his pipe with fingers that trembled a little. But Ernest was staring out the door now, with eyes that saw nothing.

"Dick varied the monotony two or three times by getting drunk. He is an ugly whelp when he's drunk. Once he knocked Charley down and Felicia saw it and Roger and he mixed up over it and Elsa finally straightened it out, and we let him out of Coventry. But the next time he got drunk, Felicia, in her fright, ran away into the desert and was killed by a rattler. Charley and Roger found her. It nearly killed us all. But it cured Dick of drinking—that's one reason why I'm telling you. Don't cry, MÜtterchen."

"But you have Charley, Ernie! You have Charley!" sobbed his mother.

"No, I haven't Charley. Roger has Charley. None of us deserved her, but Roger is nearer fit than the rest."

"Don't, Ernest!" pleaded Charley.

"I must, Charley. You'll see in a few moments what I'm getting at. Well, Papa, in the meantime, there was no money and it looked as if there would be no food. Roger's plant didn't work out as we'd planned. I wrote home the difficulties even of hanging a door. You can picture Roger trying to build a new engine out of wire and a string he had tramped ten miles into the ranges to find and steal. The alfalfa was dying for lack of water and there was no adequate pumping system even if we'd had adequate water.

"It was at this point that I decided to go to Washington, Papa, and try the Smithsonian. You would have been the one, naturally, for me to turn to, but even if I'd had the inclination, which I hadn't, Roger absolutely wouldn't stand for the suggestion. So I went to Washington, all sort of strung up, you understand, and in bad mental trim because of—of everything. And in Washington I got a good swift kick. So I went to New York and spent the rest of Elsa's good money on Broadway. It didn't take me very far but when I went broke, I looked up your friend Werner. This is the point where you come in too, Dean Erskine.

"Now I had been brought up at home, naturally, to worship all things German. I liked to think of myself not as an American but as a German. At school, this home influence should have been counteracted if America expects to make real citizens. But it wasn't. The High School taught us German and no other modern language. In college, all things mental centered on the German idea in the majority of the departments. And your department was the worst of all, Dean. You are a Germanophile yourself and you taught your students to be.

"So behold me, calling on Werner and finding that Werner among other activities has been the head of an organized effort on the part of the German government for twenty years to Germanize America—through schools, churches, singing societies—oh, countless ways. And he was deeply worried about our British sympathies. And he wanted my influence in the college and elsewhere and he wanted Roger's big mechanical brain for Germany and so he offered me fifty thousand dollars for the Sun Plant and I took it."

"Fine! Wonderful!" exclaimed Papa Wolf.

"So I thought," said Ernest dryly, "but Roger and the others here thought differently. In fact when Roger found out about Werner, he tried to kill me, and then went away into the mountains with Peter for three days."

"Oh, Ernie! Oh, Roger!" moaned Mamma Wolf.

Papa Wolf's lips tightened. "But why, Roger?" he demanded.

"Wait, Roger! I'm telling the story. Rog tried to kill me for selling out secretly the idea that was bone of his bone. He tried to kill me because I sold it to a government that has gone through Belgium like a Hunnish horde, and because I claimed to admire it for that. Well, he didn't kill me and I was very sore and decided to go to Germany to live. Then Werner came down to settle details with Roger, and Roger told him what was in the black box and made him give back the contract."

"The black box! What black box?" asked Dean Erskine.

"The Von Mindens' black box. When I brought back word that Werner wanted it, Roger and Charley read the contents. It developed that Von Minden was one of a group working for the German government with the idea of making Arizona and New Mexico into German colonies. Gustav—you remember my writing of Gustav—was Werner's spy, keeping Werner informed of our every move and what he could about Von Minden."

"I don't believe a word of it! Not a word! It's all British influence," exclaimed Papa Wolf stoutly.

"You'll have to believe it, because it's true," returned Ernest. "Roger was angry and threw Werner and Gustav out of the camp and made me choose between him and Werner. I chose Roger, because the time had come in my life when I'd got to make a tremendous decision. It's one you've got to make, Papa, and so has the Dean. I wanted you to make it my way. That's why I got you down here to see the things that I'd been up against."

"You don't intend to ask us to break our neutrality, surely, Ernest," protested Dean Erskine.

"I'll develop your job in just a moment, Dean. Papa, what I want is that you repudiate Werner and all his works, and undertake to finance Roger's project."

"My heavens, Ern!" cried Roger.

"Tut! Tut! Rog—you be quiet. Dean, your job is to sell the Plant to my father, after you've both made your decision."

"I cannot understand your talking to me in this manner, Ernest," shouted Papa Wolf, pounding on the table till the belated breakfast dishes rattled.

"I'll explain," said Ernest, imperturbably. "There's love of human beings. There's love of work. There's love of country. They make up a man's life. I had the first two and I thought that they were enough. But lately, I've discovered differently and I think a good many people in this country are finding out the same thing. I never gave the matter any thought until the Werner episode. Then I began to examine this thing called patriotism and I found that it was the very wellspring of a man's usefulness as a citizen. Without it family pride is a travesty. Without it, the impulse to build up sane and humane and lasting governments is lacking. Without it, a man may be ever so learned, ever so rich, yet he lacks any real place in community life. Patriotism is to a man's community life what religion is to his moral life.

"Now I intend to lead a full, normal man's life. I want to love a country, and I couldn't see, when I got down to brass tacks, why that country should be Germany. This is the land that bred me and fed me. Actually I'm a physical part of the soil of America. What do I care how cultured Germany may or may not be? Here in America are the hills and valleys, the rivers and mountains that I know and care for. Here is the kind of government I like. Here is the place of my profession. I wouldn't marry a German frÄulein for anything. A slangy, athletic, bossy, saucy, well-educated American girl for mine! All the people that I love are here in America. You folks and all the relatives are here. Roger is here, Charley is here and up there on an American mountainside lies little Felicia. Papa, I am an American, not a German."

Again there was full silence in the room. Then Dean Erskine cleared his throat. "Ernest, I want to thank you very much. I, too, am an American."

Papa Wolf blew his nose and walked slowly out of the house. There was no one in the room who had not been moved deeply by the something poignant in Ernest's face, even though his voice was so sedulously casual. Before any one else had opportunity to speak however, Papa Wolf was back.

"I don't believe a word about Werner," he said to Ernest. "But I am surprised, Ernest, after your upbringing that you should have deceived Roger as you did."

"But are you an American, Papa?" persisted Ernest.

"You numb-skull!" shouted his father. "I have been an American longer than you have hairs to your head. It's my land, even if I am sentimental about Germany."

Once more he marched out the door.

"Come, Dean, and see the Plant," said Roger. The Dean rose with alacrity and bumped into Papa Wolf, who came in again shaking his head.

"I don't see, Ernie, how you could have treated Roger so. Of course, I think he's crazy and all his works. But I've always loved him, though I was and am very mad at him for bringing you down here. I don't see how you could have done it."

"I thought I owed it to Germany and that it would help him. You forget my German superman upbringing."

"I'll look at the Plant, of course," said Papa Wolf, "just to see what you have wasted your life blood on. But not one cent of money, boys."

"I don't want your money, sir," exclaimed Roger, proudly.

"You don't eh! Then we're all satisfied," returned Ernest's father, following the Dean out of the door.

The last place inspected was the engine house. Ernest made a simple explanation of the machinery while the Dean went over the engine almost as lovingly and keenly as Roger would have. Then Roger led the Dean back to the porch for a talk.

"So this is the result of all your years of work, eh, Ernie?" said Papa Wolf. "Do you mean to say that you made that machine out of your own head?"

"I only helped Roger," replied Ernest, "but it means a lot to me. Father, this solar work of ours will be recorded in history as the beginning of a new harnessing of energy."

The older man looked at his son with interest. "You should have taken the trouble to explain all this to me, years ago, my son."

"I know it," replied Ernest. "Well, anyhow, I've done my bit down here. When you go back I'll go back with you. I'm a teacher, not a pioneer."

Papa Wolf seized both of Ernest's hand. "No! Really! Ernest, you really will go on with the professorship! Then I am satisfied. But we must not let this work be in vain. This child of your mind, Ernest, it must be recorded. It will help you in your professorship, eh?"

Ernest nodded. "It's really a great thing, father. Roger has a wonderful mind."

"He's got a good mind, yes, but I'm asking you where would he have been all these years without my boy? O Ernie! Ernie! You've taken ten years off me! Now, you let me think. I'll sit and watch this engine of yours. You go along about your work, Ernie." And Ernest, a tired look in his eyes, went along as he was bidden.

It was dinner time before the tour of inspection was done. Mamma Wolf spent the morning, after a nap, helping the girls to prepare a huge dinner. She and Elsa wept a little on each other's necks, and Mamma Wolf promised to take Dick to her heart and love him as another son. And somehow Elsa put full faith in Ernest's bringing his father around.

No one talked business or politics at dinner. There were many details of the camp life to be told and many stories of the Von Mindens that invariably brought Papa Wolf to the verge of apoplexy with laughter. Ernest never had been more charming than he was now. And by some magic of his own, he drew Dick out to tell the story of his turquoise mining. Like almost any story of desert endeavor it was full of drama, of quiet heroism, and of weird humor. Papa and Mamma Wolf hung breathless on every word of it.

"Himmel!" exclaimed Papa at the end, "if I were thirty years younger, I'd like just such adventuring!" The others looked at one another and smiled.

When the long dinner hour was over, Papa Wolf lighted his meerschaum. "And now let's look at that engine again. You should come and see it, Mamma. Run by sunshine and almost as silent as the sun and powerful like it. Wonderful! Wonderful!"

"You've hardly looked at the alfalfa, Papa," said Ernest.

"Plenty of time for that. One thing at a time. Come along, Dean. If you should explain that engine through to me two or three times more, I'll understand it. Ernest and Roger, they never thought to take old Papa to see the working model at the University. They thought because I was a fool about the working drawings, I knew nothing. Come on, Dean! Come along."

Seated on two up-ended boxes before the engine, the two gray headed men spent the afternoon. The Dean could have been enticed away to examine the alfalfa and the pumping system. But not Papa. He went out at intervals to look at the absorber and to read the thermometer at the oil storage pit, then back to the engine.

"And this is what Ernie has been working on for all these years. And I never could get it through my old head."

"Ernest and Roger too," the Dean would suggest.

"Of course, Roger. But you know Ernest and his fine mind. Observe now, Dean, out there the parching, cruel sun, that strikes and kills. Here Ernest's magic, this silent machine that catches that sun and turns its death kiss into life. And out there, where the honey bees buzz, the magic made vital. My boy's brain did such miracles and I never knew it until now. I even forbade him the house when he insisted on giving birth to his idea."

The others drifted in and out and at last the supper hour came and once more the clan gathered at the familiar table.

"Why, Papa, I haven't seen you with such appetite or with such spirits since last Christmas," said Mamma.

"You haven't seen me with such cause. And how mad I was when I came—eh, Mamma!"

"You know, Papa," said Ernest, "we never could have put over the Plant if it hadn't been for the Prebles. I swear Charley has fed us and Dick has guided us and had faith in us when it seemed as if the whole world outside had turned us down."

"Is it so?" exclaimed Papa as if realizing that fact for the first time. "So you stood by my boy, eh, Dick? Well, that's good! My boy has stood by you and so will I. Now listen, boys. Why can't I do a little adventuring, eh? Let's make this a thousand acre Plant. And the Dean says that this engine will put every other low temperature, high speed engine off the market. Why not build some and sell them, eh?"

"But Mr. Wolf," said Roger. "I haven't felt as if you ought to put money in. If anything should go wrong and you should lose by it, I'd never forgive myself."

Papa Wolf put his hand on Roger's knee. "Roger, I've known you since you were born and I loved your father. He died a disappointed man. When I think of the things Ernie said this morning I realize that perhaps if I'd been a better patriot I wouldn't have let a man so valuable to the community die a disappointed man. Now you're an even more valuable man than your father was, and so is Ernest. Shall I wait for outsiders to do for my son and your father's son? Or shall I help you organize so as to develop this hot country for America? And again I did my only son an unkindness in not understanding his work—almost a fatal unkindness. Suppose he had left us for Germany. Shall I not make it up to him? And lastly, my son treated you dishonorably. Shall he and I not together try to make it up?"

Roger's tense face worked.

"Now, don't speak! I know how you feel," cried Papa. "Now I have more than enough tucked away for Mamma and me. And I have two friends, one in the brewery, one in the bank. We can organize a company. We have Dick's ranch and the turquoise mine and Ernest's and your plant. We can get plenty of money. I'll make all those MÄnnerchors come down here. We'll irrigate this whole desert. We'll open up mines—we'll—"

He got up to pace the floor. "Why there's an empire here for Uncle Sam that the Reclamation Service can't handle. We'll do it."

"Roger has talked of Asia Minor," said Dick, with twinkling eyes.

"Well, we'll tackle that later," replied Papa dreamily. "America is a good field. Dean, are you coming in with us?"

"Thanks," returned the Dean. "But Ernest and I have another job, fighting furor Teutonicus up at the university. But I'll be on hand for such advice as I can give."

"I think," Papa went on after a brisk nod, "we'll spend a month or so down here, Mamma and I. Ernest, you can go on up and open the house and we'll be back after Christmas. If all works well, I'll have to spend a part of each year down here. Dick, can't you get those Indians you talk of to build Mamma and Ernie and me a little house, near by? Then you and Elsa can have this and Charley and Roger must build them a little nest somewhere. And we all are fixed, see!"

There was a little pause, then Elsa ran across the room and threw herself in her father's arms. "Oh, Papa! Papa! I never knew what a saint you were until now."

Papa Wolf smoothed Elsa's hair tenderly. "I still think you are a fool, Elschen. But if your mother and I are down here to watch closely—the very first time, sir," he glared at Dick, "that I find—"

"You won't have to do anything, Mr. Wolf," said Dick. "I'll cut my throat."

"Don't talk silly," exclaimed Papa. "Just try to be a good boy and we'll help. Of course, I think Elsa is a fool but I thought Ernest was one and now look!"

The Dean slipped out, unobserved and a moment later Charley whispered to Roger,

"Let's get out and let Dick have his chance to clear everything up."

And so Roger and Charley found themselves alone, under the stars.

"I just can't realize it, at all, can you, Roger dearest?" asked Charley.

Roger did not answer for a moment. They were standing beside the corral, looking toward the shadowy mountainside where lay Felicia's grave.

"I wish I could believe she saw and knew everything," he said, brokenly. Then as Charley said nothing, he turned and took her in his arms with a sudden passion that found expression in hot kisses and half broken sentences.

"Oh, Charley! Charley! After all I'm not a failure. I am—Darling, you do love me, you are sure of that—! How beautiful you are! How beautiful! You are as lovely as the desert. God, Charley, but I'm happy!"

Charley, clinging to him speechlessly, finally raised her head, and looked with Roger across the desert night of silence and blue, while the rich sense of space, of mystery, of heaven very near and life's bitternesses far away touched them both at once. And Peter, a wisp of cat's claw hanging from his mouth, rubbed his patient head affectionately against Roger's arm.

THE END